FIO and OCZ got hammered last week…

OCZ got hammered after the earnings call so I went ahead added a boatload…earnings for FIO in 30 days.  One analyst predicts $95m for the quarter with increased margins above 54%*.  That equates to FY12 of $347.7m in revenue.  I believe the FY12 number will be closer to $400m and the margin will be slightly less — here is the YTD chart for FIO compared to OCZ.

FIO/OCZ YTD CHART

One expert I spoke with said the FIO/Princeton announcement about seamless memory w/ HSM applied is more marketing spin than technology innovation.  But my feeling is the horse is out of the barn on this announcement which was lead by Princeton University.  Net Net:  Rick White still owns the flash mindspace — no one even comes close.

In other not random news:

• A buddy of mine is now at CORAID — he’s one of the most senior and respected pre-sales engineers in the storage space and his Rolodex is without peer.  Carl Wright is making waves over there.
• Google just picked up some really ugly space on the western side of 101 and Informedika, my firm, got kicked out of our month-to-month lease recently — we were in the no-man’s-land east of 101 in that little corner tucked in between Moffett and NetApp.
• Traffic on both the 101 & 280 are misery this summer.
• Some friends  just paid $1000 sq/ft for a condo in SOMA on the east side of 3rd street.

Conclusion:  Silicon Valley (and the Bay Area in general)  Is Back

*Courtesy of Andrew Nowinski.  Copyright 2012 Piper Jaffray. All rights reserved.

GridIron CTO Talks About PCIe Flash

GridIron Systems is making news this week about its new SAN-attached data accelerator called the TURBOCHARGER (can somebody please alert the marketing department this product name is reserved for automobiles engines?).

Anyway, the CTO is Som Sikdar — no introductions needed, right?  Legend!  Here are his views on flash:

http://bigdatafasttracked.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/pcipart1/

SSD Update: this is the one session you MUST ATTEND at Percona MySQL in April

MySQL and SSD: usage and tuning

In this talk, Vadim Tkachenko (Percona CTO) will cover Solid State Drives internals and how they affect database performance.
IO level benchmarks for SATA (Intel 320 SSD) and PCI-e (FusionIO, Virident) cards
to show absolute performance and give an idea on performance per $.
And finally how you can use MySQL and Percona Server with SSD,
what tuning parameters are most important and what performance may expect in real
production usage.

Track:

Utilizing Hardware

Experience level:

 Beginner

MORE HERE:  http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2012/sessions/mysql-and-ssd-usage-and-tuning

REGISTER HERE:  http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2012/

Note from Steve:  This show is a MUST for anyone thinking about solid state memory extensions or SSDs.  Just take a look at the speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors!

What’s new in NAND This Morning: OCZ & VMEM

OCZ makes some very cool announcements — adds OEM partners

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=73151587

Violin Memory closes a huge deal w/ a Federal Integrator

http://www.fbodaily.com/archive/2012/03-March/08-Mar-2012/FBO-02689900.htm

Barclays Believes In Violin Memory

Violin Memory – All Flash Memory Arrays Seeing Increased Interest

Violin Memory is a privately held emerging player in storage, offering all SSD Flash storage arrays for primary data. Violin’s storage arrays connect to servers and provide significantly improved performance over traditional HDD/SSD hybrid storage arrays. The company’s solutions are used in environments that require high power and capacity with little to no latency. According to Violin, its SSD arrays can help accelerate the performance of applications in database environments (for reporting and transaction acceleration), Web servers, scientific computing (HPC), and Tier 0 storage. In June of 2010, Violin acquired Gear6, a company focused on Memcaching, a distributed memory caching system for web and cloud environments, which helps increase utilization among server and storage assets. The company has key strategic relationships with Toshiba (a supplier of its NAND Flash) and Juniper, who have each made significant investments in the company over the past several years.

Violin’s go-to-market strategy consists of its direct sales force, key VARs, and co-branded joint-selling agreements with HP (to compete against Exadata) and IBM to deploy IBM’s GPFS file system in clustered, scale-out environments. Violin’s solution is seeing significant interest in databases running Oracle, DB2 and SQL. Violin has previously stated that it expects to exit its current fiscal year (ending in January 2012) with $100mm in trailing revenue, with a go forward run-rate of $40 million-$50 million per quarter. We believe the company is looking to fill out its solution set with feature-rich software and could look to acquire new point products or develop these capabilities internally. Violin’s technology already includes data management tools but the company seems to be looking at adding increased features and functionality over time. We believe that both all-flash memory arrays and flash-based PCIe-based server storage represent the next wave of technologies that are altering the landscape of the storage industry. We believe that customers can find compelling use cases for these solutions and that Violin Memory (as well as companies such as Fusion-io) will continue to gain share within this growing market.

(Copyrighted Material from Barclays Capital Equity Research)

When Violin-Memory’s CEO Don Basile Speaks Out, People Listen…

The solid-state memory storage sector often gets a bad rap on pricing, Basile said.

“The mid-tier and below market is quite confused right now [about whether to move to pure SSD storage],” he said. “We’re finding a bifurcation in the market. We’re able to deal with large banks, Internet properties and government buyers very easily. They’re the ones who’ve helped shape our product line over the last two-plus years. That’s why we’re seeing traction with their platforms, and why we grew to $100 million four years faster than 3PAR, five years faster than Isilon, and two years faster than Data Domain.”

(repost:  http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Violin-Memory-Pushing-Flash-Arrays-into-Tier-1-Storage-769120/)

Violin-Memory Ready to IPO

Over the weekend, Violin-Memory posted a job on LinkedIn for an SEC Compliance Manager:

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=2471619

Not to mention a ton of new job openings here and in Europe:

Jobs

• Linux Systems Administrator

  Tagged as: Engineering Services

  Violin Memory Engineering Systems team member required to participate in providing the engineering and support resources needed to drive an evolving, fast-paced engineering team in a startup environment.

• SEC and Compliance Manager

  Tagged as: Finance

  This position will be responsible for managing all SEC reporting and managing the Company’s SOX compliance program.

• ASIC Design Engineer

  Tagged as: Hardware

  Develop microarchitecture and RTL for high performance PCIe based RAID controller and flash controller. Drive synthesis, formal verification and timing closure (STA) of Storage controller ASIC. Candidate must be highly motivated, and well organized.

• Verification Engineer

  Tagged as: Hardware

  Looking for a talented, motivated technical leader for Design Verification to design a verification environment for a set of storage devices, and have a big outcome on the acceptance of flash memory in large enterprises.

• Release & Change Management Engineer

  Tagged as: Platform Engineering

  Administers and develops the source code control system for all mainframe and open server environments. Creates, tests and implements automated software code build and deployment scripts for mainframe and open server applications.

• Product Marketing Manager

  Tagged as: Product Marketing

  The candidate will lead development of world class marketing materials that drive and support Violin’s leadership of the Flash Memory Array field in the marketplace. The candidate will develop/create a range of marketing materials and initiatives.

• Channel Managers (Europe)

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  Proven record of building an international channels team in a high growth competitive environment.

• Sales Engineers

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  The primary technical resource for the AM for both pre and post sales activities. SE’s will actively drive and managing the tech evaluation stage of the sales process via PoC

• Sales Executives

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  Proven track record of selling and partnering in the data center environment required.

• Sales Executives – UK, France, Germany and Scandinavia

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  Proven track record of selling and partnering in the data center environment required. Country, region and language experience required.

• Solutions Architect

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  A Solution Architect is a strong technical voice focused on key partner and customer relationships. A Solution Architect will work with customers and partners to design solutions that will create customer success.

• System Engineers – UK, France, Germany & Scandinavia

  Tagged as: Sales/Business Development

  Experience in both pre and post sales of enterprise Storage & Computing solutions. High speed networking knowledge required – FC & 10Gb technologies. Hands on POC support skills a must. Country, region and language experience required.

• Data Management Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking experienced software developers to lead development of data mobility (Replication, Snapshots etc.) and reduction (Compression, De-dupe etc.) software features for a high performance storage array.

• Device Driver Software Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking experienced high performance storage driver developer for existing drivers, adding/extending features and supporting new hardware. Candidate will work with OEM partners in porting drivers to custom environments.

• Infiniband Device Driver Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking experienced Infiniband driver developer to lead development of an innovative high performance storage product. Requires proven experience with the IB protocol stack from RDMA and the verbs layer upward, including iSER and SRP.

• Platform Integration Software Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Experienced software developer(s) to join Platform Integration Team. The engineer should have 5+ years experience software development, preferably in one or more of the following areas: embedded OS, networked storage or high availability systems.

• Senior Web Interface Engineer (Front End Development)

  Tagged as: Software

  You will be responsible building the web-based front end interface for a new class of flash-based infrastructure product at Violin Memory

• Storage Appliance Software Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking embedded software developers with experience implementing features for storage appliances.

• Systems Management Software Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking experienced systems management developer with experience in appliance or embedded products.

• Windows Storage Device Driver Engineer

  Tagged as: Software

  Seeking experienced Windows storage driver developer for existing drivers and new driver development, adding/extending features and supporting new hardware.

• Technical Support Engineers

  Tagged as: Support

  The Technical Support Engineer provides phone, email and remote technical support and is responsible for assisting customers and field personnel with installation, configuration and troubleshooting our direct and SAN attached FLASH storage products.

Open Letter to Kevin Hunt re FIO Analysis

Kevin,

Your recent comments regarding FIO are off the mark, in my opinion.  The competition in the enterprise is, so far, non-existent; ask anyone at the end-users or even at the mftrs.  Can you find EVEN ONE data center to stand up and say we have a 2nd source w/ Virident?  OCZ?  TMS?  Or you can go direct to LSI, OCZ, Virident:  where has anyone developed even one relationship (OEM or end-user) or sold even one device to a major data center?

You keep saying there is pressure on FIO — but where is it coming from?  I think it comes from Violin, Exadata, etc — perhaps Solidfire, Nimbus.  But even Kaminario and Schooner use FIO inside  — so the appliance v. PCIe argument is less meaningful.

I think FIO shot itself in the foot this qtr — as a young company it really does not know how to manage expectations yet.  More importantly, the market is blue ocean and highly unpredictable.  But in the meantime, they are growing (incontrovertibly) to $100m per qtr.

I think you will agree that they are looking at something north of $350m for the FY.

And, at the same time, they are sucking the oxygen out of everyone else’s fire.  ioTurbine and ACM are truly disruptive — it takes time to get the message out, show the value, funnel the sales efforts.

The margins will come back — we both know this — and when they do, FIO is $40 and beyond.  They really ARE the next VM, DDUP, Riverbed — you name it.

I am a former employe and long FIO.

First it was John Cagle…then Woody Hutsell…now Shane Robison

I was just thinking about all the little camp fires that are now burning around Fusion-io.  Whether it’s the obvious competition from Virident or OCZ/Marvell or STEC or the less obvious and longer sales cycles of appliance vendors like Violin Memory or even attempts to update legacy storage with flash from EMC or NetApp.

And then I was looking at TOPSY results for Fusion-io.  If you are not aware of TOPSY go there right now — a very cool tweet search engine.  And I noticed a very long list of career opens at Fusion-io:  see the sample below.

Anyway, about those campfires — they are having the oxygen sucked out of them by some very clever folks at Fusion-io who are hiring just about everyone and anyone in the flash space.

Moral of the Story:  if you want to be relevant in flash — you need to be recruited into Fusion-io (at least for now).

Department	Position Title	City	State
Sales	Account Executive – Atlanta	Atlanta	GA
Sales – APAC	Account Executive – Beijing	Beijing
Reliability/Tools	NVM Technologist	Boulder	CO
Reliability/Tools	HA Applications Engineer	Boulder	CO
Sales	OEM Systems Engineer	Raleigh	NC
Sales	Account Executive – Carolinas	Raleigh	NC
Sales	OEM Systems Engineer	Round Rock	TX
Sales	Renewal Manager	Salt Lake City	UT
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City	UT
Software Engineering	Test Automation Engineer	Salt Lake City	UT
Hardware Engineering	Senior Software Engineer	Salt Lake City	UT
Reliability/Tools	Solid State Storage Tech	Salt Lake City	UT
Reliability/Tools	Engineering Technician	Salt Lake City	UT
Finance	Accounting Manager	Salt Lake City	UT
Finance	Accounts Receivable Manager	Salt Lake City	UT
HR	Recruiting Business Partner	Salt Lake City	UT
Software Engineering	Student Intern	Salt Lake City, UT or Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Engineering Program Manager	Salt Lake City, UT or Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Applications Team Manager	Salt Lake City, UT or San Jose, CA
Software Engineering	Senior Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT or San Jose, CA
Reliability/Tools	Software Engineer Lead	Salt Lake City, UT or San Jose, CA
Operations	Manufacturing Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT or San Jose, CA
Software Engineering	Senior Build Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Software Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Hardware Engineering	Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Reliability/Tools	Senior Software Engineer	Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Boulder, CO
Sales	Systems Engineer Manager, West	San Jose	CA
Sales	OEM Systems Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	Technical Manager of Platform Team	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	Senior Software Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	SAN Protocols and Windows Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	Senior SQA Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	Performance Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	SQA Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	SQA Engineer	San Jose	CA
Software Engineering	Virtualization Engineer	San Jose	CA
Finance	Sales Commissions Manager	San Jose	CA
Finance	Finance Manager	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	Senior Software Engineer	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	Kernel Engineer	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	QA Lead	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	Systems Software Engineer	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	Kernel Engineer	San Jose	CA
Virtualization Solutions	Senior Software Engineer	San Jose	CA
Sales – APAC	Sales Engineer – Shanghai	Shanghai
Sales – APAC	Account Executive – South China	South China
Sales	Account Executive – FED Civilian	Washington DC	DC

The New TMS Ramsan 720: Next Move in the Flash Appliance Wars

You can read about this at THEREGISTER and STORAGESEARCH or go straight to the datasheet HERE.