OCZ Technology has announced the general availability of the version 1.2 of its VXL cache and virtualization software, enabling host-based distributed flash volumes with advanced services that include High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT). This release provides a solution that features enterprise caching, support for virtualized services and distributed flash volumes that dynamically share its SSD resources amongst any virtual machine (VM) that resides on the local server or on other servers in the virtualized environment.

The OCZ VXL software works in conjunction with OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs to provide a combined virtualization solution that enables efficient on-demand distribution of flash, maximizing application performance. The transparent distribution of all unallocated flash as a dynamic cache resource assures that the flash is optimally utilized at all times, regardless of how many VMs are running concurrently. As an added benefit, VXL software does not require guest agents or special drivers within the application VM, and the solution works with any operating system supported by a virtualization hypervisor.

With new capabilities pioneered by OCZ, this latest Version 1.2 release of VXL enables Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD flash volumes to be virtualized so the software can perform such advanced services as HA and end-to-end FT from within the virtualization host without the need for any back-end SAN or storage appliance. For these HA and FT ‘SAN-less’ data center scenarios, flash data is synchronously replicated through mirroring by VXL software (between Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD cards residing on redundant cluster servers) to assure that host-based flash is treated as a continuously available storage resource across virtualized clusters. This approach yields no data loss and no VM downtime even during complete server failures.

“By combining the power of storage virtualization and PCIe flash caching, and by working centrally with the hypervisor rather than with each local VM, we have developed a solution that takes full advantage of flash without losing any of the benefits associated with virtualization. VXL’s ability to transparently distribute flash resources across virtualized environments provides IT professionals with a simple to implement solution that maximizes the return on investment from flash by unleashing the full power of their virtualized data center servers,” said Dr. Allon Cohen, Vice President of Software and Solutions, OCZ Technology.

VXL software includes a range of differential advantages over competitive products as follows:

• Enables flash cache physically located in one host server to be shared across remote servers simultaneously
• Does not require guest agents within application VMs dramatically simplifying deployment
• Supports all guest operating systems supported by hypervisors
• Supports dynamic VM migration from one server to another (e.g. VMware vMotion) without the loss of cache
• Enables SAN-less data center virtualized services as part of an all-silicon cluster
• Reduces data traffic to and from the SAN by up to 90%
• Enables up to 10 times the number of VMs on the same physical host

OCZ’s VXL software version 1.2 is now being deployed at selective customer sites. With this general availability announcement, existing VXL software customers with support options will be able to upgrade to this latest release through their OCZ enterprise support contacts.

Tags: OCZ, SSD, NAND, Flash, Z-Drive