OREANDA-NEWS. The first Violin Forum in Russia was dedicated to flash technology solutions and was held on September 25 at the Swissotel Conference Center (Moscow) by Violin Memory and Open Systems Publications. CROC was a strategic partner of the Forum.

Major companies experience data volume increases during both periods of revenue growth and economic recession because business management is always online and new analytical tasks appear each day. However, greater data volume increases data storage requirements and typical disk solutions either cannot cope with operational loads, or become enormous and extremely difficult to maintain. As a result, new all-flash products are replacing these solutions and accelerating business processes in a more cost-efficient way that seemed impossible before. The Violin Forum was a landmark event for Russia and showed major companies that they now have the opportunity to discontinue large investments in heavy data storage systems. The forum attracted approximately 100 attendees, including CIOs, IT directors and heads of IT Departments in large organizations from the banking, telecom, energy and other sectors.

"Violin Memory was founded in 2005 and has officially operated in Russia for about a year already. During that time it has created service capabilities, a solution demonstration platform, and a sales channel in order to make innovation fully available in our country. We are enjoying working with our first customers, who are all satisfied and provide feedback showing that the epoch of enormous High-End data storage systems is coming to an end-a process which is as inevitable as dinosaur extinction. Now, highly reliable data centers can be built without heavy disk data storage systems and our all-flash arrays allow for significant operational cost savings and faster operation of high performance applications almost free of charge. The use of this technology has been a success story for recognized leaders such as AOL, SONY, Carrefour, Sinopec, etc. and the same benefits are now available to Russian companies," said Maxim Zubarev, Head of Violin Memory Representative Office in Russia and the CIS.

During the forum, top managers and key specialists from Violin Memory, CROC, Raiffeisenbank, Ingosstrakh, OCS and other attendees shared their vision for data storage market development, flash technology advantages and real-life case studies.

"All-flash data storage systems provide two key customer benefits: dramatically faster operation of applications and cost savings due to possible server consolidation and a reduced number of DBMS licenses," said Mick Bradley, Managing Director of EMEA, Violin Memory. "This changes business models and 'unbinds' applications which used to suffer from a long response time from the data storage system. Traditional data storage vendors also try to use flash technology but mostly produce either SSD solutions, or hybrids with disk architecture. However, Violin Memory offers arrays built from scratch and especially for flash memory, thus allowing for the realization of the full potential of a flash chip and the benefits that make flash memory so attractive."

"Analysts believe that, by the end of 2014, approximately 10% of the most needed corporate information in Russia will be stored in flash. Also, all-flash data storage is transforming from an expensive niche solution to a mainstream one due to a decrease in product prices and raising customer awareness of flash technology benefits. It was through the successful implementation of Violin Memory systems in Raiffeisenbank that we became closely acquainted with flash technology and, as the vendor's first partner in Russia, it was natural for us to support the forum. Flash technology is behind one of the most prominent IT revolutions in recent years and I am sure that enterprise data storage has an all-flash future and that there will be many successful projects in this area in the future," remarked Boris Bobrovnikov, Director General, CROC.

Attendees were mostly interested in presentations made by the first Russian customers, who purchased Violin Memory all-flash arrays. In particular, Victor Kuzmenko, Head of Systems Administration Division, Ingosstrakh, shared experience in applying flash memory for data processing, storage and analysis. In addition, Alexander Kazakov, Head of Technological Infrastructure, Raiffeisenbank, told attendees about using flash technology for desktop virtualization, "The project was mainly aimed at centralizing IT capacities and reducing maintenance costs. Virtual workstation configuration and a profound upgrade of data storage were vital so that our 9,000 employees throughout Russia could remotely operate bank systems; and Violin Memory all-flash data storage systems turned out to be by far the most cost-effective solution, requiring significantly less physical space than typical alternatives. As a result, it was a clear choice. We witnessed ourselves how flash technology could accelerate processes in the case of remote work and I was pleased to share this experience with my colleagues at the Forum."