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Nimbus Data Systems

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 page


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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Nimbus - recent milestones and comments from SSD Market History

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.
high availabaility SSD arrays 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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flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome
Have you ever wondered how the amount of flash inside a flash SSD compares to the capacity shown on the invoice?

What you see isn't always what you get.
nothing surprised the penguins - click to read  the article There can be huge variations in different designs as vendors leverage invisible internal capacity to tweak key performance and reliability parameters. ...read the article
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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.
the 3 fastest  PCIe SSDs  - click to read article But in this case you'd be wrong. (I didn't say you'd like the answers, though.) ...read the article
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