In addition to high performance, what is flash memory?

Will the emergence of flash memory change the IT infrastructure of the data center? Although it is still too early to come to the conclusion, the potential of flash memory in terms of performance, capacity, and availability is gradually emerging and recognized by enterprise users.

Xinhua Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinhua Insurance Company) has the need for mobile renewal. Based on the original system, when the number of mobile clients reaches 1500, the system encountered a significant performance bottleneck. When the number of users increased to 2500, the background system even experienced interruptions. After tests and trials, Xinhua insurance company finally purchased four sets of Dell server systems, including Dell's latest fluidcache solution, supporting a maximum of 7000 or 8000 mobile users, the performance is improved by more than 10 times than before.

　Deep Development of flash applications

With the changes in users' business needs and the changes in the IT architecture of the data center, enterprise users are receiving more and more flash. According to a survey conducted by zhongqiao International, the number of users in China who plan to deploy flash memory in the next 24 months accounts for 68.3% of the total number of respondents. Users want to improve IT support capabilities for their businesses through flash.

"Enterprise users are more and more interested in flash memory. On the one hand, cloud computing, big data and other emerging applications have higher and higher requirements on the Performance of IT systems. On the other hand, the emergence of flash memory can better work with the improvement of CPU processing performance, making up for the gap between the CPU and traditional mechanical hard disks." Wang Cong, Chief Analyst of China Bridge international research and consulting company, said that in the process of it evolution, flash memory will play its unique value in the following aspects: to ensure business stability and efficiency; accelerate enterprises' response to the market, improve it efficiency, continuously achieve innovation, and improve user application experience.

A lot of users choose flash memory at the beginning, that is, their speed advantage. According to the survey data from the Chinese Bridge International Research consulting firm, flash memory can reduce the application response time from the previous 876ms to 6 ms, and the supported concurrency can increase from 2200 to 14000, the desktop virtualization startup storm, once a headache for users, will become a thing of the past, and the database applications that test performance, scalability, and application experience are no longer a problem because of the emergence of flash memory. In fact, the value of flash memory is not only that it is a new storage medium that can replace disks, but that it may change the IT infrastructure of the entire data center.

In enterprise applications, the value of flash memory is becoming increasingly prominent. According to the survey data of zhongqiao international research and consulting company, flash memory is an important choice for enterprises to meet key business load performance requirements, reduce time delay, increase the density of virtual machines, meet the OLAP needs of big data analysis, and solve the desktop virtualization startup storm. For example, netqin chose Dell compellent all-flash memory array to improve access performance through flash memory.

There are many types of Flash technology, and different application scenarios. At the beginning, SSD Based on the Flash technology was deployed as a cache in the disk array. Although there are only a few SSDS, it can greatly improve the overall performance of the disk array, at the same time, it reduces the overall cost of ownership of storage. PCIe flash cards are suitable for servers and can even replace traditional SAN in some cases. All-flash storage arrays may be ideal for users who want to keep all their data online forever. However, due to the Flash price, there are not many users currently using full-flash storage arrays. Most users still choose storage arrays mixed with SSD and hard disks.

Wang Cong predicts that in 15000rpm, the price of SSD and the price of 15000rpm disks will generate an intersection. The price of SSD will be lower than disks in the future, and the application of SSD may have a boom. Li xuanhui, Senior Technical Manager of Dell's enterprise-level solutions department in China, revealed that companies are already developing 8 TB or even 12 tb ssds.

When you select the Flash technology, an important principle is to select a flash product suitable for you based on the actual load. As Users learn more and more about the Flash technology and application, many users will not only look at the performance of the technical indicator when choosing flash, but will pay more attention to the details of the flash application, for example, whether flash memory can be closely integrated with hard disks, whether flash memory can meet economic requirements, and whether data in flash memory has high availability and manageability of flash memory.

　　Always striving for high cost effectiveness

Dell has always adhered to the principle of openness and cost-effectiveness. This is a magic weapon for Dell to succeed and win customers. This principle is also applied to the development of FLASH products. When other storage vendors show the high performance of their flash solutions, Dell wants to get the flash performance at the hard disk price. Taking the Dell compellent all-flash optimization solution as an example, the cost is only half of the storage solution with 15000rpm disks.

Dell's next-generation mid-range storage array sc4000 series released this year features high performance, scalability, and high cost efficiency. It can also be configured as a flash System Based on your needs. In addition, the Dell equallogic and compellent series Storage Systems Support flash memory. For example, the Dell equallogic ps6210 all-flash array is optimized for flash applications with higher performance and lower latency. One equallogic ps6210 all-flash array can replace four ps6210xv, reducing Latency by 64% and total cost by 11%.

Dell wants to use flash memory to connect data streams from the server to the storage end to comprehensively improve the performance of the IT infrastructure of the data center. The successive releases of fluidcache for DAS and fluidcache for San indicate that Dell's above ideas can be achieved. Xinhua insurance company uses Dell fluidcache and uses shareplex to optimize its performance. Li xuanhui said that fluidcache is suitable for OLTP, ERP, desktop virtualization and other applications with high performance requirements. Fluidcache for DAS is suitable for accelerating a single application, while fluidcache for San is suitable for cluster environments composed of multiple servers and can achieve high-speed access across different servers. On fluidcache, Dell also implements read/write splitting.

Pay attention to the following factors to make good use of flash and get higher ROI through application flash.

First, flexible application of Flash technology. For example, when an enterprise has both PCIe flash cards, hybrid storage arrays, and full-flash storage arrays, how can we use different types of flash storage products for different workloads, achieve the optimal ratio, so that different flash solutions can perform their jobs. For example, if you can optimize the combination of SLC and MLC based on their respective strengths, it can achieve both high performance and high cost effectiveness. According to Li xuanhui, Dell combines high-performance SLC with low-cost MLC to achieve Hierarchical Storage, use SLC for data writing, and use MLC for Data Reading, reduces the flash storage solution cost by 40%.

Second, ensure the efficiency of the Flash technology. Flash Memory has a wide range of functions required by enterprise customers, such as automatic configuration streamlining, compression, deduplication, automatic layering, and read/write splitting.

Third, better overall cost of ownership. In addition to paying attention to the initial procurement and new procurement costs of hardware equipment, it is also important to ensure the high availability of flash memory and reduce the O & M and management costs throughout the lifecycle of flash applications.

Fourth, easy management. In a complex enterprise application environment, it is necessary to optimize the combination of flash memory and hard disk and centrally manage the disk. Only in this way can the deployment and application be convenient and fast.

After the privatization, Dell further increased its investment in R & D ~ In the seven-year R & D Plan, it is the top priority to improve the performance of the storage system and reduce the latency, including flash memory and ultra-high-speed cache.

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　Redefinition of next-generation storage

Dell is trying to redefine the economics of storage. The economics mentioned here mainly includes the following three aspects: Product simplicity and cost effectiveness, software and service integration, and modular architecture. With the rise of cloud computing, big data, and new storage technologies, users have high hopes for storage and expect a higher return on investment. Dell will reshape storage by redefining the economics of storage.

Based on user feedback and Dell's own technological innovation, Dell believes that from the technical architecture perspective, the new generation of storage should be based on a fully modular and fully virtualized architecture, with vertical and horizontal scaling capabilities, the hardware and software are completely decoupled and the storage is transparent to the host. Specifically, the new-generation storage in the eyes of Dell should have the following four basic features: first, the storage itself has a wide range of data protection functions, including backup and recovery, CDP, and so on; second, data can flow on different media as needed. Users can store and access data at reasonable costs at appropriate time and place. Third, on standardized and modular hardware, storage can be flexibly expanded, including flexible adaptation and online upgrades, and can protect users' original hardware investment to enable On-Demand Purchase of storage resources. Fourth, data Optimization and integration can be better realized.

This article from the "Guo Tao's storage world" blog, please be sure to keep this source http://gtstorageworld.blog.51cto.com/908359/1529912