FlashSoft® Software
Delivers flash performance to applications, increasing the capability and productivity of existing storage infrastructure

FlashSoft for VMware:

FlashSoft® for vSphere enables a solid-state storage device (SSD) to function as a cache for frequently accessed hot data in a server. FlashSoft software is installed as an ESXi kernel module within the vSphere operating system. By caching the hot data on a high-speed SSD installed on the server, access times are reduced and applications spend less time waiting for data.

FlashSoft flexibility provides the best capability to migrate business critical applications to virtual infrastructures.

• FlashSoft is non-intrusive. FlashSoft works with any DAS or SAN storage subsystem and requires no change to storage management, backup, or compliance polices.
• FlashSoft is hardware neutral. FlashSoft works with any SSD vendor or any server vendor.
• FlashSoft supports any guest OS. By running in the host OS, any guest OS can take advantage of FlashSoft acceleration.
• FlashSoft is fast.FlashSoft is fast. SQL Server benchmarks run 2 to 4 times faster.
• FlashSoft increases virtual infrastructure efficiency, supporting up to three times the VM density.
• FlashSoft is a VMWare Partner Verified & Supported Product (PVSP). FlashSoft software will have continued support and compatibility with VMware vSphere as new patches and updates are released.

Solid-state server-side caching software Installs in the hypervisor on the server.

No agent in guest VM Remove the configuration challenge, additional overhead, and security concerns associated with agents running in each VM. Low resource utilization FlashSoft scales to support very large numbers of VMs without increasing CPU or memory requirements which stay at 3-5% of overall CPU and average 300MB of RAM3 no matter how many VMs are accelerated. Dynamic cache allocation FlashSoft automatically ensures optimal cache usage per VM, assigning cache space dynamically as new VMs are added. No need to adjust existing VMs. Integrated with VMware Update Manager (VUM) FlashSoft is shipped in a standard VIB format and can be deployed using VMware Update Manager (VUM). Live cache assignment Assign & re-assign cache to VMs without VM restart. Support for latest VMware version 5.1, 5.5

	vCenter™ Plug-in A standard plug-in to vCenter supports management of FlashSoft functions directly through the vCenter GUI. No need to dedicate another server or VM to manage the cache software.
	Increase Application Performance Lower I/O latency increases application performance from 2x to 4x.
	Increase VM Density over 3x Tile-based virtualization scalability test. Baseline: 4 tiles, 391@24 VMs With FlashSoft: 13 tiles, 1227@78 VMs

FlashSoft for Windows:

FlashSoft software for Windows Server enables IT managers to cost-effectively boost database and application performance on Windows Server 2012, 2008 and Windows Server Hyper-V 2012 R2 while simultaneously reducing the IOPS load on the storage infrastructure. FlashSoft enables a solid-state device (SSD) to function as a cache for frequently accessed data in a server. FlashSoft software is installed as a filter driver within the Windows driver stack. By caching the hot data on a high-speed SSD installed on the server, access times are reduced and applications spend less time waiting for data.

FlashSoft for Windows Server accelerates en terprise applications, such as Microsoft SQL Server®, MySQL®, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint®.

• Experience SSD performance benefits with existing servers and storage
• Use any standard SSD attached via PCIe, SAS, SATA or NVMe from any vendor
• 16TB per cache and up to 4 caches per server to support your largest datasets

Solid-state server-side caching software Installs in the OS on the server.

Accelerate Windows Server Hyper-V Clusters FlashSoft software for Windows Server targets Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). Hyper-V virtual machines hosted on CSV can be accelerated with FlashSoft — with full support for Hyper-V cluster features like LiveMigraton and Failover. FlashSoft supports the use of CSVs when the cache is used in write-through mode. FlashSoft installs as a base Windows Server driver, not inside virtual machines, making it efficient to run and simple to install and manage. Support for Large Datasets FlashSoft supports up to 16TB of flash as cache, and up to 4 caches per server, allowing users to accelerate extremely large datasets. Large datasets often are deployed across multiple storage volumes. FlashSoft supports up to 2048 accelerated volumes. Simple Deployment & Transparent Operation The software installs in a few minutes and runs transparently. Manage from a familiar Windows GUI or using PowerShell. FlashSoft software automatically identifies the hot data and begins accelerating applications. File-level Policy-based Caching for Maximum Caching Efficiency With FlashSoft an administrator can set a policy to exclude certain files on an accelerated volume for the cache. Especially useful in Hyper-V environments, this policy can deliver the maximum benefits of caching without modifying VM configurations. Minimal System Overhead FlashSoft for Windows Server requires minimal server resources — typically just 3 to 5 percent of CPU capacity and under 500MB of RAM.

SanDisk conducted a synthetic performance test on a dual processor Dell PowerEdgeTM server with 128GB RAM. Two Optimus AscendTM (SAS) SSDs were configured as a 30GB RAID1 (mirrored) write-back cache to accelerate a 100GB HDD storage back end. The benchmark program fio.exe was used to generate a workload and measure performance.

Performance tests illustrate FlashSoft software was able to accelerate the workload from 450 IOPS to 6,462 IOPS – over 14x increase in performance compared to the non-accelerated back end. Storage latency was also greatly improved dropping from 1,272 milliseconds to 55.65 milliseconds – over 22x improvement in response time.

FlashSoft for Linux:

FlashSoft software for Linux enables IT managers to cost-effectively boost database and application performance on Linux servers while simultaneously reducing I/O overhead on storage infrastructure. FlashSoft software enables a solid-state device (SSD) to function as a cache for frequently accessed data in a server. The software is installed as a kernel module within the Linux OS. By caching hot data on a high-speed SSD installed on the server, access times are reduced, and applications spend less time waiting for data.

FlashSoft for Linux accelerates enterprise applications such as MySQL® and Oracle® databases and reduces the I/O burden on backend storage. Lower latency I/O improves throughput and response time for business critical OLTP applications, increasing workload and reducing process time for OLAP operations.

• Experience SSD performance benefits with existing servers and storage
• Use any standard SSD attached via PCIe, SAS, SATA or NVMe from any vendor
• Ideal for high-end financial services, logistics, ERP, and BI applications
• Improves OLTP performance by a factor of 3x to 5x times

Solid-state server-side caching software Installs in the OS on the server.

Read-and-Write Caching or Read-Only Caching The FlashSoft software cache can be configured as a read-write cache to enhance performance of databases and transactional applications; or it can be configured as a read-only cache for web servers, data analytics, and streaming media. Safe Write-Back FlashSoft can use hardware or software RAID to protect against the risk of data loss in the event of SSD failure. Support for Large Datasets FlashSoft supports caches up to 16TB in size, and up to four caches per server to accelerate extremely large datasets. Simple Deployment & Transparent Operation The software installs in a few minutes and runs transparently. FlashSoft software automatically identifies the hot data and begins accelerating applications. Minimal System Overhead FlashSoft for Linux requires minimal server resources – typically less than 3 percent of CPU capacity and under 500MB of RAM.

SanDisk conducted a synthetic performance test on a dual processor Dell PowerEdgeTM server with 64GB RAM. Two Optimus AscendTM (SAS) SSDs were configured as a 30GB RAID1 (mirrored) write-back cache to accelerate a 100GB HDD storage back end. The benchmark program fio.exe was used to generate a workload and measure performance.

Performance tests illustrate FlashSoft software was able to accelerate the workload from 464 IOPS to 7,388 IOPS – nearly a 16x increase in performance compared to the non-accelerated back end. Storage latency was also greatly improved dropping from 1,210 milliseconds to 54.93 milliseconds – a 22x improvement in response time.

Documentation:

Download the FlashSoft 3.7 for VMware vSphere 5.1 & 5.5 Datasheet  (PDF).

Download the FlashSoft 3.8 for Windows Server & Windows Server Hyper-V Datasheet  (PDF).

Download the FlashSoft 3.8 for Linux Datasheet  (PDF).