By Dawn Richcreek VP Marketing at Condusiv Technologies

Businesses depend on fast data. Fast data requires systems that are tuned and optimized for speed. Even new, “modern”, and expensive systems will slow if not set-up to dynamically accelerate data for maximum performance.

Causes of Data and Throughput Slows

There are 2 severe I/O inefficiencies that cause performance and reliability problems, robbing 30-40% of your throughput. First, is the windows file system tends to break up writes into separate storage I/Os which causes I/O characteristics that are much smaller, more fractured, and more random than they need to be. Second is storage I/O contention, also known as the I/O Blender Effect, which happens when you have multiple systems all sharing the same storage resource. Performance is penalized twice by these storage I/O inefficiencies causing systems to process workloads about 50% slower than they should.

DymaxIO Fast Data Software

DymaxIO is fast data software. It is the most cost-effective, easy, and indispensable solution for increased throughput and accelerated I/O performance, so systems and applications run at peak speed. DymaxIO utilizes AI (artificial intelligence) to detect and deploy the appropriate performance enhancement technologies for the exact individual system so organizations can boost performance without overspending on hardware.

DymaxIO eliminates the two big I/O inefficiencies in Windows environments that generate a minimum of 30-40% of noisy I/O traffic causing performance and reliability problems. By installing DymaxIO organizations can expect an immediate performance boost in virtualized environments, MS-SQL workloads, Oracle on Windows, ERP, VDI, EHR (MEDITECH), Business Intelligence (BI) apps, CRM, Exchange, SharePoint, file servers, backup, and more.

Condusiv Technologies guarantees that you will get better than new performance from systems using DymaxIO.

Even Faster Than New

DymaxIO further accelerates data for maximum I/O performance with its patented IntelliMemory® a DRAM read caching engine that establishes a tier-0 cache strategy to serve hot reads from idle, available DRAM that is otherwise unused. This engine operates automatically and dynamically in the background, which means no tuning is required. Nothing has to be allocated for cache since DymaxIO dynamically adjusts moment-by-moment to only what is otherwise unused, so there is never an issue of memory contention. Systems commonly serve 50% of their read traffic from DRAM with just 4GB of available memory. If a system is memory constrained at any moment then DymaxIO’s caching engine backs off entirely. Condusiv guarantees that you will get better than new performance from systems using DymaxIO.

Don’t Overspend on Hardware

“I developed Diskeeper 34 years ago because SysAdmins were spending their weekends doing ‘backup-and-restore’ to fix performance problems due to fragmentation,” said Craig Jensen Condusiv CEO. “We have come a long way since then. We have the best engineers on the planet who have consistently evolved and improved our software from automatic defrag on spinning disks to fragmentation prevention, to multiple, patented technologies to optimize performance in virtual environments, on all-flash, and in the cloud. New DymaxIO automatically detects the type of hardware on which it is installed and deploys the appropriate performance enhancement technologies for that exact individual system so organizations can boost performance without overspending on hardware.

SSDs, all-flash, hyper-converged, and cloud platforms

DymaxIO dynamically accelerates data for maximum I/O performance, no matter the underlying storage. By solving I/O inefficiencies at the source, DymaxIO improves application performance, increases throughput 30-40%, reduces latency, increases VDI capacity, reduces timeouts and crashes, shortens backups, improves data transfer rates and extends hardware lifecycles – on disks, SSDs, all-flash, hyper-converged, and cloud platforms.

“By making sure that DymaxIO will adapt to your specific workload and having studied what kinds of I/Os amplify the I/O Blender Effect, we were able to add intelligence to specifically go after those I/Os,” said Rick Cadruvi Condusiv Chief Architect. “We take a global view. We aren’t limited to a specific application or workload.  While we do have technologies that shine under certain workloads, such as transactional SQL applications, our goal is to optimize the entire network of systems. That’s the only way to overcome the I/O Blender Effect.”

DymaxIO Key Features

Condusiv Technologies makes software designed for virtual, cloud, and physical server environments that renders Windows servers faster and more reliable. The newly released DymaxIO – available on annual subscription SaaS model – provides an easy and cost-effective solution for fast data, increased throughput, and accelerated I/O performance so systems and applications run at peak performance for as long as possible.

• New AI Intelligent Detection and Adaption: Diskeeper, SSDkeeper, and V-locity have been combined into a single product that intelligently detects and adapts to its operating environment using artificial intelligence.
• New Condusiv Management Console: the new management console will manage all Condusiv software.
• IntelliWrite^® patented write optimization technology: automatically prevents excessively small, fractured, random writes and reads that harms performance due to the severe inefficiency in the native hand-off of data between the Windows OS and underlying storage.
• IntelliMemory^® patented read I/O optimization technology: intelligently caches hot read requests from server memory that is otherwise idle and unused.
• InvisiTasking^® patented intelligent scheduling technology: allows all the DymaxIO “background” operations within the server to run with zero resource impact on current production by only leveraging idle CPU cycles and memory.
• Benefits Dashboard: The “time saved” dashboard demonstrates the value by showing the amount of I/O traffic offloaded from storage, the percentage of read and write I/O traffic offloaded, and the resulting time saved to any one system or group of systems.

For more info, visit Condusiv.com/dymaxio

The post Fast Data Software Upending Windows Performance appeared first on Tech Trends.

Ever since the Playstation was first launched – if, like myself, you’re old enough to remember it, you may pause a moment here to consider your own age and mortality – Sony has been in the business of reinventing gaming. They often followed the Steve Jobs mantra of pushing through a vision that showed consumers what it is that they wanted, rather than waiting for people to start asking for it.

Ever since the Playstation was first launched, Sony has been in the business of reinventing gaming.
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The same seems to be the case with VR. In spite of all the investment from companies such as Oculus, the PSVR is the only hardware that has come even close to tapping that elusive jackpot of mass consumer adoption. They sold over 3 million headsets so far, and although they did have to drop its price to $200 in order to achieve those numbers, it does show that there is an appetite in the gaming community for immersive technology that manages to hit the sweet spot.

Fast-paced, graphics-rich longer games require fast GPU and no lag, otherwise you’ll just get a lot of queasy and frustrated gamers
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And with most headsets on the market now veering away from cabled tethering, that future sweet spot is increasingly looking wireless. Sony seems to think so too, if a newly uncovered patent is anything to go by.

Although these things are always caveated by the fact that companies file hundreds of patents on a routine basis that never make et to prototype stage – much less a fully-fledged commercial product – this particular one is noteworthy in the level of detail it offers, going into extensive detail about solutions it has explored in attempting to remove the bulky cable that connects the current version of the PSVR to the console.

In spite of all the investment from companies such as Oculus, the PSVR is the only hardware that has come even close to tapping that elusive jackpot of mass consumer adoption
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The patent suggests that the setup would include a breakout box to detect the position of the user in relation to the machine so it could adjust Wi-Fi signals accordingly
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So, to be clear, we’re still talking about a tethered headset, because the processing power would still reside within the Playstation unit rather than the HMD, but the connection between the two would be wireless.

Easier said than done… This isn’t your regular video streaming of course. We’re talking about enormous amounts of data being refreshed at insane rates. And any glitch would be literally in the user’s face. It’s a tricky balance to strike, to say the least, as compromising on performance is not something you can get away with for the sort of content PSVR is peddling. Fast-paced, graphics-rich longer games require fast GPU and no lag, otherwise you’ll just get a lot of queasy and frustrated gamers.

As Jeremy Horwitz explains in this Venturebeat article,

“On paper, the 60GHz signal should have the bandwidth, latency, and reliability to work by itself, but in real-world use of VR headsets, 60GHz signals are more easily obstructed by objects and more directionally dependent than lower-bandwidth 5GHz signals. In the patent, Sony pairs 60GHz WiGig with 5GHz Wi-Fi to guarantee its headset will always get a signal, shifting from higher to lower frequencies (and bandwidth) based on where the user is moving in the room.”

The patent suggests that the setup would include a breakout box to detect the position of the user in relation to the machine so it could adjust Wi-Fi signals accordingly. Whatever solution they settle upon in the end, however, Sony definitely isn’t ready to give up on consumer VR, and to be honest, I wouldn’t bet against them being first to the post in getting there.

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.  

The post Could Sony’s Next Headset Finally Crack the VR Gaming Market? appeared first on Tech Trends.

If you want to get your gadget, product or service reviewed on Tech Trends, here’s what to do (and what not to)

Over the past year we’ve featured an amazing range of things on the site, but we’re just getting started, since Tech Trends is less than a year old (our birthday is actually coming up on the 11^th January, precious).

From digital literacy toys like the Sphero Robot and Technology Will Save Us Kits to power banks, standing desks and Bluetooth wearable headphones, we get pitched a lot of stuff. And that is fine, because the main criteria we use is generally whether a piece of technology is useful or interesting to people, whether they consider themselves “techies” or not. That’s a pretty darn broad scope.

This post sets out some general guidelines based on some of the more frequent questions we get, and relates specifically to those looking to land a hardware review post on the site. It provides some top-level info that should hopefully tell you whether it’s worth getting in touch or not.

1 – Samples

That’s pretty essential I’m afraid. We love to get great images, video and description in a pitch, but if you want a review of your product, we will need to get our hands on it. So if it’s in a conceptual prototype stage, or you don’t have enough samples to post, that’s not going to work, as we’d just be repeating what you told us rather than conveying our own experience of the product to our readers. For postage purposes we’re based in the UK, and we generally keep the samples. It’s not a profit-making enterprise but the hassle of sending them back is just not worth it, and hopefully we like your gadget enough so that we’ll be using it and showing our friends for years to come.

2 – Where will it be featured?

While I do freelance for a lot of other publications, those pieces are generally not straight product reviews. If your product is cool and we like it, we’ll feature it right here on Tech Trends.

3 – Any guarantees?

Like most things in life, alas, no. Sending us something does not guarantee a review. Generally we do try to get back to you with some constructive feedback if we don’t feel able to feature your product. It also might take a while, as we have a lot of posts to get through and there are only so many hours in the day. And while I do love gadgets as much as the next girl, I can’t spend ALL my time playing.

Some things are also just not a fit for a standalone tech post, but I still like them, and so they might sneak in an honorary mention somewhere. For example, a while back I got sent this Couch Coaster, and as someone who works from home and generally perches in sofas a lot with her laptop, I do find it quite useful, so here’s a shout-out:

I love gadgets as much as the next girl, but I can't spend ALL my time playing
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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Want to be featured on Tech Trends Reviews? Here’s How appeared first on Tech Trends.