UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE. By Tim Anderson, Ken Clipperton and Jerome Wendt

Transcription

1 A Comparison of Utility SAN Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE By Tim Anderson, Ken Clipperton and Jerome Wendt EMPOWERING THE IT INDUSTRY WITH ACTIONABLE ANALYSIS

2 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Table of Contents The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays 1 Introduction 19 Utility SAN Storage Array Products 3 Executive Summary 5 How to Use this Buyer s Guide 5 Disclosures 6 Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria 6 The Eight-Step Process Used to Rank Utility SAN Storage Arrays 7 DCIG Comments and Thoughts 7 Storing Data On-premise versus in the Cloud 7 Performance 8 Pricing 8 Storage Capacities, Densities and Price per GB 8 Data Efficiency 9 MAID / Spin-down Technologies 9 Availability Features 9 Controller Configurations 9 Non-disruptive Upgrade Features 10 Multi-Protocol Support 10 Management Methods 11 DCIG Observations & Recommendations 11 Recommended Ranking 11 Excellent Ranking 12 Good Ranking 13 Basic Ranking 15 Utility SAN Storage Array Rankings 20 Dell SC Dell SC Dell SCv Dell SCv EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNXe FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 31 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3 32 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX200 S3 33 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX500 S3 34 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 35 HDS VSP G HDS VSP G HDS VSP G HPE MSA HPE MSA HPE StoreVirtual HPE StoreVirtual Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3 43 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5500 V3 44 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5600 V3 45 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5800 V3 46 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 6800 V3 47 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series 48 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 2000 Series 49 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 3000 Series 50 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 4000 Series 51 IXsystems TrueNAS Z20 52 ixsystems TrueNAS Z30 53 ixsystems TrueNAS Z35 54 NEC M NEC M NEC M NEC M NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E Nexsan E18V 65 Nexsan E32V 66 Nexsan E48V(T) 67 Nexsan E60V(T) 68 Nexsan NST Nexsan NST Nexsan NST Seagate RealStor 3000 Series 72 Seagate RealStor 4000 Series 73 Seagate RealStor 6000 Series 74 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12 75 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U24 76 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-3U16 77 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12 78 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-3U16 79 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-2U12 80 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 Appendices A-1 Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology B-1 Appendix B Utility Storage Array Provider Contact Information C-1 Appendix C Author Contact Information 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. i

3 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays Introduction Over the years organizations have taken a number of steps to better manage the data that they already possess as well as prepare themselves for the growth they expect to experience in the future. These steps usually involve either deleting data that they have determined they do not need or should not keep while archiving the rest of it on a low cost media such as optical, tape or even with public cloud storage providers. Yet many if not most organizations still adhere to a keep it all forever mentality when it comes to managing data for various reasons. Many do not have the resources or time to effectively and thoughtfully manage their data to the point where they can confidently delete their unneeded or unwanted data. Others have serious concerns about purposefully deleting data fearing that such a decision will someday come back to haunt them. Still others want to keep their data in case they identify some yet to-be-determined business requirement where that data is needed. These factors have led organizations to adopt a delete nothing approach to managing their data as this is often their most affordable and prudent option. The challenge with this technique is that as data volumes continue to grow and retention periods remain non-existent, organizations need to identify solutions on which they can affordably store all of this data on a media on which they can easily access it. Further, many want to keep at least a copy of this data on premise as opposed to storing it off premise with cloud providers where the data s security and/or speed of accessibility may be in doubt. Thanks to the continuing drop per GB in disk s cost that day has essentially arrived. The emergence of highly available and reliable Utility SAN storage arrays that scale into the petabytes at a cost of well below $1/GB opens the doors for organizations to confidently and cost-effectively keep almost any amount of data online and accessible for their business needs. Utility SAN storage arrays configured as utility storage arrays represent a maturation of the storage array market. Storage arrays using hard disk drives (HDDs) are still the predominant media used to host and service high performance applications. But with the advent of flash and solid state drives (SSDs), hybrid and all-flash arrays that use these technologies are rapidly supplanting all-hdd storage arrays to host business-critical, performance sensitive applications as all-flash and hybrid arrays can typically provide sub-two millisecond read and write response times. However, the high levels of performance these flash-based arrays offer comes with a price up to 10x more than HDD-based Utility SAN storage arrays. This is where HDD-based utility storage arrays are finding a new home as they are re-purposed to host and service applications with infrequently accessed or inactive data such as archived, backup and file data. Further, Utility SAN storage arrays still offer low millisecond response times (8 10 ms) for application reads and writes which is more than adequate for archival or infrequently accessed data. These arrays deliver millisecond response times while supporting hundreds of terabytes if not petabytes of storage capacity at under a dollar per gigabyte. This combination of price and performance explains, in part, why IDC recently forecast that the utility storage array market will grow at a 26.4 percent compound annual growth rate to $41.5 billion through 2018, or about six times the growth rate of the overall information technology market DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 1

4 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Introduction (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays The price points of Utility SAN storage arrays make it practical for organizations to keep more data for ever longer periods even as they lower their overall costs and management overhead. By storing archival, backup and/or infrequently accessed data on these arrays, they have more flexibility and budget to introduce hybrid or all-flash arrays into their environment to host their more active, performance sensitive data on them. Storing archival, backup or infrequently data on lower cost Utility SAN storage arrays also serves to minimize the risk, time, uncertainty and need to differentiate between which data they should keep or delete. Using Utility SAN storage arrays organizations get new options to keep their data indefinitely while minimizing the costs, time and overhead associated with doing so. Tim, Ken and Jerome 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 2

5 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays Executive Summary Amidst the introduction and adoption of flash in many enterprise storage arrays, it is easy for all-hdd arrays to get lost in the shuffle. However those organizations who are willing and able to look beyond flash-based arrays will find that they have access to a wide number of cost-effective, reliable and scalable HDD-based storage arrays that offer proven data management technologies. The Utility SAN storage arrays included in this Buyer s Guide reflect this subset of arrays. Unlike many other DCIG Buyer s Guides, price was evaluated in this Buyer s Guide as both an inclusion and evaluation criteria. Arrays included in this Buyer s Guide are available for a dollar per gigabyte, can scale to at least 75 TBs of raw capacity, offer all-hdd configurations and support both Fibre Channel (FC) and iscsi block protocols. The emergence of all-flash and hybrid arrays has prompted the storage array market to functionally break into two broad segments. One half consists of high performance arrays, such as all-flash and hybrid arrays, that offer sub-two (2) millisecond response times and are intended for use by business-critical, performance sensitive applications. However this performance comes at a cost with these arrays typically starting at about $3/GB and may be as high as $10/GB or more. The other half of the market is made up of utility or secondary storage arrays that are predominantly all-hdd configurations. These arrays still meet most enterprise expectations for availability and reliability though they lack the same levels of performance as flash and hybrid arrays. The upside is the cost of these arrays is below $1/GB while still providing reasonable single-digit milliseconds response times depending on the nature of the workloads. Utility SAN storage arrays also support a tremendous amount of raw capacity. A product offered by Huawei, for example, can provide a maximum raw capacity of over 19 petabytes at up to 113TBs per rack unit. Other products from providers such as Dell, Fujitsu, HDS, HPE, Infortrend, ixsystems, NEC, Nexsan and Seagate come in configurations as low as 144TBs and can scale to over six (6) petabytes. It behooves organizations to determine how each array is configured to scale its capacity and what impact that has on its performance and cost. These arrays scale capacity in at least three ways to include: Scale-up. Scale-up architectures are the most commonly used on arrays. These arrays leverage a two-controller configuration that sits in front of the HDDs. In this configuration, organizations will generally start with the amount of raw capacity that they initially need and then add more shelves of HDDs as their internal business demands dictate. Scale-out. In a scale-out architecture, each controller appliance generally contains storage, compute and memory with each controller referred to as a node. Multiple nodes work together as a single logical system with organizations typically using at least three (3) nodes to create a highly available configuration. When organizations need more capacity, more physical nodes are added to the logical configuration to add more capacity and performance. Scale-up and scale-out. Available from only a few providers, this architecture gives organizations the option to either add more capacity to existing nodes or add nodes that contain both performance and capacity. This option combines the best features of both scale-up and scale-out architectures while mitigating the drawbacks of each DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 3

6 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Executive Summary (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays Executive Summary (continued) The Utility SAN Storage Array Buyer s Guide accomplishes the following objectives: Provides an objective, third-party evaluation of Utility SAN storage array that evaluates their features from an end user s viewpoint Includes recommendations on how to best use this Buyer s Guide and the products contained in it Ranks the features on each Utility SAN storage array based upon the criteria that matter most to end users so they can quickly know which storage array is the most appropriate for them to use and under what conditions Provides a standardized one-page data sheet for each Utility SAN storage arrays so end users may quickly compare features that are supported and not supported on each Utility SAN storage array 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 4

7 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays How to Use this Buyer s Guide This Buyer s Guide is intended to help users accelerate their product research and selection process driving cost out of the research process while simultaneously increasing confidence in the results. The purpose of this Buyer s Guide is NOT to tell users exactly which product(s) to purchase. Rather, it is to help guide them in coming up with a short list of competitive products that have comparable features that meet their specific needs. Just because a product ranks well does not automatically mean that it is the right product for an organization. If anything, because of the scope of the products evaluated and analyzed, it may have features that are too robust for the needs of an individual department or organization. However, this Buyer s Guide does give organizations some sense of how each product compares to other products covered in this Guide, as well as offers additional insight into what product offerings are available on the market. DCIG recommends that you use this Buyer s Guide in the following seven ways: 1. Eliminates the painstaking research associated with organizations coming up with a short list of products that meet their needs. This Buyer s Guide evaluates 62 different products from 13 different vendors with each product ranked as Recommended, Excellent, Good or Basic. More than 100 different product features were evaluated so organizations only need to look at product rankings and features to come up with a short list of products for consideration. 2. Does apples-to-apples comparisons of products from different vendors. In today s crowded Utility SAN storage array market, it behooves organizations to get competitive bids from multiple vendors. After all, when they compete, you win! But that tactic only works well when organizations know that they are receiving competitive bids on products that are roughly comparable. Using this Buyer s Guide, organizations can do a better job of accomplishing that objective. 3. Separates the apples from the oranges. Just as important as doing apples-to-apples comparisons is identifying when an orange is thrown into the mix. Sometimes it is very difficult for an organization to know if it is truly getting a good deal when bids come in from vendors that include different products. Now, organizations can refer to the rankings of each product in this Guide so that they can know if they are getting bids on comparable products. 4. Provides perspective on how products from less well-known vendors compare against established and better-known brands. Anyone involved with storage has probably at least heard of EMC, Dell, HPE and IBM. But many companies providing reliable, cost-effective Utility SAN storage arrays are less well-known. Organizations can have greater confidence buying arrays from less well-known vendors or even less well-known models from established providers. Using this Buyer s Guide, organizations can see how products from lesser-known vendors as well as lesser-known products from established vendors stack up. 5. Normalizes complex terminology. Every segment across industries has a proclivity to adopt acronyms and jargon that is specific to it. This Buyer s Guide sifts through the acronyms and jargon and then normalizes these terms, providing a foundation for meaningful comparisons. Definitions for these normalized terms are provided in the Glossary in this Guide. 6. Creates a standardized data sheet. The product data sheets available from the different vendors are rarely laid out in the same way or contain the same information. Some vendors even have data sheet formats that vary from product to product within their own portfolio. This Buyer s Guide tackles this problem by creating a standard, easy-to-read data sheet for every product. In this way, data sheets for individual products can be printed out and laid down side by side so the features on them can be quickly compared. 7. Helps justify buying recommendations to business teams. When it comes to comparisons, business people find it easy to understand product rankings. So at the top of every product data sheet, a product ranking is included so the business side of the house can quickly see how different product models compare. Disclosures Over the last few years the general trend in the US has been for both large and boutique analyst firms to receive some or all of their revenue from vendors. DCIG is no different in that respect, as it also receives payment for the different services it performs for vendors. The services that DCIG provides 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 5

8 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays include blogging, customer validations, product reviews, executive white papers, special reports, and white papers. In the interest of being transparent, a number of the vendors included in this DCIG Buyer s Guide are or have been DCIG clients. This is not to imply that their products were given preferential treatment in the Buyer s Guide. All it means is that DCIG had more knowledge of their products and that DCIG would consider their product for inclusion in this Buyer s Guide. In that vein, there are a number of important facts to keep in mind when considering the information contained in this Buyer s Guide and its merit. No vendor paid DCIG any fee to research this topic or arrive at pre-determined conclusions DCIG did not guarantee any vendor that its product would be included in this Buyer s Guide DCIG did not imply or guarantee that a specific product would receive a preferential ranking in this Buyer s Guide, before or after completion All research was based upon publicly available information, information provided by the vendor, and/or the expertise of those evaluating the information It is a misuse of this Buyer s Guide to draw any negative inferences against any vendor or products not included in this Buyer s Guide and it is inappropriate to make comparisons with that vendor or its products. Because of the number of features analyzed and weighted, there was no way for DCIG to accurately predict at the outset how individual products would end up ranking. DCIG wants to emphasize that no vendor was privy to how DCIG weighed individual features. In every case the vendor only found out the rankings of its product(s) after the analysis was complete. Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria For the purposes of this Buyer s Guide, the following criteria were used when determining whether or not to include specific Utility SAN storage array: Street price of less of than $1,000 per TB ($1/GB or less) in its largest configuration Support for both Fibre Channel (FC) and iscsi block protocols Must scale to support at least 75 TB of raw capacity Ships in a highly available configuration (Active-Active, Dual-Active, Active-Passive or Scale-out) Must be generally available by September 1, 2015 The Eight-Step Process Used to Rank Utility SAN Storage Arrays To rank each product included in this Buyer s Guide, DCIG went through an eight-step process to come to the most objective conclusion possible. 1. DCIG identified a list of products that met the DCIG definition for Utility SAN storage array based upon the inclusion/exclusion criteria. 2. DCIG established which features would be included in the Buyer s Guide and which ones would not. Prior to selecting the features that were included in the final evaluation in the Buyer s Guide, DCIG went through and quantified the features possessed by the products. As part of this process, DCIG normalized the list of available features such that a common name for each feature was established. In cases where a feature could not be objectively defined or understood, it was excluded from consideration. 3. DCIG weighted each feature. The weighting of each feature was done by a team of DCIG research analysts. The weightings were used to reflect if a feature was supported and potentially how useful and/or important the feature was to end users. 4. The features were grouped into three (3) general categories. The features included in this Buyer s Guide grouped into a total of three broad categories that are reflected on each data sheet. These categories include Hardware, Software and Support. 5. DCIG completed a survey for each vendor s product(s) and then sent the survey(s) to each vendor for verification. Each vendor was invited to review their data and respond with any corrections or edits to the DCIG-completed survey(s). In every case, every vendor had the opportunity to review and respond to any DCIG-completed survey. 6. Features were weighted based on the information gathered from the surveys. Features were marked as either supported, unsupported or unknown and then scored accordingly. Rankings were finalized after any updates received from vendors had been entered DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 6

9 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays 7. Product data sheets were created and sent out to the vendors for review before publication. Due to the large number of product features that DCIG evaluated, all information could not be included on the data sheets. DCIG generally prioritizes the inclusion of features on the data sheet based upon the features that have the most variance in data between them, that ones that DCIG weights the highest and those that are of the most interest to organizations The full list of product features may be accessed in the DCIG Analysis Portal available through DCIG s website: However, all information on each data sheet included in this published version of the Buyer s Guide was sent to the vendors prior to publication for their review and feedback. In every case, each provider had a chance to review the content included on its respective data sheet(s). 8. The arrays were ranked using standard scoring techniques. One of the goals of this Buyer s Guide is to establish clear lines of differentiation with conclusions that are arrived at objectively. To accomplish this goal, the mean or average score for each product was first determined and then the standard deviation. Using the mean of the scores from all of the arrays from which the standard deviation was calculated, DCIG developed a ranking for each array model. DCIG Comments and Thoughts Storing Data On-premise versus in the Cloud Organizations of all sizes are adopting public cloud storage for a variety of uses, but many organizations still want or need to keep most or all of their data on premise using Utility SAN storage arrays for the following four reasons: 1. Ensuring the data s security. Many questions remain unresolved in the minds of organizations about the security of storing their data with some public cloud storage providers. While encrypting data stored with public cloud storage providers certainly helps to mitigate or eliminate the possibility of organizational data being compromised, not all organizations have the option or flexibility to encrypt their data prior to storing it with these cloud providers. Further, it is not always clear where the data is physically stored when placing it with some public cloud storage providers which may cause organizations to run afoul of specific government or industry specific regulations. In the midst of this uncertainty, it often makes sense for organizations to still store data locally. 2. Minimize or control costs with on premise storage. Storing data in the cloud may make sense for small or even relatively large amounts of data when one factors in all of the costs associated with keeping data on premise such as data center floor space, the purchase of the array itself, staffing requirements and heating, cooling and powering the array. However, storing data with public cloud storage providers comes with its own set of costs that may outstrip the costs of using cost-effective, on premise storage. Public cloud storage providers charge monthly per GB storage fees as well as for the amount of bandwidth used plus the Internet service provider will also charge more for increased Internet connectivity and bandwidth. Together, these charges associated with storing data with public cloud storage providers may add up to more than the costs associated with deploying an on premise utility storage array. 3. Higher levels of performance. If application performance is a concern, storing data locally on utility storage arrays should have the net effect of providing higher levels of application performance. Storing data locally minimizes or eliminates the latency associated with retrieving data from a public cloud storage provider s site and helps to ensure applications get the performance that they may need. 4. Multi-use. As organizations look to retain their existing data for indefinite periods of time and look to capture new forms of data such as data generated by devices or the Internet of Things, they need storage solutions that enable them to address multiple use cases. On premise utility storage arrays may easily be used to function as backup or general purpose storage targets so organizations may perform their testing, development or run analytics. Attempting to perform this same functions using data stored with public cloud storage providers may prove to be neither cost-effective nor practical. Performance As with any DCIG Buyer s Guide, specific performance claims are not included in the data even though such claims are often included on vendor data sheets. DCIG 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 7

10 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays does not include performance data as it is too subjective and varies by data center environment, the type of data being stored and implementation decisions. Introducing performance metrics would only result in the analysis in this Buyer s Guide becoming more subjective, not less. Moreover, this Buyer s Guide is evaluating storage for an organization s secondary data. Scalable capacity, reliability, availability and cost per GB are typically the key selection criteria when making this decision. While performance is certainly a perk, it is usually not the first item that organizations prioritize when acquiring these types of arrays. Pricing DCIG s normal practice is to only provide a starting list price on each array model s data sheet (if available) with those list prices having no bearing on the ranking of any array evaluated. For this inaugural Utility SAN Storage Array Buyer s Guide, DCIG changed that practice. DCIG both collected and evaluated pricing in terms of each array s estimated per TB street price and did not include Utility SAN storage arrays unless the price per TB could be arrived at with some degree of certainty. The challenge that organizations typically look to address with utility storage arrays is to store as much of their less active data as cost-effectively as possible on a solution that enables them to reliably keep it online and accessible for long periods of time with minimal intervention. It is for these reasons that pricing was evaluated, as the arrays in this Guide by and large should meet these specific organizational technical requirements at a very attractive price point. Storage Capacities, Densities and Price per GB The combination of large amounts of storage capacity, high storage density levels and a low cost per GB is key to enabling organization to retain existing and new forms of data for long periods of time. The reliability and continuous availability of utility storage arrays are two other factors that organizations consider when evaluating these arrays. 53% of the utility storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide scale to more than 1.5 petabytes (PB) with more than 27% of them scaling to at least 3 PB. Equally notable, these arrays pack impressive amounts of raw storage capacity into very small footprints. Most of them achieve 60TB/rack unit (RU) with the densest Utility SAN storage arrays reaching or exceeding 120TB/RU. The Utility SAN storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide tend to achieve much higher storage densities than even high end storage arrays. High end storage arrays often use 15K RPM SAS HDDs with their capacities often limited to GB per HDD to provide higher levels of performance. As a result, the storage densities in high end storage arrays may be as low as eight (8) TB/RU when HDDs are used. Nearly all Utility SAN storage arrays support 4TB 7200 RPM HDDs with more than one-third of them supporting 8TB HDDs. Support for high-capacity HDDs enables these utility storage arrays to achieve a 60 TB/RU median with a fourth of the arrays achieving storage densities greater than 96 TB/RU. These densely packed, high capacity Utility SAN storage arrays also come with very attractive price points. Ten (10) arrays in this Buyer s Guide have a cost of less than $200/TB while another 16 arrays are available for less than $500/TB. These include products from Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HPE, Infortrend, ixsystems, NEC, Nexsan and Seagate (formerly Dot Hill). Data Efficiency Data efficiency technologies such as compression and block-level or file-level deduplication can increase the effective capacity of a storage system while simultaneously driving down the cost per GB. The actual benefit achieved through compression and/or deduplication varies by data type and use case. A number of vendors offer free storage analytics tools that can estimate the capacity savings an organization is likely to achieve. The most common form of data efficiency among the arrays in this Buyer s Guide is compression, which is supported by 37% or 23 of the Utility SAN storage arrays while block-level and file-level deduplication are respectively found on 16% and 26% of the arrays. Data Efficiency Features Number of Arrays Percentage Compression 23 37% Block-level Deduplication 10 16% File-level Deduplication 16 26% 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 8

11 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays MAID / Spin-down Technologies Just over half of the Utility SAN storage arrays support spin down options that can help to reduce the power required to run the array. More than one-fourth of the arrays support MAID (massive array of idle disks) which enables the array to power down either individual disk drives or groups of disk drives when the disks are not required. In addition to reducing power and cooling requirements these features reduce vibration, extending HDD life and by extension overall reliability. MAID / Spin-down Technologies Number of Arrays Percentage Spin Down Options 35 56% Per Disk Pool 17 27% Per RAID Group 13 21% System Wide 11 18% Availability Features The majority of the Utility SAN storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide have multiple availability features and options. Fifty-three of the arrays (85%) support all twelve availability features that DCIG measured; with all of the arrays supporting redundant controllers, fans and power supplies. Beyond redundancy, 76% of the arrays also support anti-vibration technology to reduce the number of HDD failures. Controller Configurations The Utility SAN storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide take a variety of approaches to high availability with a number supporting more than one configuration option. The majority (65%) support the more standard dual active controller configuration where half of the LUNs are each assigned to one controller or the other. A fair number (47%) support the more enterprise class Active-Active dual controller configuration that gives more controllers access and control to back-end LUNs for improved application performance and workload balancing. Controller Configurations Number of Arrays Percentage Dual Active 40 65% Active-Active 29 47% Active-Standby 19 31% Scale-out 7 11% Non-disruptive Upgrade Features The non-disruptive operation of Utility SAN storage arrays perhaps is one of their more important attributes. While organizations typically will not expect nor need high levels of performance from these arrays, they still want to minimize the time they spend managing them. They want highly available, reliable arrays that minimize or eliminate the need to schedule application downtime to deal with routine maintenance issues such as hardware or software upgrades, hardware replacements or software patches or fixes. The Utility SAN storage arrays evaluated in this Guide overwhelmingly support these features. However it does behoove organizations concerned about these features to verify that the array models in which they may be interested do support the breadth of features that they may need. While over 85% of these arrays non-disruptively support features such as controller replacements, controller code upgrades and storage shelf and/or node additions, less than half support more specialized functions such as the upgrade or patches of disk enclosure firmware or network port firmware upgrades as the chart below illustrates. Non-disruptive Upgrade Features Number of Arrays Percentage Controller replacement 53 85% Controller code upgrade 50 81% Storage shelf/node addition 48 77% HDD firmware upgrade 31 55% SSD firmware upgrade 29 47% Disk enclosure firmware 31 50% Network port firmware upgrade 28 45% Controller addition 25 40% 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 9

12 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays Multi-Protocol Support The focus of this Guide is specifically on Utility SAN storage arrays that support both Fibre Channel (FC) and iscsi block protocols for connectivity to hosts and/or storage networks. However, it is noteworthy that 48% of them also provide unified storage functionality through the concurrent support of one or more block and file protocols. Protocols Number of Arrays Percentage iscsi % FC % NFS v % SMB 1 (CIFS) 30 48% SMB % NFS v % FCoE 15 24% SMB % SMB % NFS v % WebDAV 3 5% Management Methods Incorporating the management of Utility SAN storage arrays into the general management of the organization s broader data center infrastructure may be where these arrays still arguably need some work. Many organizations already use VMware to some degree and VMware vcenter to manage their virtualized infrastructure yet only 35 or 56% of the arrays evaluated support VMware vcenter. Further, organizations might expect that they could manage most if not all Utility SAN storage arrays using a browser interface. Yet in looking at this feature on the arrays, only 46 or roughly 3 in 4 support this functionality. This diversity in the tools available to manage these arrays dictates that organizations take a very careful look at the options each array offers for its management as the costsavings an organization may experience on the front end of an array s acquisition may be eroded by the time and effort they have to spend managing it over time due to the immaturity or incompleteness of its management features. Management Methods Number of Arrays Percentage VMware vcenter 35 56% SSH 34 55% SCVMM SMAPI 36 58% SMI-S 28 45% OpenStack Cinder 27 44% IPMI 12 19% 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 10

13 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays DCIG Observations & Recommendations Recommended Ranking FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX500 S3 and DX600 S3 HDS VSP G400 and G600 Observations The Recommended arrays are distinguished from the rest of the products in this Buyer s Guide in the following ways: Superior performance resources. All feature at least 12 CPU cores, compared to less than 30% of the other arrays. DRAM caches of 96GB to 256GB. Only 24% of the other arrays have DRAM caches of 96GB or larger. All support at least 16 8Gb and/or 16Gb FC ports versus 39% and 19% respectively for the other arrays. The majority of the Recommended arrays support 16 or more 10Gb iscsi ports versus 28% of the other arrays. Maximum raw capacity ranging from 2.9PB to 6.3PB. The median for all arrays was 1.5PB. Maximum raw storage density ranging from 45 to 72 TB/RU. The minimum for all arrays was 8 TB/RU and the median was 67 TB/RU. More complete non-disruptive upgrade and self-healing features than other arrays. More management integrations, with 100% supporting management via VMware vcenter, OpenStack Cinder, SSH, SMI-S and SCVMM SMAPI. This is approximately double the percentage of the other arrays. All Recommended arrays have comprehensive support options, including pre-failure shipping of replacement parts (versus 39% of the other arrays) and proactive remediation by the vendor (versus 57% of the other arrays). Recommendations FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 is the highest capacity Recommended array at 6.3PB (3rd highest overall), and is in the 70th percentile for storage density at 72 TB/ RU. Performance resources include 20 CPU cores and 192GB of DRAM cache. Flexible connectivity includes up to 32 8Gb FC or 16Gb FC ports and either 32 1GbE or 16 10GbE ports for FCoE, iscsi or NAS connectivity. The FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX500 S3 achieves the same storage density as the DX600 S3, and approximately half the scalability of the DX600 S3 with 12 CPU cores, 96GB cache and a maximum storage capacity of 3.2 PB. HDS VSP G400 and G600 achieve a storage capacity of 2.9 and 4.3PB respectively, and density of 45 TB/RU. Performance resources include 16 CPU cores, 128 or 256 GB of DRAM cache and up to 64 storage networking ports. The VSP G400 and G600 support multi-tenancy. EMC VNX7600 Excellent Ranking FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3 and DX200 S3 HDS VSP G200 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series, DS 2000 Series, DS 3000 Series and DS 4000 Series ixsystems TrueNAS Z35 NEC M510 and M710 Nexsan NST6000 Seagate RealStor 4000 Series and 6000 Series Observations The fourteen (14) arrays earning an Excellent ranking were distinguished from other arrays in the following ways: Superior resources that contribute to high levels of performance as compared to arrays ranked either Good or Basic. DRAM caches of 16GB to 384GB. More than half the arrays (57%) have caches of at least 64GB and more than a third (36%) have at least 128GB. All support at least 8 8Gb FC ports, compared to 85% of Good and 65% of Basic arrays. The majority (57%) support 8 16Gb FC ports, compared to 45% of Good and 26% of Basic arrays. Half the arrays support 16 or more 10Gb iscsi ports, compared to less than 15% of the other arrays. Maximum raw capacity ranging from 864TB to 5PB, with a median capacity of 2.9PB. This is nearly double the 1.5PB median capacity for all arrays DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 11

14 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays Eight (57%) of the Excellent arrays supply at least 100TB/U. Maximum raw storage density ranged from 20 to 120 TB/RU with a median storage density of 109 TB/RU. The median for all arrays was 67 TB/RU. Seven (50%) of these arrays provide storage for less than $200/TB. More robust management options than lower ranked arrays, such as support for VMware vcenter (71%), OpenStack Cinder (71%), SMI-S (57%) and SCVMM SMAPI (64%). The Nexsan NST6000 Hybrid Storage puts a unified storage controller in front of its high-density E-series SAN storage arrays which support up to 100 TB/RU and a maximum capacity of 5PB. Seagate RealStor 4000 Series and 6000 Series offer some of the highest raw storage densities among the products in this Buyer s Guide at 112 TB/RU, and up to 1.8PB of total raw capacity. Each provides up to 8 8Gb or 16Gb FC ports. Seagate acquired these arrays, formerly marketed under the AssuredSAN brand, as part of its Dot Hill acquisition. Recommendations EMC VNX7600 offers 4PB of capacity and more ports than most Excellent and Recommended arrays. FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3 and DX200 S3 are distinguished from the Recommended DX500 S3 and DX600 S3 arrays only by their somewhat lower levels of storage capacity, DRAM cache size, number of CPU cores, number of storage networking ports, and their support for SAS. HDS VSP G200 primarily differs from the Recommended HDS VSP G400 and G600 in terms of lower levels of storage capacity, smaller DRAM cache and fewer CPU cores. The Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series, DS 2000 Series, DS 3000 Series and DS 4000 Series tie with a couple other products for the highest raw storage density at 120 TB/RU. The arrays scale to 2.5PB-3.5PB depending on the model; at a cost of as little as $136/ TB, the lowest in this Buyer s Guide. ixsystems TrueNAS Z35 offers one of the lowest costs per GB ($142/GB) and highest densities (110 TB/RU) of arrays in this Buyer s Guide. It further enhances that density through deduplication and compression. The TrueNAS provides both data efficiency features in-line, powered by 32 processor cores and 256GB of DRAM cache. TrueNAS is also implements all five of the flash-based caching options that DCIG measured, including write journaling, block I/O acceleration and NAS acceleration. TrueNAS is built on FreeBSD and OpenZFS with ixsystems actively contributing to both of these projects. NEC M510 and M710 differ from one another in terms of cache size, port counts and maximum capacity. They respectively offer up to 3.6PB and 4.5PB of storage at a maximum density of 72 TB/RU at a cost of less than $350/GB. Dell SC8000 Good Ranking EMC VNX5200, VNX5400, VNX5600 and VNX5800 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 HPE StoreVirtual 4330 and 4530 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5500 V3, 5600 V3, 5800 V3 and 6800 V3 ixsystems TrueNAS Z20 and Z30 NEC M110 and M310 Nexsan E48V(T) and E60V(T) Nexsan NST4000 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 Observations The twenty (20) arrays earning a Good ranking distinguish themselves from other arrays in the following ways: Superior performance resources compared to Basic arrays. More CPU cores. More than half of the arrays have at least 12 CPU cores. Most of the Basic arrays have just 4 CPU cores. Larger DRAM caches. More than half (60%) of the Good arrays feature caches of at least 64GB, compared to 24GB for the majority (52%) of the Basic arrays. 8 Gb FC: 85% of the Good arrays support 8 ports, and 55% support 24 ports. This compares to 65% and 4% of the Basic arrays. 16 Gb FC: 45% support 8 ports, and 25% support 24 ports. Among Basic arrays, 26% support 8 ports, and only one (1) supports more than 8 ports of 16Gb FC connectivity DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 12

15 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays 10Gb iscsi: 71% of the Good arrays support 8 or more 10Gb iscsi ports, compared to 31% of the Basic arrays. Maximum raw capacity ranging from 256TB to 19.2PB, with a median capacity of 1.5PB. This is nearly double the 768TB median capacity of Basic arrays. Storage density: 50% offer 72 TB/RU, and 30% > 100 TB/RU. The majority (70%) of Basic arrays max out at 48 TB/U, and only one (1) reaches 100 TB/RU. Cost: Four (4) of the Good arrays offer costs below $300/TB, only one Basic arrays matches this price point. Recommendations Nearly all of the Good arrays are smaller siblings of arrays that have Excellent or Recommended rankings. These arrays distinguish themselves from their big brothers with lower levels of storage capacity, smaller DRAM cache size, and fewer CPU cores and storage networking ports. Because these smaller siblings have fewer performance resources, they generally have the advantage of a lower entry price point than their larger counterparts. Dell Compellent SC8000 is a block-based dual-controller SAN that scales to 3PB. File protocol support can be added through the purchase of Compellent FS8600 NAS filer heads. The Compellent Storage Center OS provides extensive automated storage tiering and snapshot features. The SC8000 provides up to 48 8Gb or 24 16Gb FC ports. The FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 distinguishes itself from the higher ranked FUJITSU models with a more limited amount of capacity and fewer management functions. However it does offer support for the FC, iscsi and SAS storage protocols. The FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 distinguishes itself from the higher ranked FUJITSU models with a more limited amount of capacity and fewer management functions. However it does offer support for the FC, iscsi and SAS storage protocols. The HPE StoreVirtual 4530 leverages the strengths of HPE ProLiant server hardware and the dynamic sub-volume auto-tiering capabilities of LeftHand OS 11.0 to create an affordable Utility SAN hybrid storage appliance. StoreVirtual may be managed via vsphere, SCVMM, OpenStack and SMI-S. The StoreVirtual 4530 scales to 1.5PB and supports one of the highest port counts of any array in this Guide, including up to 64 8Gb FC host ports. Huawei Enterprise s aptly named OceanStor 5500 V3, 5600 V3, 5800 V3 and 6800 V3 are among the most scalable of the Good arrays with maximum raw capacity ranging from 4.5PB to 19.2PB. This array family also provides one of the densest storage environments at 113 TB/RU. The various models support from 40 to 56 8Gb and 24 to 56 16Gb FC ports. ixsystems TrueNAS Z20 and Z30 distinguish themselves from one another and the Excellent Z35 in terms of their unified storage capacity, DRAM cache size, and number of CPU cores. All offer up to 8 8Gb FC ports. The Nexsan E48V(T) and E60V(T) support storage densities of 96 and 120 TB/RU, matching the highest density arrays in this Buyer s Guide. They provide up to 1.2PB and 1.4PB raw capacity. Those who have been around IT for a long time may remember when hard disk drives were called Winchester disks. Winchester is still around, only now it develops purpose built storage systems for enterprises, government and the military. The Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 provides up to 3PB of ZFS-based unified storage with density up to 120 TB/RU matching the highest density arrays in this Buyer s Guide. The array supports four 8Gb or 16Gb FC ports. Basic Ranking Dell SC4020, SCv2020 and SCv2080 EMC VNXe3200 HPE MSA 1040 and 2040 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3 NetApp E2612, E2660, E2712, E2760, E5460 and E5560 Nexsan E18V and E32V Nexsan NST2000 Seagate RealStor 3000 Series Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12, FX-2U24 and FX-3U16 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12, RZ-3U16 and ZX-2U12 Observations The twenty-three (23) arrays that earned a Basic ranking share these characteristics: Fewer performance resources compared to higher ranking arrays. Fewer CPU cores. Most (52%) have 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 13

16 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays just 4 CPU cores, and only one Basic array has more than 8 cores. DRAM caches of 4GB to 256GB. More than half the arrays (52%) have caches of 24GB or less. 8Gb FC: All of the Basic arrays support at least 4 8Gb FC ports, but only 9% support more than 8. 16Gb FC: 73% support 16Gb FC ports, 26% support 8 ports. 10Gb iscsi: 31% of Basic arrays support 8 10Gb iscsi ports, and more than 25% support 16 1Gb iscsi host connections. Maximum raw capacity ranging from 168TB to 3PB. Median capacity is 768TB, versus 1.5PB for all arrays. Storage density ranged from 24 to 113 TB/RU. Median raw storage density is 48 TB/RU, versus 67 TB/RU for all arrays. Cost: The median cost of Basic arrays is $1,000/TB, and only two of these arrays provide storage for less than $400/TB. NetApp E2612, E2660, E2712, E2760, E5460 and E5560 are all members of the well-regarded E-series of arrays, with max raw capacity ranging from 768TB to 2.3PB. Nexsan E18V and E32V provide up to 432TB of raw capacity at a maximum of 72 TB/RU. Nexsan NST2000 provides up to 168TB of unified storage at a maximum of 28 TB/RU. Seagate RealStor 3000 Series offers the same software features as the Excellent RealStor 4000 and 6000 arrays, but with lower capacities and fewer performance resources. Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12, FX-2U24 and FX-3U16 offer from 1.4PB to 2.4PB of raw capacity at 37 TB/U. Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12, RZ-3U16 and ZX-2U12 provide ZFS-based unified storage in capacities ranging from 960TB to 1.9PB. Densities range from 37 to 48 TB/RU. Recommendations As with the Good arrays, most of the Basic arrays are smaller siblings of arrays in the higher ranking groups, and are distinguished from their big brothers in terms of storage capacity, DRAM cache size, and number of CPU cores and storage networking ports. Despite the Basic ranking, these arrays may still be a good fit for specific use cases. Dell SC4020, SCv2020 and SCv2080 offer up to 504TB of raw capacity, with density of 48 to 67TB/RU. Maximum connectivity is 8 8GB FC ports. EMC VNXe3200 features a lower entry price and cost per GB compared to its Good and Excellent brethren, but the trade-off is fewer performance resources and some software feature limitations. HPE MSA 1040 and 2040 offer 384TB and 768TB of raw capacity at a storage density of 48 TB/RU. The MSA 1040 is an HDD-only array while the MSA 2040 may only be configured as a hybrid array. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3 shares all features of the larger OceanStor models, but with fewer CPU cores, FC ports and cache. The 5300 V3 scales to 3PB at 113TB/RU DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 14

17 UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Utility SAN Storage Arrays UTILITY SAN STORAGE ARRAY RANKINGS 2016 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 15