Astute Sees Strong Momentum as Demand for Flash Storage for Virtual and Physical Environments Escalates

Online, January 16, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Astute NetworksTM, Inc., the leading provider of performance storage appliances, today announced strong growth in 2012 as demand for its ViSX family of networked flash solutions for virtual and physical environments escalates. Astute has pioneered a network-attached flash appliance technology to overcome the application performance limitations common in demanding virtual and physical environments.

The impact of flash storage was significant in 2012, but it will explode in 2013. According to IDC the solid state storage market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 51.5% and will continue to grow to $5.8 billion by 2015. Astute is capitalizing on this burgeoning market opportunity to help enterprises easily overcome the performance barriers plaguing their I/O-intensive application environments.

Applications such as virtualized databases and VDI have demanding I/O performance characteristics that legacy storage architectures were never designed to support. The Astute ViSX performance storage appliance was purpose-built to address I/O-intensive applications. ViSX incorporates the patented DataPump EngineTM processor that completely offloads and dramatically accelerates network and storage protocol processing. The combination of a network-optimized flash and an advanced protocol processor eliminates all critical I/O bottlenecks that affect application and VDI performance and delivers unprecedented random IOPS performance and IOPS per dollar.

The Evaluator Group validated Astute Networks, as delivering the industry's best VDI performance at the lowest cost in its industry benchmark report. As a result, the Evaluator Group concluded that Astute's ViSX Flash-based storage appliance offered:

o The industry's lowest cost storage device on a per VDI user basis

o The highest number of VDI users for any iSCSI connected storage device

o The Industry's highest IOPS for any iSCSI connected storage device

Key Astute milestones in 2012 include the following:

Close of $12 million in Series B financing, led by Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC), the investment arm of Samsung Group, the world's leading provider of NAND Flash memory

Unveiled ViSX G4 performance storage appliance featuring Astute's 100 percent Networked Flash™ architecture and game-changing, patented DataPump Engine™. ViSX G4 eliminates the barriers to virtualizing Tier 1 business-critical applications, broadly deploying VDI, and increasing VM density. ViSX G4 can increase application performance by up to 10x in a matter of minutes

Appointed former HP and LeftHand sales veteran Steve Kucker as vice president of sales, former Virtual Instruments marketing executive Len Rosenthal as senior vice president of marketing, and former EMC financial executive Brooke Beers as CFO

Launched AstuteNET partner program to enhance growth and profit for distributors, resellers, system integrators, and service providers selling Astute's ViSX performance storage appliances

Storage Magazine named Astute Networks a 2012 Product of the Year finalist in the Enterprise Storage System category

CRN Magazine selected Astute Networks among the top "10 Hot Tech Startups for June 2012" and one of "The 10 Coolest Startups of 2012"

"From day one we designed a networked flash solution that eliminates performance barriers impacting virtual and physical applications today and tomorrow," said Len Rosenthal, senior vice president of marketing, Astute Networks. "As the virtualization market continues to explode, so does the need for scalable, reliable, low cost solid state storage that can deliver the performance improvements that help organizations realize the true potential of their virtual infrastructure investments. We are perfectly positioned to capitalize on this dramatic market opportunity wave with one of the most game-changing solutions in the industry."

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About Astute Networks

Astute is the leading provider of performance storage appliances for physical and virtual environments that increase performance, enhance user productivity, and lower IT costs. The company's ViSX family of Networked Flash appliances is based on a 100% solid state Flash technology that cost-effectively delivers a high number of sustained IOPS to dramatically increase application performance. Powered by its patented DataPump Engine™, ViSX overcomes performance limitations by non-disruptively delivering shared performance to all servers and virtual machines over pervasively deployed Ethernet networks. ViSX is available through the company's network of authorized AstuteNet channel partners. For more information, visit www.astutenetworks.com.

Astute Networks, Networked flash, ViSX G4, DataPump Engine, and FlashWRX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Astute Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Contact:
Sabrina Sanchez
The Ventana Group for Astute Networks
Chantilly, VA
(925) 785-3014
[email protected]
http://www.theventanagroup.com