Fusion-io Enters Flash SAN Game With ION Software

Fusion-io has created software that it claims allows for a server to act as a networked storage array, marking a decisive move into the SAN space.

The ION Data Accelerator software, which can run on servers with Fusion-io’s ioMemory hardware, promises over a million I/Os per second with up to 6Gbps throughput and under 0.06 millisecond latency.

David Flynn, Fusion-io CEO and chairman, told TechWeekEurope the technology could either be complementary to traditional storage that is optimised for capacity, where data that needs performance can be moved over to ION, or servers running the software could be used in place of storage arrays.

Storage in the modern era

“Storage will move into the modern era of using commodity, off the shelf boxes with software defining its functionality,” Flynn claimed.

“Existing models want to bundle and sell in a proprietary way. We’re uniquely positioned to decouple this and unbundle. Unbundling allows the customer more flexibility.”

Flynn thinks that Fusion-io’s software will challenge the way traditional storage players, like the giant that is EMC, operate. By allowing customers to buy whatever boxes they want and create storage appliances by leveraging the ION software, customers don’t suffer from vendor lock-in and proprietary models, Fusion-io believes.

Despite that, Flynn said EMC was “making all the right moves” in bringing flash to the server. Not only has EMC launched a PCIe NAND flash card, it is also planning to release an appliance packed with those cards and an all-flash array built on the XtremIO technology the storage giant bought in May.

Yet Flynn disputed EMC’s capabilities in the scale-out world and on the server-side of the data centre. “Does Amazon S3 use EMC? No. Does Apple’s iCloud? No,” he added. “They don’t have expertise in the server, they have no value-added there… it is frankly a foreign market to them.

“They consider flash in the server is a premium pitch… We view the world in different ways.”

This week, Fusion-io also celebrated Apple co-founder and its chief scientist Steve Wozniak’s birthday at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, according to a report from AllThingsD.

How much do you know about storage? Try our quiz!