CloudSigma Puts SSDs in the Cloud

Announced at the Cloud Computing Expo 2011 conference, CloudSigma’s SSD Storage Product, coupled with 10G Ethernet access, means that the CloudSigma service can meet the performance demands of just about any mission-critical application, said CloudSigma CTO Robert Jenkins.

Jenkins says the addition of SSDs to the cloud is critical because the combination of virtual servers and magnetic storage is creating a major I/O performance bottleneck. SSDs alleviate that issue because they make it easier to handle random I/O requests that are frequently generated in a public cloud computing environment.

According to Jenkins, CloudSigma is the first public cloud computing service to deploy SSDs. While Jenkins concedes that others will probably soon follow suit, the ability to rapidly deploy SSDs illustrates how modular and open the CloudSigma platform is, which was designed from the ground up to support an operating system running on servers of any size. The SSD arrays currently in use are custom systems built by CloudSigma, but Jenkins says that CloudSigma will certify commercial SSD offerings as they become more available.

The addition of SSDs not only addresses performance issues, adds Jenkins, but also eliminates cost issues arising from under-utilized servers and over-provisioned storage drives that typically lead to storage sprawl.