Astute Networks Eliminates Virtual Machine Performance Barriers With New ViSX G4 Flash VM Storage Appliance Next-Generation VM Storage

Solution Combines Patented DataPump Engine with Netwo rked Flash Architecture to Accelerate Application Performance by up to 10x San Diego, CA, August 22, 2012 -- Astute NetworksTM, Inc., the leading provider of high-performance virtual machine storage appliances, today announced the rele ase of its next-generation ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliance. Featuring Astutes 100 percent Networked FlashTM architecture and game changing, patented DataPump EngineTM, ViSX G4 eliminates the barriers to virtualizing Tier 1 business-critic al applications, broadly deploying Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and inc reasing VM density to accelerate virtual machine performance by up to 10x. Today, I/O bottlenecks are causing unacceptable performance for business-critica l applications in virtualized environments, or are preventing organizations from deploying their most vital applications into their virtual infrastructure becau se virtualization taxes traditional storage and network resources. To overcome t his challenge, companies often over-provision their storage resources to gain mo re throughput, or they simply dont virtualize the majority of their business-crit ical applications. This inability to scale performance across multiple servers a nd applications impacts end-user productivity, customer satisfaction, and the va lue of virtual infrastructure investments. Solid state devices added to servers and to legacy SAN and NAS systems only addr ess a part of the problem. They are expensive, disruptive to deploy, and not op timally designed for highly virtualized environments. ViSX was designed from th e ground up to remove VM storage and network performance barriers. Astutes paten ted 10 Gigabit Ethernet DataPump Engine and Networked Flash architecture found i n every ViSX Flash VM storage appliance, are engineered to deliver tightly fused , high performance, low power solutions that remove all storage and network I/O constraints to dramatically accelerate virtual machine and application performan ce. The battle is on for enabling mission critical applications to be brought under t he purview of VMware and thereby gain all the advantages server virtualization h as to offer, said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst, Taneja Group. But t his is easier said than done. The culprit is unquestionably storage. A number of vendors are trying to solve this problem using flashs I/O performance advantages over HDDs. Astute Networks has applied their unique expertise in chip design a nd I/O stack acceleration to achieve an unprecedented combination of Flash perfo rmance, deployment simplicity, and low cost to meet the needs of virtual server administrators. The DataPump Engine allows them to deliver wire speed on 10 GbE and inline data deduplication without impacting IOPs or throughput. Virtual ser ver managers will find this innovative approach worth evaluating. Solid State Storage (SSD) is fast becoming the preferred solution for virtual ma chine storage. The combination of technology advancements, such as enterprise ( eMLC) flash, decreasing prices, and improved reliability and durability are prop elling the worldwide enterprise solid state storage market substantially higher. IDC reports that the worldwide SSD industry revenue reached $5 billion in 2011 and is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51.5 perc ent from 2010 to 2015. Astute Networks ViSX appliances are truly revolutionary, said Walt Thinfen, vice pr esident and CIO, Visioneer. It has given us a 1,500 percent boost in read perform ance on critical applications, has accelerated our most demanding VMs, and notic eably increased the performance of our database applications and Microsoft Share Point environment.

The new ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliances work seamlessly with all virtualizat ion platforms including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Red Hat RHEV. By complementing existing SAN or NAS infrastructures, with a nondisruptive, additive, and highly optimized flash-based datastore tier, ViSX G4 a ppliances satisfy the performance requirements demanded by todays business-critic al applications such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), cloud computing, a nd Big Data. Network-based, ViSX quickly and efficiently provisions up to 140,00 0 sustained random IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) that is fully share able by all virtual machines on all hosts over pervasively deployed 10Gb or 1Gb Ethernet networks - all in a cost effective, multi-terabyte, and easy-to-deploy standard 2U rack mount device. The Unique Capabilities of the ViSX G4 The key to ViSX G4s industry-leading performance and price/performance ($/IOPS) i s its patented DataPump Engine, a custom ASIC that provides complete hardware-ba sed offload and acceleration for all storage I/O (iSCSI) and network I/O (TCP) p rotocol processing. This eliminates both storage and network I/O bottlenecks an d maximizes the IOPS performance that Flash can sustain. Astutes ViSX G4 applian ces also support an advanced algorithm for primary deduplication that offers ver y high rates of compression to dramatically increase storage capacity and, unlik e nearly all other storage solutions, either flash, hybrid, or disk-based, has z ero impact on performance. ViSX appliances support all common RAID levels, with flash optimized firmware enhancements, as well as on chip error detection and c orrection. Unique to ViSX is the approach used in overprovisioning each of its hot swappable Flash modules to both increase overall reliability and improve wri te performance by reserving a quantity of pre-erased blocks that accelerate garb age collection. All ViSX appliances are managed by a new VMware vCenter plug-in for vSphere environments, or by its FlashWRX GUI for other hypervisor platforms such as Hyper-V, Xen, and RHEV. Key features in ViSX G4 include: Superior Performance: Up to 140,000 sustained random IOPS 9.6 TB of highly reliable eMLC hot-plug flash modules per 2U configuration RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 and 6 2 x 10 GbE and 4 x 1 GbE ports all ports active; mix & match Primary deduplication, with no impact on performance VMware vCenter plug-in management and enhanced FlashWRX GUI and CLI Lowest $/IOPS and $/VDI user

ViSX G4, with its DataPump Engine, is a powerful solution designed to eliminate I /O constraints and virtual machine performance barriers while increasing applica tion performance and reducing management complexity, said Steve Topper, CEO, Astu te Networks. By integrating with the hypervisors built-in functionality, ViSX can be non-disruptively deployed in minutes and intuitively managed by any virtualiz ation administrator with unprecedented performance and ease-of-deployment that t ruly set ViSX apart from the crowd. VMs can be deployed in minutes. Now, perform ance storage for VMs can be too! Astute Networks ViSX G4 will be available in the fourth quarter of 2012 with pric ing starting under $50,000, including expert support and service. For more infor mation, please visit www.astutenetworks.com. You can see Astute and the new Vi SX G4 VM Storage appliance at VMworld at San Franciscos Moscone Center from Augus

t 26-30, booth 435. Tweet this: @AstuteNetworks removes vm performance barriers with ViSX G4 http:/ /bit.ly/PSXTLk Follow Astute on Twitter at http://twitter.com/astutenetworks About Astute Networks Astute Networks is the leading provider of high-performance virtual machine stor age appliances. The companys ViSXTM family of Networked Flash appliances, powered by its patented DataPump Engine, overcome virtualization performance limitations by non-disruptively delivering shared performance to all virtual machines, acro ss all hosts, over pervasively deployed Ethernet networks. With ViSX, IT organiz ations now have the power to confidently virtualize and deploy business-critical applications while eliminating costly over-provisioning of IT infrastructure. V iSX is available through the companys network of authorized channel partners. For more information, visit www.astutenetworks.com. Astute Networks, Networked Performance flash, ViSX G4, DataPump Engine, and Flas hWRX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Astute Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Contact : Sabrina Sanchez The Ventana Group for Astute Networks Chantilly, VA (925) 785-3014 ssanchez@theventanagroup.com http://www.theventanagroup.com/