keith norbie flash storage decision methodology - mnvmug

#MNVMUG DebateFlash Storage Decision Methodology

Keith NorbieDirector of Virtualization, Server, Storage - East

Keith.Norbie@tig.com@keithnorbie

SATA HDD typical read IOPS = 80

Flash SSD typical read IOPS = 30,000

375x

For comparison

Typical walking speed = 3 mph

Speed of sound = 761 mph

Felix Baumgartner free-fall = 834 mph

“only” 278x

Flash is fast – but we already knew that

*Slide courtesy of Justin Lauer, Tintri

Interesting effect towards Moore’s Law…

What’s an architecture bound by? CPU, Network, Disk, Flash, Cache destaging, etc.

But…. Did you know the 2nd fastest Computer in the world has no Flash?

Beyond Hype: Get Informed

Get Informed

• Flash as a technology

• Differentiation

• Categories

• Efficiencies

Prepare Decision Criteria

• Financial

• Political

• Operational

• Technical

• Vendor Background

Flash Storage ElementalNeed to Know•Wearing•Inherently random access•How is writes•Garbage Collection•Raid? Hot Spares?

Types of Flash•MLC•eMLC•SLC

Use Cases•Read Acceleration•VDI•Database•Parts of HPC

VM Affinity•Storage Blender•Writes mis-alignment•Read Cache•VSAN•Horizon Suite•Guest based vs Kernel based

Architectural•DAS – PCIe, SSD•Network Accelerators•Shared – PCIe, SSD, memory•AFA•Hybrid

Level Set on Flash

Things to know about Flash• Cells wear out

• Different flavors

• It fails differently than disk

• Writes are expensive, reads are free

• Inherently random access

• Flash Translation Layer (FTL)

• What is Garbage collection?

• Raid types? Hot Spares?

• Wear leveling is important

“Server-ization” of Storage

8

Shareability High Capacity High Availability Centralized Storage Management

Capacity Tier

Performance Tier

Data far away from Applications Inadequate Performance Poor utilization & Inefficiency High Costs

Performance Tier

DRAM PCIe

SERVER

APPLICATION DATA

Breakthrough PCIe Flash Architecture

Why Server Side is Faster

9

DRAM

HBASwitch

es

ENTERPRISE STORAGESTORAGE NETWORKSERVER

APPLICATION DATA

RAID

HDD/SDD

Legacy Storage Architecture

• Increased Performance

• Higher Resource Utilization

• Lower costs

• Less Complexity

• Improved Data Service

Data Delivery: MILLISECONDS

Data Delivery: MICROSECONDS

Anyone know of any Flash Vendors?

Classifications and Form Factors

SDN

JBODFlash

Flash in the Storage ModelsModels defined - virtualgeek.typepad.com

Distributed, Shared NothingTightly Coupled, Scale Out

Loosely Coupled, Scale OutClustered

XtremIOVMaxHDS USP & VSPIBM DS

IsilonVSANScaleIONutanixSimplivity

Most TraditionalPureTintriNetApp FASVNX

“Object Storage”ATMOSHadoopOpenStack SwiftCoho – sort of

So… Kernel mode or Guest mode

So… Kernel mode or Guest modeSource: frankdenneman.nl & Nutanix Bible

Flash & Software Defined Storage?

Hybrid systems marry flash and disk to deliver the best of both

All Flash or Hybrid?

Net Results

All Flash w/Reduce

10Uinstalled

(based on market-leading modular array using 300 GB 15k disks achieving a sustained 200,000 IOPs)

280Uinstalled

Traditional Storage

Example | Web 2.0 Infrastructure

18

Decision Criteria Shaping

Scalability• Out• Up• Capac

ity• Perfor

mance

Efficiency• Dedu

pe• H

ow granular?

• Inline or post?

• Thin Provision? Why?

Flash Technology• Wear

leveling past 5 years?

• Workload Management• How

does it handle workloads?

• Snapshots, Replication

• Brand of NAND, type?

Affinity • VMw

are• App

optimization

• VDI

Fault Tolerance• What

happens with a hardware failure during a write?• C

ell, drive, node, controller, etc

• Caching/Tiering during HA event?

Vendor Strength• Fiscal• Leadershi

p• Momentu

m• Reference

s, Case Studies

• Use Cases

Security• Do

you support encryption?

Ease of Manage-ability• Single

pane for PB’s?

• Software Defined?

• Automation

Financial• ROI/

TCO?• Justifi

cation?

Questions?Thanks!

Keith NorbieDirector of Virtualization, Server, Storage - East

Keith.Norbie@tig.com@keithnorbie