A November 30 Fusion-io blog entry, Cisco and Fusion-io Tackle Big Data with Oracle NoSQL, highlights blazing NoSQL big data performance achieved by a Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) configured with server-based Fusion ioDrive2  SSD. The blog and linked Cisco Solution Brief discuss the importance of near-real-time performance when running operations on user profile data in an e-commerce transaction scenario. Fast performance is key to e-commerce customer satisfaction and can be difficult to achieve with the widely fluctuating workloads typical of a busy e-commerce site.

Fusion-io and Cisco make a compelling argument for SSD in near-real-time big data scenarios and for server-based SSD in particular. However, it’s important to remember that for business critical big data applications, you need scalability and bulletproof reliability as well. There’s another solution that is both more reliable and more efficient than server-based SSD: SSD arrays such as the Kaminario K2.  Here are some reasons why you should consider an SSD array, and, specifically, a Kaminario K2 with its Scale-out Performance Storage Architecture (SPEAR), for your near-real-time big data needs. Read the rest of this entry »