IOPS Upgrade SSD Solid state storage improves cloud datacenter performance

"Tenkine Server channel April 25" The computational performance of the data center market is increasing in Moore's law, but storage performance is facing enormous challenges. But with the advent of SSD solid-state storage, the data center storage market is ushering in new changes. Because of the scale of the data center, thousands of even tens of thousands of servers and the number of storage to bring the pressure of energy costs, this gives SSD solid state drive survival and development opportunities.

The initial application of SSD is limited to real time and high performance requirements, but with the development of new technologies such as cloud computing and large data, solid-state hard disk has begun to penetrate into storage mainstream. EMC, Fusion-io, HDS, IBM, Intel, NETAPP, Seagate, Samsung and other vendors have already launched or are developing solid-state hard disk products.

The performance of the storage hardware determines the operation of the data center. In addition, hardware storage and arrays occupy 98% of the cost of enterprise data center, which requires the performance of the storage devices in the Enterprise data center to be very strong and cost-effective, SSD increases the number of IOPS per second input and output operations, power loss and the advantage of small footprint.

From the data center storage application, it can be seen that the application of various forms of storage media has different levels, and the characteristics of application in each application domain are not the same. Organizations must adjust their arrays to take advantage of potential performance benefits. This process requires monitoring their information flow, storing the most frequently updated data in flash memory, and saving other data on the hard disk. In addition, applications and operating systems need to be adjusted to allow the enterprise to maximize the benefits of flash memory.

In addition, virtualization to the data center brought about by the nature of the changes, as well as a large number of hard drives increased data center data and network data flow, the traditional SATA or FC disk in the increase in the amount of data will increase the response time, the data center needs to use solid-state hard disk fast response, The features of high IO processing capabilities to meet the new requirements of data growth.

Database acceleration is a common condition for using a full SSD array. For those online transport processing OLTP applications, the continuous or burst IO requirements are more than the maximum available from the HDD hard disk, so the full SSD array is particularly attractive. Another case in which a full SSD array can help is the virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI, where a small amount of SSD can provide a steady speed for a large number of devices. Another part of the load is the virtualization of large-scale servers, where a large number of servers in the same store may have a demand for random access to data that might exceed the limit of the HDD cache. Full-SSD storage lets people get rid of the slow speed of accessing traditional disks. Perhaps the most interesting emerging industry is big data analysis. SSD arrays can provide sufficient performance for real-time data analysis of very large data.

Full-SSD storage is deployed in much the same way as an entire HDD product. They have the same logical unit device number LUN, RAID, and other features. Most vendors support the implementation of traditional raid capabilities on SSDs. Other common features in an SSD array are its tools for competing in larger array markets, including streamlined configuration, duplication, and other similar features. The management of different SSD products varies greatly. HP 3PAR is managed using the 3PAR management software suite, and other products are provided in different ways for specific systems.

Another benefit of solid-state drives is low energy consumption. As data requirements for the IT department continue to grow, their electricity costs are rising. As a result, they encourage manufacturers to make their products more energy efficient. Because solid-state drives store information in memory, they do not do as much reading and writing as hard disk storage. It is precisely because of these potential advantages, solid-state disk market is showing rapid development momentum.

One of the biggest problems with SSD technology is its predictable damage. A single storage unit can only perform a limited number of write operations. Gradually, the performance of the disk is reduced to the degree that it must be replaced. For consumption-level SSD, the use of multi-level unit MLC technology is usually used on PCs, which have a lifetime of about 10,000 write operations. Enterprise-Class SSD, using single level unit SLC technology, can provide approximately 100000 of the write operations.

The future of an enterprise-class disk array is a mixture of solid-state and hard drives. Under the consideration of cost control, take the length of the two respectively. Hard drives can provide a huge amount of storage space, while solid-state drives provide high-performance performance. Solid-state drives do not only pose a threat to the hard drive market, but can also drive greater capacity storage requirements for faster data processing.

In the long run, large scale applications of solid-state disks are expected to be seen within 3 years, and many data centers will adopt a hybrid approach, which will increase the number of solid-state storage arrays and purchase servers that support SSD. The two will merge to reduce network traffic, increase response time, and use hardware that takes up less space, consumes less power, and is less expensive.