The company sells its 3000-series Flash Memory Array and 6000-series Flash Memory Array as faster and more compact alternatives to traditional data-center disk arrays, primarily for databases and other core business applications. When all costs are considered, the flash-based systems cost about the same as disk arrays and offer three or four times the performance, according to Narayan Venkat, Violin's vice president of products.

The software upgrade for the 3000 and 6000, scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter, will include some capabilities that are already available on many disk-based platforms. In Violin's products these capabilities have been optimized for flash storage, Venkat said. To meet enterprises' requirements, the software includes deduplication for efficient use of capacity, virtual-machine snapshots and cloning for data protection, thin provisioning for efficient deployment, and data replication for disaster recovery.

"They've come to rely on storage systems to facilitate the process of backup, disaster prevention, disaster recovery [and] rapid provisioning for these applications," Venkat said. Having these features helps to make Violin's systems an easy "drop-in" alternative to disk storage, he said.

Violin developed the software in collaboration with Symantec, using a software stack from that company in a custom implementation for Violin's platforms, Venkat said. The partnership is not exclusive. Most of the new features will be free to existing customers, with the exception of replication and some other capabilities, he said.

A Violin solid-state platform that takes up 3U (5.25 vertical inches) of rack space can do the same job as four full racks of spinning disks, according to Venkat. Hard disks can pack more data in a given space, but critical "tier 1" applications such as databases need speed more than density. To deliver high speed, multiple hard disks are often configured in ways that aren't efficient for space or cost, so flash can serve those applications more effectively, he said.