Fusion-io

Fusion-io, Inc.

Company type	Public
Industry	Computer hardware, Computer software
Predecessor	Canvas Technologies
Founded	December 1, 2005 (2005-12-01) in Nevada, United States
Founder	David Flynn, Rick White
Defunct	July 2014 (2014-07)
Fate	Acquired by SanDisk Corporation
Headquarters	Cottonwood Heights , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	David Flynn (Co-founder, former CEO), Rick White (Co-founder, former CMO), Don Basile (former CEO), Steve Wozniak (Chief Scientist)
Products	ioMemory, ioDrive, IO Accelerator, ION Data Accelerator
Parent	SanDisk Corporation

Fusion-io, Inc. was a company specializing in computer hardware and software, headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, with a focus on flash memory solutions. Acquired by SanDisk Corporation in 2014, Fusion-io developed ioMemory products aimed at demanding environments such as virtualization, big data analytics, cloud infrastructure, and databases. Around 2011, its ioDrive product gained acclaim as one of the fastest storage devices on the market.

History

Established in December 2005 under the name Canvas Technologies by David Flynn and Rick White in Nevada, the firm changed its name to Fusion Multisystems, Incorporated in June 2006. The ioDrive was unveiled to the public in September 2007.

In March 2008, Fusion-io obtained $19 million in Series A financing led by New Enterprise Associates, with contributions from investors including Michael Dell. David Flynn held the position of CTO while Don Basile was CEO. By early 2009, the company had earned a reputation for innovation and recruited Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as Chief Scientist.

The company secured $47.5 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in April 2009. This was followed by another $45 million round in April 2010 spearheaded by Meritech Capital Partners, with backing from Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. Samsung made an investment in October 2009. In collaboration with HP, Fusion-io launched the IO Accelerator solid-state drive in 2009.

Fusion-io filed for its initial public offering (IPO) in March 2011 and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FIO. At that time, Facebook represented its largest client. By June 2011, the IPO valued Fusion-io at roughly $2 billion.

Growth continued through acquisitions: IO Turbine was acquired for about $95 million in August 2011, bringing virtualization-aware hybrid caching software into the portfolio; Linux software-defined storage company ID7 joined the fold in March 2013; and NexGen Storage was purchased for $119 million in April 2013, incorporating its hybrid storage system n5 (later rebranded as ioControl).

In January 2012, Fusion-io showcased an unprecedented performance milestone by achieving one billion IOPS across eight servers. Between 2010 and 2012, the company also attracted engineers from Oracle as well as developers involved with Red Hat’s Btrfs file system.

August 2012 saw the introduction of ION Data Accelerator, a software-defined storage solution that was subsequently offered as a dedicated appliance starting February 2014.

Co-founders David Flynn (CEO) and Rick White (CMO) exited the company in May 2013; CFO Dennis Wolff departed later that October. By late 2013, prominent Btrfs developers had moved on to Facebook.

Although Fusion-io faced scrutiny over dependence on major clients such as Facebook and Apple during 2012–2013, it managed to broaden its customer base by early 2014 with numerous substantial orders from diverse customers.

Engineers at Fusion-io contributed to enhancements within the Linux kernel to support scalable multi-queue block layers optimized for SSDs utilizing NVM Express technology; these improvements were incorporated into Linux kernel version 3.13 released in January 2014.

In June 2014, SanDisk announced plans to acquire Fusion-io and finalized the transaction by July, integrating Fusion-io’s flash storage innovations into SanDisk’s product lineup.

Technology

Fusion-io marketed their system under the name ioMemory. This innovation was first unveiled at the DEMO conference in 2007, followed by a demonstration of the ioSAN software in 2008.

In March 2009, Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator, which incorporated Fusion-io’s technology specifically for HP BladeSystem C-Series servers. During 2008, IBM showcased project Quicksilver, utilizing Fusion-io technology to achieve a milestone of 1 million IOPS with solid-state solutions. By September 2009, IBM had made available a PCIe adapter derived from the ioDrive for integration into its server lineup. Later that year, in December 2009, IBM revealed a licensing agreement for this technology to be used in an appliance, establishing a significant OEM collaboration aimed at advancing enterprise storage capabilities.