Category: Infrastructure Resource Management

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EMC New VNX MCx doing more storage I/O work vs. just being more

Storage I/O trends

It’s not how much you have, its how storage I/O work gets done that matters

Following last weeks VMworld event in San Francisco where among other announcements including this one around Virtual SAN (VSAN) along with Software Defined Storage (SDS), EMC today made several announcements.

Today’s EMC announcements include:

  • The new VNX MCx (Multi Core optimized) family of storage systems
  • VSPEX proven infrastructure portfolio enhancements
  • Availability of ViPR Software Defined Storage (SDS) platform (read more from earlier posts here, here and here)
  • Statement of direction preview of Project Nile for elastic cloud storage platform
  • XtremSW server cache software version 2.0 with enhanced management and support for VMware, AIX and Oracle RAC

EMC ViPREMC XtremSW cache software

Summary of the new EMC VNX MCx storage systems include:

  • More processor cores, PCIe Gen 3 (faster bus), front-end and back-end IO ports, DRAM and flash cache (as well as drives)
  • More 6Gb/s SAS back-end ports to use more storage devices (SAS and SATA flash SSD, fast HDD and high-capacity HDD)
  • MCx – Multi-core optimized with software rewritten to make use of threads and resources vs. simply using more sockets and cores at higher clock rates
  • Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) capabilities including block compression and dedupe, file dedupe and thin provisioning
  • Virtual storage pools that include flash SSD, fast HDD and high-capacity HDD
  • Block (iSCSI, FC and FCoE) and NAS file (NFS, pNFS, CIFS) front-end access with object access via Atmos Virtual Edition (VE) and ViPR
  • Entry level pricing starting at below $10,000 USD

EMC VNX MCx systems

What is this MCx stuff, is it just more hardware?

While there is more hardware that can be used in different configurations, the key or core (pun intended) around MCx is that EMC has taken the time and invested in reworking the internal software of the VNX that has its roots going back to the Data General CLARRiON EMC acquired. This is similar to an effort EMC made a few years back when it overhauled what is now known as the VMAX from the Symmetric into the DMX. That effort expanded from a platform or processor port to re-architecting and software optimizing (rewrite portions) to leverage new and emerging hardware capabilities more effectively.

EMC VNX MCx

With MCx EMC is doing something similar in that core portions of the VNX software have been re-architected and written to take advantage of more threads and cores being available to do work more effectively. This is not all that different from what occurs (or should) with upper level applications that eventually get rewritten to leverage underlying new capabilities to do more work faster and leverage technologies in a more cost-effective way. MCx also leverages flash as a primary medium with data than being moved (256MB chunks) down into lower tiers of storage (SSD and HDD drives).

Storage I/O trends

ENC VNX has had in the past FLASH Cache which enables SSD drives to be used as an extension of main cache as well as using drive targets. Thus while MCx can and does leverage more and faster core as would most any software, it is also able to leverage those cores and threads in a more effective way. After all, it’s not just how many processors, sockets, cores, threads, L1/L2 cache, DRAM, flash SSD and other resources, its how effective you use them. Also keep in mind that a bit of flash in the right place used effectively can go a long way vs. having a lot of cache in the wrong place or not used optimally that will end up costing a lot of cash.

Moving forward this means that EMC should be able to further refine and optimize other portions of the VNX software not yet updated to make further benefit of new hardware platforms and capabilities.

Does this mean EMC is catching up with newer vendors?

Similar to more of something is not always better, its how those items are used that matters, just because something is new does not mean its better or faster. That will manifest itself when they are demonstrated and performance results shown. However key is showing the performance across different workloads that have relevance to your needs and that convey metrics that matter with context.

Storage I/O trends

Context matters including type and size of work being done, number of transactions, IOPs, files or videos served, pages processed or items rendered per unit of time, or response time and latency (aka wait or think time), along with others. Thus some newer systems may be faster on paper, powerpoint, WebEx, You tube or via some benchmarks, however what is the context and how do they compare to others on an apples to apples basis.

What are some other enhancements or features?

Leveraging of FAST VP (Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools) with improved MCx software

Increases the effectiveness of available hardware resources (processors, cores, DRAM, flash, drives, ports)

Active active LUNs accessible by both controllers as well as legacy AULA support

Data sheets and other material for the new VNX MCx storage systems can be found here, with software options and bundles here, and general speeds and feeds here.

Learn more here at the EMC VNX MCx storage system landing page and compare VNX systems here.

What does then new VNX MCx family look like?

EMC VNX MCx family image

Is VNX MCx all about supporting VMware?

Interesting that if you read behind the lines, listen closely to the conversations, ask the right questions you will realize that while VMware is an important workload or environment to support, it is not the only one targeted for VNX. Likewise if you listen and look beyond what is normally amplified in various conversations you will find that systems such as VNX are being deployed as back-end storage in cloud (public, private, hybrid) environments for use with technologies such as OpenStack or object based solutions (visit www.objectstoragecenter.com for more on object storage systems and access)..

There is a common myth that the cloud and service providers all use white box commodity hardware including JBOD for their systems which some do, however some are also using systems such as VNX among others. In some of these scenarios the VNX type systems are or will be deployed in large numbers essentially consolidating the functions of what had been done by even larger number of JBOD based systems. This is where some of you will have a DejaVu or back to the future moment from the mid 90s when there was an industry movement to combine all the DAS and JBOD into larger storage systems. Don’t worry if you are not yet reading about this trend in your favorite industry rag or analyst briefing notes, however ask or look around and you might be surprised at what is occurring, granted it might be another year or two before you read about it (just saying ;).

Storage I/O trends

What that means is that VNX MCx is also well positioned for working with ViPR or Atmos Virtual Edition among other cloud and object storage stacks. VNX MCx is also well positioned for its new low-cost of entry for general purpose workloads and applications ranging from file sharing, email, web, database along with demanding high performance, low latency with large amounts of flash SSD. In addition to being used for general purpose storage, VNX MCx will also complement data protection solutions for backup/restore, BC, DR and archiving such as Data Domain, Avamar and Networker among others. Speaking of server virtualization, EMC also has tools for working with Hyper-V, Xen and KVM in addition to VMware.

If there is an all flash VNX MCx doesn’t that compete with XtremIO?

Yes there are all flash VNX MCx just as there have been all flash VNX before, however these will be positioned for different use case scenarios by EMC and their partners to avoid competing head to head with XtremIO. Thus EMC will need to be diligent in being very clear to its own sales and marketing forces as well as those of partners and customers of what to use when, where, why and how.

General thoughts and closing comments

The VNX MCx is a good set of enhancements by EMC and an example of how it’s not as important of how more you have, rather how you can use it to be more effective.

Ok, nuff said (fow 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)

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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Is more of something always better? Depends on what you are doing

Storage I/O trends

Is more always better? Depends on what you are doing

As with many things it depends, however how about some of these?

Is more better for example (among others):

  • Facebook likes
  • Twitter followers or tweets (I’m @storageio btw)
  • Google+ likes, follows and hangouts
  • More smart phone apps
  • LinkedIn connections
  • People in your circle or community
  • Photos or images per post or article
  • People working with or for you
  • Partners vs. doing more with those you have
  • People you are working for or with
  • Posts or longer posts with more in them
  • IOPs or SSD and storage performance
  • Domains under management and supported
  • GB/TB/PB/EB supported or under management
  • Mart-time jobs or a better full-time opportunity
  • Metrics vs. those that matter with context
  • Programmers to get job done (aka mythical man month)
  • Lines of code per cost vs. more reliable and tested code per cost
  • For free items and time spent managing them vs. more productivity for a nominal fee
  • Meetings for planning on what to do vs. streamline and being more productive
  • More sponsors or advertisers or underwriters vs. fewer yet more effective ones
  • Space in your booth or stand at a trade show or conference vs. using what you have more effectively
  • Copies of the same data vs. fewer yet more unique (not full though) copies of information
  • Patents in your portfolio vs. more technology and solutions being delivered
  • Processors, sockets, cores, threads vs. using them more effectively
  • Ports and protocols vs. using them more effectively

Storage I/O trends

Thus does more resources matter, or making more effective use of them?

For example more ports, protocols, processors, cores, sockets, threads, memory, cache, drives, bandwidth, people among other things is not always better, particular if those resources are not being used effectively.

Likewise don’t confuse effective with efficient often assumed to mean used.

For example a cache or memory may be 100% used (what some call efficient) yet only providing a 35% effective benefit (cache hit or miss) vs. cache turn (misses etc).

Throwing more processing power in terms of clock speed, or cores is one thing, kind of like throwing more server blades at a software problem vs. using those cores and sockets not to mention threads more effectively.

Good software will run better on fast hardware while enabling more to be done with the same or less.

Thus with better software or tools, more work can be done in an effective way leveraging those resources vs. simply throwing or applying more at the situation.

Hopefully you get the point, so no need to do more with this post (for now), if not, stay tuned and pay more attention around you.

Ok, nuff said, I need to go get more work done 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)

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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Fall 2013 Dutch cloud, virtual and storage I/O seminars

Storage I/O trends

Fall 2013 Dutch cloud, virtual and storage I/O seminars

It is that time of the year again when StorageIO will be presenting a series of seminar workshops in the Netherlands on cloud, virtual and data storage networking technologies, trends along with best practice techniques.

Brouwer Storage

StorageIO partners with the independent firm Brouwer Storage Consultancy of Holland who organizes these sessions. These sessions will also mark Brouwer Storage Consultancy celebrating ten years in business along with a long partnership with StorageIO.

Server Storage I/O Backup and Data Protection Cloud and Virtual

The fall 2013 Dutch seminars include coverage of storage I/O networking data protection and related trends topics for cloud and virtual environments. Click on the following links or images to view an abstract of the three sessions including what you will learn, who they are for, buzzwords, themes, topics and technologies that will covered.

Modernizing Data Protection
Moving Beyond Backup and Restore

Storage Industry Trends
What’s News, What’s The Buzz and Hype

Storage Decision Making
Acquisition, Deployment, Day to Day Management

Modern Data Protection
Modern Data Protection
Modern Data Protection
September 30 & October 1
October 2 2013
October 3 and 4 2013

All seminar workshop seminars are presented in a vendor technology neutral including (e.g. these are not vendor marketing sales presentations) providing independent perspectives on industry trends, who is doing what, benefits, caveats of various approaches to addressing data infrastructure and storage challenges. View posts about earlier events here and here.

Storage I/O trends

As part of theme of being vendor and technology neutral, the workshop seminars are held off-site at hotel venues in Nijkerk Netherlands so no need to worry about the sales teams coming in to sell you something during the breaks or lunch which are provided. There are also opportunities throughout the workshops for engagement, discussion and interaction with other attendees that includes your peers from various commercial, government and service providers among others.

Learn more and register for these events by visiting the Brouwer Storage Consultancy website page (here) and calling them at +31-33-246-6825 or via email info@brouwerconsultancy.com.

Storage I/O events

View other upcoming and recent StorageIO activities including live in-person, online web and recorded activities on our events page here, as well as check out our commentary and industry trends perspectives in the news here.

Bitter ballen
Ok, nuff said, I’m already hungry for bitter ballen (see above)!

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)

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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VMworld 2013 Vmware, server, storage I/O and networking update (Day 1)

Storage I/O trends

Congratulations to VMware on 10 years of VMworld!

With the largest installment yet of a VMworld in terms of attendance, there were also many announcements today (e.g. Monday) and many more slated for out the week. Here are a synopsis of some of those announcements.

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) and Software Defined Networks (SDN)

VMware made a series of announcements today that set the stage for many others. Not surprisingly, these involved SDDC, SDN, SDS, vSphere 5.5 and other management tool enhancements, or the other SDM (Software Defined Management).

VMworld image

Here is a synopsis of what was announced by VMware.

VMware NSX (SDN) combines Nicira NVPTM along with vCloud Network and Security
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) not to be confused with virtual storage appliances (VSAs)
VMware vCloud Suite 5.5
VMware vSphere 5.5 (includes support for new Intel Xeon and Atom processors)
VMware vSphere App HA
VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache software
VMware vSphere Big Data Extensions
VMware vCloud Automation Center
VMware vCloud

Note that while these were announced today, some will be in public beta soon and general availability over the next few months or quarters (learn more here including pricing and availability). More on these and other enhancements in future posts. However for now check out what Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB) of VMware has to say over at his Yellowbook site here, here and here.

buzzword bingo
Buzzword Bingo

Additional VMworld Software Defined Announcements

Dell did some announcements as well for cloud and virtual environments in support of VMware from networking to servers, hardware and software. With all the recent acquisitions by Dell including Quest where they picked up Foglight management tools, along with vRanger, Bakbone and others, Dell has amassed an interesting portfolio. On the hardware front, check out the VRTX shared server infrastructure, I want one for my VMware environment, now I just need to justify one (to myself). Speaking of Dell, if you are at VMworld on Tuesday August 27 around 1:30PM stop by the Dell booth where I will be presenting including announcing some new things (stay tuned for more on that soon).

HP had some announcements today. HP jumped into the SDDC and SDN with some Software Defined Marketing (SDM) and Software Defined Announcements (SDA) in addition to using the Unified Data Center theme. Today’s announcements by HP were focused more around SDN and VMware NSX along with the HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller and VMware networking.

NetApp (Both #1417) announced more integration between their Data ONTAP based solutions and VMware vSphere, Horizon Suite, vCenter, vCloud Automation Center and vCenter Log Insight under the them theme of SDDC and SDS. As part of the enhancement, NetApp announced Virtual Storage Console (VSC 5.0) for end-to-end storage management and software in VMware environments. In addition, integration with VMware vCenter Server 5.5. Not to be left out of the SSD flash dash NetApp also released a new V1.2 of their FlashAccel software for vSphere 5.0 and 5.1.

Storage I/O trends

Cloud, Virtualization and DCIM

Here is one that you probably have not seen or heard much about elsewhere, which is Nlyte announcement of their V1.5 Virtualization Connector for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM). Keep in mind that DCIM is more than facilities, power, and cooling related themes, particular in virtual data centers. Thus, some of the DCIM vendors, as well as others are moving into the converged DCIM space that spans server, storage, networking, hardware, software and facilities topics.

Interested in or want to know more about DCIM, and then check out these items:
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM)
Data Center Tools Can Streamline Computing Resources
Considerations for Asset Tracking and DCIM

Data Protection including Backup/Restore, BC, DR and Archiving

Quantum announced that Commvault has added support to use the Lattus object storage based solution as an archive target platform. You can learn more about object storage (access and architectures) here at www.objectstoragecenter.com .

PHD Virtual did a couple of data protection (backup/restore , BC, DR ) related announcements (here and here ). Speaking of backup/restore and data protection, if you are at VMworld on Tuesday August 27th around 1:30PM, stop by the Dell booth where I will be presenting, and stay tuned for more info on some things we are going to announce at that time.

In case you missed it, Imation who bought Nexsan earlier this year last week announced their new unified NST6000 series of storage systems. The NST6000 storage solutions support Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI for block along with NFS, CIFS/SMB and FTP for file access from virtual and physical servers.

Emulex announced some new 16Gb Fibre Channel (e.g. 16GFC) aka what Brocade wants you to refer to as Gen 5 converged and multi-port adapters. I wonder how many still remember or would rather forget how many ASIC and adapter gens from various vendors occurred just at 1Gb Fibre Channel?

Storage I/O trends

Caching and flash SSD

Proximal announced V2.0 of AutoCache 2.0 with role based administration, multi-hypervisor support (a growing trend beyond just a VMware focus) and more vCenter/vSphere integration. This is on the heels of last week’s FusionIO powered IBM Flash Cache Storage Accelerator (FCSA ) announcement, along with others such as EMC , Infinio, Intel, NetApp, Pernix, SanDisk (Flashsoft) to name a few.

Mellanox (VMworld booth #2005), you know, the Infinaband folks who also have some Ethernet (which also includes Fibre Channel over Ethernet) technology did a series of announcements today with various PCIe nand flash SSD card vendors. The common theme with the various vendors including Micron (Booth #1635) and LSI is in support of VMware virtual servers using iSER or iSCSI over RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access). RDMA or server to server direct memory access (what some of you might know as remote memory mapped IO or channel to channel C2C) enables very fast low server to server data movement such as in a VMware cluster. Check out Mellanox and their 40Gb Ethernet along with Infinaband among other solutions if you are into server, storage i/o and general networking, along with their partners. Need or want to learn more about networking with your servers and storage check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking and Resilient Storage Networking .

Rest assured there are many more announcements and updates to come this week, and in the weeks to follow…

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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Care to help Coraid with a Storage I/O Content Conversation?

Storage I/O trends

Blog post – Can you help Coraid with a Storage I/O Content Conversation?

Over the past week or so have had many email conversations with the Coraid marketing/public relations (PR) folks who want to share some of their content unique or custom content with you.

Normally I (aka @StorageIO) does not accept unsolicited (placed) content (particular for product pitch/placements) from vendors or their VARs, PR, surrogates including third or fourth party placement firms. Granted StorageIOblog.com does have site sponsors , per our policies that is all that those are, advertisements with no more or less influence than for others. StorageIO does do commissioned or sponsored custom content including white papers, solution briefs among other things with applicable disclosures, retention of editorial tone and control.

Who is Coraid and what do they do?

However wanting to experiment with things, not to mention given Coraids persistence, let’s try something to see how it works.

Coraid for those who are not aware provides an alternative storage and I/O networking solution called ATA over Ethernet or AoE (here is a link to Coraids Analyst supplied content page). AoE enables servers with applicable software to use storage equipped with AoE technology (or via an applicable equipped appliance) to use Ethernet as an interconnect and transport. AoE is on the low-end an alternative to USB, Thunderbolt or direct attached SATA or SAS, along with switched or shared SAS (keep in mind SATA can plug into SAS, not vice versa).

In addition AoE is an alternative to the industry standard iSCSI (SCSI command set mapped onto IP) which can be found in various solutions including as a software stack. Another area where AoE is positioned by Coraid is as an alternative to Fibre Channel SCSI_FCP (FCP) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). Keep in mind that Coraid AoE is block based (granted they have other solutions) as opposed to NAS (file) such as NFS, CIFS/SMB/SAMBA, pNFS or HDFS among others and is using native Ethernet as opposed to being layered on top of iSCSI.

Storage I/O trends

So here is the experiment

Since Coraid wanted to get their unique content placed either by them or via others, lets see what happens in the comments section here at StorageIOblog.com. The warning of course is keep it respectful, courteous and no bashing or disparaging comments about others (vendors, products, technology).

Thus the experiment is simple, lets see how the conversation evolves into the caveats, benefits, tradeoffs and experiences of those who have used or looked into the solution (pro or con) and why a particular opinion. If you have a perspective or opinion, no worries, however put it in context including if you are a Coraid employee, var, reseller, surrogate and likewise for those with other view (state who you are, your affiliation and other disclosure). Likewise if providing or supplying links to any content (white papers, videos, webinars) including via third-party provide applicable disclosures (e.g. it was sponsored and by whom etc.).

Disclosure

While I have mentioned or provided perspectives about them via different venues (online, print and in person) in the past, Coraid has never been a StorageIO client. Likewise this is not an endorsement for or against Coraid and their AoE or other solutions, simply an industry trends perspective.

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)

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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Inaugural episode of the SSD Show podcast at Myce.com

Storage I/O trends

Inaugural episode of the SSD Show podcast at Myce.com

The other day I was invited by Jeremy Reynolds and J.W. Aldershoff to be a guest on the Inaugural episode of their new SSD Show podcast (click here to learn more or listen in).

audio

Many different facets or faces of nand flash SSD and SSHD or HHDD

With this first episode we discuss the latest developments in and around the solid-state device (SSD) and related storage industry, from consumer to enterprise, hardware and software, along with hands on experience insight on products, trends, technologies, technique themes. In this first podcast we discuss Solid State Hybrid Disks (SSHDs) aka Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD) with flash (read about some of my SSD, HHDD/SSHD hands on personal experiences here), the state of NAND memory (also here about nand DIMMs), the market and SSD pricing.

I had a lot of fun doing this first episode with Jeremy and hope to be invited back to do some more, follow-up on themes we discussed along with new ones in future episodes. One question remains after the podcast, will I convince Jeremy to get a Twitter account? Stay tuned!

Check out the new SSD Show podcast 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)

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Summer 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

StorageIO 2013 Summer Newsletter

Cloud, Virtualization, SSD, Data Protection, Storage I/O

Welcome to the Summer 2013 (combined July and August) edition of the StorageIO Update (newsletter) containing trends perspectives on cloud, virtualization and data infrastructure topics.

StorageIO News Letter Image
Summer 2013 News letter

This summer has been far from quiet on the merger and acquisitions (M&E) front with Western Digital (WD) continuing its buying spree including Stec among others. There is the HDS Mid Summer Storage and Converged Compute Enhancements and EMC Evolves Enterprise Data Protection with Enhancements (Part I and Part II).

With VMworld just around the corner along with many other upcoming events, watch for more announcements to be covered in future editions and on StorageIOblog as we move into fall.

Click on the following links to view the Summer 2013 edition as (HTML sent via Email) version, or PDF versions. Visit the news letter page to view previous editions of the StorageIO Update.

You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update news letter, let me know your comments and feedback.

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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IBM Server Side Storage I/O SSD Flash Cache Software

Storage I/O trends

IBM Server Side Storage I/O SSD Flash Cache Software

As I often say, the best server storage I/O or IOP is the one that you do not have to do. The second best storage I/O or IOP is the one with least impact or that can be done in a cost-effective way. Likewise the question is not if solid-state device (SSD) including nand flash are in your future, rather when, where, why, with what, how much along with from whom. Also location matters when it comes to SSD including nand flash with different environments and applications leveraging different placement (locality) options, not to mention how much performance do you need vs. want?

As part of their $1 billion USD (to be spent over three years, or $333.3333 million per year) flash ahead initiative IBM has announced their Flash Cache Storage Accelerator (FCSA) server software. While IBM did not use the term, (congratulations and thank you btw) some creative marketer might want to try calling this Software Defined Cache (SDC) or Software Defined SSD (SDSSD) which if that occurs, apologies in advance ;). Keep in mind that it was about a year ago this time when IBM announced that they were acquiring SSD industry veteran Texas Memory Systems (TMS).

What was announced, introducing Flash Cache Storage Acceleration or FCSA

With this announcement of FCSA slated for customer general availability by end of August, IBM joins EMC and NetApp among other storage systems vendors who developed their own, or have collaborated on server-side IO optimization and cache software. Some of the other startup and established vendors who have IO optimization, performance acceleration and caching software include DataRam (Ramdisk), FusionIO, Infinio (NFS for VMware), Pernix (block for VMware), Proximal and SANdisk (bought flashsoft) among others.

Read more about IBM Flash Cache Software (FCSA) including various questions and perspectives in part two of this two-part post located 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)

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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Part II: IBM Server Side Storage I/O SSD Flash Cache Software

Storage I/O trends

Part II IBM Server Flash Cache Storage I/O accelerator for SSD

This is the second in a two-part post series on IBM’s Flash Cache Storage Accelerator (FCSA) for Solid State Device (SSD) storage announced today. You can view part I of the IBM FCSA announcement synopsis here.

Some FCSA ssd cache questions and perspectives

What is FCSA?
FCSA is a server-side storage I/O or IOP caching software tool that makes use of local (server-side) nand flash SSD (PCIe cards or drives). As a cache tool (view IBM flash site here) FCSA provides persistent read caching on IBM servers (xSeries, Flex and Blade x86 based systems) with write through cache (e.g. data cached for later reads) while write data is written directly to block attached storage including SANs. back-end storage can be iSCSI, SAS, FC or FCoE based block systems from IBM or others including all SSD, hybrid SSD or traditional HDD based solutions from IBM and others.

How is this different from just using a dedicated PCIe nand flash SSD card?
FCSA complements those by using them as a persistent storage to cache storage I/O reads to boost performance. By using the PCIe nand flash card or SSD drives, FCSA and other storage I/O cache optimization tools free up valuable server-side DRAM from having to be used as a read cache on the servers. On the other hand, caching tools such as FCSA also keep local cached reads closer to the applications on the servers (e.g. locality of reference) reducing the impact on backed shared block storage systems.

What is FCSA for?
With storage I/O or IOPS and application performance in general, location matters due to locality of reference hence the need for using different approaches for various environments. IBM FCSA is a storage I/O caching software technology that reduces the impact of applications having to do random read operations. In addition to caching reads, FCSA also has a write-through cache, which means that while data written to back-end block storage including on iSCSI, SAS, FC or FCoE based storage (IBM or other vendors), a copy of the data is cached for later reads. Thus while the best storage I/O is the one that does not have to be done (e.g. can be resolved from cache), the second best would be writes that go to a storage system that are not competing with read requests (handled via cache).

Storage I/O trends

Who else is doing this?
This is similar to what EMC initially announced and released in February 2012 with VFcache now renamed to be XtremSW along with other caching and IO optimization software from others (e.g. SANdisk, Proximal and Pernix among others.

Does this replace IBM EasyTier?
Simple answer is no, one is for tiering (e.g. EasyTier), the other is for IO caching and optimization (e.g. FCSA).

Does this replace or compete with other IBM SSD technologies?
With anything, it is possible to find a way to make or view it as competitive. However in general FCSA complements other IBM storage I/O optimization and management software tools such as EasyTier as well as leverage and coexist with their various SSD products (from PCIe cards to drives to drive shelves to all SSD and hybrid SSD solutions).

How does FCSA work?
The FCSA software works in either a physical machine (PM) bare metal mode with Microsoft Windows operating systems (OS) such as Server 2008, 2012 among others. There is also *nix support for RedHat Linux, along with in a VMware virtual machine (VM) environment. In a VMware environment High Availability (HA), DRS and VMotion services and capabilities are supported. Hopefully it will be sooner vs. later that we hear IBM do a follow-up announcement (pure speculation and wishful thinking) on more hypervisors (e.g. Hyper-V, Xen, KVM) support along with Centos, Ubuntu or Power based systems including IBM pSeries. Read more about IBM Pure and Flex systems here.

What about server CPU and DRAM overhead?
As should be expected, a minimal amount of server DRAM (e.g. main memory) and CPU processing cycles are used to support the FCSA software and its drivers. Note the reason I say as should be expected is how you can have software running on a server doing any type of work that does not need some amount of DRAM and processing cycles. Granted some vendors will try to spin and say that there is no server-side DRAM or CPU consumed which would be true if they are completely external to the server (VM or PM). The important thing is to understand how much of an impact in terms of CPU along with DRAM consumed along with their corresponding effectiveness benefit that are derived.

Storage I/O trends

Does FCSA work with NAS (NFS or CIFS) back-end storage?
No this is a server-side block only cache solution. However having said that, if your applications or server are presenting shared storage to others (e.g. out the front-end) as NAS (NFS, CIFS, HDFS) using block storage (back-end), then FCSA can cache the storage I/O going to those back-end block devices.

Is this an appliance?
Short and simple answer is no, however I would not be surprised to hear some creative software defined marketer try to spin it as a flash cache software appliance. What this means is that FCSA is simply IO and storage optimization software for caching to boost read performance for VM and PM servers.

What is this hardware or storage agnostic stuff mean?
Simple, it means that FCSA can work with various nand flash PCIe cards or flash SSD drives installed in servers, as well as with various back-end block storage including SAN from IBM or others. This includes being able to use block storage using iSCSI, SAS, FC or FCoE attached storage.

What is the difference between Easytier and FCSA?
Simple, FCSA is providing read acceleration via caching which in turn should offload some reads from affecting storage systems so that they can focus on handling writes or read ahead operations. Easytier on the other hand is for as its name implies tiering or movement of data in a more deterministic fashion.

How do you get FCSA?
It is software that you buy from IBM that runs on an IBM x86 based server. It is licensed on a per server basis including one-year service and support. IBM has also indicated that they have volume or multiple servers based licensing options.

Storage I/O trends

Does this mean IBM is competing with other software based IO optimization and cache tool vendors?
IBM is focusing on selling and adding value to their server solutions. Thus while you can buy the software from IBM for their servers (e.g. no bundling required), you cannot buy the software to run on your AMD/Seamicro, Cisco (including EMC/VCE and NetApp) , Dell, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, Lenovo, Oracle, SuperMicro among other vendors servers.

Will this work on non-IBM servers?
IBM is only supporting FCSA on IBM x86 based servers; however, you can buy the software without having to buy a solution bundle (e.g. servers or storage).

What is this Cooperative Caching stuff?
Cooperative caching takes the next step from simple read cache with write-through to also support chance coherency in a shared environment, as well as leverage tighter application or guest operating system and storage system integration. For example, applications can work with storage systems to make intelligent predictive informed decisions on what to pre-fetch or read ahead and cached, as well as enable cache warming on restart. Another example is where in a shared storage environment if one server makes a change to a shared LUN or volume that the local server-side caches are also updated to prevent stale or inconsistent reads from occurring.

Can FCSA use multiple nand flash SSD devices on the same server?
Yes, IBM FCSA supports use of multiple server-side PCIe and or drive based SSD devices.

How is cache coherency maintained including during a reboot?
While data stored in the nand flash SSD device is persistent, it’s up to the server and applications working with the storage systems to decide if there is coherent or stale data that needs to be refreshed. Likewise, since FCSA is server-side and back-end storage system or SAN agnostic, without cooperative caching it will not know if the underlying data for a storage volume changed without being notified from another server that modified it. Thus if using shared back-end including SAN storage, do your due diligence to make sure multi-host access to the same LUN’s or volumes is being coordinated with some server-side software to support cache coherency, something that would apply to all vendors.

Storage I/O trends

What about cache warming or reloading of the read cache?
Some vendors who have tightly interested caching software and storage systems, something IBM refers to as cooperative caching that can have the ability to re-warm the cache. With solutions that support cache re-warming, the cache software and storage systems work together to main cache coherency while pre-loading data from the underlying storage system based on hot bands or other profiles and experience. As of this announcement, FCSA does not support cache warming on its own.

Does IBM have service or tools to complement FCSA?
Yes, IBM has an assessment, profile and planning tool that are available on a free consultation services basis with a technician to check your environment. Of course, the next logical step would be for IBM to make the tool available via free download or on some other basis as well.

Do I recommend and have I tried FCSA?
On paper, or WebEx, YouTube or other venue FCSA looks interesting and capable, a good fit for some environments particular if IBM server-based. However since my PM and VMware VM based servers are from other vendors, along with the fact that FCSA only runs on IBM servers, have not actually given it a hands on test drive yet. Thus if you are looking at storage I/O optimization and caching software tools for your VM or PM environment, checkout IBM FCSA to see if it meets your needs.

Storage I/O trends

General comments

It is great to see server and storage systems vendors add value to their solutions with I/O and performance optimization as well as caching software tools. However, I am also concerned with the growing numbers of different software tools that only work with one vendor’s servers or storage systems, or at least are supported as such.

This reminds me of a time not all that long ago (ok, for some longer than others) when we had a proliferation of different host bus adapter (HBA) driver and pathing drivers from various vendors. The result is a hodge podge (a technical term) of software running on different operating systems, hypervisors, PM’s, VMs, and storage systems, all of which need to be managed. On the other hand, for the time being perhaps the benefit will outweigh the pain of having different tools. That is where there are options from server-side vendor centric, storage system focused, or third-party software tool providers.

Another consideration is that some tools work in VMware environments; others support multiple hypervisors while others also support bare metal servers or PMs. Which applies to your environment will of course depend. After all, if you are an all VMware environment given that many of the caching tools tend to be VMware focused, that gives more options vs. for those who are still predominately PM environments.

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)

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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Viking SATADIMM: Nand flash SATA SSD in DDR3 DIMM slot?

Storage I/O trends

Today computer and data storage memory vendor Viking announced that SSD vendor Solidfire has deployed their SATADIMM modules in DDR3 DIMM (e.g. Random Access Memory (RAM) main memory) slots of their SF SSD based storage solution.

solidfire ssd storage with satadimm
Solidfire SD solution with SATADIMM via Viking

Nand flash SATA SSD in a DDR3 DIMM slot?

Per Viking, Solidfire uses the SATADIMM as boot devices and cache to complement the normal SSD drives used in their SF SSD storage grid or cluster. For those not familiar, Solidfire SF storage systems or appliances are based on industry standard servers that are populated with SSD devices which in turn are interconnected with other nodes (servers) to create a grid or cluster of SSD performance and space capacity. Thus as nodes are added, more performance, availability and capacity are also increased all of which are accessed via iSCSI. Learn more about Solidfire SD solutions on their website here.

Here is the press release that Viking put out today:

Viking Technology SATADIMM Increases SSD Capacity in SolidFire’s Storage System (Press Release)

Viking Technology’s SATADIMM enables higher total SSD capacity for SolidFire systems, offering cloud infrastructure providers an optimized and more powerful solution

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif., August 12, 2013 – Viking Technology, an industry leading supplier of Solid State Drives (SSDs), Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Module (NVDIMMs), and DRAM, today announced that SolidFire has selected its SATADIMM SSD as both the cache SSD and boot volume SSD for their storage nodes. Viking Technology’s SATADIMM SSD enables SolidFire to offer enhanced products by increasing both the number and the total capacity of SSDs in their solution.

“The Viking SATADIMM gives us an additional SSD within the chassis allowing us to dedicate more drives towards storage capacity, while storing boot and metadata information securely inside the system,” says Adam Carter, Director of Product Management at SolidFire. “Viking’s SATADIMM technology is unique in the market and an important part of our hardware design.”

SATADIMM is an enterprise-class SSD in a Dual In-line Memory Module (DIMM) form factor that resides within any empty DDR3 DIMM socket. The drive enables SSD caching and boot capabilities without using a hard disk drive bay. The integration of Viking Technology’s SATADIMM not only boosts overall system performance but allows SolidFire to minimize potential human errors associated with data center management, such as accidentally removing a boot or cache drive when replacing an adjacent failed drive.

“We are excited to support SolidFire with an optimal solid state solution that delivers increased value to their customers compared to traditional SSDs,” says Adrian Proctor, VP of Marketing, Viking Technology. “SATADIMM is a solid state drive that takes advantage of existing empty DDR3 sockets and provides a valuable increase in both performance and capacity.”

SATADIMM is a 6Gb SATA SSD with capacities up to 512GB. A next generation SAS solution with capacities of 1TB & 2TB will be available early in 2014. For more information, visit our website www.vikingtechnology.com or email us at sales@vikingtechnology.com.

Sales information is available at: www.vikingtechnology.com, via email at sales@vikingtechnology.com or by calling (949) 643-7255.

About Viking Technology Viking Technology is recognized as a leader in NVDIMM technology. Supporting a broad range of memory solutions that bridge DRAM and SSD, Viking delivers solutions to OEMs in the enterprise, high-performance computing, industrial and the telecommunications markets. Viking Technology is a division of Sanmina Corporation (Nasdaq: SANM), a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider. More information is available at www.vikingtechnology.com.

About SolidFire SolidFire is the market leader in high-performance data storage systems designed for large-scale public and private cloud infrastructure. Leveraging an all-flash scale-out architecture with patented volume-level quality of service (QoS) control, providers can now guarantee storage performance to thousands of applications within a shared infrastructure. In-line data reduction techniques along with system-wide automation are fueling new block-storage services and advancing the way the world uses the cloud.

What’s inside the press release

On the surface this might cause some to jump to the conclusion that the nand flash SSD is being accessed via the fast memory bus normally used for DRAM (e.g. main memory) of a server or storage system controller. For some this might even cause a jump to conclusion that Viking has figured out a way to use nand flash for reads and writes not only via a DDR3 DIMM memory location, as well as doing so with the Serial ATA (SATA) protocol enabling server boot and use by any operating system or hypervisors (e.g. VMware vSphere or ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen or KVM among others).

Note for those not familiar or needing a refresh on DRAM, DIMM and related items, here is an excerpt from Chapter 7 (Servers – Physical, Virtual and Software) from my book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC Press).

7.2.2 Memory

Computers rely on some form of memory ranging from internal registers, local on-board processor Level 1 (L1) and Level 2 (L2) caches, random accessible memory (RAM), non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) or Flash along with external disk storage. Memory, which includes external disk storage, is used for storing operating system software along with associated tools or utilities, application programs and data. Read more of the excerpt here…

Is SATADIMM memory bus nand flash SSD storage?

In short no.

Some vendors or their surrogates might be tempted to spin such a story by masking some details to allow your imagination to run wild a bit. When I saw the press release announcement I reached out to Tinh Ngo (Director Marketing Communications) over at Viking with some questions. I was expecting the usual marketing spin story, dancing around the questions with long answers or simply not responding with anything of substance (or that requires some substance to believe). Again what I found was the opposite and thus want to share with you some of the types of questions and answers.

So what actually is SATADIMM? See for yourself in the following image (click on it to view or Viking site).

Via Viking website, click on image or here to learn more about SATADIMM

Does SATADIMM actually move data via DDR3 and memory bus? No, SATADIMM only draws power from it (yes nand flash does need power when in use contrary to a myth I was told about).

Wait, then how is data moved and how does it get to and through the SATA IO stack (hardware and software)?

Simple, there is a cable connector that attached to the SATADIMM that in turn attached to an internal SATA port. Or using a different connector cable attach the SATADIMM (up to four) to a standard SAS internal port such as on a main board, HBA, RAID or caching adapter.

industry trend

Does that mean that Viking and who ever uses SATADIMM is not actually moving data or implementing SATA via the memory bus and DDR3 DIMM sockets? That would be correct, data movement occurs via cable connection to standard SATA or SAS ports.

Wait, why would I give up a DDR3 DIMM socket in my server that could be used for more DRAM? Great question and one that should be it depends on if you need more DRAM or more nand flash? If you are out of drive slots or PCIe card slots and have enough DRAM for your needs along with available DDR3 slots, you can stuff more nand flash into those locations assuming you have SAS or SATA connectivity.

satadimm
SATADIMM with SATA connector top right via Viking

satadimm sata connector
SATADIMM SATA connector via Viking

satadimm sas connector
SATADIMM SAS (Internal) connector via Viking

Why not just use the onboard USB ports and plug-in some high-capacity USB thumb drives to cut cost? If that is your primary objective it would probably work and I can also think of some other ways to cut cost. However those are also probably not the primary tenants that people looking to deploy something like SATADIMM would be looking for.

What are the storage capacities that can be placed on the SATADIMM? They are available in different sizes up to 400GB for SLC and 480GB for MLC. Viking indicated that there are larger capacities and faster 12Gb SAS interfaces in the works which would be more of a surprise if there were not. Learn more about current product specifications here.

Good questions. Attached are three images that sort of illustrates the connector. As well, why not a USB drive; well, there are customers that put 12 of these in the system (with up to 480GB usable capacity) that equates to roughly an added 5.7TBs inside the box without touching the drive bays (left for mass HDD’s). You will then need to raid/connect) all the SATADIMM via a HBA.

How fast is the SATADIMM and does putting it into a DDR3 slot speed things up or slow them down? Viking has some basic performance information on their site (here). However generally should be the same or similar to reach a SAS or SATA SSD drive, although keep SSD metrics and performance in the proper context. Also keep in mind that the DDR3 DIMM slot is only being used for power and not real data movement.

Is the SATADIMM using 3Gbs or 6Gbs SATA? Good questions, today is 6Gb SATA (remember that SATA can attach to a SAS port however not vise versa). Lets see if Viking responds in the comments with more including RAID support (hardware or software) along with other insight such as UNMAP, TRIM, Advanced Format (AF) 4KByte blocks among other things.

Have I actually tried SATADIMM yet? No, not yet. However would like to give it a test drive and workout if one were to show up on my doorstep along with disclosure and share the results if applicable.

industry trend

Future of nand flash in DRAM DIMM sockets

Keep in mind that someday nand flash will actually seem not only in a Webex or Powerpoint demo preso (e.g. similar to what Diablo Technology is previewing), as well as in real use for example what Micron earlier this year predicted for flash on DDR4 (more DDR3 vs. DDR4 here).

Is SATADIMM the best nand flash SSD approach for every solution or environment? No, however it does give some interesting options for those who are PCIe card, or HDD and SSD drive slot constrained that also have available DDR3 DIMM sockets. As to price, check with Viking, wish I could say tell them Greg from StorageIO sent you for a good value, however not sure what they would say or do.

Related more reading:
How much storage performance do you want vs. need?
Can RAID extend the life of nand flash SSD?
Can we get a side of context with them IOPS and other storage metrics?
SSD & Real Estate: Location, Location, Location
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
SSD, flash and DRAM, DejaVu or something new?

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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Server and Storage IO Memory: DRAM and nand flash

Storage I/O trends

DRAM, DIMM, DDR3, nand flash memory, SSD, stating what’s often assumed

Often what’s assumed is not always the case. For example in along with around server, storage and IO networking circles including virtual as well as cloud environments terms such as nand (Negated AND or NOT And) flash memory aka (Solid State Device or SSD), DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), DDR3 (Double Data Rate 3) not to mention DIMM (Dual Inline Memory Module) get tossed around with the assumption everybody must know what they mean.

On the other hand, I find plenty of people who are not sure what those among other terms or things are, sometimes they are even embarrassed to ask, particular if they are a self-proclaimed expert.

So for those who need a refresh or primer, here you go, an excerpt from Chapter 7 (Servers – Physical, Virtual and Software) from my book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC Press) available at Amazon.com and other global venues in print and ebook formats.

7.2.2 Memory

Computers rely on some form of memory ranging from internal registers, local on-board processor Level 1 (L1) and Level 2 (L2) caches, random accessible memory (RAM), non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) or nand Flash (SSD) along with external disk storage. Memory, which includes external disk storage, is used for storing operating system software along with associated tools or utilities, application programs and data. Main memory or RAM, also known as dynamic RAM (DRAM) chips, is packaged in different ways with a common form being dual inline memory modules (DIMMs) for notebook or laptop, desktop PC and servers.

RAM main memory on a server is the fastest form of memory, second only to internal processor or chip based registers, L1, L2 or local memory. RAM and processor based memories are volatile and non-persistent in that when power is removed, the contents of memory are lost. As a result, some form of persistent memory is needed to keep programs and data when power is removed. Read only memory (ROM) and NVRAM are both persistent forms of memory in that their contents are not lost when power is removed. The amount of RAM that can be installed into a server will vary with specific architecture implementation and operating software being used. In addition to memory capacity and packaging format, the speed of memory is also important to be able to move data and programs quickly to avoid internal bottlenecks. Memory bandwidth performance increases with the width of the memory bus in bits and frequency in MHz. For example, moving 8 bytes on a 64 bit buss in parallel at the same time at 100MHz provides a theoretical 800MByte/sec speed.

To improve availability and increase the level of persistence, some servers include battery backed up RAM or cache to protect data in the event of a power loss. Another technique to protect memory data on some servers is memory mirroring where twice the amount of memory is installed and divided into two groups. Each group of memory has a copy of data being stored so that in the event of a memory failure beyond those correctable with standard parity and error correction code (ECC) no data is lost. In addition to being fast, RAM based memories are also more expensive and used in smaller quantities compared to external persistent memories such as magnetic hard disk drives, magnetic tape or optical based memory medias.

Memory diagram
Memory and Storage Pyramid

The above shows a tiered memory model that may look familiar as the bottom part is often expanded to show tiered storage. At the top of the memory pyramid is high-speed processor memory followed by RAM, ROM, NVRAM and FLASH along with many forms of external memory commonly called storage. More detail about tiered storage is covered in chapter 8 (Data Storage – Data Storage – Disk, Tape, Optical, and Memory). In addition to being slower and lower cost than RAM based memories, disk storage along with NVRAM and FLASH based memory devices are also persistent.

By being persistent, when power is removed, data is retained on the storage or memory device. Also shown in the above figure is that on a relative basis, less energy is used for power storage or memory at the bottom of the pyramid than for upper levels where performance increases. From a PCFE (Power, Cooling, Floor space, Economic) perspective, balancing memory and storage performance, availability, capacity and energy to a given function, quality of service and service level objective for a given cost needs to be kept in perspective and not considering simply the lowest cost for the most amount of memory or storage. In addition to gauging memory on capacity, other metrics include percent used, operating system page faults and page read/write operations along with memory swap activity as well memory errors.

Base 2 versus base 10 numbering systems can account for some storage capacity that appears to “missing” when real storage is compared to what is expected to be seen. Disk drive manufacturers use base 10 (decimal) to count bytes of data while memory chip, server and operating system vendors typically use base 2 (binary) to count bytes of data. This has led to confusion when comparing a disk drive base 10 GB with a chip memory base 2 GB of memory capacity, such as 1,000,000,000 (10^9) bytes versus 1,073,741,824 (2^30) bytes. Nomenclature based on the International System of Units uses MiB, GiB and TiB to denote million, billion and trillion bytes for base 2 numbering with base 10 using MB, TB and GB . Most vendors do document how many bytes, sometimes in both base 2 and base 10, as well as the number of 512 byte sectors supported on their storage devices and storage systems, though it might be in the small print.

Related more reading:
How much storage performance do you want vs. need?
Can RAID extend the life of nand flash SSD?
Can we get a side of context with them IOPS and other storage metrics?
SSD & Real Estate: Location, Location, Location
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
SSD, flash and DRAM, DejaVu or something new?

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).

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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How much storage performance do you want vs. need?

Storage I/O trends

How much storage I/O performance do you want vs. need?

The answer to how much storage I/O performance you need vs. want probably depends on cost, for which applications along with benefit among other things.

Storage I/O performance
View Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware?

I did a piece over at 21cit titled Parsing the Need for Speed in Storage that looks at those and other related themes including metrics that matter across tiered storage.

Here is an excerpt:

Can storage speed be too fast? Or, put another away, how do you decide a return on investments or innovation from the financial resources you spend on storage and the various technologies that go into storage performance.

Think about it: Fast storage needs fast servers, IO and networking interfaces, software, firmware, hypervisors, operating systems, drivers, and a file system or database, along with applications. Then there are the other buzzword bingo technologies that are also factors, among them fast storage DRAM and flash Solid State Devices (SSD).

Some questions to ask about storage I/O performance include among others:

  • How do response time, latency, and think or wait-times effect your environment and applications?
  • Do you know the location of your storage or data center performance bottlenecks?
  • If you remove bottlenecks in storage systems or appliances as well as in the data path, how will your application or the CPU in the server it runs on behave?
  • If your application server is currently showing high CPU due to the system overhead of having to wait for storage I/Os, you may see a positive improvement.
  • If more real work can be done now, will all of the components be ready to support each other without creating a new bottleneck?
  • Also speaking of storage I/O performance, how about can we get a side of context with them IOPs and other metrics that matter!

So how about it, how much performance, for primary, secondary, backup, cloud or virtual storage do you want vs. need?

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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Can RAID extend the life of nand flash SSD?

Storage I/O trends

Can RAID extend nand flash SSD life?

Imho, the short answer is YES, under some circumstances.

There is a myth and some FUD that RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) can shorten the life durability of nand flash SSD (Solid State Device) vs. HDD (Hard Disk Drives) due to extra IOP’s. The reality is that depending on how configured, RAID level, implementation and other factors, nand flash SSD can be extended as I discuss in this here video.

Video

Nand flash SSD cells and wear

First, there is a myth that nand flash SSD does not have moving parts like hard disk drives (HDD’s) thus do not wear out or break. That is just a myth in that nand flash by its nature wears out with write usage. This is due to how they store data in cells that have a rated number of program erase (P/E) cycles that vary by type of medium. For example, Single Level Cell (SLC) has a longer P/E life duration vs. Multi-Level Cells (MLC) and eMLC that stack multiple cells together.

There are a number of factors that contribute to nand flash wear, also known as duty cycle or durability tied to P/E. For example, some storage systems or controllers do a better job both at the lower level flash translation layer (FTL) in addition to controllers, firmware, caching using DRAM and IO optimization such as write ordering or grouping.

Now what about this RAID and SSD thing?

Ok first as a recap keep in mind that there are many RAID levels along with variations, enhancements and where, or how implemented ranging from software to hardware, adapters to controllers to storage systems.

In the case of RAID 1 or mirroring, just like replication or other one to one or one too many copy operation a write to one device is echoed to another. In the case of RAID 5, data is spread across drives and parity; however, the parity is rotated across all drives in an equal manner.

Some FUD or myths or misunderstandings come into play is that not all RAID 5 implementations as an example are not the same. Some do a better job of buffering or caching data in battery protected mirrored DRAM memory until a full stripe write can occur, or if needed, a partial write.

Another attribute is the chunk or shard size (how much data is sent to each drive member) along with the stripe width (how many drives). Some systems have narrow stripes of say 3+1 or 4+1 or 5+1 while others can be 14+1 or 15+1 or wider. Thus, data can be written across a wider number of drives reducing the P/E consumption or use of a single drive depending on implementation.

How about RAID 6 (dual parity)?

Same thing, it is a matter of how well the implementation is, how the write gathering is done and so forth.

What about RAID wearing out nand flash SSD?

While it is possible that it has or can occur depending on type of RAID implementation, lack of caching or optimization, configuration, type of SSD, RAID level and other things, in general I will say myth busted.

Want some proof?

I could go through a long technical proof point and citing lots of facts, figures, experts and so forth leaving you all silenced and dazed similar to the students listening to Ben Stein in Ferris Buelers day off (Click here to see what I mean) asking “anybody anybody Buleler?

Ben Stein via https://nostagjicmoviesandthings.blogspot.com
Image via nostagjicmoviesandthings.blogspot.com

How about some simple SSD and storage math?

On a very conservative basis, my estimate is that around 250PB of nand flash SSD drives are shipped and installed on a revenue basis attached to or in storage systems and appliances. Combine what Dell + DotHill + EMC + Fujitsu + HDS + HP + IBM (including TMS) + NEC + NetApp + NEC + Oracle among other legacy along with new all flash as well as hybrid vendors (e.g. Cloudbyte, FusionIO (Via their Nexgen acquisition), Kaminario, Greenbytes, Nutanix or Nimble, Purestorage, Starboard or Solidfire, Tegile or Tintri, Violin or Whiptail among others).

It is also a safe assumption based on how customers configure and use those and other storage systems is with some form of RAID. Thus if things were as bad as some researchers were, vendors and their pundits have made them out to be, wouldn’t’t we be hearing of those issues?

Is it just a RAID 5 problem and that RAID 6 magically corrects the problem?

Well, that depends on apples to apples vs. apples to oranges comparisons.

For example if you are using a 14+2 (16 drive) RAID 6 to compare to say a 3+1 (4 drive) RAID 5 that is not a fair comparison. Granted, it is a handy one if you are a vendor that supports wider RAID groups, stripes and ranks vs. those who do not. However also keep in mind that some legacy vendors actually also support wide stripes and RAID groups.

So in some cases the magic is not in the RAID level, rather the implementation or how configured or lack thereof.

Video

Watch this TechTarget produced video recorded live while I was at EMCworld 2013 to learn more.

Otherwise, 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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Virtual, Cloud and IT Availability, its a shared responsibility and common sense

IT Availability, it’s a shared responsibility and common sense

In case you missed it, recently the State of Oregon had a data center computer problem (ok, storage and application outage) that resulted in unemployment benefits not being provided. Tony Knotzer over at Network Computing did a story Oregon Storage Debacle Highlights Need To Plan For Failure and asked me for some perspectives that you can read here.

Data center

The reason I bring this incident up is not to join in the feeding frenzy that usually occurs when something like this happens, instead, to touch on what should be common. What is lacking at times (or more needed) is common sense when it comes to designing and managing flexible scalable data infrastructures.

“Fundamental IT 101 is that all technology will fail, despite what the vendors tell you,” Schulz said. And the most likely time technology will fail, he notes, is when people are involved — doing configurations, making changes or updates, or performing upgrades. – Via Network Computing

Note that while any technology can or has fail at some point, how it fails along with fault containment via design best practices and vendor resolution are important.

Good vendors learn and correct things so that they don’t happen again as well as work with customers on best practices to isolate and contain faults from expanding into disasters. Thus when a sales or marketing person tries to tell me that they have never had a failure I wonder if a: they are making something up, b: have not actually shipped to a customer in production, c: not aware of other deployments, d: towing the company line, e: too good to be true or f: all the above.

People talking

On the other hand, when a vendor tells me how they have resiliency in their product as well as processes, best practices and can even tell me (public or under NDA) how they have addressed issues, then they have my attention.

A common challenge today is cost cutting along with focus on the newest technology from servers to storage, networking to cloud, virtualization and software defined among other buzzword bingo themes and trends.

buzzword bingo

What also gets overlooked as mentioned above is common sense.

Perhaps if somebody could package and launch a good public relations campaign profiling common sense such as Software Defined Common Sense (SDCS) that might help?

On the other hand, similar to public service announcements (PSA) that may seem like common sense to some, there is a reason they are being done. That is to pass on the information to others who may not know about it thus lack what is perceived as common sense.

Lets get back to the state of Oregon’s computer systems issues and the blame game.

You know the blame game? That is when something happens or does not happen as you want it to simply find somebody else to blame or pivot and point a finger elsewhere.

the blame game

While perhaps good for CYA, the blame games usually does not help to prevent something happening again, or in the first place.

Hence in my comments about the state of Oregon computer storage system problems, I took the tone of what is common these days of no fault, shared responsibility and blame.

In other words does not matter who did what first or did not do, both sides could have prevented it.

For some this might resonate of it does not matter who misbehaved in the sandbox or play room, everybody gets a time out.

This is not to say that one side or the other has to assume or take on more blame or responsibility than the other, rather there is a shared responsibility to look out for each other.

Storage I/O trends

Just like when you drive a car, the education focus is on defensive safe driving to watch out for what the other person might do or not do (e.g. use turn signals or too busy to look in a mirror while talking or texting and driving among other things). The goal is to prevent accidents by watching out for those who are not taking responsibilities for themselves, not to mention learning from others mishaps.

teamwork
Working together vs. the blame game

Different views of customer vs. vendor

Having been a customer, as well as a vendor in the past not surprisingly I have some different views on this.

Sure the customer or client is always right, however sometimes there needs to be unpleasant conversations to help the customer help themselves, or keep themselves out of trouble.

Likewise a vendor may also take the blame when something does go wrong, even if it was entirely not their own fault just to stay in good graces with the customer or get that next deal.

Sometimes a vendor deserves to get beat up when something goes wrong, or at a least tell their story including if needed behind closed doors or under NDA. Likewise to have a meaningful relationship or partnership with the vendor, supplier or VAR, there needs to be trust and confidence which means not everything gets put out for media or blog venues to feed on.

Sure there is explaining what happened without spin, however there is also learning from mistakes to prevent them from happening which should be common sense. If part of that sharing of blame and responsibility requires being not in public that’s fine, as well as enough information of what happened is conveyed to clarify concerns and create confidence.

With vendor lockin, when I was a customer some taught that it’s the vendors fault (or for CYA, blame them), as a vendor the thinking was enforced that the customer is always right and its the competition who causes lockin.

As an analyst advisory consulting, my thinking not surprisingly is that of shared responsibility.

This means only you can allow vendor lockin, not to mention decide if lockin is bad or not.

Likewise only you can prevent data loss in cloud, virtual or traditional environments which also includes loss of access.

Granted somebody higher up the organization structure may over-ride you, however ask yourself if you did what was needed?

Likewise if a vendor is going to be doing some maintenance work in the middle of the week and there is a risk of something happening, even if they have told or sold you there is no single point of failure (NSPOF), or non disruptive upgrades.

Anytime there is a person involved regardless of if hardware, cables, software, firmware, configurations or physical environments something can happen. If the vendor drops the ball or a cable or card or something else and causes an outage or downtime, it is their responsibility to discuss those issues. However it is also the customers responsibility to discuss why they let the vendor do something during that time without taking adequate precautions. Likewise if the storage system was a single point of failure for an important system, then there is the responsibility to discuss the cost cutting concerns of others and have them justify why a redundant solution is not needed (that’s CYA 101 btw ).

Some other common sense tips

For some these might be familiar and if so, are they being done, and for others, perhaps they are new or revolutionary.

In the race to jump to a new technology or vendor, what are the unknowns? For example you may know what the issues or flaws are in an existing systems, solution, product, service or vendor, however what about the new one? Will you be the production beta customer and if so, how can you mitigate any risk?

Ask vendors tough, yet fair questions that are relevant to your needs and requirements including how they handle updates, upgrades and other tasks. Don’t be afraid to go under NDA if needed to get a better view of where they are at, have been and going to avoid surprises.

If this is not common IT sense, then take the responsibility to learn.

On the other hand, if this is common sense, take the responsibility to share and help others learn what it is that you know.

Also understand your availability needs and wants as well as balance those with costs along with risks. If something can go wrong it will if people are involved, thus design for resiliency including maintenance to offset applicable threat risks. Remember in the data center not everything is the same.

Storage I/O trends

Here is my point.

There is enough blame as well as accolades to go around, however take some shared responsibility and use it wisely.

Likewise in the race to cut cost, watch out for causing problems that compromise your information systems or services.

Look into removing complexity and costs without compromise which has long-term benefits vs. simply cutting costs.

Here are some related links and perspectives:
Don’t Let Clouds Scare You Be Prepared
Cloud conversation, Thanks Gartner for saying what has been said
Cloud conversations: Gaining cloud confidence from insights into AWS outages (Part II)
Make Your Company Ready for the Cloud
What do you do when your service provider drops the ball
People, Not Tech, Prevent IT Convergence
Pulling Together a Converged Team
Speaking of lockin, does software eliminate or move the location of vendor lock-in?

Ok, nuff said for now, what say you?

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

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