Tag NFS

Well it is finally here! Are you excited? You ought to be!

Who or what IS Infinio?!?

So I know what you’re thinking, WHAT exactly is this?!  I first came to know Infinio earlier this year when I saw just how awesome this solution is.  Imagine a solution using server-side caching to minimize and off-load I/O requests so only what is required is sent back to the your shared storage.   It essentially takes 8GB of idle memory on your ESXi hosts and creates a deduplicated cache in memory.   Okay, that’s a lot of jibber-jabber, what exactly does that mean?

If you’re using NFS today you can simply download and deploy the tool in minutes.  And then all of a sudden you’re ready to rock and roll!

The installation is as easy as this.  And then you’re ready to go with your NFS datastore being accelerated.

I’ve talked with the engineers and creators of this product and I was excited for this when it was in Alpha and Beta.  With it being GA this is infinitely more exciting!  The coolest part is, this isn’t simply a one-off solution which will impact your operations individually.  It scales with more installations!

Fortunately unlike most products these days, the dashboard doesn’t look like a disgusting pile of sin.  It’s pretty and provides relevant information!

Couple of cool things associated with this release!

• No new hardware. No reboots. No interruptions in service to install or implement.
• Accelerates all workload types
• Download on a 30 day trial and license when complete – The true “Try before you Buy”

This can basically turn your NFS into providing Flash-like performance accelerating whatever your backend storage happens to be.   Hey, worst case you can give it a try and see it for yourself!

For more details you can check out the Tech Field Day earlier this year where  Peter Smith Demonstrates Infinio Accelerator

In addition today with the special announcement day there will be a Live Webinar with Q/A today Nov 5 at 3PM EST.

I’ll unfortunately miss this awesome announcement webinar because… well, Afghanistan, timezones and I’ll be asleep at the 1AM or so that it’s at! :)

So check it out, be awesome, and rock rock rock!

Welcome to the ix4-200d! This single device is a life changer for both the active home user as well as the SOHO business user who wants to take things to the NEXT Level!

If you’re not familiar with this little beast in a box, here are some of the high-lights which this brings to bear!   NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, AFP Support, BitTorrent client, Xbox Media Services, Printer, USB, Rsync, Celerra integration, dual gigabit Ethernet?!   Oh, and did I mention it’s –VMware- Certified out of the box?!?

Now, seriously! Let’s take a tour of this little system which has taken quite a step or integration in my household!

When I first powered this system up, it sat there for awhile without me doing anything to it.  Why? This thing is SILENT! I forgot I had powered it up, and as a result didn’t even bother to check what the IP address was that it assigned itself!   Well, out of the box, it came with a RAID protection I was fine with! I had options to change it, but I’m comfortable with it!

Frankly, this covers most of what you need to do with the device and you’re set! –Done!- But that doesn’t mean you need to stop there!

Most of the features in this unit can be configured by simply checking a box and poof! You’re done!

I have mine configured in the following fashion: AFP for my Macbook to backup, NFS and iSCSI for my ESX Servers, CIFS for local network file access, Media Services to interface with my Xbox360 to stream content and pictures, rsync Server to strangely replicate the box between this ix4 and an ix2 as well as to replicate over to the Celerra VSA :)   (Oh, and the Avamar Virtual Edition running in a VM backing up all of my home machines while taking up far less space with inline deduplication :))

I don’t have Video Surveillance enabled yet, but it’s nice to know the integration is built in there! (Printers also nice, but this lives in a closet, so I’m not sure I want to do that :))

So, hopefully you get the opportunity to play around with this power house in a box, and with the ix2-200d offering the same services (but with less disks and less IOPS) Oh, and if you’re interested in buying one, it’d help if you knew the “retail” costs!

So, that gives you an idea of “retail” cost, now I’d say, go to Fry’s and try not to pay more than $599.99 for the 4TB model (Fry’s is your friend! ;))

For another great review of this, check out Stephen Foskett’s review!