WHAT FUSION-IO ANNOUNCED TODAY
Fusion-io announced today that the ioDrive would be released to IBM clients as the HIGH IOPS Adapter in the 160gb and 320gb versions. To my eye these are identical to the ioDrives currently shipping as “Server Proven” but there may be some differences; I wasn’t able to download the datasheet so it’s hard to tell.
ANALYSIS
Fundamentally, Fusion-io is not a storage play — it’s all about performance. IBM’s introduction of the ioDrive to the SYSTEM X family of servers is a mirror of the HP situation where the storage groups essentially compete with the server group when it comes to Fusion-io. The good news is that all the left-rudder/right-rudder confusion is now over. Fusion-io owns the SSD-based PCIe market at IBM and HP (for now).
MY TAKE
It will be interesting to see the uptake at the direct sales level for IBM and HP over the next few quarters. In the world of zero-sum budgets, this could have an immediate and substantial negative consequence to SCHOONER INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (another Lightspeed investment as is Fusion-io) and other storage appliance vendors touting NAND flash as a performance enhancement (Violin Memory and Avere come to mind).
CONCLUSION/PREDICTION
I give Fusion-io credit for sticking with the program — it’s going to be a long, slow, crawl to get the server vendors moving substantial amounts of ioDrives but it looks like the engine is starting to rev. I’m guessing the lone holdout, DELL, will opt in at some point with a supported device strategy for Fusion-io.
FIO ANNOUNCEMENT
IBM LINK
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