* Posts by storman

6 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Apr 2014

Hybrid storage arrays versus all-flash: will disks hold their own?

storman

It's all about the workload

As noted in the article, the decision of flash v hybrid is all about the workload performance requirements. Users need to characterize the I/O profiles of their installed production workloads, create tests that accurately represent them and then run them against the various hybrid or all flash array products. This is where companies like Load Dynamix add value. They provide workload modeling and load generation products that simplify and standardize the storage performance evaluation process.

Another day, another load of benchmarketing, this time from HDS

storman

Avoid benchmarks and evaluate with YOUR workloads

Very good comments about the problems with “standard” benchmarks like SPC and SPEC. Vendors can play way too many games and half of them simply choose not to play at all. This is why products like Load DynamiX exist. It’s a storage performance validation system that enables you to accurately model your real production applications in a test lab to evaluate any flash or hybrid storage product. The key is that the Load Dynamix load generator emulates YOUR application workloads, not some benchmark that has nothing to do with your production environment.

What benchmarks can tell you about your solid-state drives

storman

What about Load Dynamix?

I’m surprised that you didn’t mention Load Dynamix in your article. Load Dynamix offers comprehensive, easy to use workload modeling and load generation appliances for storage engineers/architects that are serious about understanding, comparing and predicting networked storage performance. It is not a benchmark, but a highly accurate, large scale simulation product designed for flash and hybrid array testing. It enables pre-conditioning, dedupe & compression testing, hot spot simulation and allows detailed “what-if” analysis on dozens of parameters such as block/file size distributions, file/directory structures, queue depths, etc in addition to the usual R/W, random/sequential, and data/metadata command mixes.

It is heavily used by nearly every storage vendor (EMC, NetApp, HP, IBM, HDS, Pure, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, Tegile, Nimbus, Skyera, etc) and an increasing number of Global 2000 enterprise IT and service provider organizations. It’s not inexpensive as it is designed for organizations spending $1M or more per year on storage who want to ensure I/O performance and cut their storage costs by 30% or more. Our customers, who are mostly former Iometer/Vdbench/Fio users, tell us repeatedly that it is really the only viable solution to cost-effectively analyze how existing installed workloads will perform on different vendors, products, technologies and configurations. A single 2U appliance scales to many millions of IOPS and doesn’t require the complex scripting and set-up of the open source tools.

Keep up with the fast-moving world of all-flash array storage

storman

Understand Your workloads first

Deciding the best AFA, HFA, or ADA vendor/product for your specific application workloads is the not an easy decision. The key to successfully deploying flash is to fully understand the workload performance requirements before making purchase or deployment decisions. The only way to make intelligent decisions is to use workload modeling and storage performance validation solutions from companies like Load Dynamix. Every workload will perform differently on each vendor's products. For example, the vendor's implementations of dedupe and compression can impact flash storage response times by a factor of 3X or more. Storage performance validation tools give you the data to make educated decisions on flash and hybrid deployments

How much disruptive innovation does your flash storage rig really need?

storman

Can't judge flash or hybrid arrays on SPEC numbers

Relying on (or even showing) SPECsfs numbers from a limited set of vendors is nearly useless. As can be seen in the chart, it's primarily the legacy vendors who run SPEC benchmarks as they have been doing for decades. None of the flash or hybrid "newcomers" care about SPEC because they realize application workloads vary dramatically and the solid state technology implementations (compression, dedupe, flash chips, controllers) can also vary dramatically. The only way to assess performance is to run real (or highly accurate representations of) production workloads. Without the ability to do this performance validation, it is very easy to over-provision storage or under provision by a factor of 2X or more. Given the typical cost of flash storage arrays, purchases need to be aligned to performance requirements. Tools like Load Dynamix or SwiftTest are designed to make this analysis very easy.

Aw, SNAP. It's too late, you've already PAID for your storage array

storman

Always Trust, but Verify

Testing of storage systems in real world scenarios has always been a tough problem. SMBs and SMEs simply can't afford to build test labs. They have to rely on vendor claims, "independent" reports, and published benchmarks like SPEC SFS and peak IOPS, which as Nate correctly points out are simply not representative of typical installed production workloads and often grossly misleading. For the mid to larger IT organizations, which I define as those that spend $Ms per year on storage, a trust, but verify strategy that includes a test lab is essential. Making a performance assumption that results in under-provisioning could decrease company revenues and unnecessarily over-provisioning just by 20% can easily waste many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. No company can easily afford to waste such money. For this class of IT customer, vendors will nearly always provide an evaluation unit for a POC. If not, then they are not serious about earning your business. What is needed is a solution that can help you understand the I/O profile of your existing production application workloads to great detail and then allow you to use them (in a truly realistic workload model) to evaluate the new vendors, products, technologies, and configurations in a test lab. This is where companies like Load DynamiX are extremely valuable. They offer a simple to use workload modeling and storage performance validation system that is 100% vendor independent that enables users to run tests based on the characteristics of their production workloads using a load generator. Storage architects can now have the data to make key decisions to align purchases and deployment decisions directly to performance requirements. The power is now shifted back to the users and away from the vendors. Trust, but verify is the key to assuring performance and controlling runaway storage costs.