SPSN Spansion (MM)

Spansion EcoRAM Solution to Speed MySQL and memcached Applications and Hadoop Server Clusters SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Spansion Inc. (NASDAQ:SPSN), the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, today announced that the Spansion(R) EcoRAM(TM) solution can increase the performance of selected read-intensive internet applications by up to 50X greater than the combination of traditional DRAM plus hard disk drive server platforms. Recently announced servers from Spansion system partners demonstrate the Spansion EcoRAM solution enabling increased performance and server consolidation of key read-intensive workloads. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060118/SFW077LOGO) The Spansion EcoRAM solution provides an expansion to main system memory by providing eight to sixteen times the capacity of typical x86 servers. With up to half a Terabyte (512 Gigabytes) of Spansion EcoRAM memory the solution alleviates the need to continually shuffle data back and forth between hard disk drives and DRAM by storing large data sets directly in Spansion EcoRAM memory. "With the performance and consolidation benefits of storing large data sets in Spansion EcoRAM memory, customers, server OEMs, value-added resellers, and independent software vendors also have the ability to differentiate and add significant value to their solutions," said Jan Silverman, vice president, Mass Storage Division, Spansion Inc. MySQL(R) Applications Virident Systems is the first server OEM to exploit the capabilities of Spansion EcoRAM memory. The Virident GreenCloud(TM) Server for MySQL combines an optimized version of the MySQL database with Spansion EcoRAM memory. MySQL has become the world's most popular open source database and is used as a core building block to many of today's most successful web services. For example, leading social networking, search and other high-traffic web sites use MySQL for its data storage and logging of user data. For additional examples of MySQL users visit http://www.mysql.com/customers/ By tuning the implementation of MySQL to work more seamlessly with the Spansion EcoRAM solution, Virident has created a unique platform that, according to its benchmarking results delivers up to 50X increases in performance over a DRAM plus hard drive system while interfacing with various existing MySQL-based applications. For additional details on Virident GreenCloud Server for MySQL benchmarks visit http://www.virident.com/benchmark memcached Applications Virident has also delivered a customized solution for database caching. The Virident GreenCloud Server for memcached combines Spansion EcoRAM memory with Virident's optimized version of memcached. Memcached is a general-purpose distributed memory caching system that is used to speed database driven websites, such as popular social networking sites, by caching data and objects in memory for fast performance. Virident GreenCloud for memcached delivers extraordinary system performance in a single server with up to 8X the available cache main memory compared to competing approaches. This enables server consolidation, higher cache hit rates and lower database loads. Virident projects a 50 to 70 percent decrease in total TCO for memcached clusters. Applying the Spansion EcoRAM Solution to Hadoop Internet Clusters There are significant advantages in using the Spansion EcoRAM solution in other software platforms in addition to the optimization already achieved by Virident. Spansion's own systems engineering team is working with other server OEMs to demonstrate the benefit of using Spansion EcoRAM memory in a Hadoop cluster. Hadoop is a framework for server clusters that is seeing large adoption in internet applications to help businesses reorganize and analyze huge and fast-changing datasets to keep up with the competitive demands of servicing their customers. For examples of Hadoop users visit http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/PoweredBy. The Spansion EcoRAM solution is an ideal choice for use with Hadoop clusters as the larger memory capacity per server enables dramatic performance improvements on large data sets while also providing significant savings through cluster consolidation. General Availability of the Spansion EcoRAM Solution The Spansion EcoRAM solution is available today with capacities up to 512GB per server. Systems are currently available through both Virident and Appro, a leading provider of supercomputing solutions with expertise in the high performance computing (HPC) markets. The Spansion EcoRAM solution is compatible with a large number of 64-bit Linux applications. The Spansion EcoRAM solution can also be used for read-intensive applications in areas like analytics, bioinformatics, business intelligence, government, internet, and oil and gas. About Spansion EcoRAM Memory Spansion EcoRAM memory supports read latencies in hundreds of nanoseconds, which is competitive with server DRAM latencies. By comparison, this is 10,000X faster than hard disk drives (latencies in milliseconds) and up to 100X faster that state of the art solid state drives (latencies in microseconds). Read bandwidth reaches up to 2.2 gigabytes per second (GB/s) or over 20X compared to typical 100 Megabytes a second (MB/s) enterprise-class hard disks. Write performance for a Spansion EcoRAM system compares to high-speed enterprise-class hard disks which are in the hundreds of MB/s. About Spansion Spansion (NASDAQ:SPSN) is a leading Flash memory solutions provider, dedicated to enabling, storing and protecting digital content in wireless, automotive, networking and consumer electronics applications. Spansion, previously a joint venture of AMD and Fujitsu, is the largest company in the world dedicated exclusively to designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing, selling and licensing Flash memory solutions. For more information, visit http://www.spansion.com/. NOTE: Spansion(R), the Spansion Logo, Spansion(R) EcoRAM(TM), and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Spansion LLC in the US and other countries. MySQL is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other countries. Other names used are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060118/SFW077LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/DATASOURCE: Spansion Inc. CONTACT: Courtney Brigham of Spansion, +1-408-616-5056 Web Site: http://www.spansion.com/ http:///

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