Fusion-io upgraded its ioTurbine software today, reportedly marking the industry’s first unified virtualization software solution. The upgrade boasts features such as hypervisor caching, virtualization-aware caching in the guest VM, dynamic reallocation of cache memory during live migration of virtual machines in VMware vMotion, and unified management of caching across virtual and physical environments.

The update is timely for Fusion-io, a disruptive player on a field of established vendors like EMC currently scrambling to update their storage systems with Flash technology and software-driven virtualization methods. It’s been a game of catch up for Fusion-io rivals, and the pressure’s been on for Fusion to extend its innovation streak.

The company made headlines this past May when former CEO David Flynn and CMO Rick White, both cofounders, resigned. In a SiliconANGLE #theCube exclusive at #EMCWorld, Shane Robison, the then newly appointed CEO of Fusion-io, admitted the C-level changes at Fusion-io came as a shock to many, but the decision the board had made was all about taking the company to the next level.

On today’s SiliconANGLE morning NewsDesk, Wikibon CTO & Co-Founder David Floyer provided an analysis of the ioTurbine upgrade. In the interview Floyer dismissed the saturation of benchmarking that is going on in the flash market right now. See the full interview below.

“My advice would be forget about benchmarking the flash product itself. What’s really important is what’s the specific application, how can I identify that application, how can I move things around, the flexibility, it’s the software the functionality and the integration of the software and hardware. Should be the criteria for selecting.”

Vikram Joshi, Fusion-io’s Chief Technologist and Vice President said about the announcement,

“…just as Fusion-io revolutionized storage by integrating flash in the server to bring performance closer to enterprise applications, enabling virtualization-aware caching is a significant breakthrough in intelligent virtual performance acceleration.”

From the release: Fusion ioTurbine simplifies the deployment of virtualization performance through dynamic cache allocation during live migration of virtual machines, even across heterogeneous servers. With options for guest VM, hypervisor, and physical server caching, IT professionals can simplify their investment in virtualization, whether they are just starting to virtualize a traditional datacenter or are well on their way to a fully virtual infrastructure. Unified management of physical and virtual environments further simplifies performance provisioning, enabling IT professionals to spend more time on strategic business requirements.

Wikibon CTO David Floyer chimed in on the ioTurbine software update:

“Fusion-io is extending the ioTurbine caching technology to include the option to cache on physical servers, in the hypervisor, and the guest virtual machine, while preserving the ability to support native vMotion. This unified approach gives leading deployment flexibility and control to enterprise users requiring high performance cache in the migration to total server virtualization.”

The importance of virtualization-aware caching for CIOs cannot be overstated. Flexibility and control to enterprise users is something Fusion-io hopes will allow it to remain an industry leader.