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SMART Storage Systems, Inc., a creative provider of solid-state drive (SSD) technology for enterprise applications, and Diablo Technologies, Inc., an innovative provider of memory system interface solutions, are announcing an exclusive agreement. This agreement will combine SMART Storage Systems’ Guardian Technology Platform with Diablo’s Memory Channel Storage (MCS). The partnership will result in a new tier of enterprise SSDs that will usher in a new era of Flash storage for server, virtualization and cloud applications.
Blending Diablo’s memory channel architecture with SMART Storage Systems’ Guardian technology Platform results in a new ultra-low latency (ULL) Flash-SSD tier for enterprise servers and storage systems. These ULL SSDs will facilitate DRAM-like performance and the endurance and reliability needed with enterprise-class Flash; while utilizing more cost-effective multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash. SMART’s Guardian Technology Platform uses a proprietary suite of enterprise features and endurance enhancement techniques to leverage additional endurance from MLC Flash.
According to Jeff Janukowicz, Research Director for Solid State Storage at IDC, “Flash technology is a key building block in the enterprise, with the caveat that greater performance, higher capacity and more cost-effective solutions are required to fuel specific needs of applications like data analytics and the full promise of cloud computing. Advances in system design, as is anticipated through this partnership, will enable volume deployments and NAND Flash to transform the enterprise data center.”
The new SMART/Diablo partnership will create systems with dramatic latency improvements, increased transaction throughput, IO bandwidth, density and scalability, with reduced operating costs. This will apply to a wide range of enterprise-grade applications as compared with Flash-based designs that utilize SAS/SATA or PCEe-based SSDs. These new ULL SSDs are anticipated to attain 50% higher transaction rates, and 80% lower latency in OLTP and database caching environments. For virtualization applications, the new MCS-Guardian systems combination is anticipated to achieve 10 X more virtual machines per server, while also allowing for a 70% reduction in DRAM requirements.
John Scaramuzzo, president of SMART Storage Systems, states that “This changes everything.
The convergence of Diablo’s groundbreaking MCS technology and our award-winning Guardian Technology Platform is not just about re-architechting storage, but re-architechting the integration of servers, storage and Flash acceleration.
We are setting a new standard for ULL storage in the enterprise, improving performance over currently available SSDs, including PCIe-based drives.”
Diablo Technologies founder and CEO Riccardo Badalone says that “SMART Storage Systems was the logical partner for us in the development effort. SMART Storage Systems specializes in meeting the enterprise requirements for quality, endurance and performance using the most cost-effective Flash media, and its Guardian Technology Platform has harnessed the physics of NAND Flash to make new Flash applications possible.
Our partnership with SMART Storage Systems will accelerate Memory Channel Storage product innovation and fuel deployments of Flash storage in enterprise data centers, which are currently restricted by traditional CPU/Flash interfaces and the cost limitations of providing enterprise-grade NAND Flash.”
The agreement will see SMART Storage Systems and Diablo jointly develop these new ULL SSD solutions.
Both SMART and Diablo have world-class support teams for the new product, which will be sold exclusively by SMART. The enterprise SSD market is becoming a very interesting segment indeed.
John Scaramuzzo image credit – PULSE magazine