Tag: NVM

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Different NVMe Configurations

server storage I/O trends
Updated 1/12/2018

This is the second in a five-part mini-series providing a primer and overview of NVMe. View companion posts and more material at www.thenvmeplace.com.

The many different faces or facets of NVMe configurations

NVMe can be deployed and used in many ways, the following are some examples to show you its flexibility today as well as where it may be headed in the future. An initial deployment scenario is NVMe devices (e.g. PCIe cards, M2 or 8639 drives) installed as storage in servers or as back-end storage in storage systems. Figure 2 below shows a networked storage system or appliance that uses traditional server storage I/O interfaces and protocols for front-end access, however with back-end storage being all NVMe, or a hybrid of NVMe, SAS and SATA devices.
NVMe as back-end server storage I/O interface to NVM
Figure 2 NVMe as back-end server storage I/O interface to NVM storage

A variation of the above is using NVMe for shared direct attached storage (DAS) such as the EMC DSSD D5. In the following scenario (figure 3), multiple servers in a rack or cabinet configuration have an extended PCIe connection that attached to a shared storage all flash array using NVMe on the front-end. Read more about this approach and EMC DSSD D5 here or click on the image below.

EMC DSSD D5 NVMe
Figure 3 Shared DAS All Flash NVM Storage using NVMe (e.g. EMC DSSD D5)

Next up in figure 4 is a variation of the previous example, except NVMe is implemented over an RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) based fabric network using Converged 10GbE/40GbE or InfiniBand in what is known as RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet pronounced Rocky).

NVMe over Fabric RoCE
Figure 4 NVMe as a “front-end” interface for servers or storage systems/appliances

Where To Learn More

View additional NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and 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

Watch for more topology and configuration options as NVMe along with associated hardware, software and I/O networking tools and technologies emerge over time.

Continue reading about NVMe with Part III (Need for Performance Speed) in this five-part series, or jump to Part I, Part IV or Part V.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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NVMe overview primer

server storage I/O trends
Updated 2/2/2018

This is the first in a five-part mini-series providing a primer and overview of NVMe. View companion posts and more material at www.thenvmeplace.com.

What is NVM Express (NVMe)

Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) includes persistent memory such as NAND flash and other forms Solid State Devices (SSD). NVM express (NVMe) is a new server storage I/P protocol alternative to AHCI/SATA and the SCSI protocol used by Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). Note that the name NVMe is owned and managed by the industry trade group for NVM Express is (www.nvmexpress.org).

The key question with NVMe is not if, rather when, where, why, how and with what will it appear in your data center or server storage I/O data infrastructure. This is a companion to material that I have on my micro site www.thenvmeplace.com that provides an overview of NVMe, as well as helps to discuss some of the questions about NVMe.

Main features of NVMe include among others:

  • Lower latency due to improve drivers and increased queues (and queue sizes)
  • Lower CPU used to handler larger number of I/Os (more CPU available for useful work)
  • Higher I/O activity rates (IOPs) to boost productivity unlock value of fast flash and NVM
  • Bandwidth improvements leveraging various fast PCIe interface and available lanes
  • Dual-pathing of devices like what is available with dual-path SAS devices
  • Unlock the value of more cores per processor socket and software threads (productivity)
  • Various packaging options, deployment scenarios and configuration options
  • Appears as a standard storage device on most operating systems
  • Plug-play with in-box drivers on many popular operating systems and hypervisors

Why NVMe for Server Storage I/O?
NVMe has been designed from the ground up for accessing fast storage including flash SSD leveraging PCI Express (PCIe). The benefits include lower latency, improved concurrency, increased performance and the ability to unleash a lot more of the potential of modern multi-core modern processors.

NVMe Server Storage I/O
Figure 1 shows common server I/O connectivity including PCIe, SAS, SATA and NVMe.

NVMe, leveraging PCIe, enables modern applications to reach their full potential. NVMe is one of those rare, generational protocol upgrades that comes around every couple of decades to help unlock the full performance value of servers and storage. NVMe does need new drivers, but once in place, it plugs and plays seamlessly with existing tools, software and user experiences. Likewise many of those drivers are now in the box (e.g. ship with) for popular operating systems and hypervisors.

While SATA and SAS provided enough bandwidth for HDDs and some SSD uses, more performance is needed. NVMe near-term does not replace SAS or SATA they can and will coexist for years to come enabling different tiers of server storage I/O performance.

NVMe unlocks the potential of flash-based storage by allowing up to 65,536 (64K) queues each with 64K commands per queue. SATA allowed for only one command queue capable of holding 32 commands per queue and SAS supports a queue with 64K command entries. As a result, the storage IO capabilities of flash can now be fed across PCIe much faster to enable modern multi-core processors to complete more useful work in less time.

Where To Learn More

View additional NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and 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

Continue reading about NVMe with Part II (Different NVMe configurations) in this five-part series, or jump to Part III, Part IV or Part V.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Various Hardware (SAS, SATA, NVM, M2) and Software (VHD) Defined Odd’s and Ends

Various Hardware (SAS, SATA, NVM, M2) and Software (VHD) Defined Odd’s and Ends

server storage I/O trends

Ever need to add another GbE port to a small server, workstation or perhaps Intel NUC, however no PCIe slots are available? How about attaching a M2 form factor flash SSD card to a server or device that does not have an M2 port, or, for mirroring two M2 cards together with a RAID adapter? Looking for tool to convert a Windows system to a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) while it is running? The following are a collection of odd’s and end’s devices and tools for hardware and software defining your environment.

Adding GbE Ports Without PCIe Ports

Adding Ethernet ports or NICs is relatively easy with larger servers, assuming you have available PCIe slots.

However what about when you are limited or out of PCIe ports? One option is to use USB (preferably USB 3) to GbE connectors. Another option is if you have an available mSATA card slot, such as on a server or workstation that had a WiFi card you no longer need to use, is get a mSATA to GbE kit (shown below). Granted you might have to get creative with the PCIe bracket depending on what you are going to put one of these into.

mSATA to GbE and USB to GbE
Left mSATA to GbE port, Right USB 3 (Blue) to GbE connector

Tip: Some hypervisors may not like the USB to GbE, or have drivers for the mSATA to GbE connector, likewise some operating systems do not have in the box drivers. Start by loading GbE drivers such as those needed for RealTek NICs and you may end up with plug and play.

SAS to SATA Interposer and M2 to SATA docking card

In the following figure on the left is a SAS to SATA interposer which enables a SAS HDD or SSD to connect to a SATA connector (power and data). Keep in mind that SATA devices can attach to SAS ports, however the usual rule of thumb is that SAS devices can not attach to a SATA port or controller. To prevent that from occurring, the SAS and SATA connectors have different notched connectors that prevent a SAS device from plugging into a SATA connector.

Where the SAS to SATA interposers come into play is that some servers or systems have SAS controllers, however their drive bays have SATA power and data connectors. Note that the key here is that there is a SAS controller, however instead of a SAS connector to the drive bay, a SATA connector is used. To get around this, interposers such as the one above allows the SAS device to attach to the SATA connector which in turn attached to the SAS controller.

SAS SATA interposer and M2 to SATA docking card
Left SAS to SATA interposer, Right M2 to SATA docking card

In the above figure on the right, is an M2 NVM nand flash SSD card attached to a M2 to SATA docking card. This enables M2 cards that have SATA protocol controllers (as opposed to M2 NVMe) to be attached to a SATA port on an adapter or RAID card. Some of these docking cards can also be mounted in server or storage system 2.5" (or larger) drive bays. You can find both of the above at Amazon.com as well as many other venues.

P2V and Creating VHD and VHDX

I like and use various Physical to Virtual (P2V) as well as Virtual to Virtual (V2V) and even Virtual to Physical (V2P) along with Virtual to Cloud (V2C) tools including those from VMware (vCenter Converter), Microsoft (e.g. Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter) among others. Likewise Clonezilla, Acronis and many other tools are in the toolbox. One of those other tools that is handy for relatively quickly making a VHD or VHDX out of a running Windows server is disk2vhd.

disk2vhd

Now you should ask, why not just use the Microsoft Migration tool or VMware converter?

Simple, if you use those or other tools and run into issues with GPT vs MBR or BIOS vs UEFI settings among others, disk2vhd is a handy work around. Simply install it, tell it where to create the VHD or VHDX (preferably on another device), start the creation, when done, move the VHDX or VHD to where needed and go from there.

Where do you get disk2vhd and how much does it cost?

Get it here from Microsoft Technet Windows Sysinternals page and its free.

Where to learn more

Continue reading about the above and other related topics with these links.

  • Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – Second impressions
  • Some Windows Server Storage I/O related commands
  • Server Storage I/O Cables Connectors Chargers & other Geek Gifts
  • The NVM (Non Volatile Memory) and NVMe Place (Non Volatile Memory Express)
  • Nand flash SSD and NVM server storage I/O memory conversations
  • Cloud Storage for Camera Data?

    • Via @EmergencyMgtMag Cloud Storage for Camera Data?

  • Software Defined Storage Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Algorithms + Data Structures
  • Part II 2014 Server Storage I/O Geek Gift ideas

    • What this all means

    While the above odd’s and end’s tips, tricks, tools and technology may not be applicable for your production environment, perhaps they will be useful for your test or home lab environment needs. On the other hand, the above may not be practically useful for anything, yet simply entertaining, the rest is up to you as if there is any return on investment, or, perhaps return on innovation from use these or other odd’s, end’s tips and tricks that might be outside of the traditional box so to speak.

    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 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    Big Files Lots of Little File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench

    Big Files Lots of Little File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench


    server storage data infrastructure i/o File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench

    Updated 2/10/2018

    Need to test a server, storage I/O networking, hardware, software, services, cloud, virtual, physical or other environment that is either doing some form of file processing, or, that you simply want to have some extra workload running in the background for what ever reason? An option is File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench.

    I/O performance

    Getting Started


    Here’s a quick and relatively easy way to do it with Vdbench (Free from Oracle). Granted there are other tools, both for free and for fee that can similar things, however we will leave those for another day and post. Here’s the con to this approach, there is no Uui Gui like what you have available with some other tools Here’s the pro to this approach, its free, flexible and limited by your creative, amount of storage space, server memory and I/O capacity.

    If you need a background on Vdbench and benchmarking, check out the series of related posts here (e.g. www.storageio.com/performance).

    Get and Install the Vdbench Bits and Bytes


    If you do not already have Vdbench installed, get a copy from the Oracle or Source Forge site (now points to Oracle here).

    Vdbench is free, you simply sign-up and accept the free license, select the version down load (it is a single, common distribution for all OS) the bits as well as documentation.

    Installation particular on Windows is really easy, basically follow the instructions in the documentation by copying the contents of the download folder to a specified directory, set up any environment variables, and make sure that you have Java installed.

    Here is a hint and tip for Windows Servers, if you get an error message about counters, open a command prompt with Administrator rights, and type the command:

    $ lodctr /r


    The above command will reset your I/O counters. Note however that command will also overwrite counters if enabled so only use it if you have to.

    Likewise *nix install is also easy, copy the files, make sure to copy the applicable *nix shell script (they are in the download folder), and verify Java is installed and working.

    You can do a vdbench -t (windows) or ./vdbench -t (*nix) to verify that it is working.

    Vdbench File Processing

    There are many options with Vdbench as it has a very robust command and scripting language including ability to set up for loops among other things. We are only going to touch the surface here using its file processing capabilities. Likewise, Vdbench can run from a single server accessing multiple storage systems or file systems, as well as running from multiple servers to a single file system. For simplicity, we will stick with the basics in the following examples to exercise a local file system. The limits on the number of files and file size are limited by server memory and storage space.

    You can specify number and depth of directories to put files into for processing. One of the parameters is the anchor point for the file processing, in the following examples =S:\SIOTEMP\FS1 is used as the anchor point. Other parameters include the I/O size, percent reads, number of threads, run time and sample interval as well as output folder name for the result files. Note that unlike some tools, Vdbench does not create a single file of results, rather a folder with several files including summary, totals, parameters, histograms, CSV among others.


    Simple Vdbench File Processing Commands

    For flexibility and ease of use I put the following three Vdbench commands into a simple text file that is then called with parameters on the command line.
    fsd=fsd1,anchor=!fanchor,depth=!dirdep,width=!dirwid,files=!numfiles,size=!filesize

    fwd=fwd1,fsd=fsd1,rdpct=!filrdpct,xfersize=!fxfersize,fileselect=random,fileio=random,threads=!thrds

    rd=rd1,fwd=fwd1,fwdrate=max,format=yes,elapsed=!etime,interval=!itime

    Simple Vdbench script

    # SIO_vdbench_filesystest.txt
    
#
    
# Example Vdbench script for file processing
    
#
    
# fanchor = file system place  where directories and files will be created
    
# dirwid = how wide should the directories be (e.g. how many directories wide)
    
# numfiles = how many files per directory
    
# filesize = size in in k, m, g e.g. 16k = 16KBytes
    
# fxfersize = file I/O transfer size in kbytes
    
# thrds = how many threads or workers
    
# etime = how long to run in minutes (m) or hours (h)
    
# itime = interval sample time e.g. 30 seconds
    
# dirdep = how deep the directory tree
    
# filrdpct = percent of reads e.g. 90 = 90 percent reads
    
# -p processnumber = optional specify a process number, only needed if running multiple vdbenchs at same time, number should be unique
    
# -o output file that describes what being done and some config info
    
#
    
# Sample command line shown for Windows, for *nix add ./
    
#
    
# The real Vdbench script with command line parameters indicated by !=
    
#
    

    fsd=fsd1,anchor=!fanchor,depth=!dirdep,width=!dirwid,files=!numfiles,size=!filesize
    

    fwd=fwd1,fsd=fsd1,rdpct=!filrdpct,xfersize=!fxfersize,fileselect=random,fileio=random,threads=!thrds
    

    rd=rd1,fwd=fwd1,fwdrate=max,format=yes,elapsed=!etime,interval=!itime

    Big Files Processing Script


    With the above script file defined, for Big Files I specify a command line such as the following.
    $ vdbench -f SIO_vdbench_filesystest.txt fanchor=S:\SIOTemp\FS1 dirwid=1 numfiles=60 filesize=5G fxfersize=128k thrds=64 etime=10h itime=30 numdir=1 dirdep=1 filrdpct=90 -p 5576 -o SIOWS2012R220_NOFUZE_5Gx60_BigFiles_64TH_STX1200_020116

    Big Files Processing Example Results


    The following is one of the result files from the folder of results created via the above command for Big File processing showing totals.


    
Run totals
    

    21:09:36.001 Starting RD=format_for_rd1
    

    Feb 01, 2016 .Interval. .ReqstdOps.. ...cpu%...  read ....read.... ...write.... ..mb/sec... mb/sec .xfer.. ...mkdir... ...rmdir... ..create... ...open.... ...close... ..delete...
    
                          rate  resp total  sys   pct   rate  resp   rate  resp  read write  total    size  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp
    
21:23:34.101   avg_2-28 2848.2  2.70   8.8 8.32   0.0    0.0  0.00 2848.2  2.70  0.00 356.0 356.02  131071   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00   0.1 109176   0.1  0.55   0.1  2006   0.0  0.00
    

    21:23:35.009 Starting RD=rd1; elapsed=36000; fwdrate=max. For loops: None
    

    07:23:35.000 avg_2-1200 4939.5  1.62  18.5 17.3  90.0 4445.8  1.79  493.7  0.07 555.7 61.72 617.44  131071   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00   0.1  0.03   0.1  2.95   0.0  0.00

    Lots of Little Files Processing Script


    For lots of little files, the following is used.


    
$ vdbench -f SIO_vdbench_filesystest.txt fanchor=S:\SIOTEMP\FS1 dirwid=64 numfiles=25600 filesize=16k fxfersize=1k thrds=64 etime=10h itime=30 dirdep=1 filrdpct=90 -p 5576 -o SIOWS2012R220_NOFUZE_SmallFiles_64TH_STX1200_020116

    Lots of Little Files Processing Example Results


    The following is one of the result files from the folder of results created via the above command for Big File processing showing totals.
    Run totals
    

    09:17:38.001 Starting RD=format_for_rd1
    

    Feb 02, 2016 .Interval. .ReqstdOps.. ...cpu%...  read ....read.... ...write.... ..mb/sec... mb/sec .xfer.. ...mkdir... ...rmdir... ..create... ...open.... ...close... ..delete...
    
                          rate  resp total  sys   pct   rate  resp   rate  resp  read write  total    size  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp  rate  resp
    
09:19:48.016    avg_2-5  10138  0.14  75.7 64.6   0.0    0.0  0.00  10138  0.14  0.00 158.4 158.42   16384   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00 10138  0.65 10138  0.43 10138  0.05   0.0  0.00
    

    09:19:49.000 Starting RD=rd1; elapsed=36000; fwdrate=max. For loops: None
    

    19:19:49.001 avg_2-1200 113049  0.41  67.0 55.0  90.0 101747  0.19  11302  2.42 99.36 11.04 110.40    1023   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00   0.0  0.00  7065  0.85  7065  1.60   0.0  0.00

    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

    The above examples can easily be modified to do different things particular if you read the Vdbench documentation on how to setup multi-host, multi-storage system, multiple job streams to do different types of processing. This means you can benchmark a storage systems, server or converged and hyper-converged platform, or simply put a workload on it as part of other testing. There are even options for handling data footprint reduction such as compression and dedupe.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

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    Server StorageIO December 2015 Update Newsletter


    Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 15, Issue XII – End of Year (EOY) Edition

    Hello and welcome to this December 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Seasons Greetings and Happy New Years.

    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.

    Cheers GS

    In This Issue

  • Tips and Articles
  • Events and Webinars
  • Resources and Links

    • StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    • IronMountain:  5 Noteworthy Data Privacy Trends From 2015

    • Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs):  Part III EVO:RAIL – When And Where To Use It?

    • InfoStor:  Object Storage Is In Your Future

    • InfoStor:  Water, Data and Storage Analogy

    Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here

    StorageIO Webinars and Industry Events

    EMCworld (Las Vegas) May 2-4, 2016

    Interop (Las Vegas) May 4-6 2016

    NAB (Las Vegas) April 19-20, 2016

    Redmond Magazine Gridstore (How to Migrate from VMware to Hyper-V) February 25, 2016 Webinar (11AM PT)

    See more webinars and other activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:

    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageperformance.us
    thenvmeplace
    thessdplace.com
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    NVMe Place NVM Non Volatile Memory Express Resources

    Updated 8/31/19
    NVMe place server Storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Welcome to NVMe place NVM Non Volatile Memory Express Resources. NVMe place is about Non Volatile Memory (NVM) Express (NVMe) with Industry Trends Perspectives, Tips, Tools, Techniques, Technologies, News and other information.

    Disclaimer

    Please note that this NVMe place resources site is independent of the industry trade and promoters group NVM Express, Inc. (e.g. www.nvmexpress.org). NVM Express, Inc. is the sole owner of the NVM Express specifications and trademarks.

    NVM Express Organization
    Image used with permission of NVM Express, Inc.

    Visit the NVM Express industry promoters site here to learn more about their members, news, events, product information, software driver downloads, and other useful NVMe resources content.

     

    The NVMe Place resources and NVM including SCM, PMEM, Flash

    NVMe place includes Non Volatile Memory (NVM) including nand flash, storage class memories (SCM), persistent memories (PM) are storage memory mediums while NVM Express (NVMe) is an interface for accessing NVM. This NVMe resources page is a companion to The SSD Place which has a broader Non Volatile Memory (NVM) focus including flash among other SSD topics. NVMe is a new server storage I/O access method and protocol for fast access to NVM based storage and memory technologies. NVMe is an alternative to existing block based server storage I/O access protocols such as AHCI/SATA and SCSI/SAS devices commonly used for access Hard Disk Drives (HDD) along with SSD among other things.

    Server Storage I/O NVMe PCIe SAS SATA AHCI
    Comparing AHCI/SATA, SCSI/SAS and NVMe all of which can coexist to address different needs.

    Leveraging the standard PCIe hardware interface, NVMe based devices (that have an NVMe controller) can be accessed via various operating systems (and hypervisors such as VMware ESXi) with both in the box drivers or optional third-party device drivers. Devices that support NVMe can be 2.5″ drive format packaged that use a converged 8637/8639 connector (e.g. PCIe x4) coexisting with SAS and SATA devices as well as being add-in card (AIC) PCIe cards supporting x4, x8 and other implementations. Initially, NVMe is being positioned as a back-end to servers (or storage systems) interface for accessing fast flash and other NVM based devices.

    NVMe as back-end storage
    NVMe as a “back-end” I/O interface for NVM storage media

    NVMe as front-end server storage I/O interface
    NVMe as a “front-end” interface for servers or storage systems/appliances

    NVMe has also been shown to work over low latency, high-speed RDMA based network interfaces including RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) and InfiniBand (read more here, here and here involving Mangstor, Mellanox and PMC among others). What this means is that like SCSI based SAS which can be both a back-end drive (HDD, SSD, etc) access protocol and interface, NVMe can also being used for back-end can also be used as a front-end of server to storage interface like how Fibre Channel SCSI_Protocol (aka FCP), SCSI based iSCSI, SCSI RDMA Protocol via InfiniBand (among others) are used.

    NVMe features

    Main features of NVMe include among others:

    • Lower latency due to improve drivers and increased queues (and queue sizes)
    • Lower CPU used to handle larger number of I/Os (more CPU available for useful work)
    • Higher I/O activity rates (IOPs) to boost productivity unlock value of fast flash and NVM
    • Bandwidth improvements leveraging various fast PCIe interface and available lanes
    • Dual-pathing of devices like what is available with dual-path SAS devices
    • Unlock the value of more cores per processor socket and software threads (productivity)
    • Various packaging options, deployment scenarios and configuration options
    • Appears as a standard storage device on most operating systems
    • Plug-play with in-box drivers on many popular operating systems and hypervisors

    Shared external PCIe using NVMe
    NVMe and shared PCIe (e.g. shared PCIe flash DAS)

    NVMe related content and links

    The following are some of my tips, articles, blog posts, presentations and other content, along with material from others pertaining to NVMe. Keep in mind that the question should not be if NVMe is in your future, rather when, where, with what, from whom and how much of it will be used as well as how it will be used.

    • How to Prepare for the NVMe Server Storage I/O Wave (Via Micron.com)
    • Why NVMe Should Be in Your Data Center (Via Micron.com)
    • NVMe U2 (8639) vs. M2 interfaces (Via Gamersnexus)
    • Enmotus FuzeDrive MicroTiering (StorageIO Lab Report)
    • EMC DSSD D5 Rack Scale Direct Attached Shared SSD All Flash Array Part I (Via StorageIOBlog)
    • Part II – EMC DSSD D5 Direct Attached Shared AFA (Via StorageIOBlog)
    • NAND, DRAM, SAS/SCSI & SATA/AHCI: Not Dead, Yet! (Via EnterpriseStorageForum)
    • Non Volatile Memory (NVM), NVMe, Flash Memory Summit and SSD updates (Via StorageIOblog)
    • Microsoft and Intel showcase Storage Spaces Direct with NVM Express at IDF ’15 (Via TechNet)
    • MNVM Express solutions (Via SuperMicro)
    • Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Via StorageIOblog)
    • PMC-Sierra Scales Storage with PCIe, NVMe (Via EEtimes)
    • RoCE updates among other items (Via InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) December Newsletter)
    • NVMe: The Golden Ticket for Faster Flash Storage? (Via EnterpriseStorageForum)
    • What should I consider when using SSD cloud? (Via SearchCloudStorage)
    • MSP CMG, Sept. 2014 Presentation (Flash back to reality – Myths and Realities – Flash and SSD Industry trends perspectives plus benchmarking tips)– PDF
    • Selecting Storage: Start With Requirements (Via NetworkComputing)
    • PMC Announces Flashtec NVMe SSD NVMe2106, NVMe2032 Controllers With LDPC (Via TomsITpro)
    • Exclusive: If Intel and Micron’s “Xpoint” is 3D Phase Change Memory, Boy Did They Patent It (Via Dailytech)
    • Intel & Micron 3D XPoint memory — is it just CBRAM hyped up? Curation of various posts (Via Computerworld)
    • How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do (Part I)?
    • How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware? (Part II)
    • I/O Performance Issues and Impacts on Time-Sensitive Applications (Via CMG)
    • Via EnterpriseStorageForum: 5 Hot Storage Technologies to Watch
    • Via EnterpriseStorageForum: 10-Year Review of Data Storage

    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 streamline performance enabling more work to be done (e.g. IOPs), data to be moved (bandwidth) at a lower response time using less CPU.

    NVMe and SATA flash SSD performance

    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.

    Additional NVMe Resources

    Also check out the Server StorageIO companion micro sites landing pages including thessdplace.com (SSD focus), data protection diaries (backup, BC/DR/HA and related topics), cloud and object storage, and server storage I/O performance and benchmarking here.

    If you are in to the real bits and bytes details such as at device driver level content check out the Linux NVMe reflector forum. The linux-nvme forum is a good source if you are developer to stay up on what is happening in and around device driver and associated topics.

    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

    Disclaimer

    Disclaimer: Please note that this site is independent of the industry trade and promoters group NVM Express, Inc. (e.g. www.nvmexpress.org). NVM Express, Inc. is the sole owner of the NVM Express specifications and trademarks. Check out the NVM Express industry promoters site here to learn more about their members, news, events, product information, software driver downloads, and other useful NVMe resources content.

    NVM Express Organization
    Image used with permission of NVM Express, Inc.

    Wrap Up

    Watch for updates with more content, links and NVMe resources to be added here soon.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers
    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.

    Posted on

    August Server StorageIO Update Newsletter – NVM and Flash SSD Focus

    Volume 15, Issue VIII

    Hello and welcome to this August 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter. Summer is wrapping up here in the northern hemisphere which means the fall conference season has started, holidays in progress as well as getting ready for back to school time. I have been spending my summer working on various things involving servers, storage, I/O networking hardware, software, services from cloud to containers, virtual and physical. This includes OpenStack, VMware vCloud Air, AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCS among others, as well as new versions of Microsoft Windows and Servers, Non Volatile Memory (NVM) including flash SSD, NVM Express (NVMe), databases, data protection, software defined, cache, micro-tiering and benchmarking using various tools among other things (some are still under wraps).

    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.

    Cheers GS

    In This Issue

  • Feature Topic
  • Industry Trends News
  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Videos and Podcasts
  • Events and Webinars
  • Recommended Reading List
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • Server StorageIO Lab reports
  • New and Old Vendor Update
  • Resources and Links

    • Feature Topic – Non Volatile Memory including NAND flash SSD

    Via Intel History of Memory
    Via Intel: Click above image to view history of memory

    This months feature topic theme is Non Volatile Memory (NVM) which includes technologies such as NAND flash commonly used in Solid State Devices (SSDs) storage today, as well as in USB thumb drive, mobile and hand-held devices among many other uses. NVM spans servers, storage, I/O devices along with mobile and handheld among many other technologies. In addition to NAND flash, other forms of NVM include Non Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM), Read Only Memory (ROM) along with some emerging new technologies including the recently announced Intel and Micron 3D XPoint among others.

    • NVMe: The Golden Ticket for Faster Flash Storage? (Via EnterpriseStorageForum)
    • What should I consider when using SSD cloud? (Via SearchCloudStorage)
    • MSP CMG, Sept. 2014 Presentation (Flash back to reality – Myths and Realities
    • Flash and SSD Industry trends perspectives plus benchmarking tips) – PDF
    • Selecting Storage: Start With Requirements (Via NetworkComputing)
    • Spot The Newest & Best Server Trends (Via Processor)
    • Market ripe for embedded flash storage as prices drop (Via Powermore (Dell))

    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.

     

    StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    Server Storage I/O Industry Activity Trends (Cloud, Virtual, Physical)

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)

    • PMC Announces NVMe SSD Controllers (Via TomsITpro)
    • New SATA SSD powers elastic cloud agility for CSPs (Via Cbronline)
    • Toshiba Solid-State Drive Family Features PCIe Technology (Via Eweek)
    • SanDisk aims CloudSpeed Ultra SSD at cloud providers (Via ITwire)
    • Everspin & Aupera reveal MRAM Module M.2 Form Factor (Via BusinessWire)
    • PMC-Sierra Scales Storage with PCIe, NVMe (Via EEtimes)
    • Seagate Grows Its Nytro Enterprise Flash Storage Line (Via InfoStor)
    • New SAS Solid State Drive From Seagate Micron Alliance (Via Seagate)
    • Samsung ups the SSD ante with faster, higher capacity drives (Via ITworld)

    View other recent news and industry trends here

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)
    Recent Server StorageIO commentary and industry trends perspectives about news, activities tips, and announcements.

    • Processor: Comments on Spot The Newest & Best Server Trends
    • Processor: Comments on A Snapshot Strategy For Backups & Data Recovery
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Defining the Future of DR Storage
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Top Ten Tips for DR as a Service
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on NVMe: Golden Ticket for Faster Storage

    View more Server, Storage and I/O hardware as well as software trends comments here

    Vendors you may not have heard of

    Various vendors (and service providers) you may not know or heard about recently.

    • Scala – Scale out storage management software tools
    • Reduxio – Enterprise hybrid storage with data services
    • Jam TreeSize Pro – Data discovery and storage resource analysis and reporting

    Check out more vendors you may know, have heard of, or that are perhaps new on the Server StorageIO Industry Links page here (over 1,000 entries and growing).

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    • IronMountain:  Information Lifecycle Management: Which Data Types Have Value?
      It’s important to keep in mind that on a fundamental level, there are three types of data: information that has value, information that does not have value and information that has unknown value. Data value can be measured along performance, availability, capacity and economic attributes, which define how the data gets managed across different tiers of storage. In general data can have value, unknown value or no value. Read more here.
    • EnterpriseStorageForum:  Is Future Storage Converging Around Hyper-Converged?
      Depending on who you talk or listen to, hyper-converged storage is either the future of storage, or it is a hype niche market that is not for everybody, particular not larger environments. How converged is the hyper-converged market? There are many environments that can leverage CI along with HCI, CiB or other bundles solutions. Granted, not all of those environments will converge around the same CI, CiB and HCI or pod solution bundles as everything is not the same in most IT environments and data centers. Not all markets, environments or solutions are the same. Read more here.

    Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here

    StorageIO Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    StorageIO Webinars and Industry Events

    Server Storage I/O Workshop Seminars
    Nijkerk Netherlands October 13-16 2015

    VMworld August 30-September 3 2015

    See additional webinars and other activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    Enmotus FuzeDrive (Server based Micro-Tiering)
    Enmotus FuzeDrive
    • Micro-teiring of reads and writes
    • FuzeDrive for transparent tiering
    • Dynamic tiering with selectable options
    • Monitoring and diagnostics tools
    • Transparent to operating systems
    • Hardware transparent (HDD and SSD)
    • Server I/O interface agnostic
    • Optional RAM cache and file pinning
    • Maximize NVM flash SSD investment
    • Compliment other SDS solutions
    • Use for servers or workstations

    Enmotus FuzeDrive provides micro-tiering boosting performance (reads and writes) of storage attached to physical bare metal servers, virtual and cloud instances including Windows and Linux operating systems across various applications. In the simple example above five separate SQL Server databases (260GB each) were placed on a single 6TB HDD. A TPCC workload was run concurrently against all databases with various numbers of users. One workload used a single 6TB HDD (blue) while the other used a FuzeDrive (green) comprised of a 6TB HDD and a 400GB SSD showing basic micro-tiering improvements.

    View other StorageIO lab review reports here

    Server StorageIO Recommended Reading List

    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.

    Get Whats Yours via Amazon.com
    While not a technology book, you do not have to be at or near retirement age to be planning for retirement. Some of you may already be at or near retirement age, for others, its time to start planning or refining your plans. A friend recommended this book and I’m recommending it to others. Its pretty straight forward and you might be surprised how much money people may be leaving on the table! Check it out here at Amazon.com.

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:

    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageperformance.us
    thenvmeplace
    thessdplace.com
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Non Volatile Memory (NVM), NVMe, Flash Memory Summit and SSD updates

    Storage I/O trends

    Non Volatile Memory (NVM), NVMe, Flash Memory Summit and SSD updates

    I attended the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara CA last week and not surprisingly there were many announcements about Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) along with related enabling technologies. Some of these announcements were component based intended for original equipment manufactures (OEMs) ranging from startup to established, systems integrators (SI), value added resellers (VAR’s) while others were more customer solution focused. From a customer solution focus, some of the technologies were consumer oriented while others for business and some for cloud scale service providers.

    Recent NVM, NVMe and Flash SSD news

    A sampling of some recent NVM, NVMe and Flash related news includes among others:

    • PMC Announces Flashtec NVMe SSD NVMe2106, NVMe2032 Controllers (Via TomsITpro)
    • New SATA SSD powers elastic cloud agility for CSPs (Via Cbronline)
    • Toshiba Solid-State Drive Family Features PCIe Technology (Via Eweek)
    • SanDisk aims CloudSpeed Ultra SSD at cloud providers (Via ITwire)
    • Everspin & Aupera show all-MRAM Storage Module in M.2 Form Factor (Via BusinessWire)
    • Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) for servers and storage (part I, part II and part III)
    • PMC-Sierra Scales Storage with PCIe, NVMe (Via EEtimes)
    • Seagate Grows Its Nytro Enterprise Flash Storage Line (Via InfoStor)
    • New SAS Solid State Drive First Product From Seagate Micron Alliance (Via Seagate)
    • Wow, Samsung’s New 16 Terabyte SSD Is the World’s Largest Hard Drive (Via Gizmodo)
    • Samsung ups the SSD ante with faster, higher capacity drives (Via ITworld)

    NVMe primer

    Via Intel History of Memory
    Via Intel: Click above image to view history of memory via Intel site

    NVM includes technologies such as NAND flash commonly used in Solid State Devices (SSD’s) storage today, as well as in USB thumb drive, mobile and hand-held devices among many other uses. NVM spans servers, storage, I/O devices along with mobile and handheld among many other technologies. In addition to NAND flash, other forms of NVM include Non Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM), Read Only Memory (ROM) along with some emerging new technologies including the recently announced Intel and Micron 3D XPoint among others.

    Server Storage I/O access and NVM
    Server Storage I/O memory (and storage) hierarchy

    Keep in mind that memory is storage and storage is persistent memory as well as that there are different classes, categories and tiers of memory and storage as shown above to meet various performance, availability, capacity and economic requirements. Besides NVM ranging from flash to NVRAM to emerging 3D XPoint among others, another popular topic that is gaining momentum is NVM Express (NVMe). NVMe (more material here at www.thenvmeplace.com) is a new server storage I/O access method and protocol for fast access to NVM based products. NVMe is an alternative to existing block based server storage I/O access protocols such as AHCI/SATA and SCSI/SAS devices commonly used for access Hard Disk Drives (HDD) along with SSD among other things.

    Server Storage I/O NVMe PCIe SAS SATA AHCI
    Comparing AHCI/SATA, SCSI/SAS and NVMe all of which can coexist to address different needs.

    Leveraging the common PCIe hardware interface, NVMe based devices (that have an NVMe controller) can be accessed via various operating systems (and hypervisors such as VMware ESXi) with both in the box drivers or optional third-party device drivers. Devices that support NVMe can be 2.5" drive format packaged that use a converged 8637/8639 connector (e.g. PCIe x4) coexisting with SAS and SATA devices as well as being add in card (AIC) PCIe cards supporting x4, x8 and other implementations. Initially NVMe is being positioned as a back-end to servers (or storage systems) interface for accessing fast flash and other NVM based devices.

    NVMe as back-end storage
    NVMe as a "back-end" I/O interface in a server or storage system accessing NVM storage/media devices

    NVMe as front-end server storage I/O interface
    NVMe as a “front-end” interface for servers (or storage systems/appliances) to use NVMe based storage systems

    NVMe has also been shown to work over low latency, high-speed RDMA based network interfaces including RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) and InfiniBand (read more here, here and here involving Mangstor, Mellanox and PMC among others). What this means is that like SCSI based SAS which can be both a back-end drive (HDD, SSD, etc) access protocol and interface, NVMe can in addition to being used for back-end can also be used as a front-end of server to storage interface like how Fibre Channel SCSI_Protocol (aka FCP), SCSI based iSCSI, SCSI RDMA Protocol via InfiniBand (among others) are used.

    Shared external PCIe using NVMe
    NVMe and shared PCIe

    NVMe features

    Main features of NVMe include among others:

    • Lower latency due to improve drivers and increased queues (and queue sizes)
    • Lower CPU used to handler larger number of I/Os (more CPU available for useful work)
    • Higher I/O activity rates (IOPs) to boost productivity unlock value of fast flash and NVM
    • Bandwidth improvements leveraging various fast PCIe interface and available lanes
    • Dual-pathing of devices like what is available with dual-path SAS devices
    • Unlock the value of more cores per processor socket and software threads (productivity)
    • Various packaging options, deployment scenarios and configuration options
    • Appears as a standard storage device on most operating systems
    • Plug-play with in-box drivers on many popular operating systems and hypervisors

    Watch for more about NVMe as it continues to gain in both industry adoption and deployment as well as customer adoption and deployment.

    Where to read, watch and learn more

    • NVMe: The Golden Ticket for Faster Flash Storage? (Via EnterpriseStorageForum)
    • What should I consider when using SSD cloud? (Via SearchCloudStorage)
    • MSP CMG, September 2014 Presentation (Flash back to reality – Myths and Realities Flash and SSD Industry trends perspectives plus benchmarking tips) – PDF
    • Selecting Storage: Start With Requirements (Via NetworkComputing)
    • Spot The Newest & Best Server Trends (Via Processor)
    • Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatile Memory (NVM) for servers and storage (part I, part II and part III)
    • Market ripe for embedded flash storage as prices drop (Via Powermore (Dell))
    • 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.

    Storage I/O trends

    What this all means and wrap up

    The question is not if NVM is in your future, it is! Instead the questions are what type of NVM including NAND flash among other mediums will be deployed where, using what type of packaging or solutions (drives, cards, systems, appliances, cloud) for what role (as storage, primary memory, persistent cache) along with how much among others. For some environments the solution is already, or will be All NVM Arrays (ANA) or All Flash Arrays (AFA) or All SSD Arrays (ASA) while for others the home run will be hybrid based solutions that work for you, fitting in and adapting to your environment as it changes.

    Also keep in mind that a little bit of fast memory including NVM based flash among others in the right place can have a big benefit. My experiences using NVMe to use flash enabled NVMe devices on Windows and Linux systems is that you can see lower response times at higher-IOP’s however also with lower CPU consumption particular when compared to 6Gbps SATA. Likewise bandwidth can easily be pushed to the limits of the NVMe device as well as PCIe interface being used such as x4 or x8 depending on implementation. That is also a warning and something to watch out for comparing apples to oranges in that while NVMe uses PCIe, understand when looking at different results if those are for x4 or x8 or faster PCIe as their mere presence of using PCIe does not mean you are running at full potential.

    Keep an eye on NVMe as a new high-speed, low-latency server storage I/O access protocol for unlocking the full performance capabilities of fast NVM based storage as well as leveraging the multiple cores in today’s fast processors. Does this mean AHCI/SATA or SCSI/SAS are now dead? Some will claim that, however at least near-term for next few years (if not longer), those interfaces will continue to be used where they make sense, as well as where they can save dollars specifically for cost sensitive, high-capacity environments that do not need the full performance of NVMe just yet.

    As for the Flash Memory Summit event in Santa Clara, that was a good day with time well spent in briefings, meetings, demo’s and add hoc discussions on the expo floor.

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Intel Micron 3D XPoint server storage NVM SCM PM SSD

    3D XPoint server storage class memory SCM


    Storage I/O trends

    Updated 1/31/2018

    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).

    Intel History of Memory Infographic
    Via: https://intelsalestraining.com/memory timeline/ (Click on image to view)

    What capacity size is 3D XPoint?

    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

    Storage I/O trends

    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

    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.

    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.

    Posted on

    3D XPoint nvm pm scm storage class memory

    Part III – 3D XPoint server storage class memory SCM


    Storage I/O trends

    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.



    3D XPoint YouTube Video

    What are these chips, cells, wafers and dies?

    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).

    Storage I/O trends

    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.

    flash SSD and NVM trends

    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.

    Industry vs. Customer Adoption and deployment timeline

    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

    Storage I/O trends

    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

    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.

    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.

    Posted on

    Intel Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatie Memory NVM for servers storage

    3D XPoint NVM persistent memory PM storage class memory SCM


    Storage I/O trends

    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).

    Twitter hash tag #3DXpoint

    The big picture, why this type of NVM technology is needed

    Server and Storage I/O trends

    • Memory is storage and storage is persistent memory
    • No such thing as a data or information recession, more data being create, processed and stored
    • Increased demand is also driving density along with convergence across server storage I/O resources
    • Larger amounts of data needing to be processed faster (large amounts of little data and big fast data)
    • Fast applications need more and faster processors, memory along with I/O interfaces
    • The best server or storage I/O is the one you do not need to do
    • The second best I/O is one with least impact or overhead
    • 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

    Storage I/O trends

    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

    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.

    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.

    Posted on

    EMCworld 2015 How Do You Want Your Storage Wrapped?

    Server Storage I/O trends

    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.

    Server Storage I/O trends

    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.

    tin wrapped software

    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.

    software wrapped storage

    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?

    server storage software wrapping

    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.

    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

    Posted on

    How to test your HDD SSD or all flash array (AFA) storage fundamentals

    How to test your HDD SSD AFA Hybrid or cloud storage

    server storage data infrastructure i/o hdd ssd all flash array afa fundamentals

    Updated 2/14/2018

    Over at BizTech Magazine I have a new article 4 Ways to Performance Test Your New HDD or SSD that provides a quick guide to verifying or learning what the speed characteristic of your new storage device are capable of.

    An out-take from the article used by BizTech as a "tease" is:

    These four steps will help you evaluate new storage drives. And … psst … we included the metrics that matter.

    Building off the basics, server storage I/O benchmark fundamentals

    The four basic steps in the article are:

    • Plan what and how you are going to test (what’s applicable for you)
    • Decide on a benchmarking tool (learn about various tools here)
    • Test the test (find bugs, errors before a long running test)
    • Focus on metrics that matter (what’s important for your environment)

    Server Storage I/O performance

    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

    To some the above (read the full article here) may seem like common sense tips and things everybody should know otoh there are many people who are new to servers storage I/O networking hardware software cloud virtual along with various applications, not to mention different tools.

    Thus the above is a refresher for some (e.g. Dejavu) while for others it might be new and revolutionary or simply helpful. Interested in HDD’s, SSD’s as well as other server storage I/O performance along with benchmarking tools, techniques and trends check out the collection of links here (Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources).

    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.

    Posted on

    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.