Front-safe, IBM’s Denmark 2010 Cloud Partner of the Year, integrated Big Blue’s High IOPS Adapters into its Tivoli Storage Manager offering.  The adapters are based on Fusion-io’s ioMemory.

Front-safe delivers TSM as a cloud-based solution designed for SMBs. The company says its platform automates backup and recovery processes while providing a BI interface for reporting and invoicing.  The firm deployed the High IPOS Adapters in order to boost the performance of its SAN, which could not handle the growth in data ported to Front-safe’s cloud efficiently without IBM’s Fusion-powered solution.

“We believe Front-safe’s results demonstrate that the low latency, ioMemory-based High IOPS Adapters are ideal for powering high performance jobs and queries in enterprise systems like Tivoli,” said Neil Carson, Fusion-io chief technology officer. “Inspiring companies like Front-safe are improving customers’ cloud-based service experiences with innovative technologies built for a cloud-powered economy.”

Front-safe reported that it was able to cut floor space, power and cooling costs by a total of two thirds since it deployed the adapters in its infrastructure, and managed to increase CPU utilization to increase overall level of service delivered to customers.

NexGen is leveraging ioMemory for a similar purpose. The firm has partnered up with the storage flash maker to speed up its SAN offering and lower costs for customers. NexGen said the initiative has resulted in overheads going down by up to 90, along with a performance boost. The agreement between the two extends beyond the product integration to include joint sales and marketing efforts as well.

While Fusion is gaining support, the company is facing rising competition in an industry it helped to kick start. Apple is negotiating to buy flash acceleration company Anobit for $400-500 million, moving its use of the company’s chip  in its products to the next step.