To Achieve True Data Agility, Consider a Move to All-Flash Arrays

Transcription

1 IBM Systems Thought Leadership White Paper June 2015 To Achieve True Data Agility, Consider a Move to All-Flash Arrays

2 2 To Achieve True Data Agility, Consider a Move to All-Flash Arrays Ever since IBM introduced the revolutionary disk storage system nearly 60 years ago, new storage technologies have emerged to redefine computing. Floppy disk drives, smallform-factor Winchester storage, streaming tape, and optical subsystems are just a handful of technologies that created new opportunities for system OEMs and IT organizations looking to keep up with and often to aggressively drive forward changes in information management. But stand aside: There s a storage technology that is dramatically changing many of the rules of how, when, and where data storage solutions are deployed. Flash storage specifically, all-flash arrays is not exactly a brand-new technology, but some amazing advances in the technology s economics and functionality are helping enterprises do exciting new things. That s why sales of all-flash arrays are booming: IDC says $1.2 billion in all-flash arrays will be spent in 2015, representing a robust 58.5% compound annual growth rate. 1 Why is flash such a big deal in the enterprise today, and why is its impact likely to continue to expand? Certainly the technology s initial allure came from its eyeopening performance. As IDC s report notes, [All-flash arrays (AFAs)] were first known for their extraordinary performance; however, AFAs are beginning to be known for their consistent performance. 2 This has made flash a go-to technology platform for performance-intensive workloads such as big data/hadoop, OLTP, and virtual desktop infrastructure, to name a few. For years, of course, there was an important caveat explaining all-flash arrays so-called limitations in other enterprise applications and use cases; specifically, on a costper-box basis, flash was more expensive than traditional hard disk drives (HDD). But that s changed in a big way; the Capex component of flash storage is now considered to be just as appealing as that of HDDs. That s not all, however. There are other economic benefits of AFAs on the operating expense side, as this paper will detail shortly. It is this stark improvement in flash storage s economic benefits, combined with its legendary performance, that is aligning perfectly with enterprise IT s desire to transform how data is stored, shared, and used. As more and more data constantly moves from inactive to active states, and then back again, pressure has mounted on IT organizations to store and locate data on the specific storage media that is both highly cost-efficient at that instant and yet highly available for random access at a moment s notice. This desire to achieve data migration implies a form of batch processing, but data today needs to be truly mobile, in real time. But even data mobility isn t enough; what organizations are looking for is data agility the automated, policy-driven reallocation of data to and from the proper storage medium without a lot of human intervention or time-consuming, expensive steps. It is in this state of data agility where flash really shines. And one of the major reasons why is the increasingly attractive economic story of AFAs. Of course, technologies such as storage virtualization have really helped organizations to migrate data, but IT professionals and storage

3 IBM Software 3 administrators needed more functionality. Copying and writing data to and from high-capacity hard drives that were fast filling up with essential data took a lot of time, which significantly slowed the movement of data across the physical and virtual infrastructure, data warehouses, and other data repositories. By contrast, virtualizing flash storage makes data migration and data movement much faster so much so, in fact, that it transforms mobile data into agile data. It is this data agility that enables enterprises to achieve greater storage efficiencies and lower both Capex and Opex to the point where they achieve greater value from their data. The New Economic Reality of All-Flash Arrays Although flash s performance is what captured the IT audience s imagination, it is the technology s remarkable advances in economic value that have made flash into a storage juggernaut. Specifically: Rapid price reductions of flash arrays, driven heavily by technical advances and manufacturing volumes, have all but eliminated the historical Capex gap between HDD-based arrays and all-flash arrays. Lower software licensing costs are a byproduct of dramatic improvements in CPU utilization rates, allowing organizations to reduce the number of physical and virtual servers. Lower power/cooling costs, as a result of flash s inherent advantages over the multiple spindles of rotating hard disks. Less physical real estate required; the latest all-flash arrays can be deployed in much less data center space, which is a big advantage to IT directors and facilities managers looking to make their physical data centers smaller and more nimble. Improved user productivity, as in higher transactions per given timeframe for workloads such as VDI or enterprise databases. A question that we often ask users is, If you could afford all-flash storage, wouldn t you put it everywhere? noted George Crump, president and founder of storage research and consulting organization Storage Switzerland. We feel confident in saying that today you can buy an all-flash array with enterprise features and availability for about the same price as a performance-focused hard disk array. 3 Market researcher IDC indicates that a significant driving force in the dramatic growth of all-flash arrays is the declining total solutions price for the technology. IDC projects that all-flash solution prices will drop from $11.12 per gigabyte in 2012 to $2.88 per gigabyte by 2016 an impressive 28.7% compound annual decline in total solutions pricing. 4 To fully grasp why all-flash arrays are now seen as a superior economic solution compared to HDD-based arrays, it is important to consider all relevant costs not just hardware purchase prices of all-flash arrays, particularly in realworld use cases and workloads. For instance, Enterprise Strategy Group recently published a detailed economic analysis of the benefits of IBM s allflash solution against traditional Tier 1 performance HDD-

4 4 To Achieve True Data Agility, Consider a Move to All-Flash Arrays based arrays. (This study was commissioned by IBM.) The report determined that in a typical enterprise use case: The all-flash arrays delivered a 76% return on investment and an 11-month payback period, compared to traditional storage. The IBM solution also delivered additional performance benefits of about $1.2 million over a three-year period. Those arrays also enabled upfront Capex savings of nearly $600,000, as well as incremental savings for ongoing Opex savings of nearly $400, The ESG report also pointed out several key takeaways about the economic benefits of IBM s all-flash arrays, notably the substantial business benefit created even by flash deployments for very small amounts of persistent data. It also pointed out that customers can reduce the effective cost of all-flash arrays by utilizing advanced caching and tiering to spread the benefits over larger capacities. What to Look For in an All-Flash Solution In order to use all-flash arrays to speed data mobility to the point where organizations achieve true data agility, buyers should build a checklist of features for all-flash arrays they are evaluating. These include: Flash management features such as error-correction codes, overprovisioning, high-speed write buffers and hardware-based data offloads. Support for storage virtualization/software-defined storage in order to reduce the impact on storage and computing hardware, and to utilize the intelligence, orchestration and automation features. Disaster recovery tools such as snapshots, clones, and replication, to ensure that all-flash arrays can withstand unexpected spikes in demand and unplanned service interruptions from any number of different sources. Scale-out capabilities to optimize capacity growth over time, without having to incur huge incremental hardware purchase costs. Automated provisioning and performance management to deliver persistent performance without excessive manual tuning. Easy deployment for fast time to value and to reduce the impact on IT staffs. IBM FlashSystem Solutions IBM has brought its considerable experience in storage technology and its decades-long commitment to technical leadership to bear with its FlashSystem family of all-flash arrays. Both the IBM FlashSystem 900 and IBM FlashSystem V9000 are all-flash arrays designed to deliver performance, scalability, reliability, resilience, and long-lasting economic benefits. In doing so, IBM FlashSystem solutions help organizations achieve true data agility across the enterprise. A key component of IBM FlashSystem solutions is IBM FlashCore technology, a suite of innovations not found in other all-flash arrays. FlashCore technology features are designed to achieve superior performance, limitless scalability, easier management, low latency, high availability and intelligent, automated functionality that reduce administrative burdens on IT staff. FlashCore technology comprises a wide range of unique, innovative engineering solutions. These technical capabilities

5 IBM Software 5 fall into three categories: hardware-accelerated architecture, in which software layers are distanced from data paths; IBM MicroLatency flash modules, and advanced flash management features ranging from snapshots and replication to ECC and 2-D RAID. Organizations looking not only to improve data migration and data mobility, but to actually achieve true data agility, should look to all-flash solutions in order to gain that unique mix of high performance and financial savings across the full range of deployment and operational activities. IBM FlashSystem all-flash arrays are purpose-built for data agility in order to accelerate time to value by locating, extracting, sharing, and moving data from point of origin to point of utility and back again in the blink of an eye. This data agility functionality helps customers to achieve enduring, sustainable economic benefits particularly as workloads grow in size and complexity and benefit from enterpriseclass storage that can be tailored to individual workloads for hyperscale performance. For more information on the IBM FlashSystem family of all-flash arrays, please go to Conclusion The all-flash array market may have experienced its initial growth due to the technology s impressive performance characteristics, but its long-term growth is likely to accelerate due to dramatic improvements in all-flash arrays economic value. Not only are purchase prices of all-flash solutions declining rapidly a decline that seems certain to continue, if not accelerate, as production volumes soar but all-flash arrays deliver a unique combination of improved business benefits and lower operating expenses. This eye-opening convergence of financial benefits is a big factor driving demand for all-flash arrays, particularly in performance-intensive applications such as big data, VDI, OLTP, and hybrid cloud computing.

6 6 To Achieve True Data Agility, Consider a Move to All-Flash Arrays Copyright IBM Corporation 2015 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY Produced in the United States of America June 2015 IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, BigFix and Fixlet are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at Copyright and trademark information at This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON- INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided. Statement of Good Security Practices: IT system security involves protecting systems and information through prevention, detection and response to improper access from within and outside your enterprise. Improper access can result in information being altered, destroyed or misappropriated or can result in damage to or misuse of your systems, including to attack others. No IT system or product should be considered completely secure and no single product or security measure can be completely effective in preventing improper access. IBM systems and products are designed to be part of a comprehensive security approach, which will necessarily involve additional operational procedures, and may require other systems, products or services to be most effective. IBM does not warrant that systems and products are immune from the malicious or illegal conduct of any party. References 1 All-Flash Array Performance Testing Framework, IDC, June IDC, Ibid 3 Will the All-Flash Array Market Go Away? Storage Switzerland, July Worldwide All-Solid State Storage Array Forecast, IDC, April Analyzing the Economic Value of IBM FlashSystem, Enterprise Strategy Group, February 2015 Please Recycle XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XX