I/O, I/O how well do you know good bad ugly server storage I/O iops?

How well do you know good bad ugly I/O iops?

server storage i/o iops activity data infrastructure trends

Updated 2/10/2018

There are many different types of server storage I/O iops associated with various environments, applications and workloads. Some I/Os activity are iops, others are transactions per second (TPS), files or messages per time (hour, minute, second), gets, puts or other operations. The best IO is one you do not have to do.

What about all the cloud, virtual, software defined and legacy based application that still need to do I/O?

If no IO operation is the best IO, then the second best IO is the one that can be done as close to the application and processor as possible with the best locality of reference.

Also keep in mind that aggregation (e.g. consolidation) can cause aggravation (server storage I/O performance bottlenecks).

aggregation causes aggravation
Example of aggregation (consolidation) causing aggravation (server storage i/o blender bottlenecks)

And the third best?

It’s the one that can be done in less time or at least cost or effect to the requesting application, which means moving further down the memory and storage stack.

solving server storage i/o blender and other bottlenecks
Leveraging flash SSD and cache technologies to find and fix server storage I/O bottlenecks

On the other hand, any IOP regardless of if for block, file or object storage that involves some context is better than those without, particular involving metrics that matter (here, here and here [webinar] )

Server Storage I/O optimization and effectiveness

The problem with IO’s is that they are a basic operations to get data into and out of a computer or processor, so there’s no way to avoid all of them, unless you have a very large budget. Even if you have a large budget that can afford an all flash SSD solution, you may still meet bottlenecks or other barriers.

IO’s require CPU or processor time and memory to set up and then process the results as well as IO and networking resources to move data too their destination or retrieve them from where they are stored. While IO’s cannot be eliminated, their impact can be greatly improved or optimized by, among other techniques, doing fewer of them via caching and by grouping reads or writes (pre-fetch, write-behind).

server storage I/O STI and SUT

Think of it this way: Instead of going on multiple errands, sometimes you can group multiple destinations together making for a shorter, more efficient trip. However, that optimization may also mean your drive will take longer. So, sometimes it makes sense to go on a couple of quick, short, low-latency trips instead of one larger one that takes half a day even as it accomplishes many tasks. Of course, how far you have to go on those trips (i.e., their locality) makes a difference about how many you can do in a given amount of time.

Locality of reference (or proximity)

What is locality of reference?

This refers to how close (i.e., its place) data exists to where it is needed (being referenced) for use. For example, the best locality of reference in a computer would be registers in the processor core, ready to be acted on immediately. This would be followed by levels 1, 2, and 3 (L1, L2, and L3) onboard caches, followed by main memory, or DRAM. After that comes solid-state memory typically NAND flash either on PCIe cards or accessible on a direct attached storage (DAS), SAN, or NAS device. 

server storage I/O locality of reference

Even though a PCIe NAND flash card is close to the processor, there still remains the overhead of traversing the PCIe bus and associated drivers. To help offset that impact, PCIe cards use DRAM as cache or buffers for data along with meta or control information to further optimize and improve locality of reference. In other words, this information is used to help with cache hits, cache use, and cache effectiveness vs. simply boosting cache use.

SSD to the rescue?

What can you do the cut the impact of IO’s?

There are many steps one can take, starting with establishing baseline performance and availability metrics.

The metrics that matter include IOP’s, latency, bandwidth, and availability. Then, leverage metrics to gain insight into your application’s performance.

Understand that IO’s are a fact of applications doing work (storing, retrieving, managing data) no matter whether systems are virtual, physical, or running up in the cloud. But it’s important to understand just what a bad IO is, along with its impact on performance. Try to identify those that are bad, and then find and fix the problem, either with software, application, or database changes. Perhaps you need to throw more software caching tools, hypervisors, or hardware at the problem. Hardware may include faster processors with more DRAM and faster internal busses.

Leveraging local PCIe flash SSD cards for caching or as targets is another option.

You may want to use storage systems or appliances that rely on intelligent caching and storage optimization capabilities to help with performance, availability, and capacity.

Where to gain insight into your server storage I/O environment

There are many tools that you can be used to gain insight into your server storage I/O environment across cloud, virtual, software defined and legacy as well as from different layers (e.g. applications, database, file systems, operating systems, hypervisors, server, storage, I/O networking). Many applications along with databases have either built-in or optional tools from their provider, third-party, or via other sources that can give information about work activity being done. Likewise there are tools to dig down deeper into the various data information infrastructure to see what is happening at the various layers as shown in the following figures.

application storage I/O performance
Gaining application and operating system level performance insight via different tools

windows and linux storage I/O performance
Insight and awareness via operating system tools on Windows and Linux

In the above example, Spotlight on Windows (SoW) which you can download for free from Dell here along with Ubuntu utilities are shown, You could also use other tools to look at server storage I/O performance including Windows Perfmon among others.

vmware server storage I/O
Hypervisor performance using VMware ESXi / vsphere built-in tools

vmware server storage I/O performance
Using Visual ESXtop to dig deeper into virtual server storage I/O performance

vmware server storage i/o cache
Gaining insight into virtual server storage I/O cache performance

Wrap up and summary

There are many approaches to address (e.g. find and fix) vs. simply move or mask data center and server storage I/O bottlenecks. Having insight and awareness into how your environment along with applications is important to know to focus resources. Also keep in mind that a bit of flash SSD or DRAM cache in the applicable place can go along way while a lot of cache will also cost you cash. Even if you cant eliminate I/Os, look for ways to decrease their impact on your applications and systems.

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

>Keep in mind: SSD including flash and DRAM among others are in your future, the question is where, when, with what, how much and whose technology or packaging.

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.

Green and Virtual IT Data Center Primer

Green and Virtual Data Center Primer

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

Green IT is about enabling efficient, effective and productive information services delivery. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

There are many aspects to "Green" Information Technology including servers, storage, networks and associated management tools and techniques. The reasons and focus of "Green IT" including "Green Data Storage ", "Green Computing" and related focus areas are varied to discuss diverse needs, issues and requirements including among others:

  • Power, Cooling, Floor-space, Environmental (PCFE) related issues or constraints
  • Reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other green house gases (GHGs)
  • Business growth and economic sustain in an environmental friendly manner
  • Proper disposal or recycling of environmental harmful retired technology components
  • Reduction or better efficiency of electrical power consumption used for IT equipment
  • Cost avoidance or savings from lower energy fees and cooling costs
  • Support data center and application consolidation to cut cost and management
  • Enable growth and enhancements to application service level objectives
  • Maximize the usage of available power and cooling resources available in your region
  • Compliance with local or federal government mandates and regulations
  • Economic sustain and ability to support business growth and service improvements
  • General environmental awareness and stewardship to save and protect the earth

While much of the IT industry focuses on CO2 emissions footprints, data management software and electrical power consumption, cooling and ventilation of IT data centers is an area of focus associated with "Green IT" as well as a means to discuss more effective use of electrical energy that can yield rapid results for many environments. Large tier-1 vendors including HP and IBM among others who have an IT and data center wide focus have services designed to do quick assessments as well as detailed analysis and re-organization of IT data center physical facilities to improve air flow and power consumption for more effective cooling of IT technologies including servers, storage, networks and other equipment.

Similar to your own residence, basic steps to improve your cooling effectiveness can lead to use of less energy to cut your budget impact, or, enable you to do more with what you already have with your cooling capacity to support growth, acquisitions and or consolidation initiatives. Vendors are also looking at means and alternatives for cooling IT equipment ranging from computer assisted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software analysis of data center cooling and ventilation to refrigerated cooling racks some leveraging water or inert liquid cooling.

Various metrics exists and others are evolving for measuring, estimating, reporting, analyzing and discussing IT Data Center infrastructure resource topics including servers, storage, networks, facilities and associated software management tools from a power, cooling and green environmental standpoint. The importance of metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture.

Consequently your view and needs or interests around "Green" IT may be from an electrical power conservation perspective to maximize your power consumption or to adapt to a given power footprint or ceiling. Your focus around "Green" Data Centers and Green Storage may be from a carbon savings standpoint or proper disposition of old and retired IT equipment or from a data center cooling standpoint. Another area of focus may be that you are looking to cut your data footprint to align with your power, cooling and green footprint while enhancing application and data service delivery to your customers.

Where to learn more

The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible

Green and Virtual Data Center

A Green and Virtual IT Data Center (e.g. an information factory) means an environment comprising:

  • Habitat for technology or physical infrastructure (e.g. physical data center, yours, co-lo, managed service or cloud)
  • Power, cooling, communication networks, HVAC, smoke and fire suppression, physical security
  • IT data information infrastructure (e.g. hardware, software, valueware, cloud, virtual, physical, servers, storage, network)
  • Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) along with IT Service Management (ITSM) software defined management tools
  • Tools for monitoring, resource tracking and usage, reporting, diagnostics, provisioning and resource orchestration
  • Portals and service catalogs for automated, user initiated and assisted operation or access to IT resources
  • Processes, procedures, best-practices, work-flows and templates (including data protection with HA, BC, BR, DR, backup/restore, logical and physical security)
  • Metrics that matter for management insight and awareness
    People and skill sets among other items

Green and Virtual Data Center Resources

Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient, productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies.

Intel recommended reading
Publisher: CRC Press – Taylor & Francis Group
By Greg P. Schulz of StorageIO www.storageio.com
 ISBN-10: 1439851739 and ISBN-13: 978-1439851739
 Hardcover * 370 pages * Over 100 illustrations figures and tables

Read more here and order your copy here. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz.

Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and Sustainable

Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product.

The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

Where to learn more

The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed! 
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast) 
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint 
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories 
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive 
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization 
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

Watch for more links and resources to be added soon.

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

Green and Virtual Data Center Links

Updated 10/25/2017

Green and Virtual IT Data Center Links

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon.

There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE).

To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

Enabling Effective Produtive Efficient Economical Flexible Scalable Resilient Information Infrastrctures

The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

Various IT industry vendors and other links

Via StorageIOblog – Happy Earth Day 2016 Eliminating Digital and Data e-Waste

Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed! 
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast) 
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint 
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories 
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive 
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization 
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

Intel recommended reading
Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient , productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies. Read more here and order your copyhere. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz.

White papers, analyst reports and perspectives

Business benefits of data footprint reduction (archiving, compression, de-dupe)
Data center I/O and performance issues – Server I/O and storage capacity gap
Analysis of EPA Report to Congress (Law 109-431)
The Many Faces of MAID Storage Technology
Achieving Energy Efficiency with FLASH based SSD
MAID 2.0: Energy Savings without Performance Compromises

Articles, Tips, Blogs, Webcasts and Podcasts

AP – SNIA Green Emerald Program and measurements
AP – Southern California heat wave strains electrical system
Ars Technica – EPA: Power usage in data centers could double by 2011
Ars Technica – Meet the climate savers: Major tech firms launch war on energy-inefficient PCs – Article
Askageek.com – Buying an environmental friendly laptop – November 2008
Baseline – Examining Energy Consumption in the Data Center
Baseline – Burts Bees: What IT Means When You Go Green
Bizcovering – Green architecture for the masses
Broadstuff – Are Green 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Incompatible?
Business Week – CEO Guide to Technology
Business Week – Computers’ elusive eco factor
Business Week – Clean Energy – Its Getting Affordable
Byte & Switch – Keeping it Green This Summer – Don’t be "Green washed"
Byte & Switch – IBM Sees Green in Energy Certificates
Byte & Switch – Users Search for power solutions
Byte & Switch – DoE issues Green Storage Warning
CBR – The Green Light for Green IT
CBR – Big boxes make greener data centers
CFO – Power Scourge
Channel Insider – A 12 Step Program to Dispose of IT Equipment
China.org.cn – China publishes Energy paper
CIO – Green Storage Means Money Saved on Power
CIO – Data center designers share secrets for going green
CIO – Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America
CIO Insight – Clever Marketing or the Real Thing?
Cleantechnica – Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste – June 2008
Climatebiz – Carbon Calculators Yield Spectrum of Results: Study
CNET News – Linux coders tackle power efficiency
CNET News – Research: Old data centers can be nearly as ‘green’ as new ones
CNET News – Congress, Greenpeace move on e-wast
CNN Money – A Green Collar Recession
CNN Money – IBM creates alliance with industry leaders supporting new data center standards
Communication News – Utility bills key to greener IT
Computerweekly – Business case for green storage
Computerweekly – Optimising data centre operations
Computerweekly – Green still good for IT, if it saves money
Computerweekly – Meeting the Demands for storage
Computerworld – Wells Fargo Free Data Center Cooling System
Computerworld – Seven ways to get green and save money
Computerworld – Build your data center here: The most energy-efficient locations
Computerworld – EPA: U.S. needs more power plants to support data centers
Computerworld – GreenIT: A marketing ploy or new technology?
Computerworld – Gartner Criticizes Green Grid
Computerworld – IT Skills no longer sufficient for data center execs.
Computerworld – Meet MAID 2.0 and Intelligent Power Management
Computerworld – Feds to offer energy ratings on servers and storage
Computerworld – Greenpeace still hunting for truly green electronics
Computerworld – How to benchmark data center energy costs
ComputerworldUK – Datacenters at risk from poor governance
ComputerworldUK – Top IT Leaders Back Green Survey
ComputerworldMH – Lean and Green
CTR – Strategies for enhancing energy efficiency
CTR – Economies of Scale – Green Data Warehouse Appliances
Datacenterknowledge – Microsoft to build Illinois datacenter
Data Center Strategies – Storage The Next Hot Topic
Earthtimes – Fujitsu installs hydrogen fuel cell power
eChannelline – IBM Goes Green(er)
Ecoearth.info – California Moves To Speed Solar, Wind Power Grid Connections
Ecogeek – Solar power company figures they can power 90% of America
Economist – Cool IT
Electronic Design – How many watts in that Gigabyte
eMazzanti – Desktop virtualization movement creeping into customer sites
ens-Newswire – Western Governors Ask Obama for National Green Energy Plan
Environmental Leader – Best Place to Build an Energy Efficient Data Center
Environmental Leader – New Guide Helps Advertisers Avoid Greenwash Complaints
Enterprise Storage Forum – Power Struggles Take Center Stage at SNW
Enterprise Storage Forum – Pace Yourself for Storage Power & Cooling Needs
Enterprise Storage Forum – Storage Power and Cooling Issues Heat Up – StorageIO Article
Enterprise Storage Forum – Score Savings With A Storage Power Play
Enterprise Storage Forum – I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work I Go
Enterprise Storage Forum – Not Just a Flash in the Pan – Various SSD options
Enterprise Storage Forum – Closing the Green Gap – Article August 2008
EPA Report to Congress and Public Law 109-431 – Reports & links
eWeek – Saving Green by being Green
eWeek – ‘No Cooling Necessary’ Data Centers Coming?
eWeek – How the ‘Down’ Macroeconomy Will Impact the Data Storage Sector
ExpressComputer – In defense of Green IT
ExpressComputer – What data center crisis
Forbes – How to Build a Quick Charging Battery
GCN – Sun launches eco data center
GreenerComputing – New Code of Conduct to Establish Best Practices in Green Data Centers
GreenerComputing – Silicon valley’s green detente
GreenerComputing – Majority of companies plan to green their data centers
GreenerComputing – Citigroup to spend $232M on Green Data Center
GreenerComputing – Chicago and Quincy, WA Top Green Data Center Locations
GreenerComputing – Using airside economizers to chill data center cooling bills
GreenerComputing – Making the most of asset disposal
GreenerComputing – Greenpeace vendor rankings
GreenerComputing – Four Steps to Improving Data Center Efficiency without Capital Expenditures
GreenerComputing – Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center
Green-PC – Strategic Steps Down the Green Path
Greeniewatch – BBC news chiefs attack plans for climate change campaign
Greeniewatch – Warmest year predictions and data that has not yet been measured
GoverenmentExecutive – Public Private Sectors Differ on "Green" Efforts
HPC Wire – How hot is your code
Industry Standard – Why green data centers mean partner opportunities
InformationWeek – It could be 15 years before we know what is really green
InformationWeek – Beyond Server Consolidaiton
InformationWeek – Green IT Beyond Virtualization: The Case For Consolidation
InfoWorld – Sun celebrates green datacenter innovations
InfoWorld – Tech’s own datacenters are their green showrooms
InfoWorld – 2007: The Year in Green
InfoWorld – Green Grid Announces Tech Forum in Feb 2008
InfoWorld – SPEC seeds future green-server benchmarks
InfoWorld – Climate Savers green catalog proves un-ripe
InfoWorld – Forester: Eco-minded activity up among IT pros
InfoWorld – Green ventures in Silicon Valley, Mass reaped most VC cash in ’07
InfoWorld – Congress misses chance to see green-energy growth
InfoWorld – Unisys pushes green envelope with datacenter expansion
InfoWorld – No easy green strategy for storage
Internet News – Storage Technologies for a Slowing Economy
Internet News – Economy will Force IT to Transform
ITManagement – Green Computing, Green Revenue
itnews – Data centre chiefs dismiss green hype
itnews – Australian Green IT regulations could arrive this year
IT Pro – SNIA Green storage metrics released
ITtoolbox – MAID discussion
Linux Power – Saving power with Linux on Intel platforms
MSNBC – Microsoft to build data center in Ireland
National Post – Green technology at the L.A. Auto Show
Network World – Turning the datacenter green
Network World – Color Interop Green
Network World – Green not helpful word for setting environmental policies
NewScientistEnvironment – Computer servers as bad for climate as SUVs
Newser – Texas commission approves nation’s largest wind power project
New Yorker – Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science
NY Times – What the Green Bubble Will Leave Behind
PRNewswire – Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers to debate climate change
Processor – More than just monitoring
Processor – The new data center: What’s hot in Data Center physical infrastructure:
Processor – Liquid Cooling in the Data Center
Processor – Curbing IT Power Usage
Processor – Services To The Rescue – Services Available For Today’s Data Centers
Processor – Green Initiatives: Hire A Consultant?
Processor – Energy-Saving Initiatives
Processor – The EPA’s Low Carbon Campaig
Processor – Data Center Power Planning
SAN Jose Mercury – Making Data Centers Green
SDA-Asia – Green IT still a priority despite Credit Crunch
SearchCIO – EPA report gives data centers little guidance
SearchCIO – Green IT Strategies Could Lead to hefty ROIs
SearchCIO – Green IT In the Data Center: Plenty of Talk, not much Walk
SearchCIO – Green IT Overpitched by Vendors, CIOs beware
SearchDataCenter – Study ranks cheapest places to build a data center
SearchDataCenter – Green technology still ranks low for data center planners
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center: Energy Effiecnty Computing in the 21st Century
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center Advice: Is LEED Feasible
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Centers Tackle LEED Certification
SearchDataCenter – PG&E invests in data center effieicny
SearchDataCenter – A solar powered datacenter
SearchSMBStorage – Improve your storage energy efficiency
SearchSMBStorage – SMB capacity planning: Focusing on energy conservation
SearchSMBStorage – Data footprint reduction for SMBs
SearchSMBStorage – MAID & other energy-saving storage technologies for SMBs
SearchStorage – How to increase your storage energy efficiency
SearchStorage – Is storage now top energy hog in the data center
SearchStorage – Storage eZine: Turning Storage Green
SearchStorage – The Green Storage Gap
SearchStorageChannel – Green Data Storage Projects
Silicon.com – The greening of IT: Cooling costs
SNIA – SNIA Green Storage Overview
SNIA – Green Storage
SNW – Beyond Green-wash
SNW Spring 2008 Beyond Green-wash
State.org – Why Texas Has Its Own Power Grid
StorageDecisions – Different Shades of Green
Storage Magazine – Storage still lacks energy metrics
StorageIOblog – Posts pertaining to Green, power, cooling, floor-space, EHS (PCFE)
Storage Search – Various postings, news and topics pertaining to Green IT
Technology Times – Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches
TechTarget – Data center power efficiency
TechTarget – Tip for determining power consumption
Techworld – Inside a green data center
Techworld – Box reduction – Low hanging green datacenter fruit
Techworld – Datacentere used to heat swimming pool
Theinquirer – Spansion and Virident flash server farms
Theinquirer – Storage firms worry about energy efficiency How green is the valley
TheRegister – Data Centre Efficiency, the good, the bad and the way to hot
TheRegister – Server makers snub whalesong for serious windmill abuse
TheRegister – Green data center threat level: Not Green
The Standard – Growing cynicism around going Green
ThoughtPut – Energy Central
Thoughtput – Power, Cooling, Green Storage and related industry trends
Wallstreet Journal – Utilities Amp Up Push To Slash Energy Use
Wallstreet Journal – The IT in Green Investing
Wallstreet Journal – Tech’s Energy Consumption on the Rise
Washingtonpost – Texas approves major new wind power project
WhatPC – Green IT: It doesnt have to cost the earth
WHIRnews – SingTel building green data center
Wind-watch.org – Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency
WyomingNews – Overcoming Greens Stereotype
Yahoo – Washington Senate Unviel Green Job Plan
ZDnet – Will supercomputer speeds hit a plateau?
Are data centers causing climate change

News and Press Releases

Business Wire – The Green and Virtual Data Center
Enterprise Storage Forum – Intel and HGST (Hitachi) partner on FLASH SSD
PCworld – Intel and HP describe Green Strategy
DoE – To Invest Approximately $1.3 Billion to Commercialize CCS Technology
Yahoo – Shell Opens Los Angeles’ First Combined Hydrogen and Gasoline Station
DuPont – DuPont Projects Save Enough Energy to Power 25,000 Homes
Gartner – Users Are Becoming Increasingly Confused About the Issues and Solutions Surrounding Green IT

Websites and Tools

Various power, cooling, emmisions and device configuration tools and calculators
Solar Action Alliance web site
SNIA Emerald program
Carbon Disclosure Project
The Chicago Climate Exchange
Climate Savers
Data Center Decisions
Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA)
EMC – Digital Life Calculator
Energy Star
Energy Star Data Center Initiatives
Greenpeace – Technology ranking website also here
GlobalActionPlan
KyotoPlanet
LBNL High Tech Data centers
Millicomputing
RoHS & WEE News
Storage Performance Council (SPC)
SNIA Green Technical Working Group
SPEC
Transaction Processing Council (TPC)
The Green Grid
The Raised Floor
Terra Pass Carbon Offset Credits – Website with CO2 calculators
Energy Information Administration – EIA (US and International Electrical Information)
U.S. Department of Energy and related information
U.S. DOE Energy Efficient Industrial Programs
U.S. EPA server and storage energy topics
Zerofootprint – Various "Green" and environmental related links and calculators

Vendor Centric and Marketing Website Links and tools

Vendors and organizations have different types of calculators some with focus on power, cooling, floor space, carbon offsets or emissions,

ROI, TCO and other IT data center infrastructure resource management. Following is an evolving list and by no means definitive even for a particular vendors as

different manufactures may have multiple different calculators for different product lines or areas of focus.

Brocade – Green website
Cisco – Green and Environmental websites here, here and here
Dell – Green website
EMC – EMC Energy, Power and Cooling Related Website
HDS – How to be green – HDS Positioning White Paper
HP – HP Green Website
IBM – Green Data Center – IBM Positioning White Paper
IBM – Green Data Center for Education – IBM Positioning White Paper
Intel – What is an Efficient Data Center and how do I measure it?
LSI – Green site and white paper
NetApp – Press Release and related information
Sun – Various articles and links
Symantec – Global 2000 Struggle to Adopt "Green" Data Centers – Announcement of Survey results
ACTON
Adinfa
APC
Australian Conservation Foundation
Avocent
BBC
Brocade
Carbon Credit Calculator UK
Carbon Footprint Site
Carbon Planet
Carbonify
CarbonZero
Cassatt
CO2 Stats Site
Copan
Dell
DirectGov UK Acton
Diesel Service & Supply Power Calculator & Converter
Eaton Powerware
Ecobusinesslinks
Ecoscale
EMC Power Calculator
EMC Web Power Calculator
EMC Digital Life Calculator
EPA Power Profiler
EPA Related Tools
EPEAT
Google UK Green Footprint
Green Grid Calculator
HP and more here
HVAC Calculator
IBM
Logicalis
Kohler Power (Business and Residential)
Micron
MSN Carbon Footprint Calculator
National Wildlife Foundation
NEF UK
NetApp
Rackwise
Platespin
Safecom
Sterling Planet
Sun and more here and here and here
Tandberg
TechRepublic
TerraPass Carbon Offset Credits
Thomas Kreen AG
Toronto Hydro Calculator
80 Plus Calculator
VMware
42u Green Grid PUE DCiE calculator
42u energy calculator

Green and Virtual Tools

What’s your power, cooling, floor space, energy, environmental or green story?

What’s your power, cooling, floor space, energy, environmental or green story? Do you have questions or want to learn more about

energy issues pertaining to IT data center and data infrastructure topics? Do you have a solution or technology or a success story that you would like to share

with us pertaining to data storage and server I/O energy optimization strategies?  Do you need assistance in developing, validating or reviewing your strategy

or story? Contact us at: info@storageio.com or 651-275-1563 to learn more about green data storage and server I/O or to

schedule a briefing to tell us about your energy efficiency and effectiveness story pertaining to IT data centers and data infrastructures.

Disclaimer and note:  URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be

in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.  Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and

website however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the

URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Green and Virtual Metrics

Chapter 5 "Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources" in the book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC Press) takes a look at the importance of being able to measure and monitor to enable effective management and utilization of IT resources across servers, storage, I/O networks, software, hardware and facilities.

There are many different points of interest for collecting metrics in an IT data center for servers, storage, networking and facilities along with various points of interest or perspectives. Data center personal have varied interest from a facilities to a resource (server, storage, networking) usage and effectiveness perspective for normal use as well as planning purposes or comparison when evaluating new technology. Vendors have different uses for metrics during R&D, Q/A testing and marketing or sales campaigns as well as on-going service and support. Industry trade groups including 80 Plus, SNIA and the green grid along with government groups including the EPA Energy Star are working to define and establish applicable metrics pertinent for Green and Virtual data centers.

Acronym

Description

Comment

DCiE

Data center Efficiency = (IT equipment / Total facility power) * 100

Shows a ratio of how well a data center is consuming power

DCPE

Data center Performance Efficiency = Effective IT workload / total facility power

Shows how effective data center is consuming power to produce a given level of service or work such as energy per transaction or energy per business function performed

PUE

Power usage effectiveness = Total facility power / IT equipment power

Inverse of DCE

Kilowatts (kw)

Watts / 1,000

One thousand watts

Annual kWh

kWh x 24 x 365

kWh used in on year

Megawatts (mw)

kW / 1,000

One thousand kW

BTU/hour

watts x 3.413

Heat generated in an hour from using energy in British Thermal Units. 12,000 BTU/hour can equate to 1 Ton of cooling.

kWh

1,000 watt hours

The number of watts used in one hour

Watts

Amps x Volts (e.g. 12 amps * 12 volts = 144 watts)

Unit of electrical energy power

Watts

BTU/hour x 0.293

Convert BTU/hr to watts

Volts

Watts / Amps (e.g. 144 watts / 12 amps = 12 volts)

The amount of force on electrons

Amps

Watts / Volts (e.g. 144 watts / 12 volts = 12 amps)

The flow rate of electricity

Volt-Amperes (VA)

Volts x Amps

Sometimes power expressed in Volt-Ampres

kVA

Volts x Amp / 1000

Number of kilovolt-ampres

kW

kVA x power-factor

Power factor is the efficiency of a piece of equipments use of power

kVA

kW / power-factor

Killovolt-Ampres

U

1U = 1.75”

EIA metric describing height of equipment in racks.

 

Activity / Watt Amount of work accomplished per unit of energy consumed. This could be IOPS, Transactions or Bandwidth per watt. Indicator how much work and how efficient energy is being used to accomplish useful work. This metric applies to active workloads or actively used and frequently accessed storage and data. Examples would be IOPS per watt, Bandwidth per watt, Transactions per watt, Users or streams per watt. Activity per watt should also be used in conjunction with another metric such as how much capacity is supported per watt and total watts consumed for a representative picture.

IOPS / Watt

Number of I/O operations (or transactions) / energy (watts)

Indicator of how effectively energy is being used to perform a given amount of work. The work could be I/Os, transactions, throughput or other indicator of application activity. For example SPC-1 / Watt, SPEC / Watt, TPC / Watt, transaction / watt,  IOP / Watt.

Bandwidth / Watt GBPS or TBPS or PBPS / Watt Amount of data transferred or moved per second and energy used. Often confused with Capacity per watt This indicates how much data is moved or accessed per second or time interval per unit of energy consumed. This is often confused with capacity per watt given that both bandwidth and capacity reference GByte, TByte, PByte.

Capacity / Watt

GB or TB or PB (storage capacity space / watt

Indicator of how much capacity (space) or bandwidth supported in a given configuration or footprint per watt of energy. For inactive data or off-line and archive data, capacity per watt can be an effective measurement gauge however for active workloads and applications activity per watt also needs to be looked at to get a representative indicator of how energy is being used

Mhz / Watt

Processor performance / energy (watts)

Indicator of how effectively energy is being used by a CPU or processor.

Carbon Credit

Carbon offset credit

Offset credits that can be bought and sold to offset your CO2 emissions

CO2 Emission

Average 1.341 lbs per kWh of electricity generated

The amount of average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from generating an average kWh of electricity

Various power, cooling, floor space and green storage or IT  related metrics

Metrics include Data center Efficiency (DCiE) via the greengrid which is the indicator ratio of a IT data center energy efficiency defined as IT equipment (servers, disk and tape storage, networking switches, routers, printers, etc) / Total facility power x 100 (for percentage). For example, if the sum of all IT equipment energy usage resulted in 1,500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month yet the total facility power including UPS, energy switching, power conversation and filtering, cooling and associated infrastructure costs as well as IT equipment resulting in 3,500 kWh, the DCiE would be (1,500 / 3,500) x 100 = 43%. DCiE can be used as a ratio for example to show in the above scenario that IT equipment accounts for about 43% of energy consumed by the data center with in this scenario 57% of electrical energy being consumed by cooling, conversion and conditioning or lighting.

Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is the indicator ratio of total energy being consumed by the data center to energy being used to operate IT equipment. PUE is defined as total facility power / IT equipment energy consumption. Using the above scenario PUE = 2.333 (3,500 / 1,500) which means that a server requiring 100 watts of power would actually require (2.333 * 100) 233.3 watts of energy that includes both direct power and cooling costs. Similarly a storage system that required 1,500 kWh of energy to power would require (1,500*2.333) 3,499.5 kWh of electrical power including cooling.

Another metric that has the potential to have meaning is Data center Performance Efficiency (DCPE) that takes into consideration how much useful and effective work is performed by the IT equipment and data center per energy consumed. DCPE is defined as useful work / total facility power with an example being some number of transactions processed using servers, networks and storage divided by energy for the data center to power and cool the equipment. An relatively easy and straightforward implementation of DCPE is an IOPs per watt measurement that looks at how many IOPs can be performed (regardless of size or type such as reads or writes) per unit of energy in this case watts.

DCPE = Useful work / Total facility power, for example IOPS per watt of energy used

DCiE = IT equipment energy / Total facility power = 1 / PUE

PUE = Total facility energy / IT equipment energy

IOPS per Watt = Number of IOPs (or bandwidth) / energy used by the storage system

The importance of these numbers and metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture. Learn more in Chapter 5 "Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources" in the book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) and in the book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC).

Disclaimer and notes

Disclaimer and note:  URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.  Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

January 2015 Server StorageIO Industry Trends Newsletter

Volume 15, Issue I

Hello and welcome to this January 2015 Server and StorageIO update newsletter. Its 2015 and the new year is off and running picking up where 2014 left off. January is typically a relatively quiet month when it comes to technology announcements and other industry activity. However January is also time where there is a lot going on behind the scenes. This means that there are many things to watch for in the coming months, weeks or perhaps even days.

Commentary In The News

StorageIO news

Following are some Server and StorageIO industry trends perspectives comments that have appeared in various venues. In case you missed it, Box recently did their IPO and here are some perspectives over at SaaS In the Enterprise prior to the IPO.

Over at Enterprise Storage Forum I have some perspectives on High Performance Compute (HPC) aka High Productivity Compute along with big data and object storage in the Lustre buying guide.

Also over at Enterprise Storage Forum some tips and comments on data storage benchmarking guide. Meanwhile over at  InfoStor check see 9 Storage Startups to Watch. Search SolidState Storage has some perspectives on NexGen Storage ioControl following SanDisk spinout and over at Processor some comments on avoiding common mistakes with virtualization. View more trends comments here

Tips and Articles

Cloud storage: Is It All About Cost?

Is cloud storage all about removing cost, cost cutting, free storage? Or perhaps even getting something else in addition to free storage?

You might ask: what type of cloud storage am I referring to? That’s a great question. After all, there are many types or categories of public cloud storage services, not to mention private and hybrid options. There are cloud storage services for consumers to save and share their photos, videos, music and other documents to. Then there is business and enterprise file, document, object and collaboration cloud storage options. Read the entire article here.

View recent as well as past tips and articles here

Server StorageIOblog posts

Recent StorageIOblog posts include:

View other recent as well as past blog posts here

In This Issue

  • Industry Trends Perspectives
  • Commentary in the news
  • Server StorageIO Tips and Articles
  • Server StorageIO blog posts
  • Events & Activities

    May 4-6, 2015 EMCworld Las Vegas
    April 29, 2015 Interop Las Vegas
    April 12 -13, 2015 NAB Las Vegas
    March 3, 2015 – TBA (St. Paul)
    Feb 18, 2015 Usenix FAST Santa Clara

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    Webinars

    December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Performance
    December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Decision Making
    December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making
    December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Data Protection Modernization
    November 13 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Storage

    Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    From Server StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    Intel NUC nick knack notes and review

    Intel nuc server storage I/O
    Intel nuc server storage I/O ports
    Intel Nuc

    This Server StorageIO lab review looks at  Intel NUC for virtual, physical and software defined storage networking. Read more about Intel Nuc here.

    View other StorageIO lab and reports here.

    Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:
    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

    Enjoy this edition of the Server and StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcasts along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

    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

    Revisiting RAID data protection remains relevant resource links

    Revisiting RAID data protection remains relevant and resources

    Storage I/O trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    RAID data protection remains relevant including erasure codes (EC), local reconstruction codes (LRC) among other technologies. If RAID were really not relevant anymore (e.g. actually dead), why do some people spend so much time trying to convince others that it is dead or to use a different RAID level or enhanced RAID or beyond raid with related advanced approaches?

    When you hear RAID, what comes to mind?

    A legacy monolithic storage system that supports narrow 4, 5 or 6 drive wide stripe sets or a modern system support dozens of drives in a RAID group with different options?

    RAID means many things, likewise there are different implementations (hardware, software, systems, adapters, operating systems) with various functionality, some better than others.

    For example, which of the items in the following figure come to mind, or perhaps are new to your RAID vocabulary?

    RAID questions

    There are Many Variations of RAID Storage some for the enterprise, some for SMB, SOHO or consumer. Some have better performance than others, some have poor performance for example causing extra writes that lead to the perception that all parity based RAID do extra writes (some actually do write gathering and optimization).

    Some hardware and software implementations using WBC (write back cache) mirrored or battery backed-BBU along with being able to group writes together in memory (cache) to do full stripe writes. The result can be fewer back-end writes compared to other systems. Hence, not all RAID implementations in either hardware or software are the same. Likewise, just because a RAID definition shows a particular theoretical implementation approach does not mean all vendors have implemented it in that way.

    RAID is not a replacement for backup rather part of an overall approach to providing data availability and accessibility.

    data protection and durability

    What’s the best RAID level? The one that meets YOUR needs

    There are different RAID levels and implementations (hardware, software, controller, storage system, operating system, adapter among others) for various environments (enterprise, SME, SMB, SOHO, consumer) supporting primary, secondary, tertiary (backup/data protection, archiving).

    RAID comparison
    General RAID comparisons

    Thus one size or approach does fit all solutions, likewise RAID rules of thumbs or guides need context. Context means that a RAID rule or guide for consumer or SOHO or SMB might be different for enterprise and vise versa, not to mention on the type of storage system, number of drives, drive type and capacity among other factors.

    RAID comparison
    General basic RAID comparisons

    Thus the best RAID level is the one that meets your specific needs in your environment. What is best for one environment and application may be different from what is applicable to your needs.

    Key points and RAID considerations include:

    · Not all RAID implementations are the same, some are very much alive and evolving while others are in need of a rest or rewrite. So it is not the technology or techniques that are often the problem, rather how it is implemented and then deployed.

    · It may not be RAID that is dead, rather the solution that uses it, hence if you think a particular storage system, appliance, product or software is old and dead along with its RAID implementation, then just say that product or vendors solution is dead.

    · RAID can be implemented in hardware controllers, adapters or storage systems and appliances as well as via software and those have different features, capabilities or constraints.

    · Long or slow drive rebuilds are a reality with larger disk drives and parity-based approaches; however, you have options on how to balance performance, availability, capacity, and economics.

    · RAID can be single, dual or multiple parity or mirroring-based.

    · Erasure and other coding schemes leverage parity schemes and guess what umbrella parity schemes fall under.

    · RAID may not be cool, sexy or a fun topic and technology to talk about, however many trendy tools, solutions and services actually use some form or variation of RAID as part of their basic building blocks. This is an example of using new and old things in new ways to help each other do more without increasing complexity.

    ·  Even if you are not a fan of RAID and think it is old and dead, at least take a few minutes to learn more about what it is that you do not like to update your dead FUD.

    Wait, Isn’t RAID dead?

    There is some dead marketing that paints a broad picture that RAID is dead to prop up something new, which in some cases may be a derivative variation of parity RAID.

    data dispersal
    Data dispersal and durability

    RAID rebuild improving
    RAID continues to evolve with rapid rebuilds for some systems

    Otoh, there are some specific products, technologies, implementations that may be end of life or actually dead. Likewise what might be dead, dying or simply not in vogue are specific RAID implementations or packaging. Certainly there is a lot of buzz around object storage, cloud storage, forward error correction (FEC) and erasure coding including messages of how they cut RAID. Catch is that some object storage solutions are overlayed on top of lower level file systems that do things such as RAID 6, granted they are out of sight, out of mind.

    RAID comparison
    General RAID parity and erasure code/FEC comparisons

    Then there are advanced parity protection schemes which include FEC and erasure codes that while they are not your traditional RAID levels, they have characteristic including chunking or sharding data, spreading it out over multiple devices with multiple parity (or derivatives of parity) protection.

    Bottom line is that for some environments, different RAID levels may be more applicable and alive than for others.

    Via BizTech – How to Turn Storage Networks into Better Performers

    • Maintain Situational Awareness
    • Design for Performance and Availability
    • Determine Networked Server and Storage Patterns
    • Make Use of Applicable Technologies and Techniques

    If RAID is alive, what to do with it?

    If you are new to RAID, learn more about the past, present and future keeping mind context. Keeping context in mind means that there are different RAID levels and implementations for various environments. Not all RAID 0, 1, 1/0, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or other variations (past, present and emerging) are the same for consumer vs. SOHO vs. SMB vs. SME vs. Enterprise, nor are the usage cases. Some need performance for reads, others for writes, some for high-capacity with low performance using hardware or software. RAID Rules of thumb are ok and useful, however keep them in context to what you are doing as well as using.

    What to do next?

    Take some time to learn, ask questions including what to use when, where, why and how as well as if an approach or recommendation are applicable to your needs. Check out the following links to read some extra perspectives about RAID and keep in mind, what might apply to enterprise may not be relevant for consumer or SMB and vise versa.

    Some advise needed on SSD’s and Raid (Via Spiceworks)
    RAID 5 URE Rebuild Means The Sky Is Falling (Via BenchmarkReview)
    Double drive failures in a RAID-10 configuration (Via SearchStorage)
    Industry Trends and Perspectives: RAID Rebuild Rates (Via StorageIOblog)
    RAID, IOPS and IO observations (Via StorageIOBlog)
    RAID Relevance Revisited (Via StorageIOBlog)
    HDDs Are Still Spinning (Rust Never Sleeps) (Via InfoStor)
    When and Where to Use NAND Flash SSD for Virtual Servers (Via TheVirtualizationPractice)
    What’s the best way to learn about RAID storage? (Via Spiceworks)
    Design considerations for the host local FVP architecture (Via Frank Denneman)
    Some basic RAID fundamentals and definitions (Via SearchStorage)
    Can RAID extend nand flash SSD life? (Via StorageIOBlog)
    I/O Performance Issues and Impacts on Time-Sensitive Applications (Via CMG)
    The original RAID white paper (PDF) that while over 20 years old, it provides a basis, foundation and some history by Katz, Gibson, Patterson et al
    Storage Interview Series (Via Infortrend)
    Different RAID methods (Via RAID Recovery Guide)
    A good RAID tutorial (Via TheGeekStuff)
    Basics of RAID explained (Via ZDNet)
    RAID and IOPs (Via VMware Communities)

    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

    What is my favorite or preferred RAID level?

    That depends, for some things its RAID 1, for others RAID 10 yet for others RAID 4, 5, 6 or DP and yet other situations could be a fit for RAID 0 or erasure codes and FEC. Instead of being focused on just one or two RAID levels as the solution for different problems, I prefer to look at the environment (consumer, SOHO, small or large SMB, SME, enterprise), type of usage (primary or secondary or data protection), performance characteristics, reads, writes, type and number of drives among other factors. What might be a fit for one environment would not be a fit for others, thus my preferred RAID level along with where implemented is the one that meets the given situation. However also keep in mind is tying RAID into part of an overall data protection strategy, remember, RAID is not a replacement for backup.

    What this all means

    Like other technologies that have been declared dead for years or decades, aka the Zombie technologies (e.g. dead yet still alive) RAID continues to be used while the technologies evolves. There are specific products, implementations or even RAID levels that have faded away, or are declining in some environments, yet alive in others. RAID and its variations are still alive, however how it is used or deployed in conjunction with other technologies also is evolving.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

    DIY converged server software defined storage on a budget using Lenovo TS140

    Attention DIY Converged Server Storage Bargain Shoppers

    Software defined storage on a budget with Lenovo TS140

    server storage I/O trends

    Recently I put together a two-part series of some server storage I/O items to get a geek for a gift (read part I here and part II here) that also contain items that can be used for accessorizing servers such as the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140.

    Image via Lenovo.com

    Likewise I have done reviews of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the past which included me liking them and buying some (read the reviews here and here), along with a review of the larger TD340 here.

    Why is this of interest

    Do you need or want to do a Do It Yourself (DIY) build of a small server compute cluster, or a software defined storage cluster (e.g. scale-out), or perhaps a converged storage for VMware VSAN, Microsoft SOFS or something else?

    Do you need a new server, second or third server, or expand a cluster, create a lab or similar and want the ability to tailor your system without shopping or a motherboard, enclosure, power supply and so forth?

    Are you a virtualization or software defined person looking to create a small VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) needing three or more servers to build a proof of concept or personal lab system?

    Then the TS140 could be a fit for you.

    storage I/O Lenovo TS140
    Image via StorageIOlabs, click to see review

    Why the Lenovo TS140 now?

    Recently I have seen a lot of site traffic on my site with people viewing my reviews of the Lenovo TS140 of which I have a few. In addition have got questions from people via comments section as well as elsewhere about the TS140 and while shopping at Amazon.com for some other things, noticed that there were some good value deals on different TS140 models.

    I tend to buy the TS140 models that are bare bones having power supply, enclosure, CD/DVD, USB ports, power supply and fan, processor and minimal amount of DRAM memory. For processors mine have the Intel E3-1225 v3 which are quad-core and that have various virtualization assist features (e.g. good for VMware and other hypervisors).

    What I saw on Amazon the other day (also elsewhere) were some Intel i3-4130 dual core based systems (these do not have all the virtualization features, just the basics) in a bare configuration (e.g. no Hard Disk Drive (HDD), 4GB DRAM, processor, mother board, power supply and fan, LAN port and USB with a price of around $220 USD (your price may vary depending on timing, venue, prime or other membership and other factors). Not bad for a system that you can tailor to your needs. However what also caught my eye were the TS140 models that have the Intel E3-1225 v3 (e.g. quad core, 3.2Ghz) processor matching the others I have with a price of around $330 USD including shipping (your price will vary depending on venue and other factors).

    What are some things to be aware of?

    Some caveats of this solution approach include:

    • There are probably other similar types of servers, either by price, performance, or similar
    • Compare apples to apples, e.g. same or better processor, memory, OS, PCIe speed and type of slots, LAN ports
    • Not as robust of a solution as those you can find costing tens of thousands of dollars (or more)
    • A DIY system which means you select the other hardware pieces and handle the service and support of them
    • Hardware platform approach where you choose and supply your software of choice
    • For entry-level environments who have floor-space or rack-space to accommodate towers vs. rack-space or other alternatives
    • Software agnostic Based on basically an empty server chassis (with power supplies, motherboard, power supplies, PCIe slots and other things)
    • Possible candidate for smaller SMB (Small Medium Business), ROBO (Remote Office Branch Office), SOHO (Small Office Home Office) or labs that are looking for DIY
    • A starting place and stimulus for thinking about doing different things

    What could you do with this building block (e.g. server)

    Create a single or multi-server based system for

    • Virtual Server Infrastructure (VSI) including KVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Xen among others
    • Object storage
    • Software Defined Storage including Datacore, Microsoft SOFS, Openstack, Starwind, VMware VSAN, various XFS and ZFS among others
    • Private or hybrid cloud including using Openstack among other software tools
    • Create a hadoop big data analytics cluster or grid
    • Establish a video or media server, use for gaming or a backup (data protection) server
    • Update or expand your lab and test environment
    • General purpose SMB, ROBO or SOHO single or clustered server

    VMware VSAN server storageIO example

    What you need to know

    Like some other servers in this class, you need to pay attention to what it is that you are ordering, check out the various reviews, comments and questions as well as verify the make, model along with configuration. For example what is included and what is not included, warranty, return policy among other things. In the case of some of the TS140 models, they do not have a HDD, OS, keyboard, monitor, mouse along with different types of processors and memory. Not all the processors are the same, pay attention, visit the Intel Ark site to look up a specific processor configuration to see if it fits your needs as well as visit the hardware compatibility list (HCL) for the software that you are planning to use. Note that these should be best practices regardless of make, model, type or vendor for server, storage, I/O networking hardware and software.

    What you will need

    This list assumes that you have obtained a model without a HDD, keyboard, video, mouse or operating system (OS) installed

    • Update your BIOS if applicable, check the Lenovo site
    • Enable virtualization and other advanced features via your BIOS
    • Software such as an Operating System (OS), hypervisor or other distribution (load via USB or CD/DVD if present)
    • SSD, SSHD/HHDD, HDD or USB flash drive for installing OS or other software
    • Keyboard, video, mouse (or a KVM switch)

    What you might want to add (have it your way)

    • Keyboard, video mouse or a KVM switch (See gifts for a geek here)
    • Additional memory
    • Graphics card, GPU or PCIe riser
    • Additional SSD, SSHD/HHDD or HDD for storage
    • Extra storage I/O and networking ports

    Extra networking ports

    You can easily add some GbE (or faster ports) including use the PCIe x1 slot, or use one of the other slots for a quad port GbE (or faster), not to mention get some InfiniBand single or dual port cards such as the Mellanox Connectx II or Connect III that support QDR and can run in IBA or 10GbE modes. If you only have two or three servers in a cluster, grid, ring configuration you can run point to point topologies using InfiniBand (and some other network interfaces) without using a switch, however you decide if you need or want switched or non-switched (I have a switch). Note that with VMware (and perhaps other hypervisors or OS) you may need to update the drives for the Realtek GbE LAN on Motherboard port (see links below).

    Extra storage ports

    For extra storage space capacity (and performance) you can easily add PCIe G2 or G3 HBAs (SAS, SATA, FC, FCoE, CNA, UTA, IBA for SRP, etc) or RAID cards among others. Depending on your choice of cards, you can then attach to more internal storage, external storage or some combination with different adapters, cables, interposers and connectivity options. For example I have used TS140s with PCIe Gen 3 12Gbs SAS HBAs attached to 12Gbs SAS SSDs (and HDDs) with the ability to drive performance to see what those devices are capable of doing.

    TS140 Hardware Defined My Way

    As an example of how a TS140 can be configured, using one of the base E3-1224 v3 models with 4GB RAM, no HDD (e.g around $330 USD, your price will vary), add a 4TB Seagate HDD (or two or three) for around $140 USD each (your price will vary), add a 480GB SATA SSD for around $340 USD (your price will vary) with those attached to the internal SATA ports. To bump up network performance, how about a Mellanox Connectx II dual port QDR IBA/10GbE card for around $140 USD (your price will vary), plus around $65 USD for QSFP cable (you your price will vary), and some extra memory (use what you have or shop around) and you have a platform ready to go for around or under $1,000 USD. Add some more internal or external disks, bump up the memory, put in some extra network adapters and your price will go up a bit, however think about what you can have for a robust not so little system. For you VMware vgeeks, think about the proof of concept VSAN that you can put together, granted you will have to do some DIY items.

    Some TS140 resources

    Lenovo TS140 resources include

    • TS140 StorageIOlab review (here and here)
    • TS140 Lenovo ordering website
    • TS140 Data and Spec Sheet (PDF here)
    • Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 Manual (PDF here) and (PDF here)
    • Intel E3-1200 v3 processors capabilities (Web page here)
    • Enabling Virtualization Technology (VT) in TS140 BIOS (Press F1) (Read here)
    • Enabling Intel NIC (82579LM) GbE with VMware (Link to user forum and a blog site here)

    Image via Lenovo.com

    What this all means

    Like many servers in its category (price, capabilities, abilities, packaging) you can do a lot of different things with them, as well as hardware define with accessories, or use your own software. Depending on how you end how hardware defining the TS140 with extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, adapters or other accessories and software your cost will vary. However you can also put together a pretty robust system without breaking your budget while meeting different needs.

    Is this for everybody? Nope

    Is this for more than a lab, experimental, hobbyist, gamer? Sure, with some caveats Is this apples to apples comparison vs. some other solutions including VSANs? Nope, not even close, maybe apples to oranges.

    Do I like the TS140? Yup, starting with a review I did about a year ago, I liked it so much I bought one, then another, then some more.

    Are these the only servers I have, use or like? Nope, I also have systems from HP and Dell as well as test drive and review others

    Why do I like the TS140? It’s a value for some things which means that while affordable (not to be confused with cheap) it has features, salability and ability to be both hardware defined for what I want or need to use them as, along with software define them to be different things. Key for me is the PCIe Gen 3 support with multiple slots (and types of slots), reasonable amount of memory, internal housing for 3.5" and 2.5" drives that can attach to on-board SATA ports, media device (CD/DVD) if needed, or remove to use for more HDDs and SSDs. In other words, it’s a platform that instead of shopping for the motherboard, an enclosure, power supply, processor and related things I get the basics, then configure, and reconfigure as needed.

    Another reason I like the TS140 is that I get to have the server basically my way, in that I do not have to order it with a smallest number of HDDs, or that it comes with an OS, more memory than needed or other things that I may or may not be able to use. Granted I need to supply the extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, PCIe adapters and network ports along with software, however for me that’s not too much of an issue.

    What don’t I like about the TS140? You can read more about my thoughts on the TS140 in my review here, or its bigger sibling the TD340 here, however I would like to see more memory slots for scaling up. Granted for what these cost, it’s just as easy to scale-out and after all, that’s what a lot of software defined storage prefers these days (e.g. scale-out).

    The TS140 is a good platform for many things, granted not for everything, that’s why like storage, networking and other technologies there are different server options for various needs. Exercise caution when doing apples to oranges comparison on price alone, compare what you are getting in terms of processor type (and its functionality), expandable memory, PCIe speed, type and number of slots, LAN connectivity and other features to meet your needs or requirements. Also keep in mind that some systems might be more expensive that include a keyboard, HDD with an OS installed that if you can use those components, then they have value and should be factored into your cost, benefit, return on investment.

    And yes, I just added a few more TS140s that join other recent additions to the server storageIO lab resources…

    Anybody want to guess what I will be playing with among other things during the up coming holiday season?

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    December 2014 Server StorageIO Newsletter

    December 2014

    Hello and welcome to this December Server and StorageIO update newsletter.

    Seasons Greetings

    Seasons greetings

    Commentary In The News

    StorageIO news

    Following are some StorageIO industry trends perspectives comments that have appeared in various venues. Cloud conversations continue to be popular including concerns about privacy, security and availability. Over at BizTech Magazine there are some comments about cloud and ROI. Some comments on AWS and Google SSD services can be viewed at SearchAWS. View other trends comments here

    Tips and Articles

    View recent as well as past tips and articles here

    StorageIOblog posts

    Recent StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    In This Issue

  • Industry Trends Perspectives
  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Events & Activities

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    Webinars

    December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Performance

    December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Decision Making

    December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making

    December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Data Protection Modernization

    Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    StarWind Virtual SAN for Microsoft SOFS

    May require registration
    This looks at the shared storage needs of SMB’s and ROBO’s leveraging Microsoft Scale-Out File Server (SOFS). Focus is on Microsoft Windows Server 2012, Server Message Block version (SMB) 3.0, SOFS and StarWind Virtual SAN management software

    View additional reports and lab reviews here.

    Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:
    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageio.com/ssd
    storageio.com/ssd

    Enjoy this edition of the Server and StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcasts along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

    Seasons greetings 2014

    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

    Server Storage I/O Cables Connectors Chargers & other Geek Gifts

    Server Storage I/O Cables Connectors Chargers & other Geek Gifts

    server storage I/O trends

    This is part one of a two part series for what to get a geek for a gift, read part two here.

    It is that time of the year when annual predictions are made for the upcoming year, including those that will be repeated next year or that were also made last year.

    It’s also the time of the year to get various projects wrapped up, line up new activities, get the book-keeping things ready for year-end processing and taxes, as well as other things.

    It’s also that time of the year to do some budget and project planning including upgrades, replacements, enhancements while balancing an over-subscribed holiday party schedule some of you may have.

    Lets not forget getting ready for vacations, perhaps time off from work with some time upgrading your home lab or other projects.

    Then there are the gift lists or trying to figure out what to get that difficult to shop for person particular geek’s who may have everything, or want the latest and greatest that others have, or something their peers don’t have yet.

    Sure I have a DJI Phantom II on my wish list, however also have other things on my needs list (e.g. what I really need and want vs. what would be fun to wish for).

    DJI Phantom helicopter drone
    Image via DJI.com, click on image to learn more and compare models

    So here are some things for the geek or may have everything or is up on having the latest and greatest, yet forgot or didn’t know about some of these things.

    Not to mention some of these might seem really simple and low-cost, think of them like a Lego block or erector set part where your imagination will be your boundary how to use them. Also, most if not all of these are budget friendly particular if you shop around.

    Replace a CD/DVD with 4 x 2.5″ HDD’s or SSD’s

    So you need to add some 2.5" SAS or SATA HDD’s, SSD’s, HHDD’s/SSHD’s to your server for supporting your VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, OpenStack, Hadoop or legacy *nix or Windows environment or perhaps gaming system. Challenge is that you are out of disk drive bay slots and you want things neatly organized vs. a rat’s nest of cables hanging out of your system. No worries assuming your server has an empty media bay (e.g. those 5.25" slots where CDs/DVDs or really old HDD’s go), or if you can give up the CD/DVD, then use that bay and its power connector to add ones of these. This is a 4 x 2.5" SAS and SATA drive bay that has a common power connector (molex male) with each drive bay having its own SATA drive connection. By each drive having its own SATA connection you can map the drives to an on-board available SATA port attached to a SAS or SATA controller, or attach an available port on a RAID adapter to the ports using a cable such as small form factor (SFF) 8087 to SATA.

    sas storage enclosuresas sata storage enclosure
    (Left) Rear view with Molex power and SATA cables (Right) front view

    I have a few of these in different systems and what I like about them is that they support different drive speeds, plus they will accept a SAS drive where many enclosures in this category only support SATA. Once you mount your 2.5" HDD or SSD using screws, you can hot swap (requires controller and OS support) the drives and move them between other similar enclosures as needed. The other thing I like is that there are front indicator lights as well as by each drive having its own separate connection, you can attach some of the drives to a RAID adapter while others connected to on-board SATA ports. Oh, and you can also have different speeds of drives as well.

    Power connections

    Depending on the type of your server, you may have Molex, SATA or some other type of power connections. You can use different power connection cables to go from one type (Molex) to another, create a connection for two devices, create an extension to reach hard to get to mounting locations.

    Warning and disclosure note, keep in mind how much power you are drawing when attaching devices to not cause an electrical or fire hazard, follow manufactures instructions and specification doing so at your own risk! After all, Just like Clark Grizzwald in National Lampoon Christmas Vacation who found you could attach extension cord to splitters to splitters and fan-out to have many lights attached, you don’t want to cause a fire or blackout when you plug to many drives in.


    National Lampoon Christmas Vacation

    Measuring Power

    Ok so you do not want to do a Clark Grizzwald (see above video) and overload a power circuit, or perhaps you simply want to know how many watts, amps or quality of your voltage is.

    There are many types of power meters along with various prices, some even have interfaces where you can grab event data to correlate with server storage I/O networking performance to do things such as IOP’s per watt among other metrics. Speaking of IOP’s per watt, check out the SNIA Emerald site where they have some good tools including a benchmark script that uses Vdbench to drive hot band workload (e.g. basically kick the crap out of a storage system).

    Back to power meters, I like the Kill A Watt series of meters as they give good info about amps, volts, power quality. I have these plugged into outlets so I can see how much power is being used by the battery backup units (BBU) aka UPS that also serve as power surge filters. If needed I can move these further downstream to watch the power intake of a specific server, storage, network or other device.

    Kill A Watt Power meter

    Standby and backup power

    Electrical power surge strips should be a given or considered common sense, however what is or should be common sense should be repeated so that it remains common sense, you should be using power surge strips or other devices.

    Standby, UPS and BBU

    For most situations a good surge suppressor will cover short power transients.

    APC power strips and battery backup
    Image via APC and model similar to those that I have

    For slightly longer power outages of a few seconds to minutes, that’s where battery backup up (BBU) units that also have surge suppression comes into play. There are many types, sizes with various features to meet your needs and budget. I have several of theses in a couple of different sizes not only for servers, storage and networking equipment (including some WiFi access points, routers, etc), I also have them for home things such as satellite DVR’s. However not everything needs to stay on while others simply need to stay on long-enough in order to shutdown manually or via automated power off sequences.

    Alternate Power Generation

    Generators are not just for the rich and famous or large data center, like other technologies they are available in different sizes, power capacity, fuel sources, manual or automated among other things.

    kohler residential generator
    Image via Kohler Power similar to model that I have

    Note that even with a typical generator there will be a time gap from the time power goes off until the generator starts, stabilizes and you have good power. That’s where the BBU and UPS mentioned above comes into play to bridge those time gaps which in my cases is about 25-30 seconds. Btw, knowing how much power your technology is drawing using tools such as the Kill A Watt is part of the planning process to avoid surprises.

    What about Solar Power

    Yup, whether it is to fit in and be green, or simply to get some electrical power when or where it is not needed to charge a battery or power some device, these small solar power devices are very handy.

    solar charger
    Image via Amazon.com
    solar battery charger
    Image via Amazon.com

    For example you can get or easily make an adapter to charge laptops, cell phones or even power them for normal use (check manufactures information on power usage, Amps and Voltage draws among other warnings to prevent fire and other things). Btw, not only are these handy for computer related things, they also work great for keeping batteries on my fishing boat charged so that I have my fish finder and other electronics, just saying.

    Fire suppression

    How about a new or updated smoke and fire detection alarm monitor, as well as fire extinguisher for the geek’s software defined hardware that runs on power (electrical or battery)?

    The following is from the site Fire Extinguisher 101 where you can learn more about different types of suppression technologies.

    Image via Fire Extinguisher 101
    • Class A extinguishers are for ordinary combustible materials such as paper, wood, cardboard, and most plastics. The numerical rating on these types of extinguishers indicates the amount of water it holds and the amount of fire it can extinguish. Geometric symbol (green triangle)
    • Class B fires involve flammable or combustible liquids such as gasoline, kerosene, grease and oil. The numerical rating for class B extinguishers indicates the approximate number of square feet of fire it can extinguish. Geometric symbol (red square)
    • Class C fires involve electrical equipment, such as appliances, wiring, circuit breakers and outlets. Never use water to extinguish class C fires – the risk of electrical shock is far too great! Class C extinguishers do not have a numerical rating. The C classification means the extinguishing agent is non-conductive. Geometric symbol (blue circle)
    • Class D fire extinguishers are commonly found in a chemical laboratory. They are for fires that involve combustible metals, such as magnesium, titanium, potassium and sodium. These types of extinguishers also have no numerical rating, nor are they given a multi-purpose rating – they are designed for class D fires only. Geometric symbol (Yellow Decagon)
    • Class K fire extinguishers are for fires that involve cooking oils, trans-fats, or fats in cooking appliances and are typically found in restaurant and cafeteria kitchens. Geometric symbol (black hexagon)

    Wrap up for part I

    This wraps up part I of what to get a geek V2014, continue reading part II here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Cloud Conversations: Revisiting re:Invent 2014 and other AWS updates

    server storage I/O trends

    This is part one of a two-part series about Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2014 and other recent cloud updates, read part two here.

    Revisiting re:Invent 2014 and other AWS updates

    AWS re:Invent 2014

    A few weeks ago I attended Amazon Web Service (AWS) re:Invent 2014 in Las Vegas for a few days. For those of you who have not yet attended this event, I recommend adding it to your agenda. If you have interest in compute servers, networking, storage, development tools or management of cloud (public, private, hybrid), virtualization and related topic themes, you should check out AWS re:invent.

    AWS made several announcements at re:invent including many around development tools, compute and data storage services. One of those to keep an eye on is cloud based Aurora relational database service that complement existing RDS tools. Aurora is positioned as an alternative to traditional SQL based transactional databases commonly found in enterprise environments (e.g. SQL Server among others).

    Some recent AWS announcements prior to re:Invent include

    AWS vCenter Portal

    Using the AWS Management Portal for vCenter adds a plug-in within your VMware vCenter to manage your AWS infrastructure. The vCenter for AWS plug-in includes support for AWS EC2 and Virtual Machine (VM) import to migrate your VMware VMs to AWS EC2, create VPC (Virtual Private Clouds) along with subnet’s. There is no cost for the plug-in, you simply pay for the underlying AWS resources consumed (e.g. EC2, EBS, S3). Learn more about AWS Management Portal for vCenter here, and download the OVA plug-in for vCenter here.

    AWS re:invent content


    AWS Andy Jassy (Image via AWS)

    November 12, 2014 (Day 1) Keynote (highlight video, full keynote). This is the session where AWS SVP Andy Jassy made several announcements including Aurora relational database that complements existing RDS (Relational Data Services). In addition to Andy, the key-note sessions also included various special guests ranging from AWS customers, partners and internal people in support of the various initiatives and announcements.


    Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels (Image via AWS)

    November 13, 2014 (Day 2) Keynote (highlight video, full keynote). In this session, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels appears making announcements about the new Container and Lambda services.

    AWS re:Invent announcements

    Announcements and enhancements made by AWS during re:Invent include:

    • Key Management Service (KMS)
    • Amazon RDS for Aurora
    • Amazon EC2 Container Service
    • AWS Lambda
    • Amazon EBS Enhancements
    • Application development, deployed and life-cycle management tools
    • AWS Service Catalog
    • AWS CodeDeploy
    • AWS CodeCommit
    • AWS CodePipeline

    Key Management Service (KMS)

    Hardware security module (HSM) based key managed service for creating and control of encryption keys to protect security of digital assets and their keys. Integration with AWS EBS and others services including S3 and Redshift along with CloudTrail logs for regulatory, compliance and management. Learn more about AWS KMS here

    AWS Database

    For those who are not familiar, AWS has a suite of database related services including SQL and no SQL based, simple to transactional to Petabyte (PB) scale data warehouses for big data and analytics. AWS offers the Relational Database Service (RDS) which is a suite of different database types, instances and services. RDS instance and types include SimpleDB, MySQL, Postgress, Oracle, SQL Server and the new AWS Aurora offering (read more below).  Other little data database and big data repository related offerings include DynamoDB (a non-SQL database), ElasticCache (in memory cache repository) and Redshift (large-scale data warehouse and big data repository).

    In addition to database services offered by AWS, you can also combine various AWS resources including EC2 compute, EBS and other storage offerings to create your own solution. For example there are various Amazon Machine Images (AMI’s) or pre-built operating systems and database tools available with EC2 as well as via the AWS Marketplace , such as MongoDB and Couchbase among others. For those not familiar with MongoDB, Couchbase, Cassandra, Riak along with other non SQL or alternative databases and key value repositories, check out Seven Databases in Seven Weeks in my book review of it here.

    Seven Databases book review
    Seven Databases in Seven Weeks and NoSQL movement available from Amazon.com

    Amazon RDS for Aurora

    Aurora is a new relational database offering part of the AWS RDS suite of services. Positioned as an alternative to commercial high-end database, Aurora is a cost-effective database engine compatible with MySQL. AWS is claiming 5x better performance than standard MySQL with Aurora while being resilient and durable. Learn more about Aurora which will be available in early 2015 and its current preview here.

    Amazon EC2 C4 instances

    AWS will be adding a new C4 instance as a next generation of EC2 compute instance based on Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) processors. The Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 processors run at a clock speed of 2.9 GHz providing the highest level of EC2 performance. AWS is targeting traditional High Performance Computing (HPC) along with other compute intensive workloads including analytics, gaming, and transcoding among others. Learn more AWS EC2 instances here, and view this Server and StorageIO EC2, EBS and associated AWS primer here.

    Amazon EC2 Container Service

    Containers such as those via Docker have become popular to support developers rapidly build as well as deploy scalable applications. AWS has added a new feature called EC2 Container Service that supports Docker using simple API’s. In addition to supporting Docker, EC2 Container Service is a high performance scalable container management service for distributed applications deployed on a cluster of EC2 instances. Similar to other EC2 services, EC2 Container Service leverages security groups, EBS volumes and Identity Access Management (IAM) roles along with scheduling placement of containers to meet your needs. Note that AWS is not alone in adding container and docker support with Microsoft Azure also having recently made some announcements, learn more about Azure and Docker here. Learn more about EC2 container service here and more about Docker here.

    Docker for smarties

    Continue reading about re:Invent 2014 and other recent AWS enhancements here in part two of this two-part series.

    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

    Part II: Revisiting re:Invent 2014, Lambda and other AWS updates

    server storage I/O trends

    Part II: Revisiting re:Invent 2014 and other AWS updates

    This is part two of a two-part series about Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2014 and other recent cloud updates, read part one here.

    AWS re:Invent 2014

    AWS re:Invent announcements

    Announcements and enhancements made by AWS during re:Invent include:

    • Key Management Service (KMS)
    • Amazon RDS for Aurora
    • Amazon EC2 Container Service
    • AWS Lambda
    • Amazon EBS Enhancements
    • Application development, deployed and life-cycle management tools
    • AWS Service Catalog
    • AWS CodeDeploy
    • AWS CodeCommit
    • AWS CodePipeline

    AWS Lambda

    In addition to announcing new higher performance Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) compute instances along with container service, another new service is AWS Lambda. Lambda is a service that automatically and quickly runs your applications code in response to events, activities, or other triggers. In addition to running your code, Lambda service is billed in 100 millisecond increments along with corresponding memory use vs. standard EC2 per hour billing. What this means is that instead of paying for an hour of time for your code to run, you can choose to use the Lambda service with more fine-grained consumption billing.

    Lambda service can be used to have your code functions staged ready to execute. AWS Lambda can run your code in response to S3 bucket content (e.g. objects) changes, messages arriving via Kinesis streams or table updates in databases. Some examples include responding to event such as a web-site click, response to data upload (photo, image, audio, file or other object), index, stream or analyze data, receive output from a connected device (think Internet of Things IoT or Internet of Device IoD), trigger from an in-app event among others. The basic idea with Lambda is to be able to pay for only the amount of time needed to do a particular function without having to have an AWS EC2 instance dedicated to your application. Initially Lambda supports Node.js (JavaScript) based code that runs in its own isolated environment.

    AWS cloud example
    Various application code deployment models

    Lambda service is a pay for what you consume, charges are based on the number of requests for your code function (e.g. application), amount of memory and execution time. There is a free tier for Lambda that includes 1 million requests and 400,000 GByte seconds of time per month. A GByte second is the amount of memory (e.g. DRAM vs. storage) consumed during a second. An example is your application is run 100,000 times and runs for 1 second consuming 128MB of memory = 128,000,000MB = 128,000GB seconds. View various pricing models here on the AWS Lambda site that show examples for different memory sizes, times a function runs and run time.

    How much memory you select for your application code determines how it can run in the AWS free tier, which is available to both existing and new customers. Lambda fees are based on the total across all of your functions starting with the code when it runs. Note that you could have from one to thousands or more different functions running in Lambda service. As of this time, AWS is showing Lambda pricing as free for the first 1 million requests, and beyond that, $0.20 per 1 million request ($0.0000002 per request) per duration. Duration is from when you code runs until it ends or otherwise terminates rounded up to the nearest 100ms. The Lambda price also depends on the amount of memory you allocated for your code. Once past the 400,000 GByte second per month free tier the fee is $0.00001667 for every GB second used.

    Why use AWS Lambda vs. an EC2 instance

    Why would you use AWS Lambda vs. provisioning an Container, EC2 instance or running your application code function on a traditional or virtual machine?

    If you need control and can leverage an entire physical server with its operating system (O.S.), application and support tools for your piece of code (e.g. JavaScript), that could be an option. If you simply need to have an isolated image instance (O.S., applications and tools) for your code on a shared virtual on-premises environment then that can be an option. Likewise if you have the need to move your application to an isolated cloud machine (CM) that hosts an O.S. along with your application paying for those resources such as on an hourly basis, that could be your option. Simply need a lighter-weight container to drop your application into that’s where Docker and containers comes into play to off-load some of the traditional application dependencies overhead.

    However, if all you want to do is to add some code logic to support processing activity for example when an object, file or image is uploaded to AWS S3 without having to standup an EC2 instance along with associated server, O.S. and complete application activity, that’s where AWS Lambda comes into play. Simply create your code (initially JavaScript) and specify how much memory it needs, define what events or activities will trigger or invoke the event, and you have a solution.

    View AWS Lambda pricing along with free tier information here.

    Amazon EBS Enhancements

    AWS is increasing the performance and size of General Purpose SSD and Provisioned IOP’s SSD volumes. This means that you can create volumes up to 16TB and 10,000 IOP’s for AWS EBS general-purpose SSD volumes. For EBS Provisioned IOP’s SSD volumes you can create up to 16TB for 20,000 IOP’s. General-purpose SSD volumes deliver a maximum throughput (bandwidth) of 160 MBps and Provisioned IOP SSD volumes have been specified by AWS at 320MBps when attached to EBS optimized instances. Learn more about EBS capabilities here. Verify your IO size and verify AWS sizing information to avoid surprises as all IO sizes are not considered to be the same. Learn more about Provisioned IOP’s, optimized instances, EBS and EC2 fundamentals in this StorageIO AWS primer here.

    Application development, deployed and life-cycle management tools

    In addition to compute and storage resource enhancements, AWS has also announced several tools to support application development, configuration along with deployment (life-cycle management). These include tools that AWS uses themselves as part of building and maintaining the AWS platform services.

    AWS Config (Preview e.g. early access prior to full release)

    Management, reporting and monitoring capabilities including Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) for monitoring your AWS resources, configuration (including history), governance, change management and notifications. AWS Config enables similar capabilities to support DCIM, Change Management Database (CMDB), trouble shooting and diagnostics, auditing, resource and configuration analysis among other activities. Learn more about AWS Config here.

    AWS Service Catalog

    AWS announced a new service catalog that will be available in early 2015. This new service capability will enable administrators to create and manage catalogs of approved resources for users to use via their personalized portal. Learn more about AWS service catalog here.

    AWS CodeDeploy

    To support code rapid deployment automation for EC2 instances, AWS has released CodeDeploy. CodeDeploy masks complexity associated with deployment when adding new features to your applications while reducing human error-prone operations. As part of the announcement, AWS mentioned that they are using CodeDeploy as part of their own applications development, maintenance, and change-management and deployment operations. While suited for at scale deployments across many instances, CodeDeploy works with as small as a single EC2 instance. Learn more about AWS CodeDeploy here.

    AWS CodeCommit

    For application code management, AWS will be making available in early 2015 a new service called CodeCommit. CodeCommit is a highly scalable secure source control service that host private Git repositories. Supporting standard functionalities of Git, including collaboration, you can store things from source code to binaries while working with your existing tools. Learn more about AWS CodeCommit here.

    AWS CodePipeline

    To support application delivery and release automation along with associated management tools, AWS is making available CodePipeline. CodePipeline is a tool (service) that supports build, checking workflow’s, code staging, testing and release to production including support for 3rd party tool integration. CodePipeline will be available in early 2015, learn more here.

    Additional reading and related items

    Learn more about the above and other AWS services by actually truing hands on using their free tier (AWS Free Tier). View AWS re:Invent produced breakout session videos here, audio podcasts here, and session slides here (all sessions may not yet be uploaded by AWS re:Invent)

    What this all means

    AWS amazon web services

    AWS continues to invest as well as re-invest into its environment both adding new feature functionality, as well as expanding the extensibility of those features. This means that AWS like other vendors or service providers adds new check-box features, however they also like some increase the depth extensibility of those capabilities. Besides adding new features and increasing the extensibility of existing capabilities, AWS is addressing both the data and information infrastructure including compute (server), storage and database, networking along with associated management tools while also adding extra developer tools. Developer tools include life-cycle management supporting code creation, testing, tracking, testing, change management among other management activities.

    Another observation is that while AWS continues to promote the public cloud such as those services they offer as the present and future, they are also talking hybrid cloud. Granted you have to listen carefully as you may not simply hear hybrid cloud used like some toss it around, however listen for and look into AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), along with what you can do using various technologies via the AWS marketplace. AWS is also speaking the language of enterprise and traditional IT from an applications and development to data and information infrastructure perspective while also walking the cloud talk. What this means is that AWS realizes that they need to help existing environments evolve and make the transition to the cloud which means speaking their language vs. converting them to cloud conversations to then be able to migrate them to the cloud. These steps should make AWS practical for many enterprise environments looking to make the transition to public and hybrid cloud at their pace, some faster than others. More on these and some related themes in future posts.

    The AWS re:Invent event continues to grow year over year, I heard a figure of over 12,000 people however it was not clear if that included exhibiting vendors, AWS people, attendees, analyst, bloggers and media among others. However a simple validation is that the keynotes were in the larger rooms used by events such as EMCworld and VMworld when they hosted in Las Vegas as was the expo space vs. what I saw last year while at re:Invent. Unlike some large events such as VMworld where at best there is a waiting queue or line to get into sessions or hands on lab (HOL), while becoming more crowded, AWS re:Invent is still easy to get in and spend some time using the HOL which is of course powered by AWS meaning you can resume what you started while at re:Invent later. Overall a good event and nice series of enhancements by AWS, looking forward to next years AWS re:Invent.

    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

    November 2014 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    November 2014

    Hello and welcome to this November Server and StorageIO update newsletter. Enjoy this edition of the Server and StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcasts along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

    Cheers gs

    Industry Trends and Perspectives

    Storage trends

    A few weeks ago I attended AWS re:invent 2014 in Las Vegas for a few days. For those of you who have not yet attended this event, I recommend adding it to your agenda. If you have interest in compute servers, networking, storage, development tools or management of cloud (public, private, hybrid), virtualization and related topic themes, you should check out AWS re:invent. For those who need a AWS primer or refresher visit here.

    AWS made several announcements at re:invent including many around development tools, compute and data storage services. One of those to keep an eye on is cloud based Aurora relational database service that complement existing RDS tools. Aurora is positioned as an alternative to traditional SQL based transactional databases commonly found in enterprise environments (e.g. SQL Server, IBM DB2/UDB, Oracle among others). I will put some additional notes and perspectives together in a StorageIOblog post along with some video from AWS soon.

    Commentary In The News

    StorageIO news

    Following are some StorageIO industry trends perspectives comments that have appeared in various venues. Cloud conversations continue to be popular including concerns about privacy, security and availability.

    Over at Processor: Comments on Datacenters, Decide Whether To Build Or Not To Build, and controlling storage costs via insight and action. EdTechMagazine: has some comments on IaaS and Is Lean IT Here to Stay, while at CyberTrend perspectives on Better Servers for Better Business.

    Across the pond over at the UK based Computerweekly comments on AWS launching Aurora cloud-based relational database engine, and hybrid cloud storage. Some comments on Overland Storage RAINcloud can be found at SearchStorage, while SearchDatabackup has some comments on Symantec break-up makeing sense for storage.

    For those of you who speak Dutch, here is an interview (via it-infra.nl) I did when Holland earlier this year about storage and your business.

    View other industry trends comments here

    Tips and Articles

    View recent as well as past tips and articles here

    StorageIOblog posts

    Recent StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    In This Issue

  • Industry Trends Perspectives
  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Events & Activities

    November 11-13, 2014
    AWS re:Invent Las Vegas

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    Webinars

    December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Performance

    December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Decision Making

    December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making

    December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Data Protection Modernization

    November 13 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Storage

    November 11 10AM PT
    Google+ Hangout Dell BackupU

    November 11 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Data Centers

    Videos and Podcasts

    VMworld 2014 review
    Video: Click to view VMworld 2014 update

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    Lenovo ThinkServer TD340
    Earlier this year I did a review of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the StorageIO Labs (see the review here), in fact I ended up buying a TS140 after the review, and a few months back picked up yet another one. This StorageIOlab review looks at the Lenovo ThinkServer TD340 Tower Server which besides having a larger model number than the TS140, it also has a lot more capabilities (server compute, memory, I/O slots and internal hot-swap storage bays. Read more about the TD340 here.

    Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:
    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageio.com/ssd
    storageio.com/ssd

    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

    Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

    Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

    This is the first post of a two part series, read the second post here.

    Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test drive some Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s as a follow-up to some earlier activity trying their Enterprise TurboBoost Drives. Disclosure: Seagate has been a StorageIO client and was also the sponsor of this white paper and associated proof-points mentioned in this post.

    The question to ask yourself is not if flash Solid State Device (SSD) technologies are in your future, Instead the questions are when, where, using what, how to configure and related themes. SSD including traditional DRAM and NAND flash-based technologies are like real estate where location matters; however, there are different types of properties to meet various needs. This means leveraging different types of NAND flash SSD technologies in different locations in a complementary and cooperative aka hybrid way. For example nand flash SSD as part of an enterprise tiered storage strategy can be implemented server-side using PCIe cards, SAS and SATA drives as targets or as cache along with software, as well as leveraging SSD devices in storage systems or appliances.

    Seagate 1200 SSD
    Seagate 1200 Enterprise SAS 12Gbs SSD Image via Seagate.com

    Another place where nand flash can be found and compliments SSD devices are so-called Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) or Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD) including a new generation that accelerate writes as well as reads such as those Seagate refers to as with Enterprise TurboBoost. The Enterprise TurboBoost drives (view the companion StorageIO Lab review TurboBoost white paper here) were previously known as the Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) or Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD). Read more about TurboBoost here and here.

    The best server and storage I/O is the one you do not have to do

    Keep in mind that the best server or storage I/O is that one that you do not have to do, with the second best being the one with the least overhead resolved as close to the processor (compute) as possible or practical. The following figure shows that the best place to resolve server and storage I/O is as close to the compute processor as possible however only a finite amount of storage memory located there. This is where the server memory and storage I/O hierarchy comes into play which is also often thought of in the context of tiered storage balancing performance and availability with cost and architectural limits.

    Also shown is locality of reference which refers to how close data is to where it is being used and includes cache effectiveness or buffering. Hence a small amount of cache of flash and DRAM in the right location can have a large benefit. Now if you can afford it, install as much DRAM along with flash storage as possible, however if you are like most organizations with finite budgets yet server and storage I/O challenges, then deploy a tiered flash storage strategy.

    flash cache locality of reference
    Server memory storage I/O hierarchy, locality of reference

    Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s

    Back to the Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD which is covered in this StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective thought leadership white paper. The focus of the white paper is to look at how the Seagate 1200 Enterprise class SSD’s and 12Gbps SAS address current and next generation tiered storage for virtual, cloud, traditional Little and Big Data infrastructure environments.

    Seagate 1200 Enteprise SSD

    This includes providing proof points running various workloads including Database TPC-B, TPC-E and Microsoft Exchange in the StorageIO Labs along with cache software comparing SSD, SSHD and different HDD’s including 12Gbs SAS 6TB near-line high-capacity drives.

    Seagate 1200 Enterprise SSD Proof Points

    The proof points in this white paper are from an applications focus perspective representing more of an end-to-end real-world situation. While they are not included in this white paper, StorageIO has run traditional storage building-block focus workloads, which can be found at StorageIOblog (Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware?). These include tools such as Iometer, iorate, vdbench among others for various IO sizes, mixed, random, sequential, reads, writes along with “hot-band" across different number of threads (concurrent users). “Hot-Band” is part of the SNIA Emerald energy effectiveness metrics for looking at sustained storage performance using tools such as vdbench. Read more about other various server and storage I/O benchmarking tools and techniques here.

    For the following series of proof-points (TPC-B, TPC-E and Exchange) a system under test (SUT) consisted of a physical server (described with the proof-points) configured with VMware ESXi along with guests virtual machines (VMs) configured to do the storage I/O workload. Other servers were used in the case of TPC workloads as application transactional requester to drive the SQL Server database and resulting server storage I/O workload. VMware was used in the proof-points to reflect a common industry trend of using virtual server infrastructures (VSI) supporting applications including database, email among others. For the proof-point scenarios, the SUT along with storage system device under test were dedicated to that scenario (e.g. no other workload running) unless otherwise noted.

    Server Storage I/O config
    Server Storage I/O configuration for proof-points

    Microsoft Exchange Email proof-point configuration

    For this proof-point, Microsoft Jet Stress Exchange performance workloads were placed (e.g. Exchange Database – EDB file) on each of the different devices under test with various metrics shown including activity rates and response time for reads as well as writes. For the Exchange testing, the EDB was placed on the device being tested while its log files were placed on a separate Seagate 400GB Enterprise 12Gbps SAS SSD.

    Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB 7.2K SATA HDD. Email server hosted as guest on VMware vSphere/ESXi V5.5, Microsoft SBS2011 Service Pack 1 64 bit. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) was on a SSD based dat, had a physical machine (host), with 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot with Jet Stress 2010.  All devices being tested were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) where EDB resided. VM on a SSD based separate data store than devices being tested. Log file IOPs were handled via a separate SSD device also persistent (no delayed writes). EDB was 300GB and workload ran for 8 hours.

    Microsoft Exchange VMware SSD performance
    Microsoft Exchange proof-points comparing various storage devices

    TPC-B (Database, Data Warehouse, Batch updates) proof-point configuration

    SSD’s are a good fit for both transaction database activity with reads and write as well as query-based decision support systems (DSS), data warehouse and big data analytics. The following are proof points of SSD capabilities for database activity. In addition to supporting database table files and objects, along with transaction journal logs, other uses include for meta-data, import/export or other high-IO and write intensive scenarios. Two database workload profiles were tested including batch update (write-intensive) and transactional. Activity involved running Transaction Performance Council (TPC) workloads TPC-B (batch update) and TPC-E (transaction/OLTP simulate financial trading system) against Microsoft SQL Server 2012 databases. Each test simulation had the SQL Server database (MDF) on a different device with transaction log file (LDF) on a separate SSD. TPC-B for a single device results shown below.

    TPC-B (write intensive) results below show how TPS work being done (blue) increases from left to right (more is better) for various numbers of simulated users. Also shown on the same line for each amount of TPS work being done is the average latency in seconds (right to left) where lower is better. Results are shown from top to bottom for each group of users (100, 50, 20 and 1) for the different drives being tested (top to bottom). Note how the SSD device does more work at a lower response time vs. traditional HDD’s

    Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB Seagate 7.2K SATA HDD Workload generator and virtual clients Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database was on Windows 7 guest. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) had a dedicated 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot along with TPC-B (www.tpc.org) workloads.

    VM with guest OS along with SQL tempdb and masterdb resided on separate SSD based data store from devices being tested (e.g., where MDF (main database tables) and LDF (log file) resided). All devices being tested were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) independent persistent with database log file on a separate SSD device also persistent (no delayed writes) using VMware PVSCSI driver. MDF and LDF file sizes were 142GB and 26GB with scale factor of 10000, with each step running for one hour (10-minute preamble). Note that these proof-points DO NOT use VMware or any other third-party cache software or I/O acceleration tool technologies as those are covered later in a separate proof-point.

    TPC-B sql server database SSD performance
    TPC-B SQL Server database proof-points comparing various storage devices

    TPC-E (Database, Financial Trading) proof-point configuration

    The following shows results from TPC-E test (OLTP/transactional workload) simulating a financial trading system. TPC-E is an industry standard workload that performs a mix of reads and writes database queries. Proof-points were performed with various numbers of users from 10, 20, 50 and 100 to determine (TPS) Transaction per Second (aka I/O rate) and response time in seconds. The TPC-E transactional results are shown for each device being tested across different user workloads. The results show how TPC-E TPS work (blue) increases from left to right (more is better) for larger numbers of users along with corresponding latency (green) that goes from right to left (less is better). The Seagate Enterprise 1200 SSD is shown on the top in the figure below with a red box around its results. Note how the SSD as a lower latency while doing more work compared to the other traditional HDD’s

    Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB Seagate 7.2K SATA HDD Workload generator and virtual clients Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database was on Windows 7 guest. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) had a dedicated 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot along with TPC-B (www.tpc.org) workloads.

    VM with guest OS along with SQL tempdb and masterdb resided on separate SSD based data store from devices being tested (e.g., where MDF (main database tables) and LDF (log file) resided). All devices being tested were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) independent persistent with database log file on a separate SSD device also persistent (no delayed writes) using VMware PVSCSI driver. MDF and LDF file sizes were 142GB and 26GB with scale factor of 10000, with each step running for one hour (10-minute preamble). Note that these proof-points DO NOT use VMware or any other third-party cache software or I/O acceleration tool technologies as those are covered later in a separate proof-point.

    TPC-E sql server database SSD performance
    TPC-E (Financial trading) SQL Server database proof-points comparing various storage devices

    Continue reading part-two of this two-part series here including the virtual server storage I/O blender effect and solution.

    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

    Part II: Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

    Part II: Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

    This is the second post of a two part series, read the first post here.

    Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test drive some Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s as a follow-up to some earlier activity trying their Enterprise TurboBoost Drives. Disclosure: Seagate has been a StorageIO client and was also the sponsor of this white paper and associated proof-points mentioned in this post.

    The Server Storage I/O Blender Effect Bottleneck

    The earlier proof-points focused on SSD as a target or storage device. In the following proof-points, the Seagate Enterprise 1200 SSD is used as a shared read cache (write-through). Using a write-through cache enables a given amount of SSD to give a performance benefit to other local and networked storage devices.

    traditional server storage I/O
    Non-virtualized servers with dedicated storage and I/O paths.

    Aggregation causes aggravation with I/O bottlenecks because of consolidation using server virtualization. The following figure shows non-virtualized servers with their own dedicated physical machine (PM) and I/O resources. When various servers are virtualized and hosted by a common host (physical machine), their various workloads compete for I/O and other resources. In addition to competing for I/O performance resources, these different servers also tend to have diverse workloads.

    virtual server storage I/O blender
    Virtual server storage I/O blender bottleneck (aggregation causes aggravation)

    The figure above shows aggregation causing aggravation with the result being I/O bottlenecks as various applications performance needs converge and compete with each other. The aggregation and consolidation result is a blend of random, sequential, large, small, read and write characteristics. These different storage I/O characteristics are mixed up and need to be handled by the underlying I/O capabilities of the physical machine and hypervisor. As a result, a common deployment for SSD in addition to as a target device for storing data is as a cache to cut bottlenecks for traditional spinning HDD.

    In the following figure a solution is shown introducing I/O caching with SSD to help mitigate or cut the effects of server consolation causing performance aggravations.

    Creating a server storage I/O blender bottleneck

    xxxxx
    Addressing the VMware Server Storage I/O blender with cache

    Addressing server storage I/O blender and other bottlenecks

    For these proof-points, the goal was to create an I/O bottleneck resulting from multiple VMs in a virtual server environment performing application work. In this proof-point, multiple competing VMs including a SQL Server 2012 database and an Exchange server shared the same underlying storage I/O infrastructure including HDD’s The 6TB (Enterprise Capacity) HDD was configured as a VMware dat and allocated as virtual disks to the VMs. Workloads were then run concurrently to create an I/O bottleneck for both cached and non-cached results.

    xxxxx
    Server storage I/O with virtualization roof-point configuration topology

    The following figure shows two sets of proof points, cached (top) and non-cached (bottom) with three workloads. The workloads consisted of concurrent Exchange and SQL Server 2012 (TPC-B and TPC-E) running on separate virtual machine (VM) all on the same physical machine host (SUT) with database transactions being driven by two separate servers. In these proof-points, the applications data were placed onto the 6TB SAS HDD to create a bottleneck, and a portion of the SSD used as a cache. Note that the Virtunet cache software allows you to use a part of a SSD device for cache with the balance used as a regular storage target should you want to do so.

    If you have paid attention to the earlier proof-points, you might notice that some of the results below are not as good as those seen in the Exchange, TPC-B and TPC-E results about. The reason is simply that the earlier proof-points were run without competing workloads, and database along with log or journal files were placed on separate drives for performance. In the following proof-point as part of creating a server storage I/O blender bottleneck the Exchange, TPC-B as well as TPC-E workloads were all running concurrently with all data on the 6TB drive (something you normally would not want to do).

    storage I/O blender solved
    Solving the VMware Server Storage I/O blender with cache

    The cache and non-cached mixed workloads shown above prove how an SSD based read-cache can help to reduce I/O bottlenecks. This is an example of addressing the aggravation caused by aggregation of different competing workloads that are consolidated with server virtualization.

    For the workloads shown above, all data (database tables and logs) were placed on VMware virtual disks created from a dat using a single 7.2K 6TB 12Gbps SAS HDD (e.g. Seagate Enterprise Capacity).

    The guest VM system disks which included paging, applications and other data files were virtual disks using a separate dat mapped to a single 7.2K 1TB HDD. Each workload ran for eight hours with the TPC-B and TPC-E having 50 simulated users. For the TPC-B and TPC-E workloads, two separate servers were used to drive the transaction requests to the SQL Server 2012 database.

    For the cached tests, a Seagate Enterprise 1200 400GB 12Gbps SAS SSD was used as the backing store for the cache software (Virtunet Systems Virtucache) that was installed and configured on the VMware host.

    During the cached tests, the physical HDD for the data files (e.g. 6TB HDD) and system volumes (1TB HDD) were read cache enabled. All caching was disabled for the non-cached workloads.

    Note that this was only a read cache, which has the side benefit of off-loading those activities enabling the HDD to focus on writes, or read-ahead. Also note that the combined TPC-E, TPC-B and Exchange databases, logs and associated files represented over 600GB of data, there was also the combined space and thus cache impact of the two system volumes and their data. This simple workload and configuration is representative of how SSD caching can complement high-capacity HDD’s

    Seagate 6TB 12Gbs SAS high-capacity HDD

    While the star and focus of these series of proof-points is the Seagate 1200 Enterprise 12Gbs SAS SSD, the caching software (virtunet) and Enterprise TurboBoost drives also play key supporting and favorable roles. However the 6TB 12Gbs SAS high-capacity drive caught my attention from a couple of different perspectives. Certainly the space capacity was interesting along with a 12Gbs SAS interface well suited for near-line, high-capacity and dense tiered storage environments. However for a high-capacity drive its performance is what really caught my attention both in the standard exchange, TPC-B and TPC-E workloads, as well as when combined with SSD and cache software.

    This opens the door for a great combination of leveraging some amount of high-performance flash-based SSD (or TurboBoost drives) combined with cache software and high-capacity drives such as the 6TB device (Seagate now has larger versions available). Something else to mention is that the 6TB HDD in addition to being available in either 12Gbs SAS, 6Gbs SAS or 6Gbs SATA also has enhanced durability with a Read Bit Error Rate of 10 ^15 (e.g. 1 second read error per 10^15 average attempts) and an AFR (annual failure rate) of 0.63% (See more speeds and feeds here). Hence if you are concerned about using large capacity HDD’s and them failing, make sure you go with those that have a high Read Bit Error Rate and a low AFR which are more common with enterprise class vs. lower cost commodity or workstation drives. Note that these high-capacity enterprise HDD’s are also available with Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) options.

    Summary

    Read more in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper compliments of Seagate 1200 12Gbs SAS SSD’s and visit the Seagate Enterprise 1200 12Gbs SAS SSD page here. Moving forward there is the notion that flash SSD will be everywhere. There is a difference between all data on flash SSD vs. having some amount of SSD involved in preserving, serving and protecting (storing) information.

    Key themes to keep in mind include:

    • Aggregation can cause aggravation which SSD can alleviate
    • A relative small amount of flash SSD in the right place can go a long way
    • Fast flash storage needs fast server storage I/O access hardware and software
    • Locality of reference with data close to applications is a performance enabler
    • Flash SSD everywhere does not mean everything has to be SSD based
    • Having some amount of flash in different places is important for flash everywhere
    • Different applications have various performance characteristics
    • SSD as a storage device or persistent cache can speed up IOPs and bandwidth

    Flash and SSD are in your future, this comes back to the questions of how much flash SSD do you need, along with where to put it, how to use it and when.

    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

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