Fungible announced a significant upgrade to its Fungible Storage Cluster (FSC) with the FSC 4.0 software release. FSC is an All-Flash NVMe over TCP disaggregated storage platform that leverages the Fungible DPU to deliver the only workload-centric block storage system that empowers the cloudification of data centers.

Built on the success of FSC, the new release brings the Fungible DPU to the host by introducing the Fungible Storage Initiator. Powered by the Fungible DPU, the Fungible Storage Initiator enables NVMe/TCP offload at the host, and advanced, line-speed data security and efficiency functionality. The Fungible Storage Initiator accelerates workloads and offloads NVMe/TCP from CPUs. Servers can now focus on the application while the FSC handles protocol processing and storage virtualization. The benefits of the Fungible Storage Initiator, in tandem with FSC, were validated by San Diego Supercomputer Center and announced late last year.

In addition to the Fungible Storage Initiator, the FSC 4.0 release brings a suite of new software features for both new and existing customers. FSC has the highest performance network erasure coding (EC) in the market. Now this performance is available starting with a cluster as small as three FS1600 storage nodes. The FSC 4.0 release does this by introducing the EC 2+1 volume type, which delivers the efficiency of erasure coding, spreading volume data across as few as three storage nodes. This configuration is particularly useful for disaggregating instance storage.

"Storage consumers want an elastic block storage experience defined by the ability to create volumes tuned to their workloads, either manually or programmatically, while abstracting the storage infrastructure itself," explains Toby Owen, VP of Product at Fungible. "Storage administrators want to offer a cloud-like experience while minimizing the systems they manage. The efficiency and durability of EC 2+1 erasure coding in FSC 4.0 is attractive for edge data centers that are space constrained. It allows organizations to minimize their total number of systems and avoid storage silos and islands of performance. This will empower infrastructure professionals to accelerate data center scale on their terms."

Fungible understands that data protection requirements are very specific to each workload, and that many applications have the capability to provide data protection services above the storage layer. With the FSC 4.0 release, Fungible adds a feature of a single-replicated RF1 volume. This industry-first feature combines the performance of raw NVMe storage with compression and encryption data services usually offered only to durable volumes. Now, storage volumes can be created to offer the benefits of managed storage without the potential unnecessary overhead of durability at the storage layer, letting customers make the most of their storage investment. All the volume types corresponding to the various workloads can happily coexist in the same FSC cluster.

"Today's enterprise wants their on-prem infrastructure to offer the benefits of the cloud experience. The Fungible Storage Cluster brings this elastic block storage experience with volumes tuned to match the workload requirements," stated Eric Burgener, Research VP, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group at IDC.

According to Scott Sinclair, Practice Director at ESG, "On-premises data centers are following in the footsteps of cloud and moving towards more consumption-based offerings. Even so, data centers continue to be littered with inefficiencies, forcing IT infrastructure specialists to compromise often leading to wasted energy, money, and other resources, especially at scale. The latest iteration of the FSC architecture, however, delivers linear scalability in performance and capacity. It can help businesses realize the benefits of economies of scale without sacrificing economies of scope and eliminate the complexity of managing storage in a dynamic environment."