SanDisk FlashSoft Software Now For Virtual Computing Platforms

SanDisk Corporation announced an addition to its FlashSoft software product line that is designed to increase application performance and the number of virtual machines available in virtual computing environments.

Already available for servers running Windows Server and Linux OSs, the FlashSoft software brings solid-state storage benefits to virtual computing by installing as a module within the OS of leading virtual computing platforms.

Benefits of FlashSoft:

• an increase of two-to-four times the application performance on virtual machines (Results from TPC-C based OLTP workload test. System under test: Dell R720. Performance numbers are tmpC scores);
• an increase of two-to-three times the number of virtual machines available on a single platform (increased VM density) (Results are from SPECvirt sc2010. System under test: Dell 810.; and,
• the ability to run transparently within the hypervisor (a hardware virtualization technique allowing multiple OSs, to run concurrently on a host computer) providing native OS support for key functions within a single server and in clusters.

"The release of our new FlashSoft software underscores SanDisk’s commitment to serving enterprise customers with high-performance solutions," said Greg Goelz, VP and GM, Enterprise Storage Solutions. "Today’s enterprise customer looks to solid state technology to relieve I/O constraints and deliver greater benefits from virtual computing. FlashSoft software works with enterprise solid-state devices from all vendors to reduce I/O latency for improved VM density and application performance."

FlashSoft technology caches frequently accessed (or hot) data, on fast solid-state devices installed directly in the server. By caching hot data on flash memory in the server, the software reduces I/O latency that can slow application performance, especially in virtual servers. FlashSoft software is compatible with any enterprise flash device, including PCIe, SAS or SATA, from all vendors. The software runs in any enterprise server, working with both SAN) and NAS configurations.

Increased Performance for Key Applications
Slow application performance frequently prevents the migration of ‘tier-one’ applications from physical servers to virtual environments. FlashSoft caching technology reduces latency to increase application performance in virtual servers. The performance boost of two-to-four times increases opportunities to move applications to virtual servers. In addition, by increasing virtual machine density, the software helps IT organizations realize greater value from hardware and software investments, while reducing power consumption and space requirements in data centers.

Precisely Targeted Performance
Unlike flash memory-based storage systems that accelerate storage I/O broadly, FlashSoft targets I/O acceleration capabilities directly to the servers that require performance acceleration. For each VM, the system administrator can select specific virtual disks for acceleration, delivering I/O acceleration directly to the data and compute resources that need it most.

Increased VM Density
FlashSoft enables two-to-three times greater VM density without diminished performance. Because the host-based cache does not redundantly cache virtual desktop data, it is well-suited to VDI environments.

Works within Hypervisor
FlashSoft provides support for all standard virtualization features, including HA, VM migration, snapshot clones and linked clones. With the software installed in the hypervisor, no additional components or external management modules are required, and no additional software agents are installed in the guest VMs. Configuration and administration are performed through the hypervisor’s native user interface.

The software requires no changes to virtual machines, applications or storage infrastructure. With no VM-resident agent software, VMs can run Linux, Windows, or any other supported OS. Since the software is transparent to both the VMs, their applications and to the storage infrastructure, no policy changes are required for VM management, backup or compliance.

Product Specifications
The solid-state cache used with FlashSoft software can be up to 2TB in size, and multiple solid-state devices can be combined in any RAID configuration or logical volume manager. FlashSoft requires 140MB of system memory, and FlashSoft memory requirements do not increase with the acceleration of additional VMs.

Pricing and Availability
The FlashSoft product for use in VM environments is available at $3,900 MSRP per server from SanDisk. FlashSoft for Linux ($3,500) and Windows ($3,000) are currently available.