EMC DSSD D5 Rack Scale Direct Attached Shared SSD All Flash Array Part I
This is the first post in a two-part series pertaining to the EMC DSSD D5 announcement, you can read part two here.
EMC announced today the general availability of their DSSD D5 Shared Direct Attached SSD (DAS) flash storage system (e.g. All Flash Array or AFA) which is a rack-scale solution. If you recall, EMC acquired DSSD back in 2014 which you can read more about here. EMC announced four configurations that include 36TB, 72TB and 144TB raw flash SSD capacity with support for up to 48 dual-ported host client servers.
Via EMC Pulse Blog
What Is DSSD D5
At a high level EMC DSSD D5 is a PCIe direct attached SSD flash storage solution to enable aggregation of disparate SSD card functionality typically found in separate servers into a shared system without causing aggravation. DSSD D5 helps to alleviate server side I/O bottlenecks or aggravation issues that can be the result of aggregation of workloads or data. Think of DSSD D5 as an shared application server storage I/O accelerator for up to 48 servers to access up to 144TB of raw flash SSD to support various applications that have the need for speed.
Applications that have the need for speed or that can benefit from less time waiting for results, where time is money, or boosting productivity can enable high profitability computing. This includes legacy as well as emerging applications and workloads spanning little data, big data and big fast structure and unstructured data. From Oracle to SAS to HBASE and Hadoop among others, perhaps even Alluxio.
Some examples include:
Clusters and scale-out grids
High Performance COMpute (HPC)
Parallel file systems
Forecasting and image processing
Fraud detection and prevention
Research and analytics
E-commerce and retail
Search and advertising
Legacy applications
Emerging applications
Structured database and key-value repositories
Unstructured file systems, HDFS and other data
Large undefined work sets
From batch stream to real-time
Reduces run times from days to hours
Where to learn more
Continue reading with the following links about NVMe, flash SSD and EMC DSSD.
Learn more about flash SSD here and NVMe here at thenvmeplace.com
What this all means
Today’s legacy, and emerging applications have the need for speed, and where the applications may not need speed, the users as well as Internet of Things (IoT) that depend upon, or feed those applications do need things to move faster. Fast applications need fast software and hardware to get the same amount of work done faster with less wait delays, as well as process larger amounts of structured and unstructured little data, big data and very fast big data.
Different applications along with the data infrastructures they rely upon including servers, storage, I/O hardware and software need to adapt to various environments, one size, one approach model does not fit all scenarios. What this means is that some applications and data infrastructures will benefit from shared direct attached SSD storage such as rack scale solutions using EMC DSSD D5. Meanwhile other applications will benefit from AFA or hybrid storage systems along with other approaches used in various ways.
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Software Defined Storage Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Algorithms + Data Structures
For those who are into, or simply like to talk about software defined storage (SDS), APIs, Windows, Virtual Hard Disks (VHD) or VHDX, or Hyper-V among other related themes, have you ever actually looked at the specification for VHDX? If not, here is the link to the open specification that Microsoft published (this one dates back to 2012).
Click on above image to download the VHDX specification from Microsoft.com
How about Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Niklaus Wirth, some of you might remember that from the past, if not, it’s a timeless piece of work that has many fundamental concepts for understanding software defined anything. I came across Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs back in Graduate School when I was getting my masters degree in Software Engineering at night, while working during the day in an IT environment on servers, storage, I/O networking hardware and software.
Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs on Amazon.com
In addition to the Amazon.com link above, here is a link to a free (legitimate PDF) copy.
The reason I mention Software Defined, Virtual Hard Disk and Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs is that they are all directly related, or at a minimum can help demystify things.
Inside a VHD and VHDX
The following is an excerpt from the Microsoft VHDX specification document mentioned above that shows a logical view of how a VHDX is defined as a data structure, as well as how algorithms should use and access them.
Keep in mind that anything software defined is a collection of data structures that describe how bits, bytes, blocks, blobs or other entities are organized and then accessed by algorithms that are defined how to use those data structures. Thus the connection to Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs mentioned above.
In the case of a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) or VHDX they are the data structures defined (see the specification here) and then used by various programs (applications or algorithms) such as Windows or other operating systems, hypervisors or utilities.
A VHDX (or VMDK or VVOL or qcow or other virtual disk for that matter) is a file whose contents are organized e.g. the data structures per a given specification (here).
The VHDX can then be moved around like another file and used for booting some operating systems, as well as simply mounting and using like any other disk or device.
This also means that you can nest putting a VHDX inside of a VHDX and so forth.
Where to learn more
Continue reading with the following links about Virtual Hard Disks pertaining to Microsoft Windows, Hyper-V, VMware among others.
Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs on Amazon.com
Applications and utilities or basically anything that is algorithms working with data structures is a program. Software Defined Storage or Software Defined anything involves defining data structures that describes various entities, along with the algorithms to work with and use those data structures.
Sharpen, refresh or expand your software defined data center, software defined network, software defined storage or software defined storage management as well as software defined marketing game by digging a bit deeper into the bits and bytes. Who knows, you might just go from talking the talk to walking the talk, if nothing else, talking the talk better..
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Is it just me, or did January disappear in a flash like data stored in non-persistent volatile DRAM memory when the power is turned off? It seems like just the other day that it was the first day of the new year and now we are about to welcome in February. Needless to say, like many of you I have been busy with various projects, many of which are behind the scenes, some of which will start appearing publicly sooner while others later.
In terms of what have I been working on, it includes the usual of performance, availability, capacity and economics (e.g. PACE) related to servers, storage, I/O networks, hardware, software, cloud, virtual and containers. This includes NVM as well as NVMe based SSD’s, HDD’s, cache and tiering technologies, as well as data protection among other things with Hyper-V, VMware as well as various cloud services.
Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.
Feature Topic – Microsoft Nano, Server 2016 TP4 and VMware
This months feature topic is virtual servers and software defined storage including those from VMware and Microsoft. Back in November I mentioned the 2016 Technical Preview 4 (e.g. TP4) along with Storage Spaces Direct and Nano. As a reminder you can download your free trial copy of Windows Server 2016 TP4 from this Microsoft site here.
Three good Microsoft Blog posts about storage spaces to check out include:
Storage Spaces Direct in Technical Preview 4 (here)
Hardware options for evaluating Storage Spaces Direct in Technical Preview 4 (here)
Storage Spaces Direct – Under the hood with the Software Storage Bus (here)
As for Microsoft Nano, for those not familiar, it’s not a new tablet or mobile device, instead, it is a very light weight streamlined version of the Windows Server 2016 server. How streamlined? Much more so then the earlier Windows Server versions that simply disabled the GUI and desktop interfaces. Nano is smaller from a memory and disk storage space perspective meaning it uses less RAM, boots faster, has fewer moving parts (e.g. software modules) to break (or need patching).
Specifically Nano removes 32 bit support and anything related to the desktop and GUI interfaces as well as removing the console interface. That’s right, no console or virtual console to log into, Wow is gone, access is via Powershell or Windows Management Interface tools from remote systems. How small is it? I have a Nano instance built on a VHDX that is under a GB in size, granted, its only for testing. The goal of Nano is to have a very light weight streamlined version of Windows Server that can run hundreds (or more) VMs in a small memory footprint, not to mention supports lots of containers. Nano is part of WIndows TP4, learn more about Nano here in this Microsoft post including how to get started using it.
Speaking of VMware, if you have not received an invite yet to their Digital Enterprise February 6, 2016 announcement event, click here to register.
Some new Products Technology Services Announcements (PTSA) include:
EMC announced Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) V2.2. A main theme of V2.2 is that besides being the 3rd generation of EMC object storage (dating back to Centera, then Atmos), is that ECS is also where the functionality of Centera, Atmos and other functionality converge. ECS provides object storage access along with HDFS (Hadoop and Hortonworks certified) and traditional NFS file access.
Object storage access includes Amazon S3, OpenStack Swift, ATMOS and CAS (Centera). In addition to the access, added Centera functionality for regulatory compliance has been folded into the ECS software stack. For example, ECS is now compatible with SEC 17 a-4(f) and CFTC 1.3(b)-(c) regulations protecting data from being overwritten or erased for a specified retention period. Other enhancements besides scalability, resiliency and ease of use include meta data and search capabilities. You can download and try ECS for non-production workloads with no capacity or functionality limitations from EMC here.
Recent Server StorageIO commentary and industry trends perspectives about news, activities tips, and announcements. In case you missed them from last month:
TheFibreChannel.com: Industry Analyst Interview: Greg Schulz, StorageIO
Various vendors (and service providers) you may not know or heard about recently.
Datrium – DVX and NetShelf server software defined flash storage and converged infrastructure
DataDynamics – StorageX is the software solution for enabling intelligent data migration, including from NetApp OnTap 7 to Clustered OnTap, as well as to and from EMC among other NAS file serving solutions.
Quick Look: What’s the Best Enterprise HDD for a Content Server?
Insight for Effective Server Storage I/O decision-making This StorageIO® Industry Trends Perspectives Solution Brief and Lab Review (compliments of Seagate and Servers Direct) looks at the Servers Direct (www.serversdirect.com) converged Content Solution platforms with Seagate (www.seagate.com) Enterprise Hard Disk Drive (HDDs).
I was given the opportunity to do some hands-on testing running different application workloads with a 2U content solution platform along with various Seagate Enterprise 2.5” HDDs handle different application workloads. This includes Seagate’s Enterprise Performance HDDs with the enhanced caching feature.
Read more in this Server StorageIO industry Trends Perspective white paper and lab review.
Looking for NVM including SSD information? Visit the Server StorageIO www.thessdplace.com and www.thenvmeplace.com micro sites. View other StorageIO lab review and test drive reports here.
The following are various recommended reading including books, blogs and videos. If you have not done so recently, also check out the Intel Recommended Reading List (here) where you will also find a couple of mine as well as books from others. For this months recommended reading, it’s a blog site. If you have not visited Duncan Eppings (@DuncanYB) Yellow-Bricks site, you should, particular if you are interested in virtualization, high availability and related topical themes.
Granted Duncan being a member of the VMware CTO office covers a lot of VMware related themes, however being the author of several books, he also covers non VMware related topics. Duncan recently did a really good and simple post about rebuilding a failed disk in a VMware VSAN vs. in a legacy RAID or erasure code based storage solution.
One of the things that struck me as being important with what Duncan wrote about is avoiding apples to oranges comparisons. What I mean by this is that it is easy to compare traditional parity based or mirror type solutions that chunk or shard data on KByte basis spread over disks, vs. data that is chunk or sharded on GByte (or larger) basis over multiple servers and their disks. Anyway, check out Duncan’s site and recent post by clicking here.
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Winter has arrived here in the northern hemisphere and it is also the last day of 2015 e.g. End Of Year or EOY). For some this means relaxing and having fun after a busy year, for others, it’s the last day of the most important quarter of the most important year ever, particular if you are involved in sales or spending.
This is also that time of year where predictions for 2016 will start streaming out as well as reflections looking back at 2015 appear (more on these in January). Another EOY activity is planning for 2016 as well as getting items ready for roll-out or launch in the new year. Overall 2015 has been a very good year with many things in the works both public facing, as well as several behind the scenes some of which will start to appear throughout 2016.
Enjoy this abbreviated edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, predictions, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.
Thank you for enabling a successful 2015 and wishing you all a prosperous new year in 2016.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Hello and welcome to this November 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter. Winter has arrived here in the northern hemisphere, although technically its still fall until the winter solstice in December. Regardless of if summer or winter depending on which hemisphere you are, 2015 is about to wrap up meaning end of year (EOY) activities.
EOY activities can mean final shopping or acquisitions for technology and services or simply for home and fun. This is also that time of year where predictions for 2016 will start streaming out as well as reflections looking back at 2015 appear (lets save those for December ;). Another EOY activity is planning for 2016 as well as getting items ready for roll-out or launch in the new year. Needless to say there is a lot going on so with that, enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.
Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:
Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs): EVO:RAIL Part II – Why And When To Use It? This is the second of a multi-part series looking at Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box (CiB) and other unified solution bundles. There is a trend of industry adoption talking about CI, HCI, CiB and other bundled solutions, along with growing IT customer adoption and deployment. Different sized organizations are looking at various types of CI solutions to meet various application and workloads needs. Read more here and part I here.
TheFibreChannel.com: Industry Analyst Interview: Greg Schulz, StorageIO In part one of a two part article series, Frank Berry, storage industry analyst and Founder of IT Brand Pulse and editor of TheFibreChannel.com, recently spoke with StorageIO Founder Greg Schulz about Fibre Channel SAN integration with OpenStack, why Rackspace is using Fibre Channel and more. Read more here
CloudComputingAdmin.com: Cloud Storage Decision Making – Using Microsoft Azure for cloud storage Let’s say that you have been tasked with, or decided that it is time to use (or try) public cloud storage such as Microsoft Azure. Ok, now what do you do and what decisions need to be made? Keep in mind that Microsoft Azure like many other popular public clouds provides many different services available for fee (subscription) along with free trials. These services include applications, compute, networking, storage along with development and management platform tools. Read more here.
Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here
The following are various recommended reading including books, blogs and videos. If you have not done so recently, also check out the Intel Recommended Reading List (here) where you will also find a couple of my books.
In case you had not heard, Microsoft recently released the bits (e.g. software download) for Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 (TP4). TP4 is the successor to Technical Preview 3 (TP3) that was released this past August and is the most recent public preview version of the next Windows Server. TP4 adds a new tiering capability where Windows and storage spaces can cache and migrate data between Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) including flash SSD. The new tiering feature supports a mixed HDD and NVM with flash SSD (including NVM Express or NVMe), as well as an all NVM scenario. Yes, that is correct, tiering with all NVM is not a type, instead enables using lower latency faster NVM along with lower cost higher capacity flash SSD. Learn more about what’s in TP4 from a server and storage I/O perspective in this Microsoft post, as well as more about S2D in this Microsoft Technet post here and here. You can get the Windows Server 2016 TP4 bits here which are already running in the Server StorageIO lab.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Recently I did a piece over at InfoStor titled "Water, Data and Storage Analogy". Besides being taken for granted and all of us being dependent on them, several other similarities exist between water, data, and storage. In addition to being a link that piece, this is a companion with some different images to help show the similarities between water, data and storage if for no other reason to have a few moments of fun. Read the entire piece here.
Water, Data and Storage Similarities
Water can get cold and freeze, data can also go cold becoming dormant and a candidate for archiving or cold cloud storage.
Like data and storage water can be frozen
Various types of storage drives (HDD & SSD)
Different types and tiers of frozen water storage containers
Data, like water, can move or be dormant, can be warm and active, or cold, frozen and inactive. Water, data and storage can also be used for work or fun.
Fishing on water vs. phishing for data on storage
Eagle fly fishing on water over st croix river
Data can be transformed into 3D images and video, water transformed into Snow can also be made into various virtual images or things.
Data on storage can be transformed like water (e.g. snow)
Data, like water, can exist in clouds, resulting in storms that if not properly prepared for, can cause problems.
Data and storage can be damaged including by water, water can also be damaged by putting things into it or the environment.
Water can destroy things, data and storage can be destroyed
There are data lakes, data pools, data ponds, oceans of storage and seas of data as well as data centers.
Rows of servers and storage in a data center
An indoor water lake (e.g. not an indoor data lake)
As water flows downstream it tends to increase in volume as tributaries or streams adding to the volume in lakes, reservoirs, rivers and streams. Another similarity is that water will tend to flow and seek its level filling up space, while data can involve a seek on an HDD in addition to filling up space.
Flood of water vs. flood of data (e.g. need for Data Protection)
There are also hybrid uses (or types) of water, just like hybrid technologies for supporting data infrastructures.
Hybrid Automobile on water
What this all means
We might take water, data and storage for granted, yet they each need to be managed, protected, preserved and served. Servers utilize storage to support applications for managing water; water is used for cooling and powering storage, not to mention for making coffee for those who take care of IT resources.
When you hear about data lakes, ponds or pools, keep in mind that there are also data streams, all of which need to be managed to prevent the flood of data from overwhelming you.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved
Hello and welcome to this October 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter. Fall has arrived here in the northern hemisphere which means its spring in the southern hemisphere, and getting colder here. While fall means cooler out-door temperature with winter just around the corner, in the IT/ITC industry, particular the data infrastructure sector (server, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, cloud, physical, software defined virtual) things are very hot. Sure the various industry and vendor focused conferences, road shows and mini-events with associated new product, technology or services announcements (PTSA. There are also the various merger and acquisitions (M&A) that have occurred throughout the year including the recent Dell buying EMC, and Western Digital (WD) buying SANdisk among others.
This edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter has a focus on industry trends perspectives including recent M&A and PTSA activity. In addition to industry fall industry M&A and PTSA activity, there also plenty of conference, seminars, workshops, webinars and other events some of which you can see here on the Server StorageIO events page.
On a slightly different note, for those interested and not aware of the European Union (EU) ruling earlier this month on data privacy (e.g. Safe Harbor), here and here are a couple of links to stories discussing the new ruling changes between the EU and US (among other countries). The EU data privacy rulings involve personal data being moved out of EU countries to US data centers such as cloud and application services firms.
Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.
HDD and SSD manufacturer WD buying SANdisk for $19B USD following their acquisition earlier this year of Amplidata (Object Storage) and earlier bought HDD and SSD manufacturer HGST along with SSD PCIe card vendor Virident and STEC among others.
IBM buys Cleversafe for cloud and object storage indicating the technology will be placed in its Softlayer cloud unit.
HP and SANdisk partner on ReRAM for Storage Class Memory aka NVM. Meanwhile HP exiting public cloud market (e.g. shutting down Helion). Keep in mind that HP will also be splitting into two companies in November one focused on PCs and printers (e.g. HP Inc.) and one on enterprise solutions (e.g. HP Enterprise).
Pure Storage (all flash array aka AFA SSD vendor) does an IPO (here and here).
Continue reading more about NVM, NVMe, NAND flash, SSD Server and storage I/O related topics at www.thessdplace.com as well as about I/O performance, monitoring and benchmarking tools at www.storageperformance.us.
Some new Products Technology Services Announcements (PTSA) include:
Amazon Web Service (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3) Infrequent Access (IA) storage class for inactive data with immediate access vs. Glacier cold or frozen (dormant) data with slow or time delayed access. AWS also announced Snowball bulk data import/export 50TB appliance service in addition to their earlier offered capabilities.
EMC Rexray (part of EMCcode) and Mesosphere (for Mesos data center operating system) have joined to enable persistent Docker volumes for Mesos (e.g. data center operating system platform).
Microsoft Azure recent enhancements include file access of cloud storage (on-premises and within Azure cloud) leveraging SMB interfaces. Here is a primer on Azure cloud storage service offerings. View other recent Azure Cloud Storage, Compute, Database and Data Analytics service offerings here. In addition to Microsoft Azure cloud offerings or Windows 10 desktop operating system, you can also download WIndows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 (TP3) and see what’s new here. Some of the features include Storage Spaces Direct (e.g. DAS storage) and replication among other features.
Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:
Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs): EVO:RAIL – What Is It And Why Does It Matter? This is the first of a multi-part series looking at Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box (CiB) and other unified solution bundles. There is a trend of industry adoption talking about CI, HCI, CiB and other bundled solutions, along with growing IT customer adoption and deployment. Different sized organizations are looking at various types of CI solutions to meet various application and workloads needs. Read more here.
WServerNews.com: Cloud (Microsoft Azure) storage considerations Let’s say that you have been tasked with, or decided that it is time to use (or try) public cloud storage such as Microsoft Azure. Ok, now what do you do and what decisions need to be made? Keep in mind that Microsoft Azure like many other popular public clouds provides many difference services available for fee (subscription) along with free trials. These services include applications, compute, networking, storage along with development and management platform tools. Read more here.
NetworkComputing: Selecting Storage: Buzzword Bingo The storage industry is rife with buzzwords. Here are some of the popular ones storage buyers need to navigate carefully to find storage products that truly meet their needs. Read more here.
InfoStor: What’s The Best Storage Benchmark? It Depends…
EnterpriseStorageForum: NAND, DRAM, SAS/SCSI & SATA/AHCI: Not Dead, Yet!
Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here
October 13 – Symposium: Software Defined Storage Management October 14 – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends October 15 – Symposium – Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) October 16 – “Converged Day” Server and Storage Decision making
September 23 – Webinar Redmond Magazine & Dell Data Protection The New World Order of Data Protection – Focus on Recovery Learn more about the 9Rs of data protection and recovery
Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Express (NVMe) continues to evolve as a technology for enabling and improving server storage I/O for NVM including nand flash SSD storage. NVMe streamlines performance enabling more work to be done (e.g. IOPs), data to be moved (bandwidth) at a lower response time using less CPU. The above figure is a quick look comparing nand flash SSD being accessed via SATA III (6Gbps) on the left and NVMe (x4) on the right. As with any server storage I/O performance comparisons there are many variables and take them with a grain of salt. While IOPs and bandwidth are often discussed, keep in mind that with the new protocol, drivers and device controllers with NVMe that streamline I/O less CPU is needed. Learn more about NVM, NVMe, flash, SSD and related topics at www.thessdplace.com.
The following are various recommended reading including books, blogs and videos. If you have not done so recently, also check out the Intel Recommended Reading List (here) where you will also find a couple of my books.
The Human Face of Big Data book review. To say this is a big book would be an understatement, then again, big data is a big topic with a lot of diversity if you open your eyes and think in a pragmatic way, which once you open and see the pages you will see. This is physically a big book (11x 14 inches) with lots of pictures, texts, stories, factoids and thought stimulating information of the many facets and dimensions of big data across 224 pages. The Human Face of Big Data is more than a coffee table or picture book as it is full of with information, factoids and perspectives how information and data surround us every day. Open up a copy of The Human Face of Big Data and you will see examples of how data and information are all around us, and our dependence upon it. Read more here.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Dude, Dell is Getting (Buying) an EMC and VMware Deal
Some of you might remember the marketing campaign "Dude you’re getting a Dell" to show somebody buying a Dell computer.
Today, Dell as in Michael Dell and his corporation Dell along with partner Silver Lake investment announced a $67B USD deal that they are acquiring EMC along with their stake in VMware which will stay an independently public traded company. Dell brings strength in small and medium-mid market strength and supplier to cloud and other managed service providers, Dell financing combines with EMC strength and enterprise portfolio. This deal also reunites the two parties who before had a strong storage joint venture with Dell OEMing EMC storage for about a decade before going their separate ways in the late 2000s.
Key points
Privately held Dell is acquiring EMC and its various business units
VMware will stay independent public company with Dell as major owner
EMC based in Hopkinton Massachusetts will be headquarters for new Dell Systems Business Unit
Dell Systems Business Unit will also be headquarters for Dell servers
New Dell Systems Business Unit joint with EMC is expected to be a $30B USD plus sized entity
Dell see’s revenue synergies of about 3x over 1x cost of the combined entities
Dell see’s ability to generate cash to service debt coming from increased revenue growth
EMC global support, professional services, consulting to complement Dell capabilities
Ability for both partners to leverage their best of strengths from SMB to enterprise to cloud
What this means big picture
Basically EMC has gone private under the Dell umbrella while VMware remains an independent publicly traded company, granted with EMC and now Dell being the primary shareholder of that entity. Dell went private back in 2013 with its founder Michael Dell along with Silver Lake Partners as key investors. EMC has been under pressure from activist investors to sell off its investment in VMware to increase shareholder and was rumored to have been in acquisition discussions with other organizations such as HP. Now EMC (e.g. the non-VMware part) is effectively a private held company as the Dell Systems Business Unit to be initially headquartered in Hopkinton Massachusetts (EMC Headquarters) while Dell Corporation headquarters will remain in Austin Texas.
The server business will be based in Hopkinton, which will be targeted at around a $30B USD business. Ironic that Massachusetts used to be a focus for server vendors from Dell (acquired by Compaq and then HP), Wang, DG (acquired by EMC) among others. This transaction puts Massachusetts back on the map as the Dell System Business Unit will also now be home to Dell servers. As of the announcement, there is an expectation that the Hopkinton headquarters will grow vs. shrink. Granted., some consolidation can be expected.
Some questions that exist (among many others)
What about Pivotal?
One of the questions I have is that during the announcement discussions, not much if anything has been said about Pivotal and its future role or how it will be folded in, or set up as a tracking stock or similar activity. Also something to keep in mind as food for thought, or speculation, is that GE is an investor in Pivotal and GE has made noise about becoming more prominent player in software, just saying. In the meantime, let’s wait and see what happens with Pivotal.
What about Lenovo relationship?
After the last Dell breakup, EMC established a partnership and initiative with Lenovo to jointly produce servers that had been being sourced from Dell or others, as well as EMC moving its Iomega SMB storage business into the Lenovo initiative. Note that about a year ago Lenovo bought the former IBM x86 server business. What will become of that partnership for servers, as well as for Iomega moving forward?
How will product rationalization occur?
There is some product overlap in the storage business, as well as backup/data protection among some other areas. However looking at the bigger picture, there is not much if any overlap. Where there is overlap, one near-term approach that might (this is speculation) occur is to segment potential competing products into Enterprise and Systems business vs. SMB or entry-level. This could occur for storage products such as Dell Compellent, Exanet based Fluid NAS, EqualLogic and MD (OEM from NetApp) vs. those from EMC such as VMAX, VNX, Isilon, XtremIO, Datadomain among others. Likewise, there will need to be some rationalization for backup and data protection products such as EMC Networker, Avamar vs. Dell AppAssure, vRanger, NetVault as well as their OEM partners Commvault and Symantec among others.
VCE gets leveraged as part of go to market?
EMC took over ownership of VCE in 2014 with Cisco still involved, in fact if a product has Vblock in its name, it will be a Cisco server and network. However look for other VCE solutions to appear as well as the VxRACK announced earlier this year. I would expect new converge infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) and Cluster-in-Box (CiB) solutions from VCE that would include Dell servers in the future leveraging different software (VMware among others).
How will Dell OEM business drive things?
Dell has had a server OEM business that has supplied technology to others, including in the past EMC. This business moves in under the new System Business Unit as part of what is or was EMC. Beyond servers, it will be interesting to see how that business unit can also move other technologies into the OEM or high volume market including to cloud and managed service providers who buy in bulk.
Will this cause Cisco an EMC partner to buy another storage vendor?
Maybe, that depends on what Cisco wants to do moving forward in addition to remaining a partner with EMC. Of course, if Cisco were to go storage shopping, who would that be? Perhaps DDN, Nimble or NetApp?
With Michael Dell now having done one of, if not the largest tech deals in history, how will Larry Ellison of Oracle react?
It has been said that the difference between God and Larry Ellison is that God was not interested in becoming Larry Ellison, however, is Larry Ellison still interested in industry bragging rights meaning will he want to do a big block buster deal involving Oracle to get some headlines, or enjoy his semi-retirement, perhaps buying a bankrupt country or something?
Certainly there are many more questions about server, storage, I/O networking, cloud, virtual, software, hardware, security and management tools along with service and support that will get addressed in follow-up discussions.
Near term, the combined entity needs to get out front and sell to customers, partners and prospects that EMC is not going away, or that Dell is going to get in the way of existing business. The two need to run as is pursuing and closing each others respective business making sure that competitors do not create barriers to deals closing and disrupting revenue. In other words, neither Dell nor EMC can afford to foster a revenue prevention department now, nor can either afford to allow any other competitor to become a revenue prevention department as a service (e.g. costing either EMC or Dell revenue).
Overall this deal has some interesting upside synergies and potential, granted, we will need to see how things unfold.
Disclosure: Dell and EMC have been Server StorageIO clients, and StorageIO uses Dell as well as Lenovo servers among others technologies including VMware.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved
Hello and welcome to this September 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter. Summer has wrapped up here in the northern hemisphere which means the fall conference season has started. In addition to large conferences, there are also many smaller events including the sessions I will be doing in Nijkerk Holland week of October 13-16, along with others (in-person and on-line) throughout the fall.
Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.
Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:
NetworkComputing: Selecting Storage: It’s All About The Applications Choosing the right storage for your applications depends on using the PACE model, evaluating Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (e.g. PACE). Often when I discuss mainstream applications with people, the perception is that bandwidth only applies to big data and analytics, video, and high-performance compute (HPC) or supercomputing applications such as those used in the seismic, geo, energy, video security surveillance, or entertainment industries. The reality is that those applications can be bandwidth or throughput intensive, but they can also need a large number of small I/Os that need many IOPs to handle metadata related processing. Even bulk storage repositories for archiving, solutions using scale-out NAS, and object storage have a mix of IOPs and bandwidth. Read more here.
EnterpriseStorageForum: NAND, DRAM, SAS/SCSI and SATA/AHCI: Not Dead, Yet
Manufacturers are coming out with new non-volatile memory (NVM) media like3D XPoint. Does that mean that DRAM and other NVM media such as NAND flash are now dead?
Do new NVM storage access protocols such as NVM Express (NVMe) mean SCSI/SAS and AHCI/SATA are now dead?
My simple answer is no, they all have bright futures. Read more here.
Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here
October 13 – Symposium: Software Defined Storage Management October 14 – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends October 15 – Symposium – Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) October 16 – “Converged Day” Server and Storage Decision making
September 23 – Webinar Redmond Magazine & Dell Data Protection The New World Order of Data Protection – Focus on Recovery Learn more about the 9Rs of data protection and recovery
The following are various recommended reading including books, blogs and videos. If you have not done so recently, also check out the Intel Recommended Reading List (here) where you will also find a couple of my books.
Seven Databases in Seven Weeks (A Guide to Modern Databases and the NoSQL Movement) is a book written Eric Redmond (@coderoshi) and Jim Wilson (@hexlib), that takes a look at several non SQL based database systems. Coverage includes PostgreSQL, Riak, Apache HBase, MongoDB, Apache CouchDB, Neo4J and Redis with plenty of code and architecture examples. Also covered include relational vs. key value, columnar and document based systems among others. Read more here.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Supermicro CSE-M14TQC Use your media bay to add 12 Gbps SAS SSD drives to your server
Do you have a computer server, workstation or mini-tower PC that needs to have more 2.5" form factor hard disk drive (HDD), solid state device (SSD) or hybrid flash drives added yet no expansion space?
Do you also want or need the HDD or SSD drive expansion slots to be hot swappable, 6 Gbps SATA3 along with up to 12 Gbps SAS devices?
Do you have an available 5.25" media bay slot (e.g. where you can add an optional CD or DVD drive) or can you remove your existing CD or DVD drive using USB for software loading?
Do you need to carry out the above without swapping out your existing server or workstation on a reasonable budget, say around $100 USD plus tax, handling, shipping (your prices may vary)?
If you need implement the above, then here is a possible solution, or in my case, an real solution.
Supermicro CSE-M14TQC with hot swap canister before installing in one of my servers
In the past I have used a solution from Startech that supports up to 4 x 2.5" 6 Gbps SAS and SATA drives in a 5.25" media bay form factor installing these in my various HP, Dell and Lenovo servers to increase internal storage bays (slots).
Via Amazon.com StarTech 4 x 2.5" SAS and SATA internal enclosure
I still use the StarTech device shown (read earlier reviews and experiences here, here and here) above in some of my servers which continue to be great for 6Gbps SAS and SATA 2.5" HDDs and SSDs. However for 12 Gbps SAS devices, I have used other approaches including external 12 Gbps SAS enclosures.
Recently while talking with the folks over at Servers Direct, I mentioned how I was using StarTech 4 x 2.5" 6Gbps SAS/SATA media bay enclosure as a means of boosting the number of internal drives that could be put into some smaller servers. The Servers Direct folks told me about the Supermicro CSE-M14TQC which after doing some research, I decided to buy one to complement the StarTech 6Gbps enclosures, as well as external 12 Gbps SAS enclosures or other internal options.
What is the Supermicro CSE-M14TQC?
The CSE-M14TQC is a 5.25" form factor enclosure that enables four (4) 2.5" hot swappable (if your adapter and OS supports hot swap) 12 Gbps SAS or 6 Gbps SATA devices (HDD and SSD) to fit into the media bay slot normally used by CD/DVD devices in servers or workstations. There is a single Molex male power connector on the rear of the enclosure that can be used to attach to your servers available power using applicable connector adapters. In addition there are four seperate drive connectors (e.g. SATA type connectors) that support up to 12 Gbps SAS per drive which you can attach to your servers motherboard (note SAS devices need a SAS controller), HBA or RAID adapters internal ports.
Cooling is provided via a rear mounted 12,500 RPM 16 cubic feet per minute fan, each of the four drives are hot swappable (requires operating system or hypervisor support) contained in a small canister (provided with the enclosure). Drives easily mount to the canister via screws that are also supplied as part of the enclosure kit. There is also a drive activity and failure notification LED for the devices. If you do not have any available SAS or SATA ports on your servers motherboard, you can use an available PCIe slot and add a HBA or RAID card for attaching the CSE-M14TQC to the drives. For example, a 12 Gbps SAS (6 Gbps SATA) Avago/LSI RAID card, or a 6 Gbps SAS/SATA RAID card.
Via Supermicro CSE-M14TQC rear details (4 x SATA and 1 Molex power connector)
CSE-M14TQCrear view before installation
CSE-M14TQC ready for installation with 4 x SATA (12 Gbps SAS) drive connectors and Molex power connector
Tip: In the case of the Lenovo TS140 that I initially installed the CSE-M14TQC into, there is not a lot of space for installing the drive connectors or Molex power connector to the enclosure. Instead, attach the cables to the CSE-M14TQC as shown above before installing the enclosure into the media bay slot. Simply attach the connectors as shown and feed them through the media bay opening as you install the CSE-M14TQC enclosure. Then attach the drive connectors to your HBA, RAID card or server motherboard and the power connector to your power source inside the server.
Note and disclaimer, pay attention to your server manufactures power loading and specification along with how much power will be used by the HDD or SSD’s to be installed to avoid electrical power or fire issues due to overloading!
CSE-M14TQC installed into Lenovo TS140 empty media bay
CSE-M14TQC installed with front face plated installed on Lenovo TS140
If you have a server that simply needs some extra storage capacity by adding some 2.5" HDDs, or boosting performance with fast SSDs yet do not have any more internal drive slots or expansion bays, leverage your media bay. This applies to smaller environments where you might have one or two servers, as well as for environments where you want or need to create a scale out software defined storage or hyper-converged platform using your own hardware. Another option is that if you have a lab or test environment for VMware vSphere ESXi Windows, Linux, Openstack or other things, this can be a cost-effective approach to adding both storage space capacity as well as performance and leveraging newer 12Gbps SAS technologies.
For example, create a VMware VSAN cluster using smaller servers such as Lenovo TS140 or equivalent where you can install a couple of 6TB or 8TB higher capacity 3.5" drive in the internal drive bays, then adding a couple of 12 Gbps SAS SSDs along with a couple of 2.5" 2TB (or larger) HDDs along with a RAID card, and high-speed networking card. If VMware VSAN is not your thing, how about setting up a Windows Server 2012 R2 failover cluster including Scale Out File Server (SOFS) with Hyper-V, or perhaps OpenStack or one of many other virtual storage appliances (VSA) or software defined storage, networking or other solutions. Perhaps you need to deploy more storage for a big data Hadoop based analytics system, or cloud or object storage solution? On the other hand, if you simply need to add some storage to your storage or media or gaming server or general purpose server, the CSE-M14TQC can be an option along with other external solutions.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Intel Micron 3D XPoint server storage NVM SCM PM SSD.
This is the second of a three-part series on the recent Intel and Micron 3D XPoint server storage memory announcement. Read Part I here and Part III here.
Is this 3D XPoint marketing, manufacturing or material technology?
You can’t have a successful manufactured material technology without some marketing, likewise marketing without some manufactured material would be manufactured marketing. In the case of 3D XPoint and its announcement launch, their real technology shown, granted it was only wafer and dies as opposed to an actual DDR4 DIMM or PCIe Add In Card (AIC) or drive form factor Solid State Device (SSD) product. On the other hand, on a relative comparison basis, even though there is marketing collateral available to learn more from, this was far from a over the big-top made for TV or web circus event, which can be a good thing.
Wafer unveiled containing 3D XPoint 128 Gb dies
Who will get access to 3D XPoint?
Initially 3D XPoint production capacity supply will be for the two companies to offer early samples to their customers later this year with general production slated for 2016 meaning early real customer deployed products starting sometime in 2016.
Is it NAND or NOT?
3D XPoint is not NAND flash, it is also not NVRAM or DRAM, it’s a new class of NVM that can be used for server class main memory with persistency, or as persistent data storage among other uses (cell phones, automobiles, appliances and other electronics). In addition, 3D XPoint is more durable with a longer useful life for writing and storing data vs. NAND flash.
Why is 3D XPoint important?
As mentioned during the Intel and Micron announcement, there have only been seven major memory technologies introduced since the transistor back in 1947, granted there have been many variations along with generational enhancements of those. Thus 3D XPoint is being positioned by Intel and Micron as the eighth memory class joining its predecessors many of which continue to be used today in various roles.
Major memory classes or categories timeline
In addition to the above memory classes or categories timeline, the following shows in more detail various memory categories (click on the image below to get access to the Intel interactive infographic).
Initially the 3D XPoint technology is available in a 2 layer 128 bit (cell) per die capacity. Keep in mind that there are usually 8 bits to a byte resulting in 16 GByte capacity per chip initially. With density improvements, as well as increased stacking of layers, the number of cells or bits per die (e.g. what makes up a chip) should improve, as well as most implementations will have multiple chips in some type of configuration.
What will 3D XPoint cost?
During the 3D XPoint launch webinar Intel and Micron hinted that first pricing will be between current DRAM and NAND flash on a per cell or bit basis, however real pricing and costs will vary depending on how packaged for use. For example if placed on a DDR4 or different type of DIMM or on a PCIe Add In Card (AIC) or as a drive form factor SSD among other options will vary the real price. Likewise as with other memories and storage mediums, as production yields and volumes increase, along with denser designs, the cost per usable cell or bit can be expected to further improve.
Where to read, watch and learn more
Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) ( Part I)
Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
Intel and Micron ( Media Room, links, videos, images and more including B roll videos)
DRAM which has been around for sometime has plenty of life left for many applications as does NAND flash including new 3D NAND, vNAND and other variations. For the next several years, there will be a co-existences between new and old NVM and DRAM among other memory technologies including 3D XPoint. Read more in this series including Part I here and Part III here.
Disclosure: Micron and Intel have been direct and/or indirect clients in the past via third-parties and partners, also I have bought and use some of their technologies direct and/or in-direct via their partners.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
Part III – 3D XPoint server storage class memory SCM
Updated 1/31/2018
3D XPoint nvm pm scm storage class memory.
This is the third of a three-part series on the recent Intel and Micron 3D XPoint server storage memory announcement. Read Part I here and Part II here.
What is 3D XPoint and how does it work?
3D XPoint is a new class or class of memory (view other categories of memory here) that provides performance for reads and writes closer to that of DRAM with about 10x the capacity density. In addition to the speed closer to DRAM vs. the lower NAND flash, 3D XPoint is also non-volatile memory (NVM) like NAND flash, NVRAM and others. What this means is that 3D XPoint can be used as persistent higher density fast server memory (or main memory for other computers and electronics). Besides being fast persistent main memory, 3D XPoint will also be a faster medium for solid state devices (SSD’s) including PCIe Add In Cards (AIC), m2 cards and drive form factor 8637/8639 NVM Express (NVMe) accessed devices that also has better endurance or life span compared to NAND flash.
3D XPoint architecture and attributes
The initial die or basic chip building block 3D XPoint implementation is a layer 128 Gbit device which if using 8 bits would yield 16GB raw. Over time increased densities should become available as the bit density improves with more cells and further scaling of the technology, combined with packaging. For example while a current die could hold up to 16 GBytes of data, multiple dies could be packaged together to create a 32GB, 64GB, 128GB etc. or larger actual product. Think about not only where packaged flash based SSD capacities are today, also think in terms of where DDR3 and DDR4 DIMM are at such as 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB densities.
The 3D aspect comes from the memory being in a matrix initially being two layers high, with multiple rows and columns that intersect, where those intersections occur is a microscopic material based switch for accessing a particular memory cell. Unlike NAND flash where an individual cell or bit is accessed as part of a larger block or page comprising several thousand bytes at once, 3D XPoint cells or bits can be individually accessed to speed up reads and writes in a more granular fashion. It is this more granular access along with performance that will enable 3D XPoint to be used in lower latency scenarios where DRAM would normally be used.
Instead of trapping electrons in a cell to create a bit of capacity (e.g. on or off) like NAND flash, 3D XPoint leverages the underlying physical material propertied to store a bit as a phase change enabling use of all cells. In other words, instead of being electron based, it is material based. While Intel and Micron did not specify what the actual chemistry and physical materials that are used in 3D XPoint, they did discuss some of the characteristics. If you want to go deep, check out how the Dailytech makes an interesting educated speculation or thesis on the underlying technology.
Watch the following video to get a better idea and visually see how 3D XPoint works.
Left many dies on a wafer, right, a closer look at the dies cut from the wafer
Dies (here and here) are the basic building block of what goes into the chips that in turn are the components used for creating DDR DIMM for main computer memory, as well as for create SD and MicroSD cards, USB thumb drives, PCIe AIC and drive form factor SSD, as well as custom modules on motherboards, or consumption via bare die and wafer level consumption (e.g. where you are doing really custom things at volume, beyond using a soldering iron scale).
Has Intel and Micron cornered the NVM and memory market?
We have heard proclamations, speculation and statements of the demise of DRAM, NAND flash and other volatile and NVM memories for years, if not decades now. Each year there is the usual this will be the year of “x” where “x” can include among others. Resistive RAM aka ReRAM or RRAM aka the memristor that HP earlier announced they were going to bring to market and then earlier this year canceling those plans while Crossbar continues to pursue RRAM. MRAM or Magnetorestive RAM, Phase Change Memory aka CRAM or PCM and PRAM, FRAM aka FeRAM or Ferroelectric RAM among others.
Expanding persistent memory and SSD storage markets
Keep in mind that there are many steps taking time measured in years or decades to go from research and development lab idea to prototype that can then be produced at production volumes in economic yields. As a reference for, there is still plenty of life in both DRAM as well as NAND flash, the later having appeared around 1989.
Technology industry adoption precedes customer adoption and deployment
There is a difference between industry adoption and deployment vs. customer adoption and deployment, they are related, yet separated by time as shown in the above figure. What this means is that there can be several years from the time a new technology is initially introduced and when it becomes generally available. Keep in mind that NAND flash has yet to reach its full market potential despite having made significant inroads the past few years since it was introduced in 1989.
This begs the question of if 3D XPoint is a variation of phase change, RRAM, MRAM or something else. Over at the Dailytech they lay out a line of thinking (or educated speculation) that 3D XPoint is some derivative or variation of phase change, time will tell about what it really is.
What’s the difference between 3D NAND flash and 3D XPoint?
3D NAND is a form of NAND flash NVM, while 3D XPoint is a completely new and different type of NVM (e.g. its not NAND).
3D NAND is a variation of traditional flash with the difference between vertical stacking vs. horizontal to improve density, also known as vertical NAND or V-NAND. Vertical stacking is like building up to house more tenants or occupants in a dense environment or scaling up, vs scaling-out by using up more space where density is not an issue. Note that magnetic HDD’s shifted to perpendicular (e.g. vertical) recording about ten years ago to break through the super parametric barrier and more recently, magnetic tape has also adopted perpendicular recording. Also keep in mind that 3D XPoint and the earlier announced Intel and Micron 3D NAND flash are two separate classes of memory that both just happen to have 3D in their marketing names.
Where to read, watch and learn more
Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) for servers and storage ( Part I)
Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
Intel and Micron ( Media Room, links, videos, images and more including B roll videos)
First, keep in mind that this is very early in the 3D XPoint technology evolution life-cycle and both DRAM and NAND flash will not be dead at least near term. Keep in mind that NAND flash appeared back in 1989 and only over the past several years has finally hit its mainstream adoption stride with plenty of market upside left. Same with DRAM which has been around for sometime, it too still has plenty of life left for many applications. However other applications that have the need for improved speed over NAND flash, or persistency and density vs. DRAM will be some of the first to leverage new NVM technologies such as 3D XPoint. Thus at least for the next several years, there will be a co-existences between new and old NVM and DRAM among other memory technologies. Bottom line, 3D XPoint is a new class of NVM memory, can be used for persistent main server memory or for persistent fast storage memory. If you have not done so, check out Part I here and Part II here of this three-part series on Intel and Micron 3D XPoint.
Disclosure: Micron and Intel have been direct and/or indirect clients in the past via third-parties and partners, also I have bought and use some of their technologies direct and/or in-direct via their partners.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
3D XPoint NVM persistent memory PM storage class memory SCM
Updated 1/31/2018
This is the first of a three-part series on Intel Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatie Memory NVM for servers storage announcement. Read Part II here and Part III here.
In a webcast the other day, Intel and Micron announced new 3D XPoint non-volatile memory (NVM) that can be used for both primary main memory (e.g. what’s in computers, serves, laptops, tablets and many other things) in place of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), for persistent storage faster than today’s NAND flash-based solid state devices (SSD), not to mention future hybrid usage scenarios. Note that this announcement while having the common term 3D in it is different from the earlier Intel and Micron announcement about 3D NAND flash (read more about that here).
Data needs to be close to processing, processing needs to be close to the data (locality of reference)
Server Storage I/O memory hardware and software hierarchy along with technology tiers
What did Intel and Micron announce?
Intel SVP and General Manager Non-Volatile Memory solutions group Robert Crooke (Left) and Micron CEO D. Mark Durcan did the joint announcement presentation of 3D XPoint (webinar here). What was announced is the 3D XPoint technology jointly developed and manufactured by Intel and Micron which is a new form or category of NVM that can be used for both primary memory in servers, laptops, other computers among other uses, as well as for persistent data storage.
Robert Crooke (Left) and Mark Durcan (Right)
Summary of 3D XPoint announcement
New category of NVM memory for servers and storage
Joint development and manufacturing by Intel and Micron in Utah
Non volatile so can be used for storage or persistent server main memory
Allows NVM to scale with data, storage and processors performance
Leverages capabilities of both Intel and Micron who have collaborated in the past
Performance Intel and Micron claim up to 1000x faster vs. NAND flash
Availability persistent NVM compared to DRAM with better durability (life span) vs. NAND flash
Capacity densities about 10x better vs. traditional DRAM
Economics cost per bit between dram and nand (depending on packaging of resulting products)
What applications and products is 3D XPoint suited for?
In general, 3D XPoint should be able to be used for many of the same applications and associated products that current DRAM and NAND flash-based storage memories are used for. These range from IT and cloud or managed service provider data centers based applications and services, as well as consumer focused among many others.
3D XPoint enabling various applications
In general, applications or usage scenarios along with supporting products that can benefit from 3D XPoint include among others’. Applications that need larger amounts of main memory in a denser footprint such as in-memory databases, little and big data analytics, gaming, wave form analysis for security, copyright or other detection analysis, life sciences, high performance compute and high-productivity compute, energy, video and content severing among many others.
In addition, applications that need persistent main memory for resiliency, or to cut delays and impacts for planned or un-planned maintenance or having to wait for memories and caches to be warmed or re-populated after a server boot (or re-boot). 3D XPoint will also be useful for those applications that need faster read and write performance compared to current generations NAND flash for data storage. This means both existing and emerging applications as well as some that do not yet exist will benefit from 3D XPoint over time, like how today’s applications and others have benefited from DRAM used in Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) and NAND flash advances over the past several decades.
Where to read, watch and learn more
Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) ( Part I)
Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
Intel and Micron (Media Room, links, videos, images and more including B roll videos)
First, keep in mind that this is very early in the 3D XPoint technology evolution life-cycle and both DRAM and NAND flash will not be dead at least near term. Keep in mind that NAND flash appeared back in 1989 and only over the past several years has finally hit its mainstream adoption stride with plenty of market upside left. Continue reading Part II here and Part III here of this three-part series on Intel and Micron 3D XPoint along with more analysis and commentary.
Disclosure: Micron and Intel have been direct and/or indirect clients in the past via third-parties and partners, also I have bought and use some of their technologies direct and/or in-direct via their partners.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
EMCworld 2015 How Do You Want Your Storage Wrapped?
Back in early May I was invited by EMC to attend EMCworld 2015 which included both the public sessions, as well as several NDA based discussions. Keep in mind that there is the known, there is the unknown (or assumed or speculated) and in between there are NDA’s, nuff said on that. EMC covered my hotel and registration costs to attend the event in Las Vegas (thanks EMC, that’s a disclosure btw ;) and here is a synopsis of various EMCworld 2015 announcements.
What EMC announced
VMAX3 enhancements to the EMC enterprise flagship storage platform to keep it relevant for traditional legacy workloads as well as for in a converged, scale-out, cloud, virtual and software defined environment.
VNX 3200 entry-level All Flash Array (AFA) flash SSD system starting at $25,000 USD for a 3TB unified platform with full data services found in other VNX products.
vVNX aka Virtual VNX aka "project liberty" which is a community (e.g. free) software version of the VNX. vVNX is a Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) that you download and run on a VMware platform. Learn more and download here. Note the install will do a CPU type check so forget about trying to run it on a Intel Nuc or similar, I tried just because I could, the install will protect you from doing such things.
Various data protection related items including new Datadomain platforms as well as software updates and integration with other EMC platforms (storage systems).
All Flash Array (AFA) XtremIO 4.0 enhancements including larger clusters, larger nodes to boost performance, capacity and availability, along with copy service updates among others improvements.
Preview of DSSD shared (inside a rack) external flash Solid State Device (SSD) including more details. While much of DSSD is still under NDA, EMC did provide more public details at EMCworld. Between what was displayed and announced publicly at EMCworld as well as what can be found via Google (or other searches) you can piece together more of the DSSD story. What is known publicly today is that DSSD leverages the new Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) access protocol built upon underlying PCIe technology. More on DSSD in future discussions,if you have not done so, get an NDA deep dive briefing on it from EMC.
ScaleIO is now available via a free download here including both Windows and Linux clients as well as instructions for those operating systems as well as VMware.
ViPR can also be downloaded here for free (has been previously available) from here as well as it has been placed into open source by EMC.
What EMC announced since EMCworld 2015
Acquisition of cloud services (and software tools) vendor Virtustream for $1.2B adding to the federation cloud services portfolio (companion to VMware vCloud Air).
Release of ECS 2.0 including a free download here. This new version of ECS (Elastic Cloud Storage) can be used independent of the ViPR controller, or in conjunction with ViPR. In addition ECS now has about 80% of the functionality of the Centera object storage platform. The remaining 20% functionality (mainly regulatory compliance governance) of Centera will be added to ECS in the future providing a migration path for Centera customers. In case you are wondering what does EMC do with Centera, Atmos, ViPR and now ECS, answer is that ECS can work with or without ViPR, second is that the functionality of Centera, Atmos are being rolled into ECS. ECS as a refresher is software that transforms general purpose industry standard servers with direct storage into a scale-out HDFS and object storage solution.
Check out EMCcode including S3motion that I use and have reviewed here. Also check out EMCcode Rex-Ray which if you are into docker containers, it should be of interest, I know I’m interested in it.
What this all means and wrap-up
There were no single major explosive announcements however the sum of all the announcements together should not be over shadowed by the big tent made for TV (or web) big tent productions and entertainment. What EMC announced was effectively how would you like, how do you want and need your storage and associated data services along with management wrapped.
By being wrapped, do you want your software defined storage management and storage wrapped in a legacy turnkey solution such as VMAX3, VNX or Isilon, do you want or need it to be hybrid or all flash, converged and unified, block, file or object.
Or do you need or want the software defined storage management and storage to be "shrink wrapped" as a download so you can deploy on your own hardware "tin wrapped" or as a VSA "virtual wrapped" or cloud wrapped? Do you need or want the software defined storage management and storage to leverage anybody’s hardware while being open source?
How do you need or want your storage to be wrapped to fit your specific needs, that IMHO was the essence of what EMC announced at EMCworld 2015, granted the motorcycles and other production entertainment was engaging as well as educational.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
