Ginneblog

Fusion-io is bringing a whole new meaning to SSD – Super Speedy Database.

Last week I had lunch with Sumeet Bansal, Fusion-io’s Principal Solutions Architect. Fusion-io is a producer of enterprise-class SSDs (Solid State Drives, as opposed to HDDs – Hard Disk Drives). Fusion-io applies flash memory to large-scale enterprise storage products like Storage Area Networks. I first met Sumeet when he was VP of IT at Wine.com.

Part of our discussion was about their products, and how they differ from the competition.  SSDs can be very fast.  They can also be pretty rugged, as they have no moving parts.  They are more expensive per GB than conventional hard drives – at least for now.  SSDs eventually wear out – each spot on the NAND Flash Chip can be exercised a finite number of times before it stops working.

Key points regarding Fusion-io’s  ioDrive:

Performance of NAND Flash Chips is extremely fast. Read latency is an order of magnitude faster than conventional HDDs.  But the Fusion-io ioDrive removes the IO bottleneck and makes the cpu utilization more efficient.  Fusion-io decided to adopt a PCIe architecture rather than dealing with the multiple layers of protocols necessary to implement a SATA interface.  I reviewed performance results at HotHardWare, and it’s clear that they are getting a big performance advantage.

They have the wear under control.  Their controller spreads the “wear” across the entire drive, giving them excellent life (1.2 million hours MTBF!)

The rest of our discussion was around how the ioDrive could be used most effectively on different platforms we work with a lot at DesignMind. There is work to be done regarding Best Practices for implementing SSD technology for SQL Server, SharePoint, Exchange, and other key Microsoft Server tools.  We look forward to working with Fusion-io to help them develop Best Practices, Performance Benchmarks, and Case Studies.

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A prospective DesignMind client in San Francisco is making modest use of SharePoint 2003, and is considering a move to MOSS 2007.  The reasoning is good. They can do an incremental rollout, and gain immediate value from SharePoint’s ability to index documents, including PDFs.

In preparation for the meeting, I had to refresh my memory in two very important areas.  First, I needed a Comparison of the features of SharePoint 2003 with those of MOSS 2007. 

The second major question to answer was which features are included in each version of SharePoint?  

Here’s another useful site Comparing WSS and MOSS. 

The last gem I uncovered was an excellent PowerPoint file covering the Functionality in MOSS 2007 and Office 2007.  This is a great resource for those thinking about leveraging the integration Microsoft has delivered in these two major toolsets.  It will help us make the right recommendations to our clients when it comes to purchasing Standard vs. Enterprise Client Access Licenses. 

No doubt there’s a ton of information to sift through on MOSS.  Next I’ll look forward to reviewing the comparisons between MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2010.  I must say I’m pleased that Microsoft is making our lives easier by by shifting back to the name SharePoint rather than MOSS…read my June 3rd Ginneblog post for more on the rollout of SharePoint 2010.

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