TECHNOLOGY

Unmatched Scalability

The economics of data centers are driven by the performance, space, cost, reliability and power efficiency of the equipment. With the average data center requiring a $250M investment, improvements in these areas can significantly improve costs and profitability.

Data centers are typically built to support large-scale applications that require large datasets and high processing performance. Locating those datasets in memory is always desirable as long as the space, cost, reliability and power efficiency requirements are addressed. In other words, the memory systems have to be cost-effectively scalable.

Violin Switched Memory (VXM) provides unmatched scalability of memory systems by addressing the key issues head-on:

• Power efficiency: Power per GByte is reduced by 80% which is a prerequisite for increasing density.
• Density: Efficient packaging and maximum power efficiency increases the GBytes per rack by 400%. This reduces data center sizes and costs significantly.
• Reliability, Availability, Serviceability: As systems get larger, the failure rates unavoidably increase. Memory fault tolerance with non-disruptive service is a requirement for scalability and is addressed by RAID techniques inherent in VXM.

A single Violin 1010 supports 84 Modules (VIMMs) in 2 rack units. Over 16 Violin 1010s, and hence well over 1250 modules, can be supported within a single rack. Any module can fail and be replaced without impacting service.

The densities achieved through the design are unmatched in the industry. The table below provides the key metrics: