Hewlett-Packard is working with Fusion-io (DEMOfall 07) to adapt the start-up's high-performance, solid-state input/outputstorage technology to HP's enterprise servers to improve their dataaccess performance and energy efficiency.
While the companies didn'tannounce a timeline, Fusion-io's ioMemory architecture is expected tobe in HP enterprise servers, including the industry-leading HPBladeSystem c-Class system, shipping in 2009.
"Combining Fusion-io's ioMemory architecture with HP servers willallow customers to deploy high-performance storage solutions for theirapplication needs while reducing requirements for data center space,power, and cooling." said Lee Johns, HP's director of marketing forStorageWorks Entry Storage and Storage Blades.
"With our ioMemory architecture, we're getting more than 200,000IOPS within HP BladeSystem c-Class server blades today," said DonBasile, Fusion-io's chief executive officer. "So, working together withHP was the natural place to begin building upon our next generationtechnology."
Basile took over the CEO position of the Salt Lake City company fromco-founder Rick White in February. White is the company's chiefmarketing officer. Fusion-ioclosed a US$19 million series A funding round lead by NEA New EnterpriseAssociates March 31. Recently, the company doubled its staff to about100 employees.
While the current economic slowdown is troublesome for mostbusinesses, it is turning into a boon for Fusion-io. More than 50Fortune 100 companies are in trials with the company's ioMemory andioDrive products, which began shipping in April.
"IT spending in capital and operational costs is getting renewedfocus," Basile said. "Companies are squeezing millions out of theirbudgets. This recession has been a great positive for us because largecompanies are speeding up their efforts to test and adopt ourtechnology as a way of saving themselves money. They are pushing us andwe're seeing a lot of innovative ways to solve a lot of high painpoints they have."
Given the need for companies to save money and "go green" by drivingdown energy use, Fusion-io is on track to go public "in as short aperiod as possible - within 24 months," Basile predicts.
