SanDisk Enhances FlashSoft Software Portfolio, Introduces Bundled Solutions for Data Centers

SanDisk Corporation announced immediate availability of the newest version of itsFlashSoft server-side, solid state caching software, which provides several performance, usability and compatibility improvements for Windows, Linux and VMware environments. SanDisk said that its FlashSoft caching software will be available in new bundled offerings that package the software with SanDisk’s array of enterprise flash hardware solutions, including the Fusion ioMemory^™PCIe application accelerators, the Optimus Ascend^™ SAS solid-state drive (SSD), and the CloudSpeedAscend^™SATA SSD.

“The new hardware-software bundles offer the best of both our hardware and software portfolios in a single solution. We are excited to be able to offer customers a complete solution that provides the performance and cost benefits of flash technology, while at the same time making it easier for our channel partners to support their customers,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager, Systems and Software Solutions, SanDisk.

The press release explained that a recent Gartner report indicates that “input/output (I/O) optimization software alleviates the “I/O blender” problem that often plagues dense virtual machine environments and notes that these solutions can be an inexpensive and non-disruptive way to boost application performance.” FlashSoft software reduces I/O latency in VMware vSphere^®, Windows Server^® and Linux^® environments through the use of server-side, flash-based storage caching, which helps increase application performance in both virtualized and non-virtualized computing environments, the company said.

By utilizing server-attached flash storage as an intermediate cache for an application’s most frequently accessed data, or “hot data,” FlashSoft software enables that data to be read and written more efficiently. The software assigns hot data to the solid-state cache, increasing performance while reducing storage area network (SAN) overhead. This prolongs the useful life of current server and storage systems and delivers greater computing power.

Most typical line-of-business applications—such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and applications based on databases, including MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle—will also see significant performance increases through the use of the FlashSoft software, the company said.  Performance tests conducted by SanDisk using an industry-standard benchmark, showed that the new version of FlashSoft software increases application performance by over 14X compared to a baseline storage array comprised of HDDs, and application response times improved by more than 22X².