FLASH-SSD:
HYBRID & AFA
HARRY ZIMMER
DECEMBER 2ND, 2013
FLASH
FLASH IS BECOMING A MAINSTREAM OPTION, BUT…
 Prices can vary wildly - there are 4 types of
Flash available with varying capabilities.
‒
SLC, eMLC, MLC, and TLC
 Flash can be inserted in several places
along the ‘data path’ – some configurations
may have little to no positive impact.
‒
Array (Mix/All), Server (PCIe SSD), Black Box (PCIe SSD’s)
 Beware of complicating your environment
unnecessarily.
 Best tied to a storage/data tiering strategy:
Hot vs Cold data.
 Is your data protected from Flash failure?
TYPES OF FLASH
Wear Life
P/E Cycles (k)
1
SLC
Single Level Cell
100k
80x
2
eMLC
Enterprise Multi-Level Cell
30K
40x
3
MLC
Consumer Multi-Level Cell 5-10K
4
TLC
Three Level Cell
20x
1-3K
SLC
MLC / eMLC
TLC
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cost/GB
vs SATA
High performance
Lower power consumption
Faster write speeds
100,000 program/erase cycles per
cell
Higher cost
A good fit for industrial grade
devices, embedded systems,
critical applications.
•
•
•
Lower endurance limit than SLC
10,000 program/erase cycles per
cell
Lower cost
A good fit for consumer products.
Not suggested for applications
which require frequent update of
data.
eMLC has wear leveling software
included to extend the overall life
of the cells.
•
•
•
•
Higher density
Lower endurance limit than MLC
and SLC
TLC has slower read and write
speeds than conventional MLC
5,000 program/erase cycles per
cell
Best price point
A good fit for low-end basic
products. Not suggested for critical
or important applications at this
time which require frequent
updating of data.
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
Array
“0”
Flash
SSD
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
Array
“0”
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cold Data
HYBRID STORAGE ARRAY – TIER ‘0’
STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES & USE CASES
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Takes advantage of storage arraybased data protection, management
and efficiency (de-duplication)
• Broader workload benefits
(structured and unstructured data)
• Lower cost per GB possible with
SATA hard-drive tier holding static
(cold) data.
• Introduces latency
• Tuning requires cooperation
between groups
Use
Cases
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Databases
Email
Unstructured data caching
Participate in auto tiering with SAS/SATA
Large data sets
Cost Optimized (Balance between Cost and Performance)
Improved performance and predictability
Skewed I/O workload
Data Protection
Leverage existing data management features
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
Array
Server
DRAM
“-1”
“0”
PCIe
SSD
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cold Data
PCIE SSD FLASH CARDS – TIER ‘-1’
STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES & USE CASES
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Highest possible performance
with low latency
• Relatively low entry cost
• Gives server and database
administrators instant access to
Performance
• Bound to server hardware (DAS)
• Not easily sharable
• Not protected by storage-side
snapshots or replication (no RAID)*
• Difficult to manage and efficiently
scale up
• High price per GB
Use
Cases
•
•
•
•
•
Gold Copy of O/S for Boot Storm – VDI
Temp work tables
Read only database Indexes and tables
Small and midsized read only databases
SAP Worker Queues
* Fusion-io offers some advanced data protection intelligence on the card called ‘Adaptive Flashback Protection’. This code
identifies and takes offline Bad cells before they become a problem. This code does not replace RAID protection schemas.
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
Array
Server
DRAM
“-1”
“0”
PCIe
SSD
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“-½”
Flash Array
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cold Data
FLASH STORAGE ARRAY – TIER ‘-1/2’
STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES & USE CASES
Strengths
Weaknesses
• High performance relative to disk • Some have higher latency relative
• Often include integrated deto PCIe flash cards
duplication and compression
• Can be very expensive on price• Higher capacity relative to PCIe
per-GB Basis
flash cards
Use
Cases
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Large database acceleration
Server and desktop virtualization
Relatively small data sets
Consistent / Predictable performance: Performance
cannot degrade in the event of a cache miss.
Capacity needed for application working set exceeds
flash capacity of hybrid array or server-side caching.
Must scale to support hundreds of thousands of IOPS.
Random workloads / heavy READ
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
“3 or 4”
“Archive”
Tape
Array
Server
DRAM
“-1”
“0”
PCIe
SSD
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“-½”
Flash Array
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cold Data
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
“3 or 4”
“Archive”
Tape
Array
Server
DRAM
“-1”
“0”
PCIe
SSD
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“-½”
Flash Array
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cold Data
“2 or 3”
“Virtualization”
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE BECOME TOO COMPLICATED?
“3 or 4”
“Archive”
Tape
Array
DRAM
“-1”
PCIe
SSD
Cache
Server
“0”
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“-½”
Flash Array
“1”
“2”
SAS
SATA
Cloud
Storage
Gateway
Cold Data
“2 or 3”
“Virtualization”
FLASH: CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
Cloud Storage
Gateway
File Data
Archive
Backup
•
•
•
•
•
•
Amazon
Google
Microsoft
Nirvanix
Rackspace
Etc.
FLASH: ARCHITECTURE
Array
Server
PCIe
SSD
Cache
DRAM
“-1”
Flash
Cache
“0”
Flash
SSD
Hot Data
“-½”
Flash Array
“1”
SAS
“3 or 4”
“Archive”
Tape
“2”
SATA
or
NearLine
SAS
Cloud
Storage
Gateway
Cold Data
“2 or 3”
“Virtualization”
GARTNER SSD-FLASH
RECOMMENDATIONS (APRIL 2013)
 Do not use SSDs for all storage requirements, but only
for high-value data, which also requires fast access.
 Review data residing on SSDs and its business value on
a continuous basis.
 Invest in SSDs to reduce and recover costs in related IT
infrastructure devices, and free up capital to increase
other IT infrastructure investments and improve overall IT
agility and costs.
 Do not plan to replace all HDD storage within your IT
infrastructure with SSD storage.
IDC STORAGE MARKET BUYING TREND
CUSTOMER FLASH-SSD IMPLEMENTATION PLANS
INFOPRO WAVE 17 SURVEY (CHART PUBLISHED 2013 10)
GARTNER ENTERPRISE FLASH USAGE
MARKET SHARE FORECAST FOR 2016
Sales US$M
30%
36%
34%
Server SSD (PCIe)
Storage SSD (Hybrid Array)
Solid State Appliance (AFA)
COMPETITIVE MARKET ANALYSIS
TIER “-1/2 ”
K
ALL FLASH ARRAYS (AFA’S)
HARRY ZIMMER
OCTOBER 29, 2013
DEFINITIONS
Hybrid
Array
All Flash
Array
Storage
Array
Storage
Appliance
Server
Cache
Data
Accelerator
MARKETPLACE
All Flash Array
Hybrid Array
VIOLIN MEMORY IPO  ‘VMEM’ ON NYSE
•
•
IPO completed on September 27th, 2013
Price: US$9/share – 18 million shares sold
-64%
FUSION-IO IPO  FIO ON NYSE
•
•
IPO completed on June 9, 2011
Price: US$19/share – 12.3 million shares sold
-58%
FLASH STARTUP SALES PITCH
Secret Sauce
Deduplication
and/or
Compression
“Our usable $/GB on all flash arrays is about
the same as a traditional (old) SAS based array.
FLASH CONSIDERATIONS
DEDUPLICATION, COMPRESSION, RAID TYPE
• Impact on Performance
(response time)
• Impact on Throughput
(IOPS)
• Impact on amount of usable
space
• Impact on usable space $/gig.
Listen to Harry’s 5 minute Customer Audio Podcast on Twitter
Harry’s Twitter ID is: ‘ZimmerHDS’
AFA COMPETITIVE COMPARISON
Dedupe
Compress
Architecture
Max
IOPS Claimed
1
Astute Networks
Yes
No
Single Controller
(can be clustered)
Read Random or
Sequential IOPS:
140,000/ViSX4 engine
1M (clustered)
2
Kaminario
No
No
Scale Out Nodes
2M
3
Nimbus Data
Yes
No
Dual Controller
800,000 4K IOPs
4
Pure Storage
Yes
Yes
Dual Controller
400K/controller
5
Skyera
Yes
Yes
Single Controller
w/integrated
networking
500K
6
SolidFire
Yes
Yes
Scale Out Nodes
50K/node
7
Texas Memory (IBM)
No
No
Distributed FPGA
controllers on each
module
FS820: 525,000 4K IOPs
1.4M (with SVC)
8
Violin Memory
Yes
Yes
Quad Controller
1M
9
Whiptail
No
No
Scale Out Nodes
4M varies w/# nodes
10
XtremeIO (EMC)
Yes
No
Scale Out Nodes
250K/node
2M per cluster
COMPETITIVE CUSTOMER Q’S
1. Who does the equipment installation?
The customer?
2. Who does the ongoing service and maintenance?
The customer (or maybe someone else)?
3. What exactly is the warranty for the equipment?
How are ‘writes’ handled in the warranty?
4. What is the financial health of the startup?
Are they running out of runway/VC patience for an exit?
5. Is the software stack of the vendor mature?
(Don’t assume enterprise class feature/function.)
6. Is the solution an island of storage?
Is tiering part of the solution?
7. Do you really need 1M+ IOPS?
QUESTIONS AND
DISCUSSION
Thank You!
Harry Zimmer
Senior Director, Global Competitive & Market Intelligence
Hitachi Data Systems
Email: harry.zimmer@hds.com
Twitter: zimmerhds
Phone: 1-905-738-7903
Cell:
1-416-704-0293