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Storage companies like to talk about how their systems scale up or scale out, but few claim to be able to do both. New-gen all-flash storage provider Kaminario says it is one of the few.
For the record, “scale up” in storage-speak means that a single array can add capacity without adding more hardware while “scale out” signifies that an array can easily connect to additional units to add capacity. Most storage providers are very good at one or the other, but most cannot handle both. IT buyers evaluate these systems and choose the ones best suited for the use cases they deploy.
So the news here is that Newton, Mass.-based Kaminario on May 20 released its fifth-generation K2 (K2 v5) all-flash primary storage array, which competes directly against larger companies and more well-known products such as EMC XtremIO, Pure Storage, Violin Memory and Fusion-io.
NAND Flash Storage Continues to Move In
All-solid state flash storage is a burgeoning market because more and more older systems are being refreshed, using some—if not all—of their new arrays containing flash storage.
“Agility is the key here,” Kaminario founder and CEO Dani Golan told eWEEK. “If you’re looking ahead at what your storage requirements might be in the future, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one type of all-flash storage. XtremIO can scale out, but not up; Pure can scale up, but not out; Violin and Nimbus scale up, but not out. We’re the only ones who can do both and with any type of infrastructure; that’s the way it was designed.”
Kaminario K2 enables users to deploy any make of controller or solid state disk, even between versions, so legacy flash system investments are protected, Golan said. It also eliminates I/O bottlenecks and reduces latency to accelerate applications at a significantly lower cost and smaller footprint than legacy storage area network storage.
“Think of us as ‘Google in a box’ solution for storage,” Golan said.
Key New Features
Key new features in the latest Kaminario version, according to Golan:
—Patent pending global-variable block size algorithms automatically adapt to single or mixed workloads, simplifying the customers’ combined OLTP, OLAP, big data and virtual infrastructure and saving on server hardware and software licensing costs.
—Kaminario is the only all-flash array to support selectable global inline deduplication, an advantage for virtual environments and ability to turn it off which is a significant advantage for database environments. Global inline deduplication, inline compression, thin provisioning and 87.5 percent utilization K-RAIDTM lead to the highest capacity utilization within an organization.
—Native application-aware, high-performance and scalable snapshots, native asynchronous snapshots-based replication, non-disruptive upgrades and built-in redundancy.
—Manageability/tight ecosystem integration: K2 v5 is designed for line-of-business people to use and does not require a dedicated storage administrator or special training and certifications. Fully automated operations with no setup or tuning required.
Founded in 2008, 150-employee Kaminario provides flash storage IT in several vertical markets, including financial services, telecoms, Web service providers and government bureaus and agencies. For more information, go here.