Nimble Scale to Fit
Patrick Stack – Senior Storage Engineer
Matt Rourke – Enterprise Account Executive
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
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Why start a new Storage Systems Company?
Christensen suggests that successful
companies can put too much
emphasis on customers' current
needs, and fail to adopt new
technology or business models that
will meet customers' unstated or
future needs; he argues that such
companies will eventually fall behind.
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
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Nimble Storage Is:
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A public company
10x faster than traditional storage in less space
Scalable: From 12TB to 800TB without downtime.
Leverages current technology such as Multi-Core CPU’s,
Flash Drives and a proprietary file system.
All Inclusive Software
InfoSight: A revolutionary support portal for predictive analytics
of data usage and growth.
Easy to use: A Modern GUI and the option for self installation.
Reliable: 99.9995 uptime for trailing twelve months.
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
3
Building Storage for 2014
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
4
Transformation in Storage Models with Flash
LEGACY
Real-Time
Analytics
Mainstream
Applications
Modular
Tape, HighCapacity Disk
Flash in Server
All-Flash Arrays
OLTP
SQL Server
Exchange
VDI
SharePoint
Web/File/Print
NEED FOR FLASH
Monolithic
MODERN
Archives
Hybrid
Flash-Optimized
Cloud
Efficient hybrid systems that flexibly leverage
flash and disk address all mainstream needs.
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
5
Flash-Only Is Not the Solution
Media
Capacity
Cost
Random*
Low
1x
$$$
Early
Mixed
Medium
$$
Mature
Sequential
High
$
Mature
Workload
Flash
NL-SAS – 15k rpm
SATA – 7.2k rpm
Reliability
* Random writes can cause flash wear
Hybrid systems marry the best attributes of flash and disk.
Fundamental to this is flash must be treated as flash, not as a fast HDD
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
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Why Do Customers Buy Nimble?
Higher Performance than Tier 1 – at the Cost of Tier 3
Legacy Tier 1
(Disk-only)
5 – 15 ms latency
Legacy Tier 1
(Disk + SSD)
2 – 15 ms latency
Flash Only
Nimble Storage
< 1 ms latency
< 1 ms latency
$2k - $3k /TB
$3k - $6k / TB
$5k - $8k / TB
$8k - $15k+ / TB
Enterprise Features
Enterprise Features
Enterprise Features
Snap, Replication, Clone
Snap, Replication, Clone
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
Enterprise Features?
Snap, Replication, Clone
99.999% Uptime
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Engineered for Efficiency
2-5x More Usable Capacity/$
2-5x More Performance/$
 High capacity disk
 Always-on compression, 2:1
real world
 High ratio of usable
to raw capacity
 Arrays measured in “effective
capacity”
 Responsive flash cache
accelerates reads with
no RAID overhead
 Serialized writes eliminate
need for high RPM spindles
 25-100k IOPS at sub-2ms latency
CASL
Integrated Data Protection
Operational Efficiency
 Instant thin snapshots with no
performance penalty
 Block sharing clones
 WAN-efficient replication of
compressed snapshots
 Snapshot retention for months,
not days
 Data sciences-based proactive
support (InfoSight)
 Cloud based monitoring
 Predictive analytics–usage, growth
 Real time data analysis
 Infosight delivers: 90% of cases are
auto created and 80% of those are
auto closed.
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
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CASL - Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout
Data Written to NVRAM (1GB)
• Mirrored and application acknowledgement
Data Moves to 12 or 24 GB of DRAM
(workbench)
• CRC check sums & in-line LZ4 compression
(1.5-2X)
• Variable-size blocks (unique) enable fast
inline compression, saving 30-75%
• Elimination of read-modify-write penalty
allows compression of all applications
• Random data coalesced into 4.5MB
sequential stripes
Sequential Stripes written to SATA
• Maximize write performance of low-cost,
high-density HDDs (100X)
• Performance decoupled from disk speed &
spindle count
Cache worthy data written to SSD
sequentially
• Converting random writes to sequential
writes minimizes “write amplification”,
allowing the use of MLC SSDs
• No RAID overhead: Using flash as a read
cache avoids the overhead of RAID
• Data on flash is compressed, saving space
• Metadata in cache accelerates all reads
SSD’s are 100% cache for faster Reads (50X)
• © 2012
Constant
light-weight sweeping ensures
Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
constant sequential stripes
4K
32K
8K
16K
4K
Active Controller
Passive Controller
1G NVRAM
1G NVRAM
12/24G DRAM
12/24G DRAM
RAID 6+1
Adaptive
Flash Cache
(12) SATA
1TB/2TB/3TB
(4) MLC SSD’s
80G/160/320G
Snapshots
30+ days
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Nimble Storage CS-Series Controller Shelf
CS210
Controllers
CS220/G
CS240/G
CS260/G
High Performance (~20K IOPS)
Controllers
Base Raw
capacity
8TB
12TB
Effective
Capacity(1)
4-9 TB
8 – 16TB
Add on
Shelves
Add 1
shelf
Flash
Capacity—
Base/Max
160 GB
Network
4 x 1GbE
24TB
36TB
17 - 33TB 25 - 50TB
CS420/G(2)
CS440/G
CS460/G
Extreme Performance (~65K IOPS)
12TB
8 – 16TB
24TB
36TB
17 - 33TB 25 - 50TB
Add up to 3 shelves
320GB
to
1,200GB
640GB
to
2,400GB
1,200GB
to
2,400 GB
640GB
to
1,200GB
640GB
to
2,400GB
1,200GB
to
2,400GB
6 x 1GbE or 2 x 10GbE + 2 x 1GbE (G models)
Notes:
1: Effective capacity is usable capacity after no to 2x (or 50%) compression; typical range: 30% to 75%
2: The CS420 model is available in CS420-X2 and CS420-X4 options only
Controller A
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
Controller B
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All Inclusive SW Features – No Licensing Costs
 Dynamic caching 
 App-integrated backup/profiles 
 Write-optimized data layout 
 Non-disruptive scale-to-fit 
 App-aligned block size 
 Scale-out clustering 
 Universal compression 
 Proactive wellness 
 Thin provisioning 
 Non-disruptive upgrades 
 Instant-snapshots 
 Remote secure support 
 WAN-efficient replication 
 Unified administration 
 Zero-copy clones 
 Multipath/connection manager 
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
© 2012 Nimble Storage.
11
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All This While, We Are Partnering
VMware
Cisco
Microsoft
CommVault
Citrix
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
 HCL certifications; VAAI, SRM, vCenter Integrations
 First storage vendor in Rapid Desktop Program
 Joint VDI reference architectures (e.g., branch office)
 UCS Certification
 SmartStack: Pre-validated VMware-Cisco-Nimble stack
 HCL Certifications; Exchange Solution Reviewed Program
 VSS, MPIO Integration
 Integration through Intellisnap Connect Program
 Citrix Ready Certification
 SmartStack: Pre-validated Citrix-Cisco-Nimble stack
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InfoSight: Storage Lifecycle Simplified
Alerting
Proactive
Wellness
NimbleConnect
Maintenance
& Support
Peer
Insights
•
•
•
Proactive monitoring
Connect with and
learn from users,
experts worldwide
Predictive support
Shrink time to problem
resolution
Be part of a vibrant
online community
Learn from real-world
deployment data
Monitoring
& Reporting
Forecasting
& Planning
Infosight
Portal
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
•
Secure, cloud-based portal
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Detailed monitoring & reporting
•
Proactive planning & forecasting
as workloads change
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Performance
Assets
Support
Wellness
Capacity
Volumes
Performance
Data Protection
Dashboard
 Detailed view of IOPS and latency
behaviors
 Accurate recommendations for
CPU and cache needs
With InfoSight, I’m confident I can not only pinpoint storage performance
bottlenecks, but know exactly what is necessary to resolve them.
– MulvannyG2, global architectural firm ranked among top 50 worldwide
© 2012 Nimble Storage. All Rights Reserved.
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