SCIENCE

The SSD Company announced that it has entered into a technology collaboration with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and customer Pure Storage, the all-flash enterprise storage company. The collaboration includes qualifying STEC's ZeusIOPS SSDs for use in the Pure Storage FlashArray platform and focuses on optimizing the ZeusIOPS SSD architecture to deliver a high-performance, shared, non-volatile cache within the Pure Storage FlashArray. Enterprises that are constrained by legacy rotating disks will as a result of this collaboration benefit from lower total cost of ownership (TCO), power savings, and significant performance gains.

The collaboration will lower latency by fine-tuning STEC's 4th generation ASIC-based architecture to the Pure Storage Purity Operating Environment. STEC's ZeusIOPS SSDs are a key component of the Pure Storage FlashArray's high availability architecture, helping protect in-flight inputs/outputs (I/Os) during the deduplication and compression operations.

"Building on our long and successful track record of qualifications with the world's leading server and storage OEMs, our collaboration with Pure Storage is an example of how we are well positioned to enable the next-generation of innovators looking to transform the data center," said Scott Stetzer, STEC's Vice President of Technical Marketing. "We expect this collaboration to extend the reach of flash storage in the data center by delivering an extreme performance solution for demanding enterprise applications while reducing enterprise flash cost entry points."

When compared to traditional disk-centric storage arrays, the Pure Storage all-flash enterprise FlashArray is ten times faster, and ten times more space and power-efficient, making it ideal for high-performance workloads that include server virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) applications, database applications (such as Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and real-time analytics), and cloud computing. Today's collaboration is representative of how STEC's deep knowledge of SSD technology can help system builders fully realize the performance benefits that flash-based enterprise SSDs can deliver when not constrained by traditional hard disk drive (HDD)-based storage implementations.

"Although we believe that the future enterprise data center will be an all-solid-state architecture, current widespread adoption of flash in the enterprise is dependent on flash storage arrays beating traditional disk storage in every dimension possible, including performance, price and resiliency," said Matt Kixmoeller, Vice President of Products for Pure Storage. "This collaboration with STEC contributes to the high-performance compression, deduplication, and high availability functions of the Pure Storage FlashArray, delivering on the promise of reliable enterprise flash storage, below the cost of legacy spinning disks."