Fusion-io

Fusion-io, now part of SanDisk, specialized in providing high-performance storage solutions for enterprise data centers. Their core product, ioMemory, was a NAND flash-based PCIe card that acted as a persistent memory tier, significantly accelerating applications, databases, and virtualization for a client base that included enterprises and hyperscale data centers.

The company's business model revolved around selling this specialized hardware and accompanying software. By integrating flash storage directly into servers via the PCIe bus, they bypassed traditional storage networking bottlenecks, offering lower latency and higher throughput. This approach was particularly beneficial for data-intensive workloads. Fusion-io also expanded its portfolio by acquiring other companies, such as NexGen Storage, to incorporate hybrid storage appliance capabilities.

In 2014, SanDisk acquired Fusion-io for approximately $1.1 billion, integrating its PCIe-based flash storage solutions into SanDisk's broader portfolio of flash memory products.

Keywords: NAND flash, PCIe storage, data acceleration, ioMemory, enterprise storage, datacenter solutions, server-side flash, low-latency storage, high-performance computing, database acceleration