Pivot3, a pioneer and innovator in the development of hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), today announced it has been granted two new important patents in hyper-convergence technology. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Pivot3 U.S. Patent No. 9,086,821 for its “Method and system for execution of applications in conjunction with RAID” and U.S. Patent No. 9,146,695 for “Method and System for Distributed RAID.”

Pivot3 now holds 22 issued patents, many seminal in the hyper-convergence and Software Defined Storage space.

The first patent broadly covers hyper-converged systems that aggregate storage across nodes to form a virtual storage area network (SAN) and run applications on the same homogeneous, off-the-shelf units. Pivot3’s patented Global hyper-convergence software, vSTAC OS, combines multiple physical drives from separate nodes into a single, flexible storage resource that also supports server virtualization on the same hardware. With 12 years of continuous focus on performance, Pivot3’s hyper-converged solutions are able to deliver maximum processing performance to run IT workloads by keeping processing overhead to less than seven percent of compute resources.

The second new patent recognizes Pivot3’s refinements in its unique Software Defined Storage (SDS) technology, which creates a cross-node virtual SAN that can be accessed as a unified storage target by any application running on the cluster.

“Hyper-convergence is now universally recognized for its potential to deeply disrupt the IT infrastructure space,” said Ron Nash, CEO of Pivot3. “More than ever, there is a huge focus on the growing role for hyper-convergence in the data center. Many vendors are recognizing this and are positioning themselves to be part of this important technology wave. Pivot3’s newest patents confirm our position as a pioneer in this space and validates our unique vision for hyper-convergence.”

Pivot3 has invested significant resources to apply its intellectual property to areas of IT infrastructure that need both high storage performance and robust data protection at an affordable price. As data center customers tackle unprecedented levels of infrastructure complexity, Pivot3’s continuously optimized SDS technology gives enterprises a powerful alternative to stand-alone storage products and simply converged systems.

“Delivering highly fault tolerant and efficient storage without sacrificing compute performance is the most challenging aspect of hyper-converged infrastructure because it requires deep, specialized expertise and long-term dedication to arrive at the necessary level of optimization,” said Bill Galloway, vice president and chief technology officer of Pivot3. “Our solutions and latest hyper-convergence and SDS patents are truly about addressing this issue. We were the first to create a virtual SAN that also has the ability to run applications very effectively. This points to the technological differentiation and maturity of Pivot3’s products and the focus on low total cost of ownership (TCO) that we bring to customers.”