The All-Flash Array for the
Next Generation Data Center
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
The SolidFire Solution
Scale-out high performance storage systems
designed for large scale infrastructure
 Largest and Fastest all-SSD storage system
 4 - 100 nodes, 35TB - 3.4PB, 200K - 7.5M IOPS
 Industry-standard hardware, 10 GigE iSCSI
 20X performance of traditional SANs
 Best-in-Class Quality of Service (QoS) Architecture
 10x reduction in operational cost
 Delivered near/below the cost of traditional 15K spinning disk
SAN
Flash for the Next Generation Data Center
Scale-Out Architecture
Starter 5 node SF9010 configuration
Linear Scalability
275 TB
241 TB
525,000 IOPS
207 TB
Capacity
5, SF9010 Nodes


600,000 IOPS
450,000 IOPS
174 TB
375,000 IOPS
174 TB
375,000 IOPS
Performance
 New nodes are added as demand dictates
 Performance and capacity instantly available to all volumes
 Nodes added on the fly without down time
Allan Leinwand, ServiceNow CTO:
“If your cloud has maintenance windows, you're doing it wrong.”
Guaranteed Performance - QoS
Performance Virtualization: Independent
global pools of capacity and performance
 Allocate: Storage performance
independent of capacity
 Manage: Performance real-time without
impacting other volumes
 Guarantee: Performance to every volume
with fine-grain QoS settings
Deliver Guaranteed Storage Performance and
Firm Performance SLAs
Eliminating Noisy Neighbors with QoS
Performance 0
Noisy Neighbor
Performance 1
Decreased
Performance
Performance 2
Performance 3
The Noisy Neighbor Effect
SolidFire QoS in Practice
 Individual tenant impacts other applications
 Create fine-grained tiers of performance
 Unsuitable for performance sensitive apps
 Application performance is isolated
 Performance SLAs enforced
Shared Nothing High Availability
 Cluster wide RAID-less data protection SolidFire Helix™
 No single points of failure
 Automatic self-healing – restores redundancy after
failure
 Maintains all QoS settings regardless of failure
condition
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Non-disruptive hardware and software upgrades
Real-Time Replication
Integrated Backup and Restore
Encryption at Rest
A
G
B
C
F
H
A
C
E
G
D
E
B
D
H
F
In-Line Efficiency

Always-on, in-line data reduction
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Deduplication
Compression
Thin provisioning
Executed across entire data store
without performance impact
Space efficient snapshots and clones
Delivers drastic reduction in power,
cooling, and floor space
User Error - Storage Complexity Others
Design
Installation
Operating
Scaling
•
Initial size (GB or IOPS)
•
Bin File/RAID Layout
•
GB required
•
IOPS needed
•
Anticipated growth over
lifecycle of array
•
Aggregate/MetaLUN creation
•
IOPs required
•
GB needed
•
Snapshot spare spacing
•
Account Creation
•
Drive Shelves required
•
IOPS required lifetime of
product
•
Vol0/quorum drive layout
•
•
Power/floor space restrictions
•
Node size selection
•
Aggregate snapshot frequency
Host to HBA assignment and
tracking
•
•
Host initiator count limits
Control node limitations (CPU
storage)
•
RAID type, RAID grouping
•
RAID type required
•
Drive type (FC, NL, SSD)
Upgrade
•
•
Drive quantities and ratio
Primary Control Node
assignment
•
HBA compatibility list
•
Cache requirements
•
IOP limitation concerns
•
CPU utilization on control
nodes
•
Drive Sparing
•
Snapshot growth policy
•
Maintenance window
•
Aggregate/CPG
•
Thin Provisioning (or not)
•
•
MetaLUN and Bin file layout
•
Aggregate/CPG assignment
Mitigate risk during node
outage
•
40% CPU limit considerations
•
Snapshot growth limits
User Error - Storage Complexity SolidFire
Design
Installation
Operating
Scaling
•
•
•
GB required
•
IOPS needed
•
IOPs required
•
GB needed
•
Account Creation
Initial size (GB or IOPS)
None
Upgrade
•
None
“Where SolidFire differs, though, is in its focus. It has made decisions with its product to reduce what I like to call “mental friction,”
or the ongoing drag on IT staff from operational complexity.”
– Bob Plankers, The Virtualization Practice
Automated Management
Integrated REST-based API
 Enables complete automation of any
SolidFire function
 Supports development of user-facing
storage controls
 Seamless integration into current
billing/charge-back systems and
management stacks
 API Integration Support from SolidFire
Shared Nothing HA
Not all flash is created
equal…
Automated Management
Guaranteed Performance
Scale beyond 100TB
Native Remote Replication
In-line Data Reduction
High Performance
All Flash Array Type A
All Flash Array Type B
All Flash Array Type C
All Flash Array Type D
SolidFire Ranks #1 Overall in Gartner Critical
Capabilities Study
▪
▪
Report analyzes 13 SSAs across
six high-impact use cases
Quantifies product attractiveness
against seven critical capabilities
that are important to IT leaders.
▪
▪
▪
▪
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Overall Use Case
Online Transaction Processing
Server Virtualization
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
High Performance Computing
Analytics
Validated in the most demanding Enterprise and
Service Provider data centers
Primary Data Center
VDI Success Story – Large Global Telco
42 U
SFP
LC-CB-10G-1G-36V
36Port GE V/8Port 1 GE/2Port 10G
CLASS 1 LASER PRODUCT
SFP+
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Serial #
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Status
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CLASS 1 LASER PRODUCT
SFP+
LASERPRODUCT DER KLASSE1
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Assy
• 3000 user VDI POD – 200K+ Deployment 2YR
• Selected solution after having analyzed and
completed Proof of Concepts of(18) Hybrid,
Traditional Raid, and Flash Array vendors
• Inline efficiency was key benefit achieved greater
than 10X
• API integration with custom management tool easily
achieved with REST API
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Top of rack
switches, 2U total
Total Compute:
· 12-14 servers
· 24-28U rack space
12-14U of
Servers
• Power savings key business driver SolidFire and
Dell Networking helped cut this in ½ compared to
competitive solution.
• Replaced existing standard POD which took up 2
44U Racks
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12-14U of
Servers
SATA
200GB SSD
SATA
SolidFire nodes
4U total rack space
200GB SSD
SATA
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PDUs
4U total
The All-Flash Array for the
Next Generation Data Center
For more information visit www.solidfire.com or email
dell@solidfire.com
SolidFire Solutions are in the Dell Solutions Center for
POC’s and Demo’s. Contact us for a solutions
discussion and demo!
Contact your Dell sales team for a quote today!