Violin Memory partners with Symantec to add data management capabilities to array
Flash memory array maker Violin Memory has announced a suite of flash-optimized data management capabilities for its all-flash Memory Arrays. The new capabilities come from a collaboration with Symantec over the past nine months, and the result is the addition of snapshots, cloning, deduplication, replication and thin provisioning into Violin's product portfolio.
"Customers have been asking us for a full complement of data management software, and this delivers a suite of capabilities that run natively, and is all optimized for Flash," said Narayan Venkat, vice president of products for Violin Memory.
"Both us and Symantec have joint customers who had been asking us to work together on this," Venkat said. "We spent 20 man-years optimizing this stack for Flash, to bring this to market."
Venkat said that both companies gain significantly from the relationship.
"For Violin, this greatly shortens our time to market, and gives us a reliable stack," he said. "Symantec also gains from working with us, in learning about Flash, with the long term goal of making it a generic part of their own storage suite."
The branding will be solely Violin, "but we won't be shy about pointing out the Symnatec DNA," Venkat said.
While Violin is still in the start-up stage itself, it is already one of the senior citizens in the Flash space, and a rival the brand new Flash vendors typically target. The new capabilities are going to be a very big deal for Violin, Venkat said, as it will enhance the way it is positioned and sold.
"It's a very big thing," he said. "We have seen increasing traction in the market, but customers have focused on us for accelerating certain kinds of workloads. With this data management suite, which rivals those from other storage vendors out there like EMC and NetApp, our partners now have the ability to position our arrays as Tier 1 solutions. Given that we have 3-5 times the performance at the same price as the other Tier 1 vendors, we think this will present an enormous opportunity.
"This will make us even more attractive and economical to customers who want to run Tier 1 applications," Venkat said. It's also something that partners will be able to sell to their existing customer base, as well as new prospects.
The suite is scheduled to be available in Q4.
