Infotech Lead America: SanDisk Corporation, a provider of flash memory storage solutions, has upgraded its enterprise software portfolio with a new version of its FlashSoft software for Windows Server and Linux operating systems.
FlashSoft 3.2 server-side solid state caching software complements and enhances the performance of existing applications, and server and storage systems.
The new FlashSoft 3.2 includes multiple SSD support, with SSD mirroring for “safe write-back” caching; support for up to four caches on a single server; acceleration of up to 2048 volumes per cache; maximum cache size increased to two terabytes per cache; and, support for volume-based storage architectures, including direct-attached storage (DAS) and storage area network (SAN) configurations.
SanDisk’s FlashSoft software efficiently integrates solid state cache into servers without changing where data is stored or the features and capabilities of a consolidated storage approach, said Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of Lab Validation Services, The Taneja Group.
“This ‘disruptionless’ approach dramatically simplifies the introduction of solid state, and allows SanDisk customers to immediately address performance challenges without changing existing storage strategies,” Boles added.
By caching frequently accessed data (hot data) on solid-state memory installed in the server, FlashSoft software allows read and write operations for hot data to execute via the solid state device rather than underlying storage.
This optimizes server performance by reducing input-output latency (“I/O latency”) from storage. The software dynamically allocates the cache space to volumes based on their I/O activity for optimal efficiency in SSD utilization, while minimizing use of server CPU and memory resources.
FlashSoft software supports SanDisk’s own enterprise solid-state devices, and it’s also compatible with all vendors’ enterprise flash-based systems, including those using PCIe, SAS or SATA technology. This provides customers choice and flexibility in selecting the flash hardware best suited to their budget, infrastructure and operational requirements.
SanDisk has significantly improved the FlashSoft caching engine to meet requirements for accelerating data-intensive workloads. FlashSoft 3.2 allows four separate caches on a single server, with each cache on its own SSD. In addition, SanDisk has increased the maximum size of each cache from 1TB to 2TB, and the number of volumes supported by a single cache has increased from 255 to 2048.
FlashSoft 3.2 also supports data mirroring, using two identical SSDs for “safe write-back” caching where data is written to both SSDs concurrently and is available even in the event of an SSD failure. If one SSD fails, FlashSoft automatically flushes the data from the other SSD and switches to write-through mode, providing read-only caching until the SSD failure is remedied.
FlashSoft 3.2 for Windows Server is priced at $3,000 USD, FlashSoft 3.2 for Linux is available at a price of $3,500 and FlashSoft 3.1 for VMware vSphere is offered for $3,900.
