What flash solutions do you sell?
HP and NetApp. Other flash solutions we deploy range from IO accelerator cards, such as Fusion-io, through to traditional arrays with a number of SSDs, alongside hard disk drives, potentially configured as flash cache. These include hybrid SSD and HDD all the way to all-flash arrays.
What credentials do you have that apply to flash?
We are NetApp Gold partner and HP Platinum Partner. Over the past year or so, existing storage vendors have evolved their storage certifications to include flash technology as part of their overall product range, while startups have specific training. We first got involved in flash in 2012.
Who are your main distributors for flash?
SAN Systems and Ingram Micro.
Heard about any cool flash technology recently?
One is that certain storage vendors are using consumer-grade flash drives. Also, traditional vendors are now adding technology previously associated with SSD startups, such as inline deduplication and compression.
Can you tell us about any recent flash deployments?
I can’t comment on specific customers, but there are a number of typical solution deployments. For instance, VDI acceleration makes a huge difference – especially during the ‘boot storm’, when every user turns on in the morning. In a 24x7 non-stop world, IT deployments that increase interactive performance, such as in-memory databases and Fusion-io PCIe flash memory cards, are being embraced more.
What is driving customers towards flash over traditional storage?
There are a range of factors: lower cost versus higher performance on VDI solutions; increased capacity of SSDs versus hard disks; high numbers of IOPS can now be achieved via a small number of SSDs; and dramatically reduced power requirements of SSDs versus hard disks, which is a major driver for greener IT. Traditional storage vendors are fighting to ensure their products aren’t compromised by flash startups.
Flash is…?
Flash today is doing what fibre channel did to the market all those years ago. If you could get any storage solution, with higher capacity, faster performance, less space and power requirements, for the same or lower cost than previous technology, you’d be remiss not to consider it.
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