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Nimbus,
founded in 2003, develops award-winning Sustainable Storage systems, the most
intelligent, efficient and fault-tolerant solid state storage platform
engineered for server and desktop virtualization, databases, HPC, and
next-generation cloud infrastructure. |
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Combining low-latency flash
memory hardware, comprehensive data management and protection software, and
highly-scalable multiprotocol storage features, Nimbus systems deliver
dramatically greater performance at a significantly lower operating cost than
conventional disk-based primary storage arrays, all at a comparable acquisition
cost. For more information, visit www.nimbusdata.com,
See also:-
Nimbus
- editor mentions on StorageSearch.com,
Nimbus's news
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Who's who in SSD? - by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor - February 2, 2012
Nimbus Data Systems is 1 of more
than 100 companies in the
rackmount SSDs
market. The company is also 1 of many companies in these directories / market
segments:- rackmount
SSDs,
iSCSI SSDs,
FC SANs,
Infiniband SSDs and
HA SSDs.
Nimbus
made its debut in StorageSearch.com's list of the
top 20 SSD companies
- in the 3rd quarter
of 2011 and although the company dropped in Q4 2011 - it was still in the
top 25.
Nimbus is also listed in our directory of
SAS SSD makers - but
it doesn't market these products to other oems. And while Nimbus communicates
performance as one of its bullet point - the company (like 95% of SSD
vendors) has never appeared in the
fastest SSDs list.
SSD software is a
substantive differentiating IP asset of the company. The
HALO storage OS is
integrated in all its SSD racks.
Nimbus has been shipping SSDs in its
racks since 2008
- initially as accelerator options for its HDD arrays - and since January 2009
as pure solid state storage. The company's internal hardware architecture is
what I call "open"
- in that it is based on RAID
like arrays of 2.5"
SAS SSDs which the
company designs itself and which use
eMLC. The
system price points (in Feb 2012) are around $15K / TB for high availability
systems.
The strong factors in Nimbus's SSD architecture are its
software - which in my view benefits from the company founder's unique
experience in developing unified SAN architectural concepts for more than a
decade. And by designing its own 2.5" SSDs - Nimbus is able to tweak
system architectural features - such as performance (non blocking SAS
backplane), manageability (better integration with SSD controller data), high
availability (failover routing) and cost. The flash modules are about 80% of the
hardware cost (Feb 2012).
I spoke recently (Feb 1, 2012) to Nimbus's
founder and CEO Thomas Isakovich
- about how he sees the SSD market, and Nimbus's technology and business.
From
him I learned that the company is not only profitable but debt free. And that
gives the company more freedom to pursue strategies which make sense for the
long term - compared to loss-making VC backed SSD competitors - who need to
steer down the fast lanes which lead to IPOs or acquisitions. More on this
soon. |
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In April 2008 - Nimbus announced
an
SSD accelerator option in
its Breeze H-series 10GbE IP Storage (SSD ASAP). A system with
34TB of storage, and 64GB of mirrored SSD costs about $120,000.
Nimbus
carries on the torch of a network storage operating system - which under the
name "Cloudbreak" - was first developed by Nimbus's founder at
TrueSAN Networks
.
That's the kind of groundwork thinking you need to make an
SSD accelerated storage system work economically as part of a
hybrid HDD-SSD
array - while avoiding high manual setup, tuning and configuration costs.
In January
2009 - Nimbus launched its
DH200 - a 4
port 10GbE NAS - which supports upto 10TB of flash SSD storage. See also:-
rackmount SSDs.
In
April 2010 - Nimbus
Data Systems
launched
its S-class
storage system - a 2U 10GbE rackmount SSD with 24 hot swappable
internal 6Gbps SAS
flash SSD blades in an 80W power footprint offering 5TB protected capacity for
$39,995. Powered by Nimbus' HALO storage OS the systems support
iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS
protocols and provide inline
deduplication
(typically 10 to 1), continuous local and remote replication capability
in-the-box at no additional cost. Data protection inside the box ensures that no
data is lost even with 2 simultaneous blade faults. ...read my discussion
with Nimbus's CEO
In July 2010 -
Nimbus Data Systems-
announced
higher
density in its 10 GbE rackmount SSD systems - 10TB (enterprise MLC)
in 2U - implemented as 24 x 400GB hot-swappable
SAS flash blades. The
company also announced improved connectivity - upto 120Gbps - from its internal
12 port FlexConnect 'virtual switch' which makes all storage available to all
ports without the need to create and assign volumes to specific ports. Pricing
for a 10TB system with FlexConnect is just under $110k.
In February
2011 -
Nimbus Data Systems
announced that it
achieved
profitability in its fiscal year ending December 31, 2010.
"Today's
announcement of achieving profitability marks Nimbus' maturity from an
innovative startup to an established storage player intent on achieving rapid
market expansion, unmatched innovation, and leadership in the emerging
sustainable storage and flash memory storage market," stated Thomas Isakovich,
CEO and founder of Nimbus. "Our commitment to customer satisfaction and
responsible growth reflects in this important company milestone."
In
August 2011 - Nimbus
Data Systems announced that eBay has deployed more than 100 terabytes of
Nimbus S-Class flash memory to power its VMware virtual server infrastructure.
The Nimbus solution delivered near line-rate 10 Gbps iSCSI performance to the
VMware hosts while consuming 78% less energy and 50% less rackspace than
conventional disk-based
solutions.
Nimbus also announced added
InfiniBand and
FC SAN support to its
pre-existing interface options.
In October 2011 - Nimbus
entered StorageSearch.com's quarterly list of the
top 20 SSD companies
for the first time - coming in at #16 for Q3 2011.
In January
2012 - Nimbus
announced
its entry into the
high availability
enterprise SSD market with the uveiling of the company's -
E-Class systems -
which are 2U rackmount SSDs with 10TB
eMLC per U of
usable capacity and no single point of failure. Interface support includes
unified 10GbE,
FC, and
Infiniband. Pricing
starts at $150K approx for a 10TB dual configuration system. |
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| Nimbus does
that "no spof SSD" thing |
Editor:- January 31, 2012 - Nimbus Data Systems
today
announced
its entry into the
high availability
enterprise SSD market with the uveiling of the company's -
E-Class systems -
which are 2U rackmount SSDs with 10TB
eMLC per U of
usable capacity and no single point of failure. Unified interface
support includes 10GbE,
FC, and
Infiniband.
Nimbus
software (which supports upto 0.5
petabytes in a
single SSD file system) automatically detects controller and path failures,
providing non-disruptive failover. The E-Class also supports online software
updates and online capacity expansion. It has
RAID protection and
hot-swappable flash, power, and cooling modules. Pricing starts at $150K approx
for a 10TB dual configuration system.
Editor's comments:-
Nimbus seemed incredulous at my immediate reaction to the preliminary info they
sent me. I said I knew of competing shipping SSDs which were denser, faster
and offered more HA features too. |
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But that's not to understate
the value of what the company does. Instead of being impressed by a bunch of
me-too technical metricals I was rather more impressed to learn that Nimbus
is still profitable. | | | |
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| "With Nimbus - we
have arrived at the point in this list where it's the integration of a unique
home grown software stack which makes the difference." |
| ...Editor:- from the
Q3 2011 edition of
the Top SSD Companies. | | |
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| the 3 fastest PCIe
SSDs? |
Are you tied up in
knots trying to shortlist flash SSD accelerators ranked according to
published comparative benchmarks?
You know the sort of thing I mean -
where a magazine compares 10 SSDs or a blogger compares 2 SSDs against each
other. It would be nice to have a shortlist so that you don't have to waste too
much of your own valuable time testing unsuitable candidates wouldn't it?
StorageSearch's long running
fastest SSDs directory
typically indicates 1 main product in each form factor category but those
examples may not be compatible with your own ecosystem.
If so a
new article -
the 3 fastest PCIe
SSDs list (or is it really lists?) may help you cut that Gordian
knot. Hmm... you may be thinking that StorageSearch's editor never gives easy
answers to SSD questions if more complicated ones are available.
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But in this case you'd be
wrong. (I didn't say you'd like the answers, though.) ...read the article | | | | |
