Fusion-io is extremely fast PCIe flash storage. The storage is solid state type and is build on cards that are installed in a x86-64bit server PCIe slot. Fusion-io is non-volatile memory. This means that the card retains saved data even when server is powered off. The benefits are:
SPEED! Storage access time is at minimum 15 microseconds. The storage is straigth next to the server processor. This enables very fast IO-operations as data format changes and buffering are avoided. Fusion-io cards are many times faster than SSDs!
Enterprise level reliability.
High IO bandwidth, up to 6.2 GB/s (1 000 000 IOPS) per card.
Low power consumption, ~20 W / card
Typical uses for Fusion-io cards are:
Database speed up: database index, temp db, or whole database can be placed on Fusion-io card and this enables database work faster.
Virtualization, for example VMware ESX, VDI etc. With Fusion-io ioTurbine software one can run more virtual machines in a physical server and virtualize IO-hungry applications and servers. ioTurbine brings more performance to virtualized applications.
Video streaming (IPTV, VOD) and video editing (e.g. Apple Mac OS/X 10.7 Lion based systems)
Speeding up CAD and other large planning and design systems
Data center consolidation: reducing required footprint, decreasing power consumption and speeding up applications
Fusion-io is deployed by installing the card and then loading card driver. Fusion-io is then seen as a "hard drive" in the system. Drivers are available for all main line 64bit operating systems: 64-bit Microsoft Server 2003/2008, 64-bit Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/Win7, RHEL 4/5/6, SLES 10/11, OEL v4/v5, Ubuntu 10.10, Debian, VMware ESX(i) 4.0/4.1/5.0, x86 Solaris 10, Mac OS/X 10.6.7/10.7, HP-UX 11.i, Open Solaris derivatives (Oracle Express 11, Illumos - Open Indiana). More drivers are developed constantly. 32-bit operating systems or hypervisors are not supported.
Fusion-io cards utilize NAND flash technology. The cards are extremely fault tolerant. Fusion-io cards are more reliable than present storage systems.
"Before we got these ioDrives, our database’s biggest bottleneckwas disk I/O. Now that’s resolved, the web servers don’t need to wait on the database anymore. Everything just is a lot faster” - Daniel Marashlian, CTO, Plixi
Plixi, a real-time photo sharing service, chose Fusion-io to speed up its service production, Case pdf:
Fusion-io accelerates Syntricity's databases:
Fusion-io is RHEL optimized: ioMemory SDK enables application developers
to access Fusion-io memory directly while bypassing
1. ioTurbine, is a software read cache module that integrates with VMware. ioTurbine lets you utilize Fusion-io cards in virtualized environment to its fullest.
ioTurbine speeds up virtualized applications.
With ioTurbine you can run more virtual machines in a physical server.
ioTurbine lets you also virtualize IO-hungry applications and servers like Microsoft SQL, Sharepoint, Exchange. ioTurbine supports vMotion.
"With ioTurbine software, we saw a 4X performance improvement withouth any tuning of the software" - Gary Lamb, CTO, NextCloud co-author, Deploying the VMware Infrastructure.
2. directCache, software module implements automatic read caching on Fusion-io cards. directCache copies most frequently read data blocks into Fusion-io card automatically. This enables faster reads and it releases resources from SAN or other block storage and thus speeds up writes.
3. ioSphere, is software to monitor and manage multiple Fusion-io cards in data center environment.
Some Fusion-io test results (text in Finnish, commands, pictures and numbers in international language)
