Speed and Performance for Analytics Accelerate as Next-Gen Analytics Platform Optimizes Flash Memory Usage

BILLERICA, Mass., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Vertica Systems, the leading provider of next-generation software platforms for real-time analytics, today announced the availability of FlexStore™ for Flash memory, producing the most efficient and cost effective use of Flash technology for analytics.  Benchmark performance of Vertica's FlexStore leveraging Fusion-io's flash-based memory tier for a portion of database data has consistently produced significant overall throughput gains on both loading and querying.  The benchmarks have yielded database performance gains over 10x compared to the fastest hard drives and nearly 75 percent as fast as an all-memory system, thereby significantly boosting analytic operations.  

FlexStore provides customers with the deployment flexibility of both traditional storage media and solid-state in a hybrid analytics platform that accelerates performance while enabling real-time business decisions at a fraction of the cost of traditional architectures.  FlexStore, along with Vertica's unique ability to provision and move data on the fly, allows companies to take advantage of flash memory in combination with their existing hard disk technology on industry standard x86 servers from Cisco, Dell, IBM, HP and others.

Speed is critical as companies strive to access and query large sets of data in near real-time to support mission-critical initiatives.  Some analytical operations, such as large sorts and joins, do not fit in main memory and require temporary space.  Due to high latency and low throughput, magnetic disks can be the bottleneck in these operations even with a true column store database.  Substituting enterprise-grade flash memory for disks in these situations yields a higher performance/lower cost solution.

"Vertica's FlexStore architecture leverages Fusion's technology in a unique and cost-effective way.  FlexStore for Flash enables Vertica to dynamically assign resource allocations at the most granular level, including by column.  This means we are able to direct the most active or 'hot' data elements to the most appropriate resources, e.g., flash memory," said Colin Mahony, vice president of products and business development, Vertica.  "FlexStore enables Vertica customers to deploy a hybrid of solid-state and traditional disk on industry-standard servers for the highest performing analytics platform on the market – at a fraction of the cost."

Fusion-io is the pioneer of a new memory tier of flash-based solid-state technology called ioMemory that offers unprecedented performance, density and reliability; combining Fusion's ioMemory technology with Vertica's FlexStore capability delivers exponentially faster access and dramatically reduced latency to company data.

"Vertica's unique columnar approach is ideally suited to leverage Fusion's Virtual Storage Layer (VSL) for unparalleled performance improvements and cost reductions in data warehousing," said Tyler Smith, vice president of business development for Fusion-io.  "The Company's FlexStore analytics platform takes unique advantage of the unprecedented performance, scalability, endurance, flexibility and reliability of Fusion's ioMemory technology."

As companies contend with growing amounts of data and the increasing strategic importance of that data and associated analytics, the need for speed and performance is paramount in adopting an analytics platform.  Not only does this hybrid approach to Flash maximize value by allowing the most frequently accessed data to be stored on the fastest media, but also allows companies the most cost efficient manner to develop their analytic environment.

About Vertica

Vertica Systems is the leading provider of next-generation analytics platforms enabling companies to monetize their data at the speed and scale necessary to deliver significant value to customers and shareholders.  Vertica's scalability and flexibility is unmatched in the industry, delivering 50x-1000x faster performance at 30% the cost of traditional solutions.  Vertica is used by customers worldwide including Verizon, Guess Inc., Zynga, Capital IQ, Mozilla and Comcast. Vertica's North American headquarters is located in Billerica, MA.

Vertica and FlexStore a registered trademarks of Vertica in the United States and other countries.  Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Vertica Systems