Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Insights and Analysis
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Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
VMware has announced version 6 (V6) of its software defined data center (SDDC) server virtualization hypervisor called vSphere aka ESXi. In addition to a new version of its software defined server hypervisor along with companion software defined management and convergence tools.
As a refresh for those whose world does not revolve around VMware, vSphere and software defined data centers (believe it or not there are some who exist ;), ESXi is the hypervisor that virtualizes underlying physical machines (PM’s) known as hosts.
The path to software defined data center convergence
Guest operating systems (or other hypervisors using nesting) run as virtual machines (VM’s) on top of the vSphere hypervisor host (e.g. ESXi software). Various VMware management tools (or third-party) are used for managing the virtualized data center from initial configuration, configuration, conversion from physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to virtual (V2V) along with data protection, performance, capacity planning across servers, storage and networks.
VMware vSphere is flexible and can adapt to different sized environments from small office home office (SOHO) or small SMB, to large SMB, SME, enterprise or cloud service provider. There are a free version of ESXi along with paid versions that include support and added management tool features. Besides the ESXi vSphere hypervisor, other commonly deployed modules include the vCenter administration along with Infrastructure Controller services platform among others. In addition, there are optional solution bundles to add support for virtual networking, cloud (public and private), data protection (backup/restore, replication, HA, BC, DR), big data among other capabilities.
VMware has streamlined the installation, configuration and deployment of vSphere along with associated tools which for smaller environments makes things simply easier. For the larger environments, having to do less means being able to do more in the same amount of time which results in cost savings. In addition to easier to use, deploy and configure, VMware has extended the scaling capabilities of vSphere in terms of scaling-out (larger clusters), scaling-up (more and larger servers), as well as scaling-down (smaller environments and ease of use).
The quick synopsis of VMware vVOL’s overview:
How data storage access and managed via VMware today (read more here)
vVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise vVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.
vVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.
Keep in mind that what makes up a VMware virtual machine are the VMK, VMDK and some other files (shown in the figure below), and if enough information is known about where those blocks of data are or can be found, they can be worked upon. Also keep in mind that at least near-term, block is the lowest common denominator that all file systems and object repositories get built-up.
How VMware data storage accessed and managed with vVOLs (read more here)
Here is the thing, while vVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.
What is happening inside the storage system that will be presented back to ESXi will be different than a normal SCSI LUN contents and only understood by VMware hypervisor. ESXi will still tell the storage system what it wants to do including moving blocks of data. The storage system however will have more insight and awareness into the context of what those blocks of data mean. This is how the storage systems will be able to more closely integrate snapshots, replication, cloning and other functions by having awareness into which data to move, as opposed to moving or working with an entire LUN where a VMDK may live.
Keep in mind that the storage system will still function as it normally would, just think of vVOL as another or new personality and access mechanism used for VMware to communicate and manage storage. Watch for vVOL storage provider support from the who’s who of existing and startup storage system providers including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and many others. Read more about Storage I/O fundamentals here and vVOLs here and here.
Depending on your experiences, you might use revolutionary to describe some of the VMware vSphere V6 features and functionalities. Otoh, if you have some Dejavu moments looking pragmatically at what VMware is delivering with V6 of vSphere executing on their vision, evolutionary might be more applicable. I will leave it up to you do decide if you are having a Dejavu moment and what that might pertain to, or if this is all new and revolutionary, or something more along the lines of technolutionary.
VMware continues to execute delivering on the Virtual Data Center aka Software Defined Data Center paradigm by increasing functionality, as well as enhancing existing capabilities with performance along with resiliency improvements. These abilities enable the aggregation of compute, storage, networking, management and policies for enabling a global virtual data center while supporting existing along with new emerging applications.
If you were not part of the beta to gain early hands-on experience with VMware vSphere V6 and associated technologies, download a copy to check it out as part of making your upgrade or migration plans.
Check out the various VMware resources including communities links here
VMware vSphere Hypervisor getting started and general vSphere information (including download)
VMware vSphere data sheet, compatibility guide along with speeds and feeds (size and other limits)
VMware Blogs and VMware vExpert page
Various fellow VMware vExpert blogs including among many others vsphere-land, scott lowe, virtuallyghetto and yellow-bricks among many others found at the vpad here.
StorageIO Out and About Update – VMworld 2014 (with Video)
VMware vVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Storage I/O overview and vVOL, details Part I and Part II)
How many IOPs can a HDD or SSD do in a VMware environment (Part I and Part II)
VMware VSAN overview and primer, DIY converged software defined storage on a budget
Overall VMware vSphere V6 has a great set of features that support both ease of management for small environments as well as the scaling needs of larger organizations.
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is the first of a series of posts and links to resources on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking (view more and follow-up posts here).
The best I/O is the I/O that you do not have to do, the second best is the one with the least impact as well as low overhead.
Drew Robb (@robbdrew) has a Data Storage Benchmarking Guide article over at Enterprise Storage Forum that provides a good framework and summary quick guide to server storage I/O benchmarking.
Via Drew: Data storage benchmarking can be quite esoteric in that vast complexity awaits anyone attempting to get to the heart of a particular benchmark. Case in point: The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed the Emerald benchmark to measure power consumption. This invaluable benchmark has a vast amount of supporting literature. That so much could be written about one benchmark test tells you just how technical a subject this is. And in SNIA’s defense, it is creating a Quick Reference Guide for Emerald (coming soon). But rather than getting into the nitty-gritty nuances of the tests, the purpose of this article is to provide a high-level overview of a few basic storage benchmarks, what value they might have and where you can find out more. Read more here including some of my comments, tips and recommendations. |
Drew’s provides a good summary and overview in his article which is a great opener for this first post in a series on server storage I/O benchmarking and related resources.
You can think of this series (along with Drew’s article) as server storage I/O benchmarking fundamentals (e.g. 101) for smarties (e.g. non-dummies ;) ).
Note that even if you are not a server, storage or I/O expert, you can still be considered a smarty vs. a dummy if you found the need or interest to read as well as learn more about benchmarking, metrics that matter, tools, technology and related topics.
There are different reasons for benchmarking, such as, you might be asked or want to know how many IOPs per disk, Solid State Device (SSD), device or storage system such as for a 15K RPM (revolutions per minute) 146GB SAS Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Sure you can go to a manufactures website and look at the speeds and feeds (technical performance numbers) however are those metrics applicable to your environments applications or workload?
You might get higher IOPs with smaller IO size on sequential reads vs. random writes which will also depend on what the HDD is attached to. For example are you going to attach the HDD to a storage system or appliance with RAID and caching? Are you going to attach the HDD to a PCIe RAID card or will it be part of a server or storage system. Or are you simply going to put the HDD into a server or workstation and use as a drive without any RAID or performance acceleration.
What this all means is understanding what it is that you want to benchmark test to learn what the system, solution, service or specific device can do under different workload conditions.
Some benchmark and related topics include
Example of a step test results with various workers and workload
The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.
Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)
We have just scratched the surface when it comes to benchmarking cloud, virtual and physical server storage I/O and networking hardware, software along with associated tools, techniques and technologies. However hopefully this and the links for more reading mentioned above give a basis for connecting the dots of what you already know or enable learning more about workloads, synthetic generation and real-world workloads, benchmarks and associated topics. Needless to say there are many more things that we will cover in future posts (e.g. keep an eye on and bookmark the server storage I/O benchmark tools and resources page here).
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part-two of a two-part post pertaining Microsoft Diskspd.that is also part of a broader series focused on server storage I/O benchmarking, performance, capacity planning, tools and related technologies. You can view part-one of this post here, along with companion links here.
Talking about tools and technologies is one thing, installing as well as trying them is the next step for gaining experience so how about some quick hands-on time with Microsoft Diskspd (download your copy here).
The following commands all specify an I/O size of 8Kbytes doing I/O to a 45GByte file called diskspd.dat located on the F: drive. Note that a 45GByte file is on the small size for general performance testing, however it was used for simplicity in this example. Ideally a larger target storage area (file, partition, device) would be used, otoh, if your application uses a small storage device or volume, then tune accordingly.
In this test, the F: drive is an iSCSI RAID protected volume, however you could use other storage interfaces supported by Windows including other block DAS or SAN (e.g. SATA, SAS, USB, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, etc) as well as NAS. Also common to the following commands is using 16 threads and 32 outstanding I/Os to simulate concurrent activity of many users, or application processing threads.
Another common parameter used in the following was -r for random, 7200 seconds (e.g. two hour) test duration time, display latency ( -L ) disable hardware and software cache ( -h), forcing cpu affinity (-a0,1,2,3). Since the test ran on a server with four cores I wanted to see if I could use those for helping to keep the threads and storage busy. What varies in the commands below is the percentage of reads vs. writes, as well as the results output file. Some of the workload below also had the -S option specified to disable OS I/O buffering (to view how buffering helps when enabled or disabled). Depending on the goal, or type of test, validation, or workload being run, I would choose to set some of these parameters differently.
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write000.txt
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write050.txt
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write100.txt
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_test_write000.txt
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write050.txt
diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write100.txt
The following is the output from the above workload command.
Note that as with any benchmark, workload test or simulation your results will vary. In the above the server, storage and I/O system were not tuned as the focus was on working with the tool, determining its capabilities. Thus do not focus on the performance results per say, rather what you can do with Diskspd as a tool to try different things. Btw, fwiw, in the above example in addition to using an iSCSI target, the Windows 2012 R2 server was a guest on a VMware ESXi 5.5 system.
The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.
Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)
Reporting including CPU usage (you can’t do server and storage I/O without CPU) along with IOP’s (activity), bandwidth (throughout or amount of data being moved), per thread and total results along with optional reporting. While a GUI would be nice particular for beginners, I’m used to setting up scripts for different workloads so having an extensive options for setting up different workloads is welcome. Being associated with a specific OS (e.g. Windows) the CPU affinity and buffer management controls will be handy for some projects.
Diskspd has the flexibility to use different storage interfaces and types of storage including files or partitions should be taken for granted, however with some tools don’t take things for granted. I like the flexibility to easily specify various IO sizes including large 1MByte, 10MByte, 20MByte, 100MByte and 500MByte to simulate application workloads that do large sequential (or random) activity. I tried some IO sizes (e.g. specified by -b parameter larger than 500MB however, I received various errors including "Could not allocate a buffer bytes for target" which means that Diskspd can do IO sizes smaller than that. While not able to do IO sizes larger than 500MB, this is actually impressive. Several other tools I have used or with have IO size limits down around 10MByte which makes it difficult for creating workloads that do large IOP’s (note this is the IOP size, not the number of IOP’s).
Oh, something else that should be obvious however will state it, Diskspd is free unlike some industry de-facto standard tools or workload generators that need a fee to get and use.
For some users a GUI or configuration wizard would make the tool easier to get started with, on the other hand (oth), I tend to use the command capabilities of tools. Would also be nice to specify ranges as part of a single command such as stepping through an IO size range (e.g. 4K, 8K, 16K, 1MB, 10MB) as well as read write percentages along with varying random sequential mixes. Granted this can easily be done by having a series of commands, however I have become spoiled by using other tools such as vdbench.
Overall I like Diskspd and have added it to my Server Storage I/O workload and benchmark tool-box
Keep in mind that the best benchmark or workload generation technology tool will be your own application(s) configured to run as close as possible to production activity levels.
However when that is not possible, the an alternative is to use tools that have the flexibility to be configured as close as possible to your application(s) workload characteristics. This means that the focus should not be as much on the tool, as opposed to how flexible is a tool to work for you, granted the tool needs to be robust.
Having said that, Microsoft Diskspd is a good and extensible tool for benchmarking, simulation, validation and comparisons, however it will only be as good as the parameters and configuration you set it up to use.
Check out Microsoft Diskspd and add it to your benchmark and server storage I/O tool-box like I have done.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Green IT is about enabling efficient, effective and productive information services delivery. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.
There are many aspects to "Green" Information Technology including servers, storage, networks and associated management tools and techniques. The reasons and focus of "Green IT" including "Green Data Storage ", "Green Computing" and related focus areas are varied to discuss diverse needs, issues and requirements including among others:
While much of the IT industry focuses on CO2 emissions footprints, data management software and electrical power consumption, cooling and ventilation of IT data centers is an area of focus associated with "Green IT" as well as a means to discuss more effective use of electrical energy that can yield rapid results for many environments. Large tier-1 vendors including HP and IBM among others who have an IT and data center wide focus have services designed to do quick assessments as well as detailed analysis and re-organization of IT data center physical facilities to improve air flow and power consumption for more effective cooling of IT technologies including servers, storage, networks and other equipment.
Similar to your own residence, basic steps to improve your cooling effectiveness can lead to use of less energy to cut your budget impact, or, enable you to do more with what you already have with your cooling capacity to support growth, acquisitions and or consolidation initiatives. Vendors are also looking at means and alternatives for cooling IT equipment ranging from computer assisted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software analysis of data center cooling and ventilation to refrigerated cooling racks some leveraging water or inert liquid cooling.
Various metrics exists and others are evolving for measuring, estimating, reporting, analyzing and discussing IT Data Center infrastructure resource topics including servers, storage, networks, facilities and associated software management tools from a power, cooling and green environmental standpoint. The importance of metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture.
Consequently your view and needs or interests around "Green" IT may be from an electrical power conservation perspective to maximize your power consumption or to adapt to a given power footprint or ceiling. Your focus around "Green" Data Centers and Green Storage may be from a carbon savings standpoint or proper disposition of old and retired IT equipment or from a data center cooling standpoint. Another area of focus may be that you are looking to cut your data footprint to align with your power, cooling and green footprint while enhancing application and data service delivery to your customers.
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
A Green and Virtual IT Data Center (e.g. an information factory) means an environment comprising:
Green and Virtual Data Center Resources
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Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and SustainableGreen hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here. |
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
Watch for more links and resources to be added soon.
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Updated 10/25/2017
Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon.
There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE).
To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendors and other links
Via StorageIOblog – Happy Earth Day 2016 Eliminating Digital and Data e-Waste
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
 | Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient , productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies. Read more here and order your copyhere. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz. |
White papers, analyst reports and perspectivesBusiness benefits of data footprint reduction (archiving, compression, de-dupe) Data center I/O and performance issues – Server I/O and storage capacity gap Analysis of EPA Report to Congress (Law 109-431) The Many Faces of MAID Storage Technology Achieving Energy Efficiency with FLASH based SSD MAID 2.0: Energy Savings without Performance Compromises Articles, Tips, Blogs, Webcasts and Podcasts AP – SNIA Green Emerald Program and measurements AP – Southern California heat wave strains electrical system Ars Technica – EPA: Power usage in data centers could double by 2011 Ars Technica – Meet the climate savers: Major tech firms launch war on energy-inefficient PCs – Article Askageek.com – Buying an environmental friendly laptop – November 2008 Baseline – Examining Energy Consumption in the Data Center Baseline – Burts Bees: What IT Means When You Go Green Bizcovering – Green architecture for the masses Broadstuff – Are Green 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Incompatible? Business Week – CEO Guide to Technology Business Week – Computers’ elusive eco factor Business Week – Clean Energy – Its Getting Affordable Byte & Switch – Keeping it Green This Summer – Don’t be "Green washed" Byte & Switch – IBM Sees Green in Energy Certificates Byte & Switch – Users Search for power solutions Byte & Switch – DoE issues Green Storage Warning CBR – The Green Light for Green IT CBR – Big boxes make greener data centers CFO – Power Scourge Channel Insider – A 12 Step Program to Dispose of IT Equipment China.org.cn – China publishes Energy paper CIO – Green Storage Means Money Saved on Power CIO – Data center designers share secrets for going green CIO – Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America CIO Insight – Clever Marketing or the Real Thing? Cleantechnica – Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste – June 2008 Climatebiz – Carbon Calculators Yield Spectrum of Results: Study CNET News – Linux coders tackle power efficiency CNET News – Research: Old data centers can be nearly as ‘green’ as new ones CNET News – Congress, Greenpeace move on e-wast CNN Money – A Green Collar Recession CNN Money – IBM creates alliance with industry leaders supporting new data center standards Communication News – Utility bills key to greener IT Computerweekly – Business case for green storage Computerweekly – Optimising data centre operations Computerweekly – Green still good for IT, if it saves money Computerweekly – Meeting the Demands for storage Computerworld – Wells Fargo Free Data Center Cooling System Computerworld – Seven ways to get green and save money Computerworld – Build your data center here: The most energy-efficient locations Computerworld – EPA: U.S. needs more power plants to support data centers Computerworld – GreenIT: A marketing ploy or new technology? Computerworld – Gartner Criticizes Green Grid Computerworld – IT Skills no longer sufficient for data center execs. Computerworld – Meet MAID 2.0 and Intelligent Power Management Computerworld – Feds to offer energy ratings on servers and storage Computerworld – Greenpeace still hunting for truly green electronics Computerworld – How to benchmark data center energy costs ComputerworldUK – Datacenters at risk from poor governance ComputerworldUK – Top IT Leaders Back Green Survey ComputerworldMH – Lean and Green CTR – Strategies for enhancing energy efficiency CTR – Economies of Scale – Green Data Warehouse Appliances Datacenterknowledge – Microsoft to build Illinois datacenter Data Center Strategies – Storage The Next Hot Topic Earthtimes – Fujitsu installs hydrogen fuel cell power eChannelline – IBM Goes Green(er) Ecoearth.info – California Moves To Speed Solar, Wind Power Grid Connections Ecogeek – Solar power company figures they can power 90% of America Economist – Cool IT Electronic Design – How many watts in that Gigabyte eMazzanti – Desktop virtualization movement creeping into customer sites ens-Newswire – Western Governors Ask Obama for National Green Energy Plan Environmental Leader – Best Place to Build an Energy Efficient Data Center Environmental Leader – New Guide Helps Advertisers Avoid Greenwash Complaints Enterprise Storage Forum – Power Struggles Take Center Stage at SNW Enterprise Storage Forum – Pace Yourself for Storage Power & Cooling Needs Enterprise Storage Forum – Storage Power and Cooling Issues Heat Up – StorageIO Article Enterprise Storage Forum – Score Savings With A Storage Power Play Enterprise Storage Forum – I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work I Go Enterprise Storage Forum – Not Just a Flash in the Pan – Various SSD options Enterprise Storage Forum – Closing the Green Gap – Article August 2008 EPA Report to Congress and Public Law 109-431 – Reports & links eWeek – Saving Green by being Green eWeek – ‘No Cooling Necessary’ Data Centers Coming? eWeek – How the ‘Down’ Macroeconomy Will Impact the Data Storage Sector ExpressComputer – In defense of Green IT ExpressComputer – What data center crisis Forbes – How to Build a Quick Charging Battery GCN – Sun launches eco data center GreenerComputing – New Code of Conduct to Establish Best Practices in Green Data Centers GreenerComputing – Silicon valley’s green detente GreenerComputing – Majority of companies plan to green their data centers GreenerComputing – Citigroup to spend $232M on Green Data Center GreenerComputing – Chicago and Quincy, WA Top Green Data Center Locations GreenerComputing – Using airside economizers to chill data center cooling bills GreenerComputing – Making the most of asset disposal GreenerComputing – Greenpeace vendor rankings GreenerComputing – Four Steps to Improving Data Center Efficiency without Capital Expenditures GreenerComputing – Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center Green-PC – Strategic Steps Down the Green Path Greeniewatch – BBC news chiefs attack plans for climate change campaign Greeniewatch – Warmest year predictions and data that has not yet been measured GoverenmentExecutive – Public Private Sectors Differ on "Green" Efforts HPC Wire – How hot is your code Industry Standard – Why green data centers mean partner opportunities InformationWeek – It could be 15 years before we know what is really green InformationWeek – Beyond Server Consolidaiton InformationWeek – Green IT Beyond Virtualization: The Case For Consolidation InfoWorld – Sun celebrates green datacenter innovations InfoWorld – Tech’s own datacenters are their green showrooms InfoWorld – 2007: The Year in Green InfoWorld – Green Grid Announces Tech Forum in Feb 2008 InfoWorld – SPEC seeds future green-server benchmarks InfoWorld – Climate Savers green catalog proves un-ripe InfoWorld – Forester: Eco-minded activity up among IT pros InfoWorld – Green ventures in Silicon Valley, Mass reaped most VC cash in ’07 InfoWorld – Congress misses chance to see green-energy growth InfoWorld – Unisys pushes green envelope with datacenter expansion InfoWorld – No easy green strategy for storage Internet News – Storage Technologies for a Slowing Economy Internet News – Economy will Force IT to Transform ITManagement – Green Computing, Green Revenue itnews – Data centre chiefs dismiss green hype itnews – Australian Green IT regulations could arrive this year IT Pro – SNIA Green storage metrics released ITtoolbox – MAID discussion Linux Power – Saving power with Linux on Intel platforms MSNBC – Microsoft to build data center in Ireland National Post – Green technology at the L.A. Auto Show Network World – Turning the datacenter green Network World – Color Interop Green Network World – Green not helpful word for setting environmental policies NewScientistEnvironment – Computer servers as bad for climate as SUVs Newser – Texas commission approves nation’s largest wind power project New Yorker – Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science NY Times – What the Green Bubble Will Leave Behind PRNewswire – Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers to debate climate change Processor – More than just monitoring Processor – The new data center: What’s hot in Data Center physical infrastructure: Processor – Liquid Cooling in the Data Center Processor – Curbing IT Power Usage Processor – Services To The Rescue – Services Available For Today’s Data Centers Processor – Green Initiatives: Hire A Consultant? Processor – Energy-Saving Initiatives Processor – The EPA’s Low Carbon Campaig Processor – Data Center Power Planning SAN Jose Mercury – Making Data Centers Green SDA-Asia – Green IT still a priority despite Credit Crunch SearchCIO – EPA report gives data centers little guidance SearchCIO – Green IT Strategies Could Lead to hefty ROIs SearchCIO – Green IT In the Data Center: Plenty of Talk, not much Walk SearchCIO – Green IT Overpitched by Vendors, CIOs beware SearchDataCenter – Study ranks cheapest places to build a data center SearchDataCenter – Green technology still ranks low for data center planners SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center: Energy Effiecnty Computing in the 21st Century SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center Advice: Is LEED Feasible SearchDataCenter – Green Data Centers Tackle LEED Certification SearchDataCenter – PG&E invests in data center effieicny SearchDataCenter – A solar powered datacenter SearchSMBStorage – Improve your storage energy efficiency SearchSMBStorage – SMB capacity planning: Focusing on energy conservation SearchSMBStorage – Data footprint reduction for SMBs SearchSMBStorage – MAID & other energy-saving storage technologies for SMBs SearchStorage – How to increase your storage energy efficiency SearchStorage – Is storage now top energy hog in the data center SearchStorage – Storage eZine: Turning Storage Green SearchStorage – The Green Storage Gap SearchStorageChannel – Green Data Storage Projects Silicon.com – The greening of IT: Cooling costs SNIA – SNIA Green Storage Overview SNIA – Green Storage SNW – Beyond Green-wash SNW Spring 2008 Beyond Green-wash State.org – Why Texas Has Its Own Power Grid StorageDecisions – Different Shades of Green Storage Magazine – Storage still lacks energy metrics StorageIOblog – Posts pertaining to Green, power, cooling, floor-space, EHS (PCFE) Storage Search – Various postings, news and topics pertaining to Green IT Technology Times – Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches TechTarget – Data center power efficiency TechTarget – Tip for determining power consumption Techworld – Inside a green data center Techworld – Box reduction – Low hanging green datacenter fruit Techworld – Datacentere used to heat swimming pool Theinquirer – Spansion and Virident flash server farms Theinquirer – Storage firms worry about energy efficiency How green is the valley TheRegister – Data Centre Efficiency, the good, the bad and the way to hot TheRegister – Server makers snub whalesong for serious windmill abuse TheRegister – Green data center threat level: Not Green The Standard – Growing cynicism around going Green ThoughtPut – Energy Central Thoughtput – Power, Cooling, Green Storage and related industry trends Wallstreet Journal – Utilities Amp Up Push To Slash Energy Use Wallstreet Journal – The IT in Green Investing Wallstreet Journal – Tech’s Energy Consumption on the Rise Washingtonpost – Texas approves major new wind power project WhatPC – Green IT: It doesnt have to cost the earth WHIRnews – SingTel building green data center Wind-watch.org – Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency WyomingNews – Overcoming Greens Stereotype Yahoo – Washington Senate Unviel Green Job Plan ZDnet – Will supercomputer speeds hit a plateau? Are data centers causing climate change News and Press Releases Business Wire – The Green and Virtual Data Center Enterprise Storage Forum – Intel and HGST (Hitachi) partner on FLASH SSD PCworld – Intel and HP describe Green Strategy DoE – To Invest Approximately $1.3 Billion to Commercialize CCS Technology Yahoo – Shell Opens Los Angeles’ First Combined Hydrogen and Gasoline Station DuPont – DuPont Projects Save Enough Energy to Power 25,000 Homes Gartner – Users Are Becoming Increasingly Confused About the Issues and Solutions Surrounding Green IT Websites and Tools Various power, cooling, emmisions and device configuration tools and calculators Solar Action Alliance web site SNIA Emerald program Carbon Disclosure Project The Chicago Climate Exchange Climate Savers Data Center Decisions Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) EMC – Digital Life Calculator Energy Star Energy Star Data Center Initiatives Greenpeace – Technology ranking website also here GlobalActionPlan KyotoPlanet LBNL High Tech Data centers Millicomputing RoHS & WEE News Storage Performance Council (SPC) SNIA Green Technical Working Group SPEC Transaction Processing Council (TPC) The Green Grid The Raised Floor Terra Pass Carbon Offset Credits – Website with CO2 calculators Energy Information Administration – EIA (US and International Electrical Information) U.S. Department of Energy and related information U.S. DOE Energy Efficient Industrial Programs U.S. EPA server and storage energy topics Zerofootprint – Various "Green" and environmental related links and calculators Vendor Centric and Marketing Website Links and toolsVendors and organizations have different types of calculators some with focus on power, cooling, floor space, carbon offsets or emissions, ROI, TCO and other IT data center infrastructure resource management. Following is an evolving list and by no means definitive even for a particular vendors as different manufactures may have multiple different calculators for different product lines or areas of focus. Brocade – Green website Cisco – Green and Environmental websites here, here and here Dell – Green website EMC – EMC Energy, Power and Cooling Related Website HDS – How to be green – HDS Positioning White Paper HP – HP Green Website IBM – Green Data Center – IBM Positioning White Paper IBM – Green Data Center for Education – IBM Positioning White Paper Intel – What is an Efficient Data Center and how do I measure it? LSI – Green site and white paper NetApp – Press Release and related information Sun – Various articles and links Symantec – Global 2000 Struggle to Adopt "Green" Data Centers – Announcement of Survey results ACTON Adinfa APC Australian Conservation Foundation Avocent BBC Brocade Carbon Credit Calculator UK Carbon Footprint Site Carbon Planet Carbonify CarbonZero Cassatt CO2 Stats Site Copan Dell DirectGov UK Acton Diesel Service & Supply Power Calculator & Converter Eaton Powerware Ecobusinesslinks Ecoscale EMC Power Calculator EMC Web Power Calculator EMC Digital Life Calculator EPA Power Profiler EPA Related Tools EPEAT Google UK Green Footprint Green Grid Calculator HP and more here HVAC Calculator IBM Logicalis Kohler Power (Business and Residential) Micron MSN Carbon Footprint Calculator National Wildlife Foundation NEF UK NetApp Rackwise Platespin Safecom Sterling Planet Sun and more here and here and here Tandberg TechRepublic TerraPass Carbon Offset Credits Thomas Kreen AG Toronto Hydro Calculator 80 Plus Calculator VMware 42u Green Grid PUE DCiE calculator 42u energy calculator Green and Virtual Tools
Green and Virtual Metrics
Disclaimer and notesDisclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site. Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page. |
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
|
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Updated 2/10/2018
RAID data protection remains relevant including erasure codes (EC), local reconstruction codes (LRC) among other technologies. If RAID were really not relevant anymore (e.g. actually dead), why do some people spend so much time trying to convince others that it is dead or to use a different RAID level or enhanced RAID or beyond raid with related advanced approaches?
When you hear RAID, what comes to mind?
A legacy monolithic storage system that supports narrow 4, 5 or 6 drive wide stripe sets or a modern system support dozens of drives in a RAID group with different options?
RAID means many things, likewise there are different implementations (hardware, software, systems, adapters, operating systems) with various functionality, some better than others.
For example, which of the items in the following figure come to mind, or perhaps are new to your RAID vocabulary?
There are Many Variations of RAID Storage some for the enterprise, some for SMB, SOHO or consumer. Some have better performance than others, some have poor performance for example causing extra writes that lead to the perception that all parity based RAID do extra writes (some actually do write gathering and optimization).
Some hardware and software implementations using WBC (write back cache) mirrored or battery backed-BBU along with being able to group writes together in memory (cache) to do full stripe writes. The result can be fewer back-end writes compared to other systems. Hence, not all RAID implementations in either hardware or software are the same. Likewise, just because a RAID definition shows a particular theoretical implementation approach does not mean all vendors have implemented it in that way. |
RAID is not a replacement for backup rather part of an overall approach to providing data availability and accessibility.
There are different RAID levels and implementations (hardware, software, controller, storage system, operating system, adapter among others) for various environments (enterprise, SME, SMB, SOHO, consumer) supporting primary, secondary, tertiary (backup/data protection, archiving).
General RAID comparisons
Thus one size or approach does fit all solutions, likewise RAID rules of thumbs or guides need context. Context means that a RAID rule or guide for consumer or SOHO or SMB might be different for enterprise and vise versa, not to mention on the type of storage system, number of drives, drive type and capacity among other factors.
General basic RAID comparisons
Thus the best RAID level is the one that meets your specific needs in your environment. What is best for one environment and application may be different from what is applicable to your needs.
Key points and RAID considerations include: · Not all RAID implementations are the same, some are very much alive and evolving while others are in need of a rest or rewrite. So it is not the technology or techniques that are often the problem, rather how it is implemented and then deployed. · It may not be RAID that is dead, rather the solution that uses it, hence if you think a particular storage system, appliance, product or software is old and dead along with its RAID implementation, then just say that product or vendors solution is dead. · RAID can be implemented in hardware controllers, adapters or storage systems and appliances as well as via software and those have different features, capabilities or constraints. · Long or slow drive rebuilds are a reality with larger disk drives and parity-based approaches; however, you have options on how to balance performance, availability, capacity, and economics. · RAID can be single, dual or multiple parity or mirroring-based. · Erasure and other coding schemes leverage parity schemes and guess what umbrella parity schemes fall under. · RAID may not be cool, sexy or a fun topic and technology to talk about, however many trendy tools, solutions and services actually use some form or variation of RAID as part of their basic building blocks. This is an example of using new and old things in new ways to help each other do more without increasing complexity. · Even if you are not a fan of RAID and think it is old and dead, at least take a few minutes to learn more about what it is that you do not like to update your dead FUD. |
There is some dead marketing that paints a broad picture that RAID is dead to prop up something new, which in some cases may be a derivative variation of parity RAID.
Data dispersal and durability
RAID continues to evolve with rapid rebuilds for some systems
Otoh, there are some specific products, technologies, implementations that may be end of life or actually dead. Likewise what might be dead, dying or simply not in vogue are specific RAID implementations or packaging. Certainly there is a lot of buzz around object storage, cloud storage, forward error correction (FEC) and erasure coding including messages of how they cut RAID. Catch is that some object storage solutions are overlayed on top of lower level file systems that do things such as RAID 6, granted they are out of sight, out of mind.
General RAID parity and erasure code/FEC comparisons
Then there are advanced parity protection schemes which include FEC and erasure codes that while they are not your traditional RAID levels, they have characteristic including chunking or sharding data, spreading it out over multiple devices with multiple parity (or derivatives of parity) protection.
Bottom line is that for some environments, different RAID levels may be more applicable and alive than for others.
Via BizTech – How to Turn Storage Networks into Better Performers
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If you are new to RAID, learn more about the past, present and future keeping mind context. Keeping context in mind means that there are different RAID levels and implementations for various environments. Not all RAID 0, 1, 1/0, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or other variations (past, present and emerging) are the same for consumer vs. SOHO vs. SMB vs. SME vs. Enterprise, nor are the usage cases. Some need performance for reads, others for writes, some for high-capacity with low performance using hardware or software. RAID Rules of thumb are ok and useful, however keep them in context to what you are doing as well as using.
Take some time to learn, ask questions including what to use when, where, why and how as well as if an approach or recommendation are applicable to your needs. Check out the following links to read some extra perspectives about RAID and keep in mind, what might apply to enterprise may not be relevant for consumer or SMB and vise versa.
Some advise needed on SSD’s and Raid (Via Spiceworks)
RAID 5 URE Rebuild Means The Sky Is Falling (Via BenchmarkReview)
Double drive failures in a RAID-10 configuration (Via SearchStorage)
Industry Trends and Perspectives: RAID Rebuild Rates (Via StorageIOblog)
RAID, IOPS and IO observations (Via StorageIOBlog)
RAID Relevance Revisited (Via StorageIOBlog)
HDDs Are Still Spinning (Rust Never Sleeps) (Via InfoStor)
When and Where to Use NAND Flash SSD for Virtual Servers (Via TheVirtualizationPractice)
What’s the best way to learn about RAID storage? (Via Spiceworks)
Design considerations for the host local FVP architecture (Via Frank Denneman)
Some basic RAID fundamentals and definitions (Via SearchStorage)
Can RAID extend nand flash SSD life? (Via StorageIOBlog)
I/O Performance Issues and Impacts on Time-Sensitive Applications (Via CMG)
The original RAID white paper (PDF) that while over 20 years old, it provides a basis, foundation and some history by Katz, Gibson, Patterson et al
Storage Interview Series (Via Infortrend)
Different RAID methods (Via RAID Recovery Guide)
A good RAID tutorial (Via TheGeekStuff)
Basics of RAID explained (Via ZDNet)
RAID and IOPs (Via VMware Communities)
View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.
Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.
What is my favorite or preferred RAID level?
That depends, for some things its RAID 1, for others RAID 10 yet for others RAID 4, 5, 6 or DP and yet other situations could be a fit for RAID 0 or erasure codes and FEC. Instead of being focused on just one or two RAID levels as the solution for different problems, I prefer to look at the environment (consumer, SOHO, small or large SMB, SME, enterprise), type of usage (primary or secondary or data protection), performance characteristics, reads, writes, type and number of drives among other factors. What might be a fit for one environment would not be a fit for others, thus my preferred RAID level along with where implemented is the one that meets the given situation. However also keep in mind is tying RAID into part of an overall data protection strategy, remember, RAID is not a replacement for backup.
Like other technologies that have been declared dead for years or decades, aka the Zombie technologies (e.g. dead yet still alive) RAID continues to be used while the technologies evolves. There are specific products, implementations or even RAID levels that have faded away, or are declining in some environments, yet alive in others. RAID and its variations are still alive, however how it is used or deployed in conjunction with other technologies also is evolving.
Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs
Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
Recently I put together a two-part series of some server storage I/O items to get a geek for a gift (read part I here and part II here) that also contain items that can be used for accessorizing servers such as the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140.
Image via Lenovo.com
Likewise I have done reviews of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the past which included me liking them and buying some (read the reviews here and here), along with a review of the larger TD340 here.
Do you need or want to do a Do It Yourself (DIY) build of a small server compute cluster, or a software defined storage cluster (e.g. scale-out), or perhaps a converged storage for VMware VSAN, Microsoft SOFS or something else?
Do you need a new server, second or third server, or expand a cluster, create a lab or similar and want the ability to tailor your system without shopping or a motherboard, enclosure, power supply and so forth?
Are you a virtualization or software defined person looking to create a small VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) needing three or more servers to build a proof of concept or personal lab system?
Then the TS140 could be a fit for you.
Image via StorageIOlabs, click to see review
Recently I have seen a lot of site traffic on my site with people viewing my reviews of the Lenovo TS140 of which I have a few. In addition have got questions from people via comments section as well as elsewhere about the TS140 and while shopping at Amazon.com for some other things, noticed that there were some good value deals on different TS140 models.
I tend to buy the TS140 models that are bare bones having power supply, enclosure, CD/DVD, USB ports, power supply and fan, processor and minimal amount of DRAM memory. For processors mine have the Intel E3-1225 v3 which are quad-core and that have various virtualization assist features (e.g. good for VMware and other hypervisors).
What I saw on Amazon the other day (also elsewhere) were some Intel i3-4130 dual core based systems (these do not have all the virtualization features, just the basics) in a bare configuration (e.g. no Hard Disk Drive (HDD), 4GB DRAM, processor, mother board, power supply and fan, LAN port and USB with a price of around $220 USD (your price may vary depending on timing, venue, prime or other membership and other factors). Not bad for a system that you can tailor to your needs. However what also caught my eye were the TS140 models that have the Intel E3-1225 v3 (e.g. quad core, 3.2Ghz) processor matching the others I have with a price of around $330 USD including shipping (your price will vary depending on venue and other factors).
Some caveats of this solution approach include:
Create a single or multi-server based system for
Like some other servers in this class, you need to pay attention to what it is that you are ordering, check out the various reviews, comments and questions as well as verify the make, model along with configuration. For example what is included and what is not included, warranty, return policy among other things. In the case of some of the TS140 models, they do not have a HDD, OS, keyboard, monitor, mouse along with different types of processors and memory. Not all the processors are the same, pay attention, visit the Intel Ark site to look up a specific processor configuration to see if it fits your needs as well as visit the hardware compatibility list (HCL) for the software that you are planning to use. Note that these should be best practices regardless of make, model, type or vendor for server, storage, I/O networking hardware and software.
This list assumes that you have obtained a model without a HDD, keyboard, video, mouse or operating system (OS) installed
You can easily add some GbE (or faster ports) including use the PCIe x1 slot, or use one of the other slots for a quad port GbE (or faster), not to mention get some InfiniBand single or dual port cards such as the Mellanox Connectx II or Connect III that support QDR and can run in IBA or 10GbE modes. If you only have two or three servers in a cluster, grid, ring configuration you can run point to point topologies using InfiniBand (and some other network interfaces) without using a switch, however you decide if you need or want switched or non-switched (I have a switch). Note that with VMware (and perhaps other hypervisors or OS) you may need to update the drives for the Realtek GbE LAN on Motherboard port (see links below).
For extra storage space capacity (and performance) you can easily add PCIe G2 or G3 HBAs (SAS, SATA, FC, FCoE, CNA, UTA, IBA for SRP, etc) or RAID cards among others. Depending on your choice of cards, you can then attach to more internal storage, external storage or some combination with different adapters, cables, interposers and connectivity options. For example I have used TS140s with PCIe Gen 3 12Gbs SAS HBAs attached to 12Gbs SAS SSDs (and HDDs) with the ability to drive performance to see what those devices are capable of doing.
As an example of how a TS140 can be configured, using one of the base E3-1224 v3 models with 4GB RAM, no HDD (e.g around $330 USD, your price will vary), add a 4TB Seagate HDD (or two or three) for around $140 USD each (your price will vary), add a 480GB SATA SSD for around $340 USD (your price will vary) with those attached to the internal SATA ports. To bump up network performance, how about a Mellanox Connectx II dual port QDR IBA/10GbE card for around $140 USD (your price will vary), plus around $65 USD for QSFP cable (you your price will vary), and some extra memory (use what you have or shop around) and you have a platform ready to go for around or under $1,000 USD. Add some more internal or external disks, bump up the memory, put in some extra network adapters and your price will go up a bit, however think about what you can have for a robust not so little system. For you VMware vgeeks, think about the proof of concept VSAN that you can put together, granted you will have to do some DIY items.
Image via Lenovo.com
Like many servers in its category (price, capabilities, abilities, packaging) you can do a lot of different things with them, as well as hardware define with accessories, or use your own software. Depending on how you end how hardware defining the TS140 with extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, adapters or other accessories and software your cost will vary. However you can also put together a pretty robust system without breaking your budget while meeting different needs.
Is this for everybody? Nope
Is this for more than a lab, experimental, hobbyist, gamer? Sure, with some caveats Is this apples to apples comparison vs. some other solutions including VSANs? Nope, not even close, maybe apples to oranges.
Do I like the TS140? Yup, starting with a review I did about a year ago, I liked it so much I bought one, then another, then some more.
Are these the only servers I have, use or like? Nope, I also have systems from HP and Dell as well as test drive and review others
Why do I like the TS140? It’s a value for some things which means that while affordable (not to be confused with cheap) it has features, salability and ability to be both hardware defined for what I want or need to use them as, along with software define them to be different things. Key for me is the PCIe Gen 3 support with multiple slots (and types of slots), reasonable amount of memory, internal housing for 3.5" and 2.5" drives that can attach to on-board SATA ports, media device (CD/DVD) if needed, or remove to use for more HDDs and SSDs. In other words, it’s a platform that instead of shopping for the motherboard, an enclosure, power supply, processor and related things I get the basics, then configure, and reconfigure as needed.
Another reason I like the TS140 is that I get to have the server basically my way, in that I do not have to order it with a smallest number of HDDs, or that it comes with an OS, more memory than needed or other things that I may or may not be able to use. Granted I need to supply the extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, PCIe adapters and network ports along with software, however for me that’s not too much of an issue.
What don’t I like about the TS140? You can read more about my thoughts on the TS140 in my review here, or its bigger sibling the TD340 here, however I would like to see more memory slots for scaling up. Granted for what these cost, it’s just as easy to scale-out and after all, that’s what a lot of software defined storage prefers these days (e.g. scale-out).
The TS140 is a good platform for many things, granted not for everything, that’s why like storage, networking and other technologies there are different server options for various needs. Exercise caution when doing apples to oranges comparison on price alone, compare what you are getting in terms of processor type (and its functionality), expandable memory, PCIe speed, type and number of slots, LAN connectivity and other features to meet your needs or requirements. Also keep in mind that some systems might be more expensive that include a keyboard, HDD with an OS installed that if you can use those components, then they have value and should be factored into your cost, benefit, return on investment.
And yes, I just added a few more TS140s that join other recent additions to the server storageIO lab resources…
Anybody want to guess what I will be playing with among other things during the up coming holiday season?
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part one of a two part series for what to get a geek for a gift, read part two here.
It is that time of the year when annual predictions are made for the upcoming year, including those that will be repeated next year or that were also made last year.
It’s also the time of the year to get various projects wrapped up, line up new activities, get the book-keeping things ready for year-end processing and taxes, as well as other things.
It’s also that time of the year to do some budget and project planning including upgrades, replacements, enhancements while balancing an over-subscribed holiday party schedule some of you may have.
Lets not forget getting ready for vacations, perhaps time off from work with some time upgrading your home lab or other projects.
Then there are the gift lists or trying to figure out what to get that difficult to shop for person particular geek’s who may have everything, or want the latest and greatest that others have, or something their peers don’t have yet.
Sure I have a DJI Phantom II on my wish list, however also have other things on my needs list (e.g. what I really need and want vs. what would be fun to wish for).
Image via DJI.com, click on image to learn more and compare models
So here are some things for the geek or may have everything or is up on having the latest and greatest, yet forgot or didn’t know about some of these things.
Not to mention some of these might seem really simple and low-cost, think of them like a Lego block or erector set part where your imagination will be your boundary how to use them. Also, most if not all of these are budget friendly particular if you shop around.
So you need to add some 2.5" SAS or SATA HDD’s, SSD’s, HHDD’s/SSHD’s to your server for supporting your VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, OpenStack, Hadoop or legacy *nix or Windows environment or perhaps gaming system. Challenge is that you are out of disk drive bay slots and you want things neatly organized vs. a rat’s nest of cables hanging out of your system. No worries assuming your server has an empty media bay (e.g. those 5.25" slots where CDs/DVDs or really old HDD’s go), or if you can give up the CD/DVD, then use that bay and its power connector to add ones of these. This is a 4 x 2.5" SAS and SATA drive bay that has a common power connector (molex male) with each drive bay having its own SATA drive connection. By each drive having its own SATA connection you can map the drives to an on-board available SATA port attached to a SAS or SATA controller, or attach an available port on a RAID adapter to the ports using a cable such as small form factor (SFF) 8087 to SATA.
(Left) Rear view with Molex power and SATA cables (Right) front view
I have a few of these in different systems and what I like about them is that they support different drive speeds, plus they will accept a SAS drive where many enclosures in this category only support SATA. Once you mount your 2.5" HDD or SSD using screws, you can hot swap (requires controller and OS support) the drives and move them between other similar enclosures as needed. The other thing I like is that there are front indicator lights as well as by each drive having its own separate connection, you can attach some of the drives to a RAID adapter while others connected to on-board SATA ports. Oh, and you can also have different speeds of drives as well.
Depending on the type of your server, you may have Molex, SATA or some other type of power connections. You can use different power connection cables to go from one type (Molex) to another, create a connection for two devices, create an extension to reach hard to get to mounting locations.
Warning and disclosure note, keep in mind how much power you are drawing when attaching devices to not cause an electrical or fire hazard, follow manufactures instructions and specification doing so at your own risk! After all, Just like Clark Grizzwald in National Lampoon Christmas Vacation who found you could attach extension cord to splitters to splitters and fan-out to have many lights attached, you don’t want to cause a fire or blackout when you plug to many drives in.
National Lampoon Christmas Vacation
Ok so you do not want to do a Clark Grizzwald (see above video) and overload a power circuit, or perhaps you simply want to know how many watts, amps or quality of your voltage is.
There are many types of power meters along with various prices, some even have interfaces where you can grab event data to correlate with server storage I/O networking performance to do things such as IOP’s per watt among other metrics. Speaking of IOP’s per watt, check out the SNIA Emerald site where they have some good tools including a benchmark script that uses Vdbench to drive hot band workload (e.g. basically kick the crap out of a storage system).
Back to power meters, I like the Kill A Watt series of meters as they give good info about amps, volts, power quality. I have these plugged into outlets so I can see how much power is being used by the battery backup units (BBU) aka UPS that also serve as power surge filters. If needed I can move these further downstream to watch the power intake of a specific server, storage, network or other device.
Electrical power surge strips should be a given or considered common sense, however what is or should be common sense should be repeated so that it remains common sense, you should be using power surge strips or other devices.
For most situations a good surge suppressor will cover short power transients.
Image via APC and model similar to those that I have
For slightly longer power outages of a few seconds to minutes, that’s where battery backup up (BBU) units that also have surge suppression comes into play. There are many types, sizes with various features to meet your needs and budget. I have several of theses in a couple of different sizes not only for servers, storage and networking equipment (including some WiFi access points, routers, etc), I also have them for home things such as satellite DVR’s. However not everything needs to stay on while others simply need to stay on long-enough in order to shutdown manually or via automated power off sequences.
Generators are not just for the rich and famous or large data center, like other technologies they are available in different sizes, power capacity, fuel sources, manual or automated among other things.
Image via Kohler Power similar to model that I have
Note that even with a typical generator there will be a time gap from the time power goes off until the generator starts, stabilizes and you have good power. That’s where the BBU and UPS mentioned above comes into play to bridge those time gaps which in my cases is about 25-30 seconds. Btw, knowing how much power your technology is drawing using tools such as the Kill A Watt is part of the planning process to avoid surprises.
Yup, whether it is to fit in and be green, or simply to get some electrical power when or where it is not needed to charge a battery or power some device, these small solar power devices are very handy.
Image via Amazon.com
Image via Amazon.com
For example you can get or easily make an adapter to charge laptops, cell phones or even power them for normal use (check manufactures information on power usage, Amps and Voltage draws among other warnings to prevent fire and other things). Btw, not only are these handy for computer related things, they also work great for keeping batteries on my fishing boat charged so that I have my fish finder and other electronics, just saying.
How about a new or updated smoke and fire detection alarm monitor, as well as fire extinguisher for the geek’s software defined hardware that runs on power (electrical or battery)?
The following is from the site Fire Extinguisher 101 where you can learn more about different types of suppression technologies.
| Image via Fire Extinguisher 101 |
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This wraps up part I of what to get a geek V2014, continue reading part II here.
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part two of a two part series for what to get a geek for a gift, read part one here.
Not to be confused with a software defined network (SDN) switch for the KVM virtualization hypervisor, how about the other KVM switch?
My KVM switch in use, looks like five servers are powered on.
If you have several servers or devices that need a Keyboard Video Mouse connection, or are using A/B box or other devices, why not combine using a KVM switch. I bought the Startech shown above from Amazon which works out to be under $40 a port (connection) meaning I do not have to have Keyboards, Video monitors or Mouse for each of those systems.
With my KVM shown above, I have used the easy setup to name each of the ports via the management software so that when a button is pressed, not only does the applicable screen appear, also a graphic text message overlay tell me which server is being displayed. This is handy for example as I have some servers that are identical (e.g. Lenovo TS140s) running VMware that a quick glance can help me verify I’m on the right one (e.g. without looking at the VMware host name or IP). This feature is also handy during power on self test (POST) when the servers physical or logical (e.g. VMware, Windows, Hyper-V, Ubuntu, Openstack, etc..) identity is known. Another thing I like about these is that on the KVM switch there is a single VGA type connector, while on the server end there is a VGA connector for attaching to the monitor port of the device, and a break out cable with USB for attaching to server to get Keyboard and Mouse.
Usually things are in larger server or storage systems enclosures, however now and then there is the need to supply power to a HDD or SSD along with a USB or eSATA interface for attaching to a system. These are handy and versatile little aluminum enclosures.
Note that you can now also find these types of cables that can do same or similar function for in side a server connection (check out this cable among others at Amazon)
It would be easy to assume that everybody would have these by now particular since everybody (depending on who you listen to or what you read) has probably converted from a HDD to SSD. However for those who have not done an HDD to SSD, or simply a HDD to newer HDD conversion, or that have an older HDD (or SSD) lying around, these cables come in very handy. attach one end (e.g. the SATA end) to a HDD or SSD and the other to a USB port on a laptop, tablet or server. Caveat however with these is that they generally only have power (via USB) for a 2.5″ type drive so for a larger more power-hungry 3.5″ device, you would need a different powered cable, or small shoe box type enclosure.
(Left) USB to SATA and (Right) eSATA to SATA cables
There are many different types of mobile device chargers available along with multi-purpose cables. I like the Mophie which I received at an event from NetApp (Thanks NetApp) and the flexible connector I received from Dyn while at AWS re:Invent 2014 (Thanks Dyn, I’m also a Dyn customer fwiw).
(Left) Mophie Power station and (Right) multi-connector cable
The Mohpie has USB connector so that you can charge it via a charging station or via a computer, as well as attach a USB to Apple or other device connector. There is also a small connector for attach to other devices. This is where the dandy Dyn device comes into play as it has a USB as well as Apple and many other common connectors as shown in the figure below. Google around and I’m sure you can find both for sale, or as giveaways or something similar.
(Left) SAS to SATA interposer (Right) Molex power with SATA connector to SAS
Note that the above are intended for passing a SAS signal from a device such as HDD or SSD to a SAS based controller that happens to have SATA mechanical or keyed interfaces such as with some servers. This means that the real controller needs to be SAS and the attached drives can be SATA or SAS keeping in mind that a SATA device can plug into a SAS controller however not vise versa. You can find the above at Amazon among other venues. Need a dual-lane SAS connector as an alternative to the one shown above on the right, then check this one out at Amazon.
Need to learn more about the many different facets of SAS and related technologies including how it coexists with iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC), FCoE, InfiniBand and other interfaces, how about getting a free copy of SAS SANs for Dummies?
There are also these for doing board level connections
Some additional SAS and SATA drive connectors
In the above on the left are a female to female SATA cable with a male to male SATA gender changer attached to be used for example between a storage device and the SATA connector port on a servers motherboard, HBA or RAID controller. In the middle are shown some SATA female to female cables, as well as a SATA to eSATA (external SATA) cable (middle), and on the right are some SATA Male to SATA Male gender changes also shown being used on the left in the above figures.
If you or your geek are doing things in the lab or other environment adding and reconfiguring devices such as some of those mentioned above (or below), sooner or later there will be the need to do something with power cables and connectors.
Various cables, adapters and extender
In the above figure are shown (top to bottom) a SATA male to molex, SATA female to SATA male and to its right SATA female to Molex. Below that are two SATA females to Molex, below that is a SATA male to dual Molex and on the bottom is a single SATA to dual SATA. Needless to say there are many other combinations of connectors as well as different genders (e.g. Male or Female) along with extenders. As mentioned above, pay attention to manufacturers recommend power draw and safety notices to prevent accidental electric shock or fire.
Are you or your geek into the Internet of Things (IoT) or Internet of Devices (IoD) or other similar things and gadgets? Have you heard about Intel’s Edison breakout board for doing software development and attachment of various hardware things? Looking for something to move beyond a Raspberry Pi system?
Images via Intel.com
This past year I found Nanostation extended WiFi devices that solved a challenge (problem) which was how to get a secure WiFi signal up to a couple hundred yards through a thick forest between some hill’s.
Image via UBNT.com, check out their other models as well as resources for different deployments
The problem was it was to far and too many tree’s with leaves use a regular WiFi connection and too far to run cable if I did not need to. I found the solution by getting a pair of the Nanostation M2 putting them into bridge mode, then doing some alignment with their narrow beam antennas to bounce a signal through the woods. For those who simply need to go a long distance, these devices can be reconfigured to go several km’s line of sight. Click on the image above to see other models of the Nanostation as well as links to various resources on how they can be used for other things or deployments.
How about a Livescribe digital pen and paper? Sure you can use a PC, Apple or other tablet, however some things are still easier done on a traditional paper and virtual pen. I got one of these about a year ago and use it for note taking, mocking up slides for presentations and in some cases have used this for creating figures and other things. It would be easy to see and place the Livescribe and a Windows or other tablet as an either or competitive however for me, I still see where they are better together addressing different things, at least for now.
(Left) using my Livescribe and Echo digital pen (Right) resulting exported .Png
Tip: I you noticed in the above left image (e.g. the original) the lines in the top figure, compared to the lines in the figure on the right are different. If you encounter your livescribe causing lines to run on or into each other it is because your digital pen tip is sticking. It’s easy to check by looking at the tip of your digital pen and see if the small red light is on or off, or if it stays on when you press the pen tip. If it stays on, reset the pen tip. Also when you write, make sure to lift up on the pen tip so that it releases, otherwise you will get results like those shown on the right.
(Left) Livescribe Digital Desktop (Middle) Imported Digital Document (Right) Exported PNG
Also check out this optional application that turns a Livescribe Echo pen like mine into a digital tablet allowing you to draw on-screen with certain applications and webinar tools.
Speaking of reading, for those who are not up on the No SQL and alternative SQL based databases including Mongo, Hbase, Riak, Cassandra, MySQL, add Seven Databases in Seven Weeks to your liust. Click on the image to read my book review of it as well as links to order it from Amazon. Seven Databases in Seven Weeks (A Guide to Modern Databases and the NoSQL Movement) is a book written Eric Redmond (@coderoshi) and Jim Wilson (@hexlib), part of The Pragmatic Programmers (@pragprog) series that takes a look at several non SQL based database systems.
Note: Some of the above can be found at your favorite trade show or conference so keep that in mind for future gift giving.
What interesting geek gift ideas or wish list items do you have?
Of course if you have anything interesting to mention feel free to add it to the comments (keep it clean though ;) or feel free to send to me for future mention.
In the meantime have a safe and happy holiday season for what ever holiday you enjoy celebrating anytime of the year.
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
A year or so ago I did a piece tape summit resources. Despite being declared dead for decades, and will probably stay being declared dead for years to come, magnetic tape is in fact still alive being used by some organizations, granted its role is changing while the technology still evolves.
Here is the memo I received today from the PR folks of the Tape Storage Council (e.g. tape vendors marketing consortium) and for simplicity (mine), I’m posting it here for you to read in its entirety vs. possibly in pieces elsewhere. Note that this is basically a tape status and collection of marketing and press release talking points, however you can get an idea of the current messaging, who is using tape and technology updates.
True to the nature of magnetic tape as a data storage medium, this is not a low latency small post, rather a large high-capacity bulk post or perhaps all you need to know about tape for now, or until next year. Otoh, if you are a tape fan, you can certainly take the memo from the tape folks, as well as visit their site for more info.
From the tape storage council industry trade group:
Today the Tape Storage Council issued its annual memo to highlight the current trends, usages and technology innovations occurring within the tape storage industry. The Tape Storage Council includes representatives of BDT, Crossroads Systems, FUJIFILM, HP, IBM, Imation, Iron Mountain, Oracle, Overland Storage, Qualstar, Quantum, REB Storage Systems, Recall, Spectra Logic, Tandberg Data and XpresspaX. Data Growth and Technology Innovations Fuel Tape’s Future Abstract The Growth in Tape Enterprise tape has reached an unprecedented 10 TB native capacity with data rates reaching 360 MB/sec. Enterprise tape libraries can scale beyond one exabyte. Enterprise tape manufacturers IBM and Oracle StorageTek have signaled future cartridge capacities far beyond 10 TBs with no limitations in sight. Open systems users can now store more than 300 Blu-ray quality movies with the LTO-6 2.5 TB cartridge. In the future, an LTO-10 cartridge will hold over 14,400 Blu-ray movies. Nearly 250 million LTO tape cartridges have been shipped since the format’s inception. This equals over 100,000 PB of data protected and retained using LTO Technology. The innovative active archive solution combining tape with low-cost NAS storage and LTFS is gaining momentum for open systems users. Recent Announcements and Milestones
Significant Technology Innovations Fuel Tape’s Future
Reliability. Tape reliability levels have surpassed HDDs. Reliability levels for tape exceeds that of the most reliable disk drives by one to three orders of magnitude. The BER (Bit Error Rate – bits read per hard error) for enterprise tape is rated at 1×1019 and 1×1017 for LTO tape. This compares to 1×1016 for the most reliable enterprise Fibre Channel disk drive. Capacity and Data Rate. LTO-6 cartridges provide 2.5 TB capacity and more than double the compressed capacity of the preceding LTO-5 drive with a 14% data rate performance boost to 160 MB/sec. Enterprise tape has reached 8.5 TB native capacity and 252 MB/sec on the Oracle StorageTek T10000D and 10 TB native capacity and 360 MB/sec on the IBM TS1150. Tape cartridge capacities are expected to grow at unprecedented rates for the foreseeable future. Media Life. Manufacturers specifications indicate that enterprise and LTO tape media has a life span of 30 years or more while the average tape drive will be deployed 7 to 10 years before replacement. By comparison, the average disk drive is operational 3 to 5 years before replacement. LTFS Changes Rules for Tape Access. Compared to previous proprietary solutions, LTFS is an open tape format that stores files in application-independent, self-describing fashion, enabling the simple interchange of content across multiple platforms and workflows. LTFS is also being deployed in several innovative “Tape as NAS” active archive solutions that combine the cost benefits of tape with the ease of use and fast access times of NAS. The SNIA LTFS Technical Working Group has been formed to broaden cross–industry collaboration and continued technical development of the LTFS specification. TCOStudies. Tape’s widening cost advantage compared to other storage mediums makes it the most cost-effective technology for long-term data retention. The favorable economics (TCO, low energy consumption, reduced raised floor) and massive scalability have made tape the preferred medium for managing vast volumes of data. Several tape TCO studies are publicly available and the results consistently confirm a significant TCO advantage for tape compared to disk solutions. According to the Brad Johns Consulting Group, a TCO study for an LTFS-based ‘Tape as NAS’ solution totaled $1.1M compared with $7.0M for a disk-based unified storage solution. This equates to a savings of over $5.9M over a 10-year period, which is more than 84 percent less than the equivalent amount for a storage system built on a 4 TB hard disk drive unified storage system. From a slightly different perspective, this is a TCO savings of over $2,900/TB of data. Source: Johns, B. “A New Approach to Lowering the Cost of Storing File Archive Information,”. Another comprehensive TCO study by ESG (Enterprise Strategies Group) comparing an LTO-5 tape library system with a low-cost SATA disk system for backup using de-duplication (best case for disk) shows that disk deduplication has a 2-4x higher TCO than the tape system for backup over a 5 year period. The study revealed that disk has a TCO of 15x higher than tape for long-term data archiving. Select Case Studies Highlight Tape and Active Archive Solutions Dream Works Animation a global Computer Graphic (CG) animation studio has implemented a reliable, cost-effective and scalable active archive solution to safeguard a 2 PB portfolio of finished movies and graphics, supporting a long-term asset preservation strategy. The studio’s comprehensive, tiered and converged active archive architecture, which spans software, disk and tape, saves the company time, money and reduces risk. LA Kings of the NHL rely extensively on digital video assets for marketing activities with team partners and for its broadcast affiliation with Fox Sports. Today, the Kings save about 200 GB of video per game for an 82 game regular season and are on pace to generate about 32-35 TB of new data per season. The King’s chose to implement Fujifilm’s Dternity NAS active archive appliance, an open LTFS based architecture. The Kings wanted an open source archiving solution which could outlast its original hardware while maintaining data integrity. Today with Dternity and LTFS, the Kings don’t have to decide what data to keep because they are able to cost-effectively save everything they might need in the future. McDonald’s primary challenge was to create a digital video workflow that streamlines the management and distribution of their global video assets for their video production and post-production environment. McDonald’s implemented the Spectra T200 tape library with LTO-6 providing 250 TB of McDonald’s video production storage. Nightly, incremental backup jobs store their media assets into separate disk and LTO- 6 storage pools for easy backup, tracking and fast retrieval. This system design allows McDonald’s to effectively separate and manage their assets through the use of customized automation and data service policies. NCSA employs an Active Archive solution providing 100 percent of the nearline storage for the NCSA Blue Waters supercomputer, which is one of the world’s largest active file repositories stored on high capacity, highly reliable enterprise tape media. Using an active archive system along with enterprise tape and RAIT (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Tape) eliminates the need to duplicate tape data, which has led to dramatic cost savings. Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) is a leading center for neuroscience research. QBI’s research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate brain function to help develop new treatments for neurological and mental disorders. QBI’s storage system has to scale extensively to store, protect, and access tens of terabytes of data daily to support cutting-edge research. QBI choose an Oracle solution consisting of Oracle’s StorageTek SL3000 modular tape libraries with StorageTek T10000 enterprise tape drives. The Oracle solution improved QBI’s ability to grow, attract world-leading scientists and meet stringent funding conditions. Looking Ahead to 2015 and Beyond Visit the Tape Storage Council at tapestorage.org |
Like it not tape is still alive being used along with the technology evolving with new enhancements as outlined above.
Good to see the tape folks doing some marketing to get their story told and heard for those who are still interested.
Does that mean I still use tape?
Nope, I stopped using tape for local backups and archives well over a decade ago using disk to disk and disk to cloud.
Does that mean I believe that tape is dead?
Nope, I still believe that for some organizations and some usage scenarios it makes good sense, however like with most data storage related technologies, it’s not a one size or type of technology fits everything scenario value proposition.
On a related note for cloud and object storage, visit www.objectstoragecenter.com
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
