Violin Memory Helps Deliver Cisco's World-Record Performance On Cloud Computing Benchmark

Mountain View, Calif. – Violin Memory, Inc., provider of a new class of high-performance flash-based storage systems, today announced that it served as the storage platform that helped to enable the new world record 8-node VMmark 2.1 score of 42.79@36 tiles. The benchmark was delivered by the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B200 M3 Blade Servers. A record of this magnitude validates the sustained performance achieved by Violin Memory Arrays and their ability to provide the infrastructure necessary to support virtualized and cloud environments.

VMmark 2.1: The Industry’s Virtualization Platform Benchmark

VMmark 2.1 is the industry’s first multi-server datacenter virtualization benchmark, which assesses the performance of a group of virtualized real world applications. It includes a variety of common platform-level workloads such as live migration of virtual machines, cloning and deploying of virtual machines, and automatic virtual machine load balancing across the datacenter. To achieve the best results, end-to-end performance from server to storage is needed. The benchmark demonstrates virtualization and infrastructure performance as well as the agility required for cloud computing.

“Cloud computing is a key driver for the acceleration of solid-state adoption in data centers,” said Joseph Unsworth, research vice president at Gartner. “Companies that can deliver high-performance and reliable solutions at aggressive price-points are best positioned to exploit this opportunity.” 

Violin Storage at the Speed of Memory

The VMmark 2.1 results demonstrate that the Violin 6000 Series Flash Memory Arrays deliver the industry leading IOPS and latency performance required to virtualize and consolidate demanding business critical applications and desktops. Details of this record-setting result can be found here. This result is followed with the updated dual node 2-socket record set by Cisco, earning a score of 11.32@10 tiles using VMware vSphere 5.1.  Here is the VMmark disclosure document.

"Virtualization and cloud performance is critical, and storage is key to enabling higher consolidation levels,” said Don Basile, CEO of Violin Memory.  “With industry leading random I/O performance, cost efficiency and sustained low latency, the Violin 6000 was the obvious storage infrastructure choice for this effort. Offering compelling IOPS per terabyte capabilities, Violin enables storage consolidation just like Cisco UCS drives server consolidation."

The Violin 6000 Series Flash Memory Arrays bring storage performance in balance with high-speed compute and networking, offering a significant opportunity for infrastructure consolidation. A single system fits in 3U of rack space and can deliver up to one million IOPS with 4 GB/sec of bandwidth – enough performance to replace multiple racks of traditional disk arrays for savings of both CAPEX and OPEX. The arrays attach to the network for shared primary storage. Multiple arrays can be clustered together to achieve petabytes (PB) of capacity and high aggregate bandwidth.

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About Violin Memory, Inc.

Violin Memory is pioneering a new class of high-performance flash-based storage systems that are designed to bring storage performance in-line with high-speed applications, servers and networks. Violin Flash Memory Arrays are specifically designed at each level of the system architecture starting with memory and optimized through the array to leverage the inherent capabilities of flash memory and meet the sustained high-performance requirements of business critical applications, virtualized environments and Big Data solutions in enterprise data centers. Specifically designed for sustained performance with high reliability, Violin’s Flash Memory Arrays can scale to hundreds of terabytes and millions of IOPS with low, predictable latency. Founded in 2005, Violin Memory is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information about Violin Memory products, visit www.vmem.com.