Fusion I/O’s CEO interview & Woz 62 B-day

 August 1, 2012 – We had the opportunity to talk to Fusion IO CEO David Flynn before the big Woz 62 birthday event in SF on August first. David introduced their new ION software stack for their SSD products that allow for a software configurable storage system. This software allows the enterprise management console to configure the Fusion IO controller as an FC, iSCSI or Infiniband with up to 6GB/s throughput and under 0.06mS latency.

A key aspect of this technology is the ability to configure the units for multiple virtualization configurations in just software, and this pushes all the way in to tuning the application to the amount of over-provisioning of the Flash cores. The software also allows a number of advanced features including the creation of RAID sets, LUN creation and management, SNMP, and performance monitoring.

Using this configuration with their MLC based SSD solution, in capacities up to 20TB in an high temp approved enterprise design, it has been adopted as a leading global media and entertainment solution. The early access customers added ION systems to accelerate a number of key applications, achieving a 25x improvement in SQL Server performance, an 8x improvement in transcoding performance (a nominal 2hr task, now done in 15 min) and up to 40x acceleration improvements on a variety of other applications such as NLE and Rendering. Based on the use model in the high throughput tier, the MLC has been optimized for a more balanced read/write ratio than standard SSDs.

Fusion IO CEO David Flynn and Chief Scientist Steve Wozniak

The same evening, David acted as host – not just CEO- for the Fusion IO Chief Scientist – Steve Wozniak- 62nd birthday party in San Francisco. He presented Woz with a map of his DNA both in a piece of printed art and in the form of a decorated birthday cake.

Steve Wozniak & M&E Editor Lidia Paulinska-Thompson

The event was attended by press, family & friends and clients of Fusion IO. In addition to having the Woz meet our newest staff editor Lidia Paulinska-Thompson, we had the opportunity to engage in conversation with Bridge Bank EVP Ed Lambert and his wife, as well as Woz’s brother Mark Wozniak. The festive occasion featured party hats, noise makers, confetti and two Woz items – a pin from the 1983 US festival organized by Steve and a pink boa similar to the one he wore on Dancing with the Stars.

Mrs Ed Lambert, Mark Wozniak, Lidia Paulinska-Thompson