Flash memory storage application firm SanDisk has expanded its FlashSoft software product line with a new software, which is designed to increase application performance and virtual machines density in virtual computing environments.
The FlashSoft software will enable solid-state storage to install as a module within the operating system of virtual computing platforms.
SanDisk’s new release will increase two-to-four times the application performance on virtual machines and two-to-three times the number of virtual machines available on a single platform.
The increase in virtual machine density will help IT organisations realise enhanced benefits from hardware and software investments, while reducing power consumption and space requirements in data centres. The performance boost increases opportunities to move applications to virtual servers.
FlashSoft software also offers the ability to run transparently within the hypervisor, providing native operating system support for key functions within a single server and in clusters.
The FlashSoft technology caches frequently accessed data, on solid-state devices installed directly in the server, enabling the new software to reduce I/O latency that increases the application performance, especially in virtual servers.
SanDisk’s new release is compatible with any enterprise flash device, including PCIe, SAS or SATA, from all vendors. The new software runs in any enterprise server, working both in storage area network (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS) configurations.
FlashSoft software targets I/O acceleration capabilities directly to the servers that require performance acceleration. It also provides full support for all standard virtualisation features, and requires no changes to virtual machines, applications or storage infrastructure.
The solid-state cache used with FlashSoft software can be up to 2 terabytes (TB) in size and multiple solid-state devices can be combined in any RAID configuration or logical volume manager.
FlashSoft requires only 140 megabytes (MB) of system memory, and FlashSoft memory requirements do not increase with the acceleration of additional VMs.