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!

Virident Breaks Silence with Major *yawn* Announcement

After nearly 3 months of silence, Virident released news based on evaluations from ESG.  But you won’t find this on their website — so very strange. Also, it’s never explicit stated but I believe these results are sponsored.  Would love to see Finisar / Medusa independent testing wouldn’t you?

Here is the notice from Marketwire:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/virident-and-nec-set-record-oracle-database-performance-of-12-million-iops-2012-02-08

Here is the reaction from The Register:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/08/virident_nec_oracle/

and here is the Virident-sponsored ESG whitepaper:  http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2012/01/virident-flashmax/

This is why Fusion-io snapped at the chance to grab Woody Hutsell from TMS…

and why everyone else is trying to catch up…

Woody’s recent blog repost on the FIO website is stunning and tells the growth story in the VM world.  There is nothing like this anywhere else technology-wise.  EMC’s lightning has nothing on Fusion-io.

See it here:  http://www.fusionio.com/blog/why-server-side-caching-rocks/

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.

What’s going on at Virident?

Virident Repost of 3-year old Gartner Report?

Last night Virident posted a tweet with a 3-year old Gartner report about the dangers of going sole source.  Obviously they believe that Fusion-io is the “sole source” of danger.  I think Virident fails to realize that OCZ/Marvell has snuck up on them and perhaps overtaken them — at least on the sales/marketing front.

Once thought of as the natural competition to Fusion-io, Virident took down a really nice C round of financing in November 2011 but has not been heard of since except for a few job postings and the occasional tweet.

The message “We’re better than Fusion-io” seems to be what Virident is all about these days.

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

Random Post from Tom’s Hardware: ROI/TCO for PCIe Flash

 

 

 

CaedenV 01/11/2012 3:15 PM

If they manage to get 12TB on a single board, running at a fraction of the power of a salvo of 15K SAS drives then they could charge whatever they want to, that is just mind-blowingly amazing!
It would take 40 300GB 10K or 15K drives to reach 12TB of data. Assuming a throughput of 150MB/s/drive that would be 6GB/s of sequential read/write performance, which will beat this card (assuming it is a PCIe2 8x slot which caps out at 4GB/s throughput). For IOPS, this card (and even the R4 cards) would easily beat 40 SAS drives at 200IOPS each (for a total of 8,000IOPS vs the R4′s 410,000 IOPS, and I am sure the R5 is faster). If this is a PCIe3 card with 8GB/s of bandwidth available then it will be even faster still! Plus when you figure that this single magical card could replace 40 physical HDDs… that’s a lot of power, and a ton of space saved!
Now for price, 40 15K 300GB drives can be found on newegg for ~$450ea (I am assuming also this price is also inflated due to the floods just like the consumer drives are), totaling $18,000. The R4 3.2TB drive starts at $20,000, which means a 12TB drive would be ~$50-60,000, which is 3x the price of the SAS solution, and a rough equivilant in performance in sequential throughput. For IOPS however (again using the R4 specs as we do not know what the R5 is yet, except that it will be better) you get .4IOPS/$ with the SAS setup, and 6.8IOPS/$ with the R5 for the same amount of storage space, but a small fraction of power usage, and even smaller fraction of physical space used. I think that says it all for the pro markets, if this is anywhere near $60,000 for 12TB (or even north of $100,000) it would be more than worth the cost compared to the performance gained. Simply amazing!

CaedenV 01/11/2012 3:20 PM

Just realized, I didnt even take into consideration the lessened noise and cooling factor for a setup like this! Data center cooling is insane, and 15K drives are not exactly quiet, especially when you have 40 of them lol. Imagine cooling a data center with a simple/normal AC instead of moving to the artic circle like FB did to help cut their cooling bill.

Wikibon Repost: Is Virident Poised for Cloud?

Turning IT Costs into Profits: New Storage Requirements Emerge for NextGen Cloud Apps

Last Update: Dec 14, 2011 | 06:39

Originating Author: David Vellante

One of the more compelling trends occurring in the cloud is the emergence of new workloads. Specifically, many early cloud customers focused on moving data to the cloud (e.g. archive or backup) whereas in the next twelve months we’re increasingly going to see an emphasis on moving applications to the cloud; and many will be business/mission critical (e.g. SAP, Oracle).

These emergent workloads will naturally have different storage requirements and characteristics. For example, think about applications like Dropbox. The main storage characteristic is cheap and deep. Even Facebook, which has much more complex storage needs and heavily leverages flash (e.g. from Fusion-io), is a single application serving many tenants. In the case of Facebook (or say Salesforce), it has control over the app, end-to-end visibility and can tune the behavior of the application to a great degree.

In 2012, cloud service providers will begin to deploy multitenant/multi-app environments enabled by a new type of infrastructure. The platform will not only provide block-based storage but it will deliver guaranteed quality of service (QoS) that can be pinned to applications. Moreover, the concept of performance virtualization – where a pool of performance (not capacity) is shared across applications by multiple tenants – will begin to see uptake. The underpinning of this architecture will be all-flash arrays.

This means that users can expect a broader set of workloads types to be run in the cloud. The trend is particularly interesting for smaller and mid-sized customers that want to run Oracle, SAP and other mission critical apps in the cloud as a way to increase flexibility, reduce CAPEX and share risk, particularly security risk.

The question is who will deliver these platforms? Will it be traditional SAN suppliers such as EMC, IBM, HP, HDS and NetApp or emerging specialists like SolidFire, Nimbus and Virident? The bet is that while the existing SAN whales will get their fair share of business, especially in the private cloud space, in the growing cloud service provider market, a new breed of infrastructure player will emerge with the vision, management, QoS and performance ethos to capture marketshare and grow with the hottest CSP players.

For data center buyers, where IT is a cost center, the safe bet may be traditional SAN vendors. For cloud service providers, where IT is a profit center, the ability to monetize services levels by providing QoS and performance guarantees on an application by application basis will emerge as a differentiator.

Action Item: All-flash arrays will emerge as an enabler for new applications in the cloud. The key ingredients will be not just the flash capability, but more importantly management functions that enable controlling performance at the application level. Those shops that view IT as a profit center (e.g. cloud service providers) should aggressively pursue this capability and begin to develop new value-based pricing models tied to mission critical applications.