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What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 2/10/2018

The other day it dawned on me what do NAS, NASA NASCAR have in common?

Several things in addition to all starting with the letters NAS it turns out.

For example, they all deal with round objects, NAS or Network Attached storage involved with circular spinning disk drives, NASA or National Aeronautical Space Administration besides involved with aircraft that have tires that go round and round, or airplanes circling waiting for landing.

In the case of NASA they are also involved with sending craft or devices to circle other planets or moons and land or crash into them. Sometimes NAS along with other storage systems have disk drives that crash, similar to how NASCAR events see accidents.
NAS

Ceder Lake 3M NASCAR at dirt track - Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz all rights reserved

Ceder Lake dirt track 3M NASCAR night (Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz)

NASCAR is also involved with vehicles that dont or at least should not fly, however they do go round and round on a track, often paved however sometimes mud or dirt tracks plus high tech exists with computers and various data models, not to mention the NASCAR air force.

In addition to being involved with round objects and activities, all three are also involved in computing, generating, processing, storing and retrieving for analysis of data, not to mention high performance requirements.

NAS based storage can also be relied upon for serving the needs of NASA and NASCAR data and informational needs.

And FWIW, just for fun, look at what you get when you spell NAS, NASA or NASCAR backwards:

RACSAN
ASAN
SAN

Where To Learn More

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.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Not much actually other than to stimulate some thought, discussion as well as perhaps have some fun with technology during the holiday season.

Im sure if I put some more thought to it, more similarities would or will come to mind.

However, for now, thats it for a quick thought, what similarities do you see or know about with NAS, NASA and NASCAR?

Ok, nuf fun for now, time to work on some other posts, content and projects.

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.

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Justifying Green IT and Home Hardware Upgrades with EnergyStar

Energy Star

Have you seen the TV commercials or print advertisements where an energy star washer is mentioned as so efficient that the savings from reduced power consumption are enough to pay for the dryer? If not, check out the EPA Energy Star website for information about various programs, savings and efficiency options to learn more

What does this have to do with servers, storage, networking, data centers or other IT equipment?

Simple, if you are not aware, Energy Star for Servers now exits and is being enhanced while good progress is being made on the Energy Star for storage program.

The Energy Star for household appliances has been around a bit longer and more refined, something that I anticipated the server and storage programs to follow-suit with over time.

What really caught my eye with the commercial is the focus on closing the green gap, that is instead of the green environmental impact savings of an appliance that uses less power and subsequent carbon footprint benefits, the message is to the economic hot button. That is, switch to more energy efficient technology that allows more work to done at a lower overall cost and the savings can help self fund the enhancements.

For example, a more energy efficient server that can do more work or GHz per watt of energy when needed, or, to go into lower power modes (intelligent power management: IPM). Low power modes do not necessarily mean turning completely off, rather, drawing less energy and subsequently lower cooling demands during slow periods such as with new Intel Nehalem and other processors.

From a disk storage perspective, energy efficiency is often thought to be avoidance or turning disk drives off boosting capacity and squeezing data footprints.

However energy efficiency and savings can also be achieved by slowing a disk drive down or turning of some of the electronics to reduce energy consumption and heat generation.

Other forms of energy savings include thin provisioning and deduplication however another form of energy efficiency for storage is boosting performance. That is, doing more work per watt of energy for active or time sensitive applications or usage scenarios.

Thus there is another Green IT, one that provides both economic and environmental benefits!

Here are some related links:

Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories

EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update

Green Storage is Alive and Well: ENERGY STAR Enterprise Storage Stakeholder Meeting Details

Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency

U.S. EPA Energy Star for Server Update

U.S. EPA Looking for Industry Input on Energy Star for Storage

Update: EnergyStar for Server Workshop

US EPA EnergyStar for Servers Wants To Hear From YOU!

Optimize Data Storage for Performance and Capacity Efficiency

Ok, nuff said.

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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Going Rouge or Rogue in IT

Given all of the hype and buzz lately around Sarah Palins new book Going Rogue, how long until we see the term or phrase used in IT? After all, we saw some jump on the cash for clunkers theme. I wonder who will be the first to jump on the Going Rogue or rogue theme bandwagon. Here are a few ideas that might stimulate some thought, or, to keep an eye out to see who jumps on the bandwagon.

Going rogue on Acadia
Going rogue on Analysts
Going rogue on Archiving
Going rogue on Automated tiering
Going rogue on Backup
Going rogue on Blade servers
Going rogue on Bloggers
Going rogue on Clouds (public or private)
Going rogue on Compliance
Going rogue on Consultants
Going rogue on Dedupe
Going rogue on Disks drives
Going rogue on FCoE
Going rogue on FLASH or SSD
Going rogue on Green IT
Going rogue on Hosting
Going rogue on IOV
Going rogue on iSCSI
Going rogue on Kindle
Going rogue on Managed service providers (MSP)
Going rogue on Media venues or reporters
Going rogue on Networking
Going rogue on OSD
Going rogue on Performance
Going rogue on Polls and surveys
Going rogue on RAID
Going rogue on Security
Going rogue on SOA
Going rogue on Social media
Going rogue on Tape
Going rogue on Testing
Going rogue on Thin provision
Going rogue on Training and certifications
Going rogue on Twitter
Going rogue on VCE
Going rogue on Vendors
Going rogue with Virtualization
Going rogue on Virtual machines
Going rogue on VMware or HyperV
Going rogue on VoIP
Going rogue on Windows
Going rogue with XaaS

Alright, enough is enough for now at the risk of being perceived as snarky, after all, this is also just in fun.

Lets sit back and see who comes up with something about going rogue from an IT perspective.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update

EPA Energy Star

Following up on a recent post about Green IT, energy efficiency and optimization for servers, storage and more, here are some additional  thoughts, perspectives along with industry activity around the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star for Server, Data Center Storage and Data Centers.

First a quick update, Energy Star for Servers is in place with work now underway on expanding and extending beyond the first specification. Second is that Energy Star for Data Center storage definition is well underway including a recent workshop to refine the initial specification along with discussion for follow-on drafts.

Energy Star for Data Centers is also currently undergoing definition which is focused more on macro or facility energy (notice I did not say electricity) efficiency as opposed to productivity or effectiveness, items that the Server and Storage specifications are working towards.

Among all of the different industry trade or special interests groups, at least on the storage front the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Green Storage Initiative (GSI) and their Technical Work Groups (TWG) have been busily working for the past couple of years on taxonomies, metrics and other items in support of EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage.

A challenge for SNIA along with others working on related material pertaining to storage and efficiency is the multi-role functionality of storage. That is, some storage simply stores data with little to no performance requirements while other storage is actively used for reading and writing. In addition, there are various categories, architectures not to mention hardware and software feature functionality or vendors with different product focus and interests.

Unlike servers that are either on and doing work, or, off or in low power mode, storage is either doing active work (e.g. moving data), storing in-active or idle data, or a combination of both. Hence for some, energy efficiency is about how much data can be stored in a given footprint with the least amount of power known as in-active or idle measurement.

On the other hand, storage efficiency is also about using the least amount of energy to produce the most amount of work or activity, for example IOPS or bandwidth per watt per footprint.

Thus the challenge and need for at least a two dimensional  model looking at, and reflecting different types or categories of storage aligned for active or in-active (e.g. storing) data enabling apples to apples, vs. apples to oranges comparison.

This is not all that different from how EPA looks at motor vehicle categories of economy cars, sport utility, work or heavy utility among others when doing different types of work, or, in idle.

What does this have to do with servers and storage?

Simple, when a server powers down where does its data go? That’s right, to a storage system using disk, ssd (RAM or flash), tape or optical for persistency. Likewise, when there is work to be done, where does the data get read into computer memory from, or written to? That’s right, a storage system. Hence the need to look at storage in a multi-tenant manner.

The storage industry is diverse with some vendors or products focused on performance or activity, while others on long term, low cost persistent storage for archive, backup, not to mention some doing a bit of both. Hence the nomenclature of herding cats towards a common goal when different parties have various interests that may conflict yet support needs of various customer storage usage requirements.

Figure 1 shows a simplified, streamlined storage taxonomy that has been put together by SNIA representing various types, categories and functions of data center storage. The green shaded areas are a good step in the right direction to simplify yet move towards realistic and achievable befits for storage consumers.


Figure 1 Source: EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage web site document

The importance of the streamlined SNIA taxonomy is to help differentiate or characterize various types and tiers of storage (Figure 2) products facilitating apples to apples comparison instead of apples or oranges. For example, on-line primary storage needs to be looked at in terms of how much work or activity per energy footprint determines efficiency.


Figure 2: Tiered Storage Example

On other hand, storage for retaining large amounts of data that is in-active or idle for long periods of time should be looked at on a capacity per energy footprint basis. While final metrics are still being flushed out, some examples could be active storage gauged by IOPS or work or bandwidth per watt of energy per footprint while other storage for idle or inactive data could be looked at on a capacity per energy footprint basis.

What benchmarks or workloads to be used for simulating or measuring work or activity are still being discussed with proposals coming from various sources. For example SNIA GSI TWG are developing measurements and discussing metrics, as have the storage performance council (SPC) and SPEC among others including use of simulation tools such as IOmeter, VMware VMmark, TPC, Bonnie, or perhaps even Microsoft ESRP.

Tenants of Energy Star for Data Center Storage overtime hopefully will include:

  • Reflective of different types, categories, price-bands and storage usage scenarios
  • Measure storage efficiency for active work along with in-active or idle usage
  • Provide insight for both storage performance efficiency and effective capacity
  • Baseline or raw storage capacity along with effective enhanced optimized capacity
  • Easy to use metrics with more in-depth back ground or disclosure information

Ultimately the specification should help IT storage buyers and decision makers to compare and contrast different storage systems that are best suited and applicable to their usage scenarios.

This means measuring work or activity per energy footprint at a given capacity and data protection level to meet service requirements along with during in-active or idle periods. This also means showing storage that is capacity focused in terms of how much data can be stored in a given energy footprint.

One thing that will be tricky however will be differentiating GBytes per watt in terms of capacity, or, in terms of performance and bandwidth.

Here are some links to learn more:

Stay tuned for more on Energy Star for Data Centers, Servers and Data Center Storage.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Should Everything Be Virtualized?

Storage I/O trends

Should everything, that is all servers, storage and I/O along with facilities, be virtualized?

The answer not surprisingly should be it depends!

Denny Cherry (aka Mrdenny) over at ITKE did a great recent post about applications not being virtualized, particularly databases. In general some of the points or themes we are on the same or similar page, while on others we slightly differ, not by very much.

Unfortunately consolidation is commonly misunderstood to be the sole function or value proposition of server virtualization given its first wave focus. I agree that not all applications or servers should be consolidated (note that I did not say virtualized).

From a consolidation standpoint, the emphasis is often on boosting resource use to cut physical hardware and management costs by boosting the number of virtual machines (VMs) per physical machine (PMs). Ironically, while VMs using VMware, Microsoft HyperV, Citrix/Xen among others can leverage a common gold image for cloning or rapid provisioning, there are still separate operating system instances and applications that need to be managed for each VM.

Sure, VM tools from the hypervisor along with 3rd party vendors help with these tasks as well as storage vendor tools including dedupe and thin provisioning help to cut the data footprint impact of these multiple images. However, there are still multiple images to manage providing a future opportunity for further cost and management reduction (more on that in a different post).

Getting back on track:

Some reasons that all servers or applications cannot be consolidated include among others:

  • Performance, response time, latency and Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Security requirements including keeping customers or applications separate
  • Vendor support of software on virtual or consolidated servers
  • Financial where different departments own hardware or software
  • Internal political or organizational barriers and turf wars

On the other hand, for those that see virtualization as enabling agility and flexibility, that is life beyond consolidation, there are many deployment opportunities for virtualization (note that I did not say consolidation). For some environments and applications, the emphasis can be on performance, quality of service (QoS) and other service characteristics where the ratio of VMs to PMs will be much lower, if not one to one. This is where Mrdenny and me are essentially on the same page, perhaps saying it different with plenty of caveats and clarification needed of course.

My view is that in life beyond consolidation, many more servers or applications can be virtualized than might be otherwise hosted by VMs (note that I did not say consolidated). For example, instead of a high number or ratio of VMs to PMs, a lower number and for some workloads or applications, even one VM to PM can be leveraged with a focus beyond basic CPU use.

Yes you read that correctly, I said why not configure some VMs on a one to one PM basis!

Here’s the premise, todays current wave or focus is around maximizing the number of VMs and/or the reduction of physical machines to cut capital and operating costs for under-utilized applications and servers, thus the move to stuff as many VMs into/onto a PM as possible.

However, for those applications that cannot be consolidated as outlined above, there is still a benefit of having a VM dedicated to a PM. For example, by dedicating a PM (blade, server or perhaps core) allows performance and QoS aims to be meet while still providing the ability for operational and infrastructure resource management (IRM), DCIM or ITSM flexibility and agility.

Meanwhile during busy periods, the application such as a database server could have its own PM, yet during off-hours, some over VM could be moved onto that PM for backup or other IRM/DCIM/ITSM activities. Likewise, by having the VM under the database with a dedicated PM, the application could be moved proactively for maintenance or in a clustered HA scenario support BC/DR.

What can and should be done?
First and foremost, decide how VMs is the right number to divide per PM for your environment and different applications to meet your particular requirements and business needs.

Identify various VM to PM ratios to align with different application service requirements. For example, some applications may run on virtual environments with a higher number of VMs to PMs, others with a lower number of VMs to PMs and some with a one VM to PM allocation.

Certainly there will be for different reasons the need to keep some applications on a direct PM without introducing a hypervisors and VM, however many applications and servers can benefit from virtualization (again note, I did not say consolation) for agility, flexibility, BC/DR, HA and ease of IRM assuming the costs work in your favor.

Additional general to do or action items include among others:

  • Look beyond CPU use also factoring in memory and I/O performance
  • Keep response time or latency in perspective as part of performance
  • More and fast memory are important for VMs as well as for applications including databases
  • High utilization may not show high hit rates or effectiveness of resource usage
  • Fast servers need fast memory, fast I/O and fast storage systems
  • Establish tiers of virtual and physical servers to meet different service requirements
  • See efficiency and optimization as more than simply driving up utilization to cut costs
  • Productivity and improved QoS are also tenants of an efficient and optimized environment

These are themes among others that are covered in chapters 3 (What Defines a Next-Generation and Virtual Data Center?), 4 (IT Infrastructure Resource Management), 5 (Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources), as well as 7 (Servers—Physical, Virtual, and Software) in my book “The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) that you can learn more about here.

Welcome to life beyond consolidation, the next wave of desktop, server, storage and IO virtualization along with the many new and expanded opportunities!

Ok, nuff said.

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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PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?

With a renewed focus on Green IT including energy Efficiency and Optimization of servers, storage, networks and facilities, is your focus on managing power, energy, or, productivity?

For example, do you use or are interested in metrics such as Greengrid PUE or 80 Plus efficient power supplies along with initiatives such as EPA Energy Star for servers and emerging Energy Star for Data Center for Storage in terms of energy usage?

Or are you interested in productivity such as amount of work or activity that can be done in a given amount of time,or how much information can be stored in a given footprint (power, cooling, floor space, budget, management)?

For many organizations, there tends to be a focus and in both managing power along with managing productivity. The two are or should interrelated, however there are some disconnects with some emphasis and metrics. For example, the Green grid PUE is a macro facilities centric metric that does not show the productivity, quality or measure of services being delivered by a data center or information factory. Instead, PUE provides a gauge of how the habitat, that is the building and power distribution along with cooling are efficient with respect to the total energy consumption of IT equipment.

As a refresher, PUE is a macro metric that is essentially a ratio of how much total power or energy goes into a facility vs. the amount of energy used by IT equipment. For example, if 12Kw (smaller room/site) or 12Mw (larger site) are required to power an IT data center or computer room for that matter, and of that energy load, 6kWh or 6Mw, the PUE would be 2. A PUE of 2 is an indicator that 50% of energy going to power a facility or computer room goes towards IT equipment (servers, storage, networks, telecom and related equipment) with the balance going towards running the facility or environment which typically has had the highest percentage being HVAC/cooling.

In the case of EPA Energy Star for Data Centers which initially is focused on the habitat or facility efficiency, the answer is measuring and managing energy use and facility efficiency as opposed to productivity or useful work. The metric for EPA Energy Star for Data Center initially will be Energy Usage Effectiveness (EUE) that will be used to calculate a ratting for a data center facility. Those data centers in the top25 percentile will qualify for Energy Star certification.

Note the word energy and not power which means that the data center macro metric based on Green grid PUE rating looks at all source of energy used by a data center and not just electrical power. What this means is that a macro and holistic facilities energy consumption could be a combination of electrical power, diesel, propane or natural gas or other fuel sources to generate or create power for IT equipment, HVAC/Cooling and other needs. By using a metric that factor in all energy sources, a facility that uses solar, radiant, heat pumps, economizers or other techniques to reduce demands on energy will make a better rating.

By using a macro metric such as EUE or PUE (ratio = Total_Power_Used / IT_Power_Needs), a starting point is available to decide and compare efficiency and cost to power or energize a facility or room also known as a habitat for technology.

Managing Productivity of Information Factories (E.g. Data Centers)
What EUE and PUE do not reflect or indicate is how much data is processed, moved and stored by servers, storage and networks within a facility. On the other hand or extreme from macro metrics are micro or component metrics that gauge energy usage on an individual device basis. Some of these micro metrics may have activity or productivity indicator measurements associated with them, some don’t. Where these leave a big gap and opportunity is to fill the span between the macro and micro.

This is where work is being done by various industry groups including SNIA GSI, SPC and SPEC among others along with EPA Energy Star among others to move beyond macro PUE indicators to more granular effectiveness and efficiency metrics that reflect productivity. Ultimately productivity is important to gauge,  the return on investment and business value of how much data can be processed by servers, moved via networks or stored on storage devices in a given energy footprint or cost.

In Figure 1 are shown four basic approaches (in addition to doing nothing) to energy efficiency. One approach is to avoid energy usage, similar to following a rationing model, but this approach will affect the amount of work that can be accomplished. Another approach is to do more work using the same amount of energy, boosting energy efficiency, or do same amount of work (or storage data) however with less energy.

Tiered Storage
Figure 1 the Many Faces of Energy Efficiency Source: The Green and Virtual Data Center(CRC)

The energy efficiency gap is the difference between the amount of work accomplished or information stored in a given footprint and the energy consumed. In other words, the bigger the energy efficiency gap, the better, as seen in the fourth scenario, doing more work or storing more information in a smaller footprint using less energy. Clock here to read more about Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency.

Watch for new metrics looking at productivity and activity for servers, storage and networks ranging from MHz or GHz per watt, transactions or IOPS per watt, bandwidth, frames or packets processed per watt or capacity stored per watt in a given footprint. One of the confusing metrics is Gbytes or Tbytes per watt in that it can mean storage capacity or bandwidth, thus, understand the context of the metric. Likewise watch for metrics that reflect energy usage for active along with in-active including idle or dormant storage common with archives, backup or fixed content data.

What this all means is that work continues on developing usable and relevant metrics and measurement not only for macro energy usage, also, to gauge the effectiveness of delivering IT services. The business value proposition of driving efficiency and optimization including increased productivity along with storing more information in a given footprint is to support density and business sustainability.

 

Additional resources and where to learn in addition to those mentioned above include:

EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage

Storage Efficiency and Optimization – The Other Green

Performance = Availability StorageIOblog featured ITKE guest blog

SPC and Storage Benchmarking Games

Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency

Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!

Green Power and Cooling Tools and Calculators

Determining Computer or Server Energy Use

Examples of Green Metrics

Green IT, Power, Energy and Related Tools or Calculators

Chapter 10 (Performance and Capacity Planning)
Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)

Chapter 5 (Measurement, Metrics and Management of IT Resources)
The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)

Ok, nuff said.

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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Clouds and Data Loss: Time for CDP (Commonsense Data Protection)?

Today SNIA released a press release pertaining to cloud storage timed to coincide with SNW where we can only presume vendors are talking about their cloud storage stories.

Yet chatter on the coconut wire along with various news (here and here and here) and social media sites is how could cloud storage and information service provider T-Mobile/Microsoft/Side-Kick loose customers data?

Data loss is a dangerous phrase, after all, your data may still be intact somewhere, however if you cannot get to it when needed, that may seem like data loss to you.

There are many types of data loss including loss of accessibility or availability along with flat out loss. Let me clarify, loss of data availability or accessibility means that somewhere, your data is still intact, perhaps off-line on a removable disk, optical, tape or at another site on-line, near-line or off-line, its just that you cannot get to it yet. There is also real data loss where both your primary copy and backup as well as archive data are lost, stolen, corrupted or never actually protected.

Clouds or managed service providers in general are getting beat up due to some loss of access, availability or actual data loss, however before jumping on that bandwagon and pointing fingers at the service, how about a step back for a minute. Granted, given all of the cloud hype and proliferation of managed service offerings on the web (excuse me cloud), there is a bit of a lightning rod backlash or see I told you so approach.

Whats different about this story compared to prior disruptions with Amazon, Google, Blackberry among others is that unlike where access to information or services ranging from calendar, emails, contacts or other documents is disrupted for a period of time, it sounds as those data may have been lost.

Lost data you should say? How can you lose data after all there are copies of copies of data that have been snapshot, replicated and deduplicated storage across different tiered storage right?

Certainly anyone involved in data management or data protection is asking the question; why not go back to a snapshot copy, replicated volute, backup copy on disk or tape?

Needless to say, finger pointing aerobics are or will be in full swing. Instead, lets ask the question, is it time for CDP as in Commonsense Data Protection?

However, rather than point blame or spout off about how bad clouds are, or, that they are getting an un-fair shake and un-due coverage, and that just because there might be a few bad ones, not all clouds are bad particularly with recent outages.

I can think of many ways on how to actually lose data, however, to totally lose data requires not a technology failure, it can be something much simpler and is equally applicable to cloud, virtual and physical data centers and storage environments from the largest to the smallest to the consumer. Its simple, common sense, best practices, making copies of all data and keeping extra copies around somewhere, with more frequent or recent data having copies readily available.

Some trends Im seeing include among others:

  • Low cost craze leveraging free or near free services and products
  • Cloud hype and cloud bashing and need to discuss wide area in between those extremes
  • Renewed need for basic data protection including BC/DR, HA, backup and security
  • Opportunity to re-architect data protection in conjunction with other initiatives
  • Lack of adequate funding for continued and proactive data protection

Just to be safe, lets revisit some common data protection best practices:

  • Learn from mistakes, preferable during testing with aim to avoid repeating them again
  • Most disasters in IT and elsewhere are the result of a chain of events not being contained
  • RAID is not a replacement for backup, it simply provides availability or accessibility
  • Likewise, mirroring or replication by themselves is not a replacement for backup.
  • Use point in time RPO based data protection such as snapshots or backup with replication
  • Maintain a master backup or gold copy that can be used to restore to a given point of time
  • Keep backup on another medium, also protect backup catalog or other configuration data
  • If using deduplication, make sure that indexes/dictionary or Meta data is also protected.
  • Moving your data into the cloud is not a replacement for a data protection strategy
  • Test restoration of backed data both locally, as well as from cloud services
  • Employ data protection management (DPM) tools for event correlation and analysis
  • Data stored in clouds need to be part of a BC/DR and overall data protection strategy
  • Have extra copy of data placed in clouds kept in alternate location as part of BC/DR
  • Ask yourself, what will do you when your cloud data goes away (note its not if, its when)
  • Combine multiple layers or rings of defines and assume what can break will break

Clouds should not be scary; Clouds do not magically solve all IT or consumer issues. However they can be an effective tool when of high caliber as part of a total data protection strategy.

Perhaps this will be a wake up call, a reminder, that it is time to think beyond cost savings and a shift back to basic data protection best practices. What good is the best or most advanced technology if you have less than adequate practices or polices? Bottom line, time for Commonsense Data Protection (CDP).

Ok, nuff said for now, I need to go and make sure I have a good removable backup in case my other local copies fail or Im not able to get to my cloud copies!

Ok, nuff said.

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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Poll: Whats Your Take on FTC Guidelines For Bloggers?

If you have not heard or read yet, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week released new guidelines pertaining to blogger (or other social media) disclosure of if they are being paid, receiving free products or services, or simply had their costs covered to attend an event that they will be writing, posting or blogging about.

Not surprisingly, there are those who are up in arms, those that are cheering that its about time, and everyone else trying to figure out what the new rules mean, who they apply to and when. For some I expect to see a rash of disclosures by those not sure what it means or being safe while others continue to do what they have been doing, business or blogging or both as usual. As with many things, all bloggers do not get paid or receive renumeration (compensation in some shape or form) for what they write or blog, however there are some that do and is often the case, a few bad apples turn a good thing into a problem or black-eye for everyone else.

Here’s a couple of links for some background:
Discussion over at StorageMonkeys.com pertaining to IT/Storage Analysts
Discussion at Blogher.com what the FTC guides mean to you
FTC blogger guidelines

I interpret the new FTC guidelines as pertaining to me or anyone else who has a blog regardless of if they are a social media elite professional or just for fun blogger, blog on their own time for work our their own other purposes, for profit, as a media or journalist, reporter or freelance writer, consultant or contractor, vendor or customer. My view and its just that, a view is that blogs, along with other forms of social media are tools for communication, collaborating and conversation. Thus, I have a blog, twitter, website, facebook, linkedin along with having material appear in print, on-line as well as in person, all are simply different means for interacting and communications.

As with any new communication venue, there is an era of wide open and what some might call the wide open use such as we are seeing with social media mediums today, the web in general in the past, not to mention print, TV or radio in the past.

I’m reading into these guidelines as a maturing process and acknowledgement that social media including blogs have now emerged into a viable and full fledged communication medium that consumers utilize for making decisions, thus guides need to be in place.

I like other bloggers are wondering abut the details including when to disclose something, how the guidelines will be enforced among other questions, that is unless you are one that does not believe the guidelines apply to yourself.

With all of this in mind, here’s a new poll, what’s your take on the FTC guidelines?

As for my own disclosures, look for them in white papers, articles, blogs and other venues as applicable.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Poll: What Do You Think of IT Clouds?

Clouds

IT clouds (compute, applications, storage, and services) are a popular topic for discussion with some people being entirely sold on them as the way of the future, while others totally dismissing them, meanwhile, there’s plenty of thoughts in between.

I recently shared some of my thoughts in this blog post about IT clouds, now whats your take (your identity will remain confidential)?

Ok, nuff said.

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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Clouds are like Electricity: Dont be Scared

Clouds

IT clouds (compute, applications, storage, and services) are like electricity in that they can be scary or confusing to some while being enabling or a necessity s to others not to mention being a polarizing force depending on where you sit or view them.

As a polarizing force, if you are a cloud crowd cheerleader or evangelist, you might view someone who does not subscribe or share your excitement, views or interpretations as a cynic.

On the other hand, if you are a skeptic, or perhaps scared or even a cynic, you might view anyone who talks about cloud in general or not specific terms as a cheerleader.

I have seen and experienced this electrifying polarization first hand having being told by crowd cloud cheerleaders or evangelists that I dont like clouds, that Im a cynic who does not know anything about clouds.

As a funny aside (at least I thought it was funny), I recently asked someone who gave me an ear full while they were trying to convert me to be a cloud believer if they had read any of the chapters in my new book The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC). The response was NO and I said to the effect to bad, as in the book, I talk about how clouds can be complimentary to existing IT resources as being another tier of servers, storage, applications, facilities and IT services.

On the other hand, and this might be funny for some of the crowd cloud, when I bring up tiered IT resources including servers, storage, applications and facilities as well as where or how clouds can fit to compliment IT, I have been told by cynics or naysayers that Im a cloud cheerleader.

Wow, talk about polarized sides!

Now, what about all those that are somewhere in the middle, those that are skeptics who might see value for IT clouds for different scenarios and may in fact already be using clouds (depending upon someones definition).

For those in the middle, whether they are vendors, vars, media, press, analysts, consultants, IT professionals, investors or others, they can easily be misunderstood, misrepresented, and a missed opportunity, perhaps even lamented by those on either of the two extremes (e.g. cloud crowd cheerleaders or true skeptic nay sayers).

Time for some education, don’t be scared, however be careful!

When I worked for an electric power generating and transmission utility an important lesson was not to be scared of electricity, however, be educated, what to do, what not to do in different situations including what to do or not do in the actual power plant or substation. I was taught that when in the actual plant, or at a substation of which I visited in support of the applications and systems I was developing or maintaining, to do certain things. For example, number one, dont touch certain things, number two, if you fall, don’t grab anything, the fall may or may not hurt you, let alone the sudden stop where ever you land, however, if you grab something, that might kill you and you may not be able to let go further injuring yourself. This was a challenging thought as we are taught to grab onto something when falling.

What does this have to do with clouds?

Don’t grab and hang-on if you don’t know what you are grabbing on to if you don’t have to.

The cloud crowd can be polarizing and in some ways acting as a lightning rod drawing the scorns, cynicism ,skeptics, lambasting or being poked fun of given some of the over the top hype around clouds today. Now granted, not all cloud evangelists, vendors or cheerleaders deserve to be the brunt of some of this backlash within the industry; however, it comes with the territory.

Im in the middle as I pointed out above when I talk with vendors, vars, media, investors and IT customers.  Some I talk with are using clouds (perhaps not compliant with some of the definitions). Some are looking at clouds to move problems or mask issues, others are curious yet skeptical to see where or how they could use clouds to compliment their environments. Yet others are scared however maybe in the future will be more open minded as they become educated and see technologies evolve or shift beyond a fashionable trend.

So its time for disclosure, I seeIT clouds as being complimentary that can co-exist with other IT resources (servers, storage, software). In essence, my view is that clouds are just another tier of IT resources to be used when and where applicable as opposed to being a complete replacement, or, simply ignored.

My point is that cloud computing is another tier of traditional computing or servers providing a different performance, availability, capacity, economic and management attributes compared to other traditional technology delivery vehicles. Same thing with storage, same thing with data centers or hosting sites in general. This also applies to application services, in that a cloud web, email, expense, sales, crm, erp, office or other applications is a tier of those same implementations that may exist in a traditional environment. After all, legacy, physical, virtual, grid and cloud IT datacenters all have something in common, they rely on physical servers, storage, networks, software, metrics and management involving people, processes and best practices.

Now back to disclosure, I like clouds, however Im not a cloud cheerleader, Im a skeptic at times of some over the top hype, yet I also personally use some cloud services and technologies as well as advise others to leverage cloud services when, or where applicable to compliment, co-exist and help enable a green and virtual data center and information factory.

To the cloud crowd cheerleaders, too bad if I don’t line up with all of your belief systems or if you perceive me as raining on your parade by being a skeptic , or what you might think of as a cynic and non believer, even though I use clouds myself.

Likewise, to the true cynics (not skeptics) or naysayers, ease up, Im not drinking the cool-aid of the cheerleaders and evangelists, or at least not in large excessive binge doses. I agree that clouds are not the solution to every IT issue, regardless of what your definition of a cloud happens to be.

To everyone else, regardless of if you are the minatory or majority out there that do not fall into one of the two above groups I have this to say.

Dont be afraid, dont be scared of clouds, learn to navigate your way around and through the various technologies, techniques, products and services and indemnity where they might compliment and enable a flexible and scalable resilient IT infrastructure.

Take some time to listen and learn, become educated on what the different types of clouds (public, private, services, products, architectures, or marketecture), their attributes (compute, storage, applications, services, cost, availability, performance, protocols, functionality) and value proposition.

Look into how cloud technologies and techniques might compliment your existing environment to meet specific business objectives. You might find there are fits, you might there are not, however have a look and do some research so that you can at least hold your ground if storm clouds roll in.

After all, clouds are just another tier of IT resources to add to your tool box enabling more efficient and effective IT services delivery. Clouds do not have to be the all or nothing value proposition that often end up in discussions due to polarized extreme views and definitions or past experiences.

Look at it this way, IT relies on electricity, however electricity needs to be understood and respected not to mention used in effective ways. You can be scared of electricity, you can be caviler around it, or, it can be part of your environment and enabler as long as you know when, where and how to use it, not to mention not using it as applicable.

So next time you see a cloud crowd cheerleader, give them a hug, give them a pat on the back, an atta boy or atta girl as they are just doing their jobs, perhaps even following their beliefs and in the line of duty taking a lot of heat from the industry in the pursuit of their work.

On the other hand, as to the cynics and naysayers, they may in fact be using clouds already, perhaps not under the strict definition of some of the chieftains of the cloud crowd.

To everyone else, dont worry, don’t by scared about the clouds, instead, focus on your business, you IT issues and look at various tiers of technologies that can serve as an enabler in a cost effective manner.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Storage Efficiency and Optimization – The Other Green

For those of you in the New York City area, I will be presenting live in person at Storage Decisions September 23, 2009 conference The Other Green, Storage Efficiency and Optimization.

Throw out the "green“: buzzword, and you’re still left with the task of saving or maximizing use of space, power, and cooling while stretching available IT dollars to support growth and business sustainability. For some environments the solution may be consolation while others need to maintain quality of service response time, performance and availability necessitating faster, energy efficient technologies to achieve optimization objectives.

To accomplish these and other related issues, you can turn to the cloud, virtualization, intelligent power management, data footprint reduction and data management not to mention various types of tiered storage and performance optimization techniques. The session will look at various techniques and strategies to optimize either on-line active or primary as well as near-line or secondary storage environment during tough economic times, as well as to position for future growth, after all, there is no such thing as a data recession!

Topics, technologies and techniques that will be discussed include among others:

  • Energy efficiency (strategic) vs. energy avoidance (tactical), whats different between them
  • Optimization and the need for speed vs. the need for capacity, finding the right balance
  • Metrics & measurements for management insight, what the industry is doing (or not doing)
  • Tiered storage and tiered access including SSD, FC, SAS, tape, clouds and more
  • Data footprint reduction (archive, compress, dedupe) and thin provision among others
  • Best practices, financial incentives and what you can do today

This is a free event for IT professionals, however space I hear is limited, learn more and register here.

For those interested in broader IT data center and infrastructure optimization, check out the on-going seminar series The Infrastructure Optimization and Planning Best Practices (V2.009) – Doing more with less without sacrificing storage, system or network capabilities Seminar series continues September 22, 2009 with a stop in Chicago. This is also a free Seminar, register and learn more here or here.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Performance = Availability StorageIOblog featured ITKE guest blog

ITKE - IT Knowledge Exchange

Recently IT Knowledge Exchange named me and StorageIOblog as their weekly featured IT blog too which Im flattered and honored. Consequently, I did a guest blog for them titled Performance = Availability, Availability = Performance that you can read about here.

For those not familiar with ITKE, take a few minutes and go over and check it out, there is a wealth of information there on a diversity of topics that you can read about, or, you can also get involved and participate in the questions and answers discussions.

Speaking of ITKE, interested in “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (CRC), check out this link where you can download a free chapter of my book, along with information on how to order your own copy along with a special discount code from CRC press.

Thank you very much to Sean Brooks of ITKE and his social media team of Michael Morisy and Jenny Mackintosh for being named featured IT blogger, as well as for being able to do a guest post for them. It has been fantastic working them and particularly Jenny who helped with all of the logistics in putting together the various pieces including getting the post up on the web as well as in their news letter.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Data Center I/O Bottlenecks Performance Issues and Impacts

This is an excerpt blog version of the popular Server and StorageIO Group white paper "IT Data Center and Data Storage Bottlenecks" originally published August of 2006 that is as much if not more relevant today than it was in the past.

Most Information Technology (IT) data centers have bottleneck areas that impact application performance and service delivery to IT customers and users. Possible bottleneck locations shown in Figure-1 include servers (application, web, file, email and database), networks, application software, and storage systems. For example users of IT services can encounter delays and lost productivity due to seasonal workload surges or Internet and other network bottlenecks. Network congestion or dropped packets resulting in wasteful and delayed retransmission of data can be the results of network component failure, poor configuration or lack of available low latency bandwidth.

Server bottlenecks due to lack of CPU processing power, memory or under sized I/O interfaces can result in poor performance or in worse case scenarios application instability. Application including database systems bottlenecks due to excessive locking, poor query design, data contention and deadlock conditions result in poor user response time. Storage and I/O performance bottlenecks can occur at the host server due to lack of I/O interconnect bandwidth such as an overloaded PCI interconnect, storage device contention, and lack of available storage system I/O capacity.

These performance bottlenecks, impact most applications and are not unique to the large enterprise or scientific high compute (HPC) environments. The direct impact of data center I/O performance issues include general slowing of the systems and applications, causing lost productivity time for users of IT services. Indirect impacts of data center I/O performance bottlenecks include additional management by IT staff to trouble shoot, analyze, re-configure and react to application delays and service disruptions.


Figure-1: Data center performance bottleneck locations

Data center performance bottleneck impacts (see Figure-1) include:

  • Under utilization of disk storage capacity to compensate for lack of I/O performance capability
  • Poor Quality of Service (QoS) causing Service Level Agreements (SLA) objectives to be missed
  • Premature infrastructure upgrades combined with increased management and operating costs
  • Inability to meet peak and seasonal workload demands resulting in lost business opportunity

I/O bottleneck impacts
It should come as no surprise that businesses continue to consume and rely upon larger amounts of disk storage. Disk storage and I/O performance fuel the hungry needs of applications in order to meet SLAs and QoS objectives. The Server and StorageIO Group sees that, even with efforts to reduce storage capacity or improve capacity utilization with information lifecycle management (ILM) and Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) enabled infrastructures, applications leveraging rich content will continue to consume more storage capacity and require additional I/O performance. Similarly, at least for the next few of years, the current trend of making and keeping additional copies of data for regulatory compliance and business continue is expected to continue. These demands all add up to a need for more I/O performance capabilities to keep up with server processor performance improvements.


Figure-2: Processing and I/O performance gap

Server and I/O performance gap
The continued need for accessing more storage capacity results in an alarming trend: the expanding gap between server processing power and available I/O performance of disk storage (Figure-2). This server to I/O performance gap has existed for several decades and continues to widen instead of improving. The net impact is that bottlenecks associated with the server to I/O performance lapse result in lost productivity for IT personal and customers who must wait for transactions, queries, and data access requests to be resolved.

Application symptoms of I/O bottlenecks
There are many applications across different industries that are sensitive to timely data access and impacted by common I/O performance bottlenecks. For example, as more users access a popular file, database table, or other stored data item, resource contention will increase. One way resource contention manifests itself is in the form of database “deadlock” which translates into slower response time and lost productivity. 

Given the rise and popularity of internet search engines, search engine optimization (SEO) and on-line price shopping, some businesses have been forced to create expensive read-only copies of databases. These read-only copies are used to support more queries to address bottlenecks from impacting time sensitive transaction databases.

In addition to increased application workload, IT operational procedures to manage and protect data help to contribute to performance bottlenecks. Data center operational procedures result in additional file I/O scans for virus checking, database purge and maintenance, data backup, classification, replication, data migration for maintenance and upgrades as well as data archiving. The net result is that essential data center management procedures contribute to performance challenges and impacting business productivity.

Poor response time and increased latency
Generally speaking, as additional activity or application workload including transactions or file accesses are performed, I/O bottlenecks result in increased response time or latency (shown in Figure-3). With most performance metrics more is better; however, in the case of response time or latency, less is better.  Figure-3 shows the impact as more work is performed (dotted curve) and resulting I/O bottlenecks have a negative impact by increasing response time (solid curve) above acceptable levels. The specific acceptable response time threshold will vary by applications and SLA requirements. The acceptable threshold level based on performance plans, testing, SLAs and other factors including experience serves as a guide line between acceptable and poor application performance.

As more workload is added to a system with existing I/O issues, response time will correspondingly decrease as was seen in Figure-3. The more severe the bottleneck, the faster response time will deteriorate (e.g. increase) from acceptable levels. The elimination of bottlenecks enables more work to be performed while maintaining response time below acceptable service level threshold limits.


Figure-3: I/O response time performance impact

Seasonal and peak workload I/O bottlenecks
Another common challenge and cause of I/O bottlenecks is seasonal and/or unplanned workload increases that result in application delays and frustrated customers. In Figure-4 a workload representing an eCommerce transaction based system is shown with seasonal spikes in activity (dotted curve). The resulting impact to response time (solid curve) is shown in relation to a threshold line of acceptable response time performance. For example, peaks due holiday shopping exchanges appear in January then dropping off increasing near mother’s day in May, then back to school shopping in August results in increased activity as does holiday shopping starting in late November.


Figure-4: I/O bottleneck impact from surge workload activity

Compensating for lack of performance
Besides impacting user productivity due to poor performance, I/O bottlenecks can result in system instability or unplanned application downtime. One only needs to recall recent electric power grid outages that were due to instability, insufficient capacity bottlenecks as a result of increased peak user demand.

I/O performance improvement approaches to address I/O bottlenecks have been to do nothing (incur and deal with the service disruptions) or over configure by throwing more hardware and software at the problem. To compensate for lack of I/O performance and counter the resulting negative impact to IT users, a common approach is to add more hardware to mask or move the problem.

However, this often leads to extra storage capacity being added to make up for a short fall in I/O performance. By over configuring to support peak workloads and prevent loss of business revenue, excess storage capacity must be managed throughout the non-peak periods, adding to data center and management costs. The resulting ripple affect is that now more storage needs to be managed, including allocating storage network ports, configuring, tuning, and backing up of data. This can and does result in environments that have storage utilization well below 50% of their useful storage capacity. The solution is to address the problem rather than moving and hiding the bottleneck elsewhere (rather like sweeping dust under the rug).

Business value of improved performance
Putting a value on the performance of applications and their importance to your business is a necessary step in the process of deciding where and what to focus on for improvement. For example, what is the value of reducing application response time and the associated business benefit of allowing more transactions, reservations or sales to be made? Likewise, what is the value of improving the productivity of a designer or animator to meet tight deadlines and market schedules? What is business benefit of enabling a customer to search faster for and item, place an order, access media rich content, or in general improve their productivity?

Server and I/O performance gap as a data center bottleneck
I/O performance bottlenecks are a wide spread issue across most data centers, affecting many applications and industries. Applications impacted by data center I/O bottlenecks to be looked at in more depth are electronic design automation (EDA), entertainment and media, database online transaction processing (OLTP) and business intelligence. These application categories represent transactional processing, shared file access for collaborative work, and processing of shared, time sensitive data.

Electronic design
Computer aided design (CAD), computer assisted engineering (CAE), electronic design automaton (EDA) and other design tools are used for a wide variety of engineering and design functions. These design tools require fast access to shared, secured and protected data. The objective of using EDA and other tools is to enable faster product development with better quality and improved worker productivity. Electronic components manufactured for the commercial, consumer and specialized markets rely on design tools to speed the time-to-market of new products as well as to improve engineer productivity.

EDA tools, including those from Cadence, Synopsis, Mentor Graphics and others, are used to develop expensive and time sensitive electronic chips, along with circuit boards and other components to meet market windows and suppler deadlines. An example of this is a chip vendor being able to simulate, develop, test, produce and deliver a new chip in time for manufacturers to release their new products based on those chips. Another example is aerospace and automotive engineering firms leveraging design tools, including CATIA and UGS, on a global basis relying on their suppler networks to do the same in a real-time, collaborative manner to improve productivity and time-to-market. These results in contention of shared file and data access and, as a work-around, more copies of data kept as local buffers.

I/O performance impacts and challenges for EDA, CAE and CAD systems include:

  • Delays in drawing and file access resulting in lost productivity and project delays
  • Complex configurations to support computer farms (server grids) for I/O and storage performance
  • Proliferation of dedicated storage on individual servers and workstations to improve performance

Entertainment and media
While some applications are characterized by high bandwidth or throughput, such as streaming video and digital intermediate (DI) processing of 2K (2048 pixels per line) and 4K (4096 pixels per line) video and film, there are many other applications that are also impacted by I/O performance time delays. Even bandwidth intensive applications for video production and other applications are time sensitive and vulnerable to I/O bottleneck delays. For example, cell phone ring tone, instant messaging, small MP3 audio, and voice- and e-mail are impacted by congestion and resource contention.

Prepress production and publishing requiring assimilation of many small documents, files and images while undergoing revisions can also suffer. News and information websites need to look up breaking stories, entertainment sites need to view and download popular music, along with still images and other rich content; all of this can be negatively impacted by even small bottlenecks.  Even with streaming video and audio, access to those objects requires accessing some form of a high speed index to locate where the data files are stored for retrieval. These indexes or databases can become bottlenecks preventing high performance storage and I/O systems from being fully leveraged.

Index files and databases must be searched to determine the location where images and objects, including streaming media, are stored. Consequently, these indices can become points of contention resulting in bottlenecks that delay processing of streaming media objects. When cell phone picture is taken phone and sent to someone, chances are that the resulting image will be stored on network attached storage (NAS) as a file with a corresponding index entry in a database at some service provider location. Think about what happens to those servers and storage systems when several people all send photos at the same time.

I/O performance impacts and challenges for entertainment and media systems include:

  • Delays in image and file access resulting in lost productivity
  • Redundant files and storage local servers to improve performance
  • Contention for resources causing further bottlenecks during peak workload surges

OLTP and business intelligence
Surges in peak workloads result in performance bottlenecks on database and file servers, impacting time sensitive OLTP systems unless they are over configured for peak demand. For example, workload spikes due to holiday and back-to-school shopping, spring break and summer vacation travel reservations, Valentines or Mothers Day gift shopping, and clearance and settlement on peak stock market trading days strain fragile systems. For database systems maintaining performance for key objects, including transaction logs and journals, it is important to eliminate performance issues as well as maintain transaction and data integrity.

An example tied to eCommerce is business intelligence systems (not to be confused with back office marketing and analytics systems for research). Online business intelligence systems are popular with online shopping and services vendors who track customer interests and previous purchases to tailor search results, views and make suggestions to influence shopping habits.

Business intelligence systems need to be fast and support rapid lookup of history and other information to provide purchase histories and offer timely suggestions. The relative performance improvements of processors shift the application bottlenecks from the server to the storage access network. These applications have, in some cases, resulted in an exponential increase in query or read operations beyond the capabilities of single database and storage instances, resulting in database deadlock and performance problems or the proliferation of multiple data copies and dedicated storage on application servers.

A more recent contribution to performance challenges, caused by the increased availability of on-line shopping and price shopping search tools, is low cost craze (LCC) or price shopping. LCC has created a dramatic increase in the number of read or search queries taking place, further impacting database and file systems performance. For example, an airline reservation system that supports price shopping while preventing impact to time sensitive transactional reservation systems would create multiple read-only copies of reservations databases for searches. The result is that more copies of data must be maintained across more servers and storage systems thus increasing costs and complexity. While expensive, the alternative of doing nothing results in lost business and market share.

I/O performance impacts and challenges for OLTP and business intelligence systems include:

  • Application and database contention, including deadlock conditions, due to slow transactions
  • Disruption to application servers to install special monitoring, load balance or I/O driver software
  • Increased management time required to support additional storage needed as a I/O workaround

Summary/Conclusion
It is vital to understand the value of performance, including response time or latency, and numbers of I/O operations for each environment and particular application. While the cost per raw TByte may seem relatively in-expensive, the cost for I/O response time performance also needs to be effectively addressed and put into the proper context as part of the data center QoS cost structure.

There are many approaches to address data center I/O performance bottlenecks with most centered on adding more hardware or addressing bandwidth or throughput issues. Time sensitive applications depend on low response time as workload including throughput increase and thus latency can not be ignored. The key to removing data center I/O bottlenecks is to find and address the problem instead of simply moving or hiding it with more hardware and/or software. Simply adding fast devices such as SSD may provide relief, however if the SSDs are attached to high latency storage controllers, the full benefit may not be realized. Thus, identify and gain insight into data center and I/O bottleneck paths eliminating issues and problems to boost productivity and efficiency.

Where to Learn More
Additional information about IT data center, server, storage as well as I/O networking bottlenecks along with solutions can be found at the Server and StorageIO website in the tips, tools and white papers, as well as news, books, and activity on the events pages. If you are in the New York area on September 23, 2009, check out my presentation on The Other Green – Storage Optimization and Efficiency that will touch on the above and other related topics. Download your copy of "IT Data Center and Storage Bottlenecks" by clicking here.

Ok, nuff said.

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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Out and about update, Off to VMworld next week

For those that consider summer to be over after the labor day weekend in the northern hemisphere, well, then summer is almost over, for others, there is still plenty of nice weather to enjoy and get out and about. In addition to back to school time, its also the start of the fall conferences, symposium, lunch and learns, seminars, chugs & hugs (vendor/var/partner get together’s) schedule along with VMworld taking place next week in San Francisco (I will be there) in addition to many other events.

Having already this year been in (not counting changing planes in Atlanta, Detroit or Memphis), Atlanta, Birmingham, Boston, Cancun, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Orlando, Parsippany, Philadelphia, Portland, Princeton, Providence, Raleigh, Richmond, San Jose, Santa Ana, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto and Tucson not to mention several other cities where I was for consulting and advisory engagements, upcoming cities I will be visiting this fall include among others Atlanta (again), Chicago (again), Cleveland, Detroit, New York City and San Francisco.

Check out events page to see what else is coming up when and where, see you sometime this fall while out and about.

Cheers – gs

Greg Schulz – StorageIOblog, twitter @storageio Author “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (CRC)

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