NextIO shares I/O resources via PCIe virtualization approach

Within the shrinking I/O virtualization market, NextIO Inc., of Austin, Texas, has staked its claim on PCIe virtualization. The company’s V-series product line uses high-speed PCI Express technology instead of InfiniBand to consolidate and share I/O resources at the top of the rack. Read more

Amid shrinking I/O virtualization market, Xsigo I/O Director brings flexibility to IT shops

Virtual I/O, also known as I/O virtualization (IOV), hasn’t proven as popular yet as server virtualization or even storage virtualization. Most of the startups that offered the technology a few years ago are gone. Aprius Inc. and 3Leaf Systems went out of business, and Virtensys Ltd. was acquired by Micron Technology Inc. in January. At the time of the acquisition, Micron said it would use Virtensys’ PCIe virtualization technology to virtualize Micron’s solid-state drive (SSD) storage. That leaves Xsigo Systems Inc. and NextIO Inc. as dedicated I/O virtualization vendors, although larger vendors use the technology with networks running their servers and connectivity. Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Virtual Connect is an example of vendor-specific I/O virtualization. But while the options for I/O virtualization are dwindling, the need for it is not. Xsigo has been able to capitalize on the rise of virtualization in the data center and cloud computing as well as renewed interest in InfiniBand to gain traction with its Xsigo I/O Director, which connects x86 servers to any storage or network devices. Read more

Iomega adds SMB NAS with Ivy Bridge processor, native antivirus

Iomega Corp. continued its push into the upper echelon of the SMB storage market today with the introduction of the 2U high-performance px12-450r network attached storage (NAS) array. The px12-450r uses the new Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2 “Ivy Bridge” processor. The system runs on McAfee’s VirusScan Enterprise for Linux natively on the storage device, supports 10-Gigabit Ethernet networking and 3 TB SATA drives with the capability to handle 4 TB drives when they hit the market. Read more

Virsto software adds support for XenDesktop VDI environments

Virsto Software Corp. has identified improving virtual desktop storage performance as a major area where its software aimed at improving virtual machine (VM) I/O can help. This week it released a beta version of Virsto for Citrix Systems Inc.’s XenDesktop 5.5 virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platform on VMware vSphere.

Virsto for XenDesktop follows the company’s vSphere support release in January and its initial product launch for Microsoft Hyper-V in February 2010.

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CloudSigma offers SLA-guaranteed SSD cloud

CloudSigma AG, a Zurich, Switzerland-based cloud computing service provider, is adding a solid-state drive (SSD) cloud storage service backed by service-level agreements (SLAs) for performance and availability. CloudSigma launched the cloud service in a private beta program this week, and plans to make it generally available later this year. Read more

Pivot3 pivots more toward VDI, View

Pivot3 is continuing its push in the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) space by working closer with VMware.

Last week, Pivot3 announced that its virtual storage and compute (vSTAC) line of appliances for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments for SMBs now support VMware’s View 5.1 virtual desktop system as part of the Pivot3’s participation in VMware’s Rapid Desktop Program.

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