Solid state HDD solves data center storage bottleneck problem

Storage is an important resource in modern data centers. Storage bottlenecks can cause critical applications to run slowly affecting the user experience. Storage support applications, virtual machines, http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13681.html > Data protection, user data, and other enterprise-critical tasks, always require more volumes.

TechTarget interviewed storage industry expert Dennis Martin and asked him to talk about some of the ideas stored in the data center bottleneck.

Where do you see a storage bottleneck happening in the data center today? For example, what is the biggest problem with our network switch or storage array itself? Is it too demanding an application or is it another key issue?

Martin explains that the source of the problem seems to be in the storage array itself. "The biggest bottleneck I see at the moment is the storage end, which is that the electromechanical drive has reached its performance limit," he said. "These are electromechanical devices in the original electronic environment." ”

Considering a virtual environment, like the Vmotion or VMware DRS tool, you can balance the workload from one server to another server center. The problem is that the migration process involves moving the virtual machine to storage, where the controller is overwhelmed and may affect the performance and stability of the virtual machine, and without extensive testing, the problem is difficult to resolve and correct.

Another example, suppose an IT enterprise deploys a new application on a volume and shares a physical drive with an e-mail system. If the new application becomes very active and the physical drive is not performing well, the email system will be adversely affected. Finally, drive performance degradation drives RAID group rebuilds to fail, and new drive-rebuilt data can be spread across other disk groups from the same data.

What are the best solutions to these storage bottleneck problems? For example, do you need a network upgrade or refactoring? or deploy more new arrays?

Martin is very keen on using SSD technology in the storage subsystem. "We've been testing SSD technology for a while and now we can see a tremendous improvement in storage access speed and performance," he said, "because SSD units are fully electronic and inactive, SSD can usually eliminate disk latency." For example, a fibre Channel for 15000 RPM, SAS disk response time is 6 milliseconds, Fibre Channel disk response time is 4 milliseconds, but SSD only takes about 1 milliseconds. ”

Many organizations are introducing SSD storage to optimize the performance of first-tier storage applications. However, mitigating storage bottlenecks can really transfer problems. "In some cases, using SSD technology, we see storage bottlenecks moving into other environments, such as the network," Martin says. "It staff should carefully check the storage path before and after introducing SSDs to determine the bottleneck changes." ”

How to break the bottleneck and keep the data center leading? For example, if you carefully plan capacity issues or their scenarios, what suggestions do you have?

Performance monitoring and planning has been an important part of data center management, but Martin believes a data center can be upgraded with an SSD to match the corresponding Ethernet or storage area network to improve performance. "We've always said that SSD technology works well with a GB Ethernet network and a 8 GB/16 GB Fibre Channel storage Area network," he said, "and I believe that SSD and high-speed networks are a natural pair." ”

However, organizations cannot prove that SSD can enhance network performance, so most storage subsystems still adhere to the best available solutions. For example, be careful of your physical storage, even in a virtual environment. This means that your IOPS needs to match the drive type, extending the workload to available disks, and running multiple business-critical applications from the same SATA drives or drive groups simply requires more storage.

In addition, the drive format can only hold data in the outer orbit, given the most critical of the short stroke drive. This not only reduces mechanical lag but also enhances performance, but there is a significant portion of storage space for discarded drives.

Finally, be sure to use the Virtualization Performance monitoring tool, which will help you track and report on data storage and network business so that IT administrators can identify bottlenecks and quickly develop the best solutions to handle storage performance issues.

Typically, a storage bottleneck occurs because of improper planning, unexpected, and unexpected workloads, which can degrade the performance of the application and thus affect the user's experience. The application of SSD can overcome the problems related to traditional mechanical hard disk and improve system performance significantly.

(Responsible editor: Schpeppen)