ACADEMIA

GridIron solution combines the innovative TurboCharger acceleration appliance with enterprise storage technology from NetApp to deliver affordable Tier 0 performance.

GridIron Systems has announced the introduction of OneAppliance Hybrid Flash Array (HFA). The new storage system is the industry’s first Enterprise-class HFA, offering a consistently high level of storage performance at an extremely aggressive price point. The GridIron HFA solution, which combines the NetApp E-5400 Series storage system and GridIron’s TurboCharger accelerator, is targeted at complex data environments requiring high performance and throughput, such as media and entertainment, scientific computing organizations, Big Data applications involving Hadoop, databases, and data warehouses.

“What makes this solution so appealing to customers in these markets is that we’ve been able to combine a superior level of performance, throughput, and worry-free storage, while at the same time delivering a very affordable solution,” said Franklyn Jones, Vice President of Marketing at GridIron Systems. “Essentially, we are empowering customers with a complete, enterprise-class hybrid storage solution that delivers Tier 0 performance at less than $3 per gigabyte without any dependence on de-duplication or compression.”

The Hybrid Flash Array handles up to 1 million Input/Output operations per second (IOPS) with sub-microsecond latency combined with unmatched bandwidth in excess of 6 gigabytes per second. This consistent high performance profile is ideally-suited to demanding applications that support large numbers of concurrent users, such as video production and virtualized IT environments.

The system offers 360 terabytes of raw capacity in an 8U rack mounted enclosure. It does not rely on unpredictable de-duplication or compression rates to deliver affordable capacity expansion. This is especially cost-effective for databases and environments where data is unique or where the application handles compression.

All of the advanced storage functionality of NetApp’s E-Series, including high availability, replication and synchronization, are combined with GridIron’s patent-pending Set-Ranking and advanced Flash-optimized performance technology. The system continuously analyzes the I/O stream, serves the most performance-sensitive data from solid state disk, and automatically handles all Flash management and lifetime wear issues.

“GridIron's intriguing Hybrid Flash Array is designed to leverage the company's innovative data acceleration technology in a complete solution that retains the benefits of flash performance, combines those with high bandwidth, and does both these things without compromising on simplicity, functionality, resilience or cost,” said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “It is clearly a viable solution for customers that are looking for a cost-effective way to enjoy the benefits of flash technology as an integral part of their storage infrastructure.”

The OneAppliance Hybrid Flash Array is immediately available from GridIron Systems and its network of resale partners. Additional information is available online at http://www.gridironsystems.com/products/oneappliance-hfa/