Schooner Information Technology, Inc., a developer of high-availability, high-performance SQL database software, has released the latest version of its software cache and persistent data store, Membrain 4.0. Running on Dell, HP, and IBM x86 servers and optimized to take advantage of flash memory and modern multi-core processors, the latest release of Membrain aims to deliver 10x server consolidation, thus simplifying capacity and performance scale out in data centers.
Organizations that scale software cache or data stores have traditionally been forced to shard their data sets in DRAM on multiple servers to achieve satisfactory performance, according to Schooner. The company says this practice is inefficient and expensive and that this is something that Membrain 4.0 seeks to resolve. "Membrain works on any standard Dell, HP, or IBM server and is unique in fully exploiting flash memory," Jerry Rudisin, CEO of Schooner, tells 5 Minute Briefing. This allows organizations to perform "extreme vertical scaling" with "DRAM-type speeds and performance," he explains.
Schooner's Membrain 4.0 has a number of new features that translate into significant cost savings for its customers, according to the company. Support for flash memory has doubled, from 512GB to 1TB on each x86 server. "We're able to typically replace 10 to 20 DRAM-based caching servers with a single Schooner server with a terabyte of flash - tremendous cost savings in terms of capital and operating expense," notes Dr. John Busch, founder and CTO of Schooner. Additionally, Schooner has implemented an improved graphical user interface in Membrain 4.0 for greater management and monitoring capabilities.
Membrain 4.0's utilization of flash memory is a noteworthy development in the data stores market, according to Schooner. "Flash is really completely transforming data stores, both databases and caching key-value stores," explains Busch, who says that Schooner has a unique position as "the only cache key-value store that effectively utilizes flash."
For more information, visit www.schoonerinfotech.com.