DataDirect Networks Storage Fusion Xceleration (SFX) Wins Best of Show Award for Most Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- News Facts

• As DataDirect Networks (DDN) delivers on its commitment to bring to market new enterprise software-defined storage capabilities, DDN today announced that its Storage Fusion Xcelerator^TM (SFX) flash caching technology has been honored with the Best of Show Award for Most Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application at the 2014 Flash Memory Summit.
• The award, which recognizes excellence in innovation and flash memory enterprise applications, was presented at the 9^th Annual Flash Memory Summit at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
• Data intensive workflows across industries such as Life Sciences, Rich Media, Financial Services, and Oil and Gas have demanding data access patterns that can turn otherwise fast storage systems into bottlenecks, limiting productivity and slowing time to results.
• Recently, flash caching has emerged as a big data analysis acceleration alternative to buying additional memory and/or faster storage systems. SFX goes far beyond general purpose flash caching solutions that are most effective with small block IO for databases and applications. SFX accelerates these enterprise workflows, solving the big data problems by intuitively understanding various data patterns and the specific analysis workflow needed to optimize time to results.
• DDN SFX technology is a highly efficient and cost-effective hybrid approach that combines spinning and solid state disk storage media with DDN's application aware technology to intelligently accelerate block and file-based data access. SFX allows customers to realize the performance promise of flash for big data sets at a price point that's closer to lower-cost, high-density hard disk drive solutions.

Tweet This: NEWS: @DDN_limitless SFX #flash cache for #bigdata wins Best of Show at #flashmem 2014 http://bit.ly/1mnn8kJ 

SFX Provides Massive TCO Savings, Flexibility and Performance for Data Intensive Workflows

• SFX is the only implementation of flash caching that is designed from the ground-up to optimize cache content for any big data workload and application. Uniquely, SFX uses a variety of innovative data control modes that determine how data is most efficiently served. These include optimizations for:  
  • Read – Designed for read intensive workloads, SFX caches frequently accessed data sets in the fastest tier to significantly speed up application performance.
  • Instant Commit – Designed for read after write patterns, this mode populates the SFX tier with new writes to 'warm up' cache as well as accelerating subsequent reads.
  • Context Commit – Designed to provide the best possible storage acceleration, this mode allows applications and file systems to proactively send down 'hints' to the storage system programmatically or via CLI.
• Consisting of a pool of SSD flash-based drives that become an extension of the DRAM cache, SFX enables the storage system to load the right data into system cache at the right time. This maximizes cache hit rates and delivers quicker time to results.
• Delivering dramatically improved TCO, SFX eliminates the need to purchase more HDDs than needed for capacity in order to reach a performance requirement, which in turn frees-up budget for other critical IT initiatives. With the right combination of SFX, SSDs and HDDs, SFX provides the flexibility to optimize big data solutions across performance, capacity, power consumption and cost, thereby delivering cost savings and increased productivity.

Supporting Quotes

• Molly Rector, Chief Marketing Officer for DDN
  "The need to increase application and file system performance of today's most demanding big data workflows is prompting customers to consider alternatives to simply throwing faster hardware at the problem. Today, DDN is solving this challenge by providing a unique, cost-effective approach by understanding data patterns and intelligently utilizing flash where it will realize measurable impact.  This highly optimized software defined storage solution delivers on the performance promise of flash, but at HDD prices. DDN's SFX technology reflects our continued commitment to creating innovative storage technology and bringing to market new enterprise business enabling capabilities. We're proud to accept the Best of Show award for Most Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application and to be recognized by the storage industry for our ongoing focus on innovation."

• Jay Kramer, Chairman of the Awards Program and President of Network Storage Advisors Inc. 
  "The judges of the Flash Memory Summit Awards Committee are always looking for the next killer app of flash memory and DataDirect Networks with Storage Fusion Xcelerator (SFX) has hit a homerun. Customers want to achieve the dream of low latency and high IOP performance for mixed workloads and SFX combines provides application aware technology to intelligently accelerate block and file-based data access in a single integrated solution."

Supporting Resources

• More on DDN SFX flash caching technology
• Read the whitepaper on SFX technology 
• More on DDN IME technology 

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About DataDirect Networks
DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world leader in massively scalable storage. Our data storage and processing solutions and professional services enable content-rich and high growth IT environments to achieve the highest levels of systems scalability, efficiency and simplicity. DDN enables enterprises to extract value and deliver business results from their information. Our customers include the world's leading online content and social networking providers, high performance cloud and grid computing, life sciences, media production, and security and intelligence organizations. Deployed in thousands of mission critical environments worldwide, DDN's solutions have been designed, engineered and proven in the world's most scalable data centers to ensure competitive business advantage for today's information powered enterprise. For more information, go to www.ddn.com or call 1-800-837-2298.

©2014 All rights reserved. DDN and SFX are trademarks owned by DataDirect Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

DDN Media Contact:
Dani Kenison
Sr. Director, Global Corporate Communications
Email: [email protected]
Work: 408-990-2658

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SOURCE DataDirect Networks