Analyst Report Identifies How Astute Networks Eliminates the Performance and Cos t Barriers Facing Virtualization Administrators

Dragon Slayer Consulting Analysis Describes Top Ways to End Virtualization Manag ers Storage Frustrations by Deploying Astutes ViSX Flash VM Storage Appliances San Diego, CA, September 27, 2012 -- Astute NetworksTM, Inc., the leading provid er of performance storage for virtual machines, today announced that leading ana lyst firm, Dragon Slayer Consulting, has identified its ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliance as a top solution for eliminating the storage I/O bottleneck frustrat ion of virtualized environments. The paper, How to End Virtualization Administrat ion Storage Frustration, written by Marc Staimer, president of Dragon Slayer Cons ulting, analyzes and reviews the common storage performance barriers that plague virtualized environments and how Astutes ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliance uniq uely overcomes those obstacles. There are many storage performance barriers facing virtualization and storage adm ins, said Marc Staimer, senior analyst and CDS, Dragon Slayer Consulting. Some are architectural. Some are organizational. Some are product implementation-specifi c. All are extraordinarily aggravating. Astute Networks, with its family of purp ose-built ViSX appliances, has an exciting new approach to removing performance barriers that offers an incredible IOPS/dollar value for server and desktop virt ualization. The whitepaper examines in detail the storage problems virtualization administra tors must deal with on a day-to-day basis and the alternative approaches to solv ing those problems. The report further discusses why these approaches are defici ent for performance constrained virtualized environments and how ViSX uniquely s olves these vexing problems. Dragon Slayer confirms that Astutes ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliances deliver t he following advantages: Unprecedented IOPS, Throughput, and IOPs/dollar ViSX is comprised of 100% flash storage technology that provides an order of magnitude higher performance than HDD-based systems. Astutes patented DataPump EngineTM completely offloads a nd accelerates TCP and iSCSI protocol processing to eliminate both network and s torage I/O bottlenecks, outperforming conventional Ethernet deployed flash or hy brid storage systems by as much as 5 to 10 times. This enables industry-leading IOPS/$ for virtualized application and VDI deployments. Low TCO Astute makes deployment cost a non-issue by utilizing both higher reliability eMLC flash technology and an advanced primary data deduplication alg orithm that increases storage capacity and has zero impact on performance. This low effective dollar per gigabyte complements the significant power, cooling an d floor space advantages of ViSX. Purpose Built for the Virtualization Administrator Pre-configured for out of the box deployment in minutes, ViSX is easily provisioned and managed via its vCenter plug-in. Enterprise Class Reliability ViSX delivers four levels of reliability: onchip flash error detection and correction; enterprise-grade multi-level cell (e MLC) flash devices to extend the usable life of flash modules; multiple levels o f RAID, including 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10; and flash module over-provisioning to impr ove overall reliability and also maintain maximum write performance over time. Integrated In-Line Deduplication ViSX state-of-the--art deduplication techn ology has no impact on performance, unlike other flash systems that experience d ramatic levels 50-70% - of I/O degradation when processing and significantly inc

reases overall effective capacity. ViSX Flash VM storage appliances are purpose-built to deliver unprecedented rand om IOPS performance and unprecedented IOPS per dollar value, helping to unleash the full potential of virtualized environments. ViSX Networked Flash architecture combines ultra-reliable eMLC flash solid state storage modules with Astutes own c ustom designed high-performance, 10/1GbE DataPump Engine protocol processor to co mpletely offload and dramatically accelerate network (TCP) & storage (iSCSI) pro tocol processing. Tightly fused, they eliminate all critical I/O bottlenecks tha t affect virtualized application and VDI performance and provisions sharable fla sh performance to all VMs on all hosts over standard Ethernet networks. The frustrations experienced by todays virtualization managers are very challengin g to resolve, said Len Rosenthal, senior vice president of marketing of Astute Ne tworks. Thats why we developed our purpose-built ViSX Flash VM storage appliances. They accelerate virtual machine performance while giving the admin out-of-the-b ox simplicity to realize dramatic performance gains in minutes. The Dragon Slaye r Consulting whitepaper deftly frames the virtual server managers challenges and underscores the unique value of ViSX to resolve them in a non-disruptive, easy t o deploy, and cost-effective way. To download the complete Dragon Slayer Consulting whitepaper, please visit: htt p://astutenetworks.com/pages/resources/virtualization-optimized-storage-dsc-stai mer.pdf Tweet this: @astutenetworks recognized by Dragon Slayer Consulting as an end to virtualization admin frustration - http://bit.ly/UtGaYd Follow Astute on Twitter at http://twitter.com/astutenetworks About Astute Networks Astute Networks is the leading provider of high-performance flash-based virtual machine storage appliances. The companys ViSXTM family of Networked Flash applian ces, powered by its patented DataPump Engine, overcome known virtualization perfo rmance limitations by non-disruptively delivering shared performance to all virt ual machines, across all hosts, over pervasively deployed Ethernet networks. Wit h ViSX, IT organizations now have the power to confidently virtualize and deploy business-critical applications while eliminating costly over-provisioning of IT infrastructure. ViSX is available through the companys network of authorized cha nnel partners. For more information, visit www.astutenetworks.com. Astute Networks, Networked Flash, ViSX G4, DataPump Engine, and FlashWRX are tra demarks or registered trademarks of Astute Networks, Inc. All other trademarks a re property of their respective owners. Contact : Sabrina Sanchez The Ventana Group for Astute Networks Chantilly, VA (925) 785-3014 sabrina.sanchez@ventanapr.com http://www.theventanagroup.com