New Low-cost Solution to High-end File Server Performance Requirements

Montilio and Penguin Computing today announced that Penguin Computing will offer Linux server configurations that include Montilio's RapidFile(TM) storage-to-LAN gateway on a PCI card for the fastest storage access file server configuration available. One RapidFile-enabled Penguin Computing server will be able to provide the I/O throughput of four traditional multi-processor systems without the prohibitive configuration cost of a 4-CPU or 8-CPU system. These Penguin Computing servers with RapidFile cards are ideal solutions for customers in the high performance computing (HPC) or enterprise markets with significant storage capacity and performance needs.

Montilio's RapidFile server I/O engine plugs into file servers, network attached storage (NAS) gateways and NAS appliances, dramatically increasing data transfer performance by 200% to 500%, the most of any comparable solution on the market. Combined with cost-effective Linux servers from Penguin Computing, these file servers are capable of exceeding 400MBytes/sec of file protocol bandwidth, reducing total cost of ownership and increasing the return on investment of existing disk arrays and storage area network (SAN) installations.

"While Penguin Computing customers will not notice a change to our easy to deploy and manage servers, they will definitely notice an improvement in file server performance that makes Penguin Computing servers the only logical choice for price and performance conscious customers," said Pauline Nist, Senior Vice President of Product Development and Management of Penguin Computing. "Integrating Montilio's record-setting file server technology with our platforms is another example of Penguin Computing's commitment to giving customers the latest, most useful technology as soon as it is available -- at a price point that is affordable for every type of customer."

"Montilio's top-performing RapidFile card and Penguin Computing's highest quality servers are a powerful combination," said Michael Tsuk, CEO of Montilio. "With Penguin's growing market share in high-performance computing and storage-demanding applications utilizing their best-of-breed Linux servers, they are an ideal partner for Montilio."

"IT uses NAS over a regular server acting as a file server primarily for two reasons: simplicity and performance," said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of the Taneja Group. "Well, if you live in the world of Linux servers, you now can get blazing NFS and CIFS performance simply by adding the Montilio card into a regular server. The performance you get is greater than what you would expect from a powerful and much more expensive NAS box. HPC customers cannot ignore this product if they want to maximize their ROI."

The RapidFile card is available with both Penguin Computing's Altus and Relion® 2U server configurations. The operating systems supported include Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4. Penguin Computing is featuring their Linux servers with RapidFile technology at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, August 14-17, booth #409.

RapidFile

Montilio's RapidFile ultra-fast server I/O engine elegantly avoids the common but inefficient practice of adding CPUs and memory to increase performance -- enabling organizations to boost their data transfer rate while saving thousands of dollars in server or NAS costs. Taking a proven concept from the field of data routers and applying it for the first time to network- based file servers, RapidFile separates the control and data paths. The host processor continues to perform control and maintenance tasks while heavy data movement is bypassed entirely by RapidFile. This frees the host memory, PCI bus and host processor for their primary tasks, enabling them to efficiently handle meta-data and other applications.

http://www.montilio.com/
http://www.penguincomputing.com