Viking Enterprise Solutions, a division of Sanmina Corporation, and Kalray announced a collaboration to develop FLASHBOX, a new generation of storage arrays.
The solution will be built around Viking Enterprise Solutions’ fully resilient VDS2249R system and Kalray’s smart storage acceleration card, which leverages Kalray’s MPPA DPU (Data Processing Unit) processor.
As technology applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, image processing, and analytics continue to proliferate and generate massive amounts of data every second of every day, the demand for fast and high-capacity storage solutions has increased dramatically, the companies state.
While current SSD technology has evolved to address this issue, direct SSD attachment results in inefficient processing and storage waste.
To address this, newer NVMe disaggregated storage solutions are emerging that utilise a hyper-fast and industry-standard NVMe protocol to separate compute and storage resources, thereby improving and optimising storage systems.
Viking Enterprise Solutions and Kalray are collaborating to develop an NVME disaggregated storage solution that addresses common storage challenges such as performance bottlenecks while maintaining plug-and-play simplicity of use at an affordable price.
FLASHBOX will be built on the MPPA DPU from Kalray, a new generation of fully programmable data-centric processors. Whereas the majority of All-Flash Array solutions today use multiple adapter cards with CPUs (x86) to run storage services, Kalray runs all critical functions of a disaggregated storage appliance on a single chip: the Kalray MPPA DPU.
According to the companies, key target markets include artificial intelligence, high performance computing, life sciences, and financial industries that require low latency, high performance storage.
The new storage array solution, which is designed to improve integration, speed, and performance, will be unveiled in late September at a digital event.
“By partnering with Viking Enterprise Solutions, we share the same vision,” says Kalray CEO Eric Baissus. To be widely adopted, new technologies must be simple to implement and affordable.
“To that end, we are honoured to collaborate with Viking Enterprise Solutions on reimagining how storage appliances are designed. Our shared goal with FLASHBOX is to revolutionise the storage industry by introducing a new generation of high-performance, low-power, cost-effective storage appliances based on NVMe technology.”
“We want to transform the way the industry uses and processes data by maximising the potential of existing and emerging NVMe SSD technologies without sacrificing enterprise-grade features like high availability and scalability,” says Viking Enterprise Solutions SVP Rick Kumar.
Kumar asserts, “Our collaboration with Kalray will enable the development of a new generation of storage array solutions for the cloud and edge, utilising Kalray’s best-in-class smart storage acceleration card, the K200-LP.”
