PernixData - An overview and a lot of excitement!

I could not stop myself to write this article as I was pretty excited about what I am hearing and reading about PernixData. 

PernixData is a start-up which is trying to innovate the old and left alone technology of Server Side Caching which could be a paradigm shift in the the field of how Datacenter and Virtualization works today.

They have come up with a Flash Virtualization Solution for Server side cache, which can sit on the ESXi host and can directly talk to vmkernel to cache IO on the ESXi on a Flash Drive. The cool part is that the PernixData FVP (Flash Virtualization Platform) actually is a distributed caching mechanism for a cluster of ESXi servers which can be a phenomenal product if it works the way the company claims.

This means that the customers DO NOT have to buy newer better arrays or disks, if the existing arrays do not support the throughput and I/O requirements of virtual machine workloads. Since the high speed caching layer will hold the data and will ensure performance while giving high availability it is a win-in situation for a customer. This can be revolutionary as this would reduce the need of upgrading storage arrays due to performance problems and save a ton of money for organizations.

"PernixData Flash Virtualization Platform (FVP) - an enterprise-class, high-speed, software-only data tier for application acceleration - enables a strategic shift in customers’ vision for virtualized data centers. PernixData FVP is created by virtualizing server-side flash via a scale out architecture. Virtualized applications transparently leverage FVP for unprecedented performance while requiring no changes to either the application or the underlying storage infrastructure. Clustered hypervisor features such as live migrations and distributed resource management continue to operate seamlessly with FVP. By virtualizing flash in servers, PernixData is picking up where hypervisors left off after virtualizing CPU and memory."

Source - pernixdata.com

You know the brains behind this?? Its an ex-VMware employee named Satyam Vaghani, he was one of the engineer who developed VMFS (needless to say anything else about the credentials)

To read more about it:-

Website - http://pernixdata.com/

Duncan on PernixData - http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2013/02/20/introducing-pernixdata-out-of-stealth/

Frank Denneman’s post on this top - http://frankdenneman.nl/2013/02/20/pernixdata-flash-virtualization-platform-will-revolutionize-virtual-infrastructure-ecosystem-design-2/

If things work, it might be another possible acquisition option for VMware to complete their Software Define Storage Strategy. Cannot wait to put my hands on it.. :-)