FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE By DCIG Managing Analyst Ken Clipperton

Transcription

1 The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE By DCIG Managing Analyst Ken Clipperton EMPOWERING THE IT INDUSTRY WITH ACTIONABLE ANALYSIS

2 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Table of Contents The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Introduction Executive Summary Flash Memory Storage Arrays Now Replacing Traditional Enterprise Arrays Driver #: IT Budget Savings Driver #: Accelerating the Enterprise New Products, New Entrants 4 Storage Density Supremacy: Flash Memory Storage Crosses the Next Disruptive Boundary 4 The Role of this Buyer s Guide 5 How to Use this Buyer s Guide 6 Disclosures 6 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria 7 The -Step Process Used to Score and Rank Flash Memory Storage Arrays DCIG Comments & Thoughts Flash Memory Storage Arrays are the New Enterprise Array Flash Memory Storage Now Delivering Storage Density Supremacy Data Efficiency and Flash Optimization Techniques Dealing with the Threat of Silent Data Corruption The Benefit of Zero Overhead s and Volume Copy OpenStack for Array Rapidly Gaining Vendor Support 9 vsphere Integration 9 Cloud Storage Integration 9 Feature Areas Where DCIG Expects to See Improvement 9 Think About Flash Memory Storage Arrays as a Systemic Opportunity 9 DCIG Observations & Recommendations 9 Best-in-Class Ranking 0 Recommended Ranking Excellent Ranking Good Ranking Basic Ranking 5 Flash Memory Storage Array Scores and Rankings Aberdeen AberNAS NL 4 Astute Networks ViSX G4 5 Avere Systems FXT Avere Systems FXT Cisco Whiptail ACCELA Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D 9 Cisco Whiptail INVICTA 0 Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS7600 EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) 4 EMC XtremIO X-Brick 5 GreenBytes IO Offload Engine 6 HDS Hitachi Unified Storage VM 7 HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G 9 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado IBM FlashSystem 40 4 IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution 6 Product Rankings Dashboard Appendices 6 Overall Scores and Rankings & Software Scores and Rankings 0 Hardware Scores and Rankings Flash Memory Storage Array Models 4 IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition 4 IceWEB ERX 44 Kaminario K 45 NetApp EF550 Flash Array 46 NetApp FAS50 Series AFA 47 NetApp FAS690 Series AFA 4 Nimbus Data Gemini F Nimbus Data Gemini F Pure Storage FA-400 Series Controller 5 Skyera skyhawk 5 SolidFire SF00 5 SolidFire SF SolidFire SF Tegile Zebi HA00 A- Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology 56 Violin Memory Violin 6 57 Violin Memory Violin 64 5 Violin Memory Violin 6 59 Violin Memory Violin Violin Memory Violin Violin Memory Violin 666 B- Appendix B Flash Memory Storage Array Provider Contact Information C- Appendix C Author Contact Information 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. i

3 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Introduction Many changes have taken place in the data center storage marketplace in the 4 months since the release of the inaugural DCIG 0 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide. That initial Buyer's Guide included 4 arrays from 0 storage vendors, none of which had good name recognition even among IT professionals. This year s Buyer's Guide includes 9 arrays from 0 storage vendors; including industry heavyweights like Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, HDS, IBM and NetApp. Some of those major vendors entered the all-flash array market by purchasing an all-flash startup Cisco acquired Whiptail, EMC acquired XtremIO, and IBM acquired Texas Memory Systems. Other vendors took their pre-existing storage architectures and added critical flash support including Dell Compellent and EqualLogic, EMC VNX, HP PAR, HDS HUS VM and NetApp FAS. Multiple vendors we spoke with indicated that prospective customers are now looking to do a complete Tier storage refresh and move to an all-flash environment for their critical business applications. A web-driven infographic published by International Data Corporation (IDC) reflects these trends, and forecasts capacity shipped in 06 will increase to 6PB [petabyte] with a 0 06 CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 0.%. The DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide scores and ranks products with this primary enterprise array use case especially in mind. We collected more data about non-disruptive upgrades, performance monitoring, provisioning automation, overall flash capacity and storage density per rack unit, plus environmentals like operating temperature ranges, direct power utilization and the amount of power required to cool the arrays. This introduction to the current state of this emerging market is only the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface lies precise information on improved flash memory arrays and new to the market products. With the plethora of flash memory products available, like all prior DCIG Buyer s Guides, the DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide continues the legacy of doing the legwork and heavy lifting for organizations who seek to purchase a Flash Memory Storage Array by: Listing each individual Flash Memory Storage Array model by storage provider Listing different Flash Memory Storage Array features, whether or not they are supported and (where appropriate) how they are implemented Weighting these features according to what organizations consider most important Scoring these features Ranking each Flash Memory Storage Array model Creating a standardized data sheet for each Flash Memory Storage Array model DCIG is eager to present the DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide. Organizations will benefit from the at-a-glance comparisons between different Flash Memory Storage Array models and find the results contained in this Buyer s Guide useful in reducing the amount of time required to get to a short list of products that warrant a. All Flash Storage Market Poised for Growth, IDC infographic, sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems, accessed Feb 6, 04, 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

4 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Introduction (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Introduction (continued) closer look. Once that short list of products is developed, this Buyer s Guide also supplies the organization with provider information to go directly to a product evaluation stage or competitive bid process. Note that this Buyer s Guide is not intended to be a substitute for bringing individual Flash Memory Storage Arrays in-house and testing them with specific applications and data center environments. Proof of concept implementations in a business s own data center is an important part of validating a vendor s claims and how well a product implements the features that are important to a particular business. As a supplement to the downloadable buyer s guides, DCIG makes all the data collected for the guides available in the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). This powerful online data visualization tool enables subscribers to quickly develop side-by-side comparisons of the products and the specific features that matter most to them. See cominteractive-buyers-guide to learn more about the IBG. We at DCIG hope you find that this Buyer s Guide meets its intended purpose in your environment. Ken 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

5 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Executive Summary Twice the capacity for half the price has become the DCIG motto during the research and development process of the DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Array Buyer s Guide. This axiom has been derived from two facts that have consistently crossed the desks of DCIG analysts: ) Scale and capacity. For approximately half the price of prior generation flash memory arrays, an organization can purchase a scalable array to comply with their evergrowing needs. ) Performance. The most recent generation of Flash Memory Storage Arrays generally deliver twice the IOPS of the prior generation and deliver a more complete set of features that enables them to address a broader set of use cases. Flash Memory Storage Arrays Now Replacing Traditional Enterprise Arrays Driven by successful pilot implementations and improvements in price, performance, capacity, density and features from the all-flash startups--early adopters are now embarking on a wholesale replacement of legacy storage systems with a 00% flash memory environment for their primary storage. With all-flash arrays now available that run the same storage operating system as existing primary storage, those enterprises that are happy with their current storage architecture can benefit from flash memory as primary storage without the effort and risk associated with introducing a new storage architecture into a data center. Driver #: IT Budget Savings For those with a responsibility for the technology budget, a flash-storage-enabled rethinking of the data center can generally achieve hard cost savings of over 0% in data center hardware and software, and realize an ROI of less than months. In some cases, the flash memory storage is less expensive than just the maintenance costs of the former SAN. Driver #: Accelerating the Enterprise Flash-based storage systems typically create a seven-fold improvement in application performance. Savvy business people are finding many ways to generate business returns that make the flash storage investment easy to justify. In one case study the installation of a flash memory storage system was directly attributed with avoiding the need to hire between 0 and 40 additional employees. Flash storage enabled the company to grow their business without growing their head count. New Products, New Entrants The marketplace for all-flash arrays is both rapidly growing and highly competitive. As noted in the opening paragraph, the original players in all-flash array technology have not been standing still since the release of DCIG s 0 Flash Memory Array Buyer s Guide. Most have come out with at least one new generation of hardware andor at least one major software release. Because many of the startups embraced a commodity hardware plus specialized storage software approach, new software releases delivered not only new features but also in some cases significant performance enhancements to existing customers. For example, Tegile released a new version of their Zebi software that boosted IOPS by 0% for arrays already in production at customer sites. This is a vastly different experience from the traditional array architecture where the cool new features require new arrays with more processor or memory capacity.. Clipperton, Ken. IBM Validates Systemic Data Center Savings Enabled by Flash Memory. ibm-validates-systemic-data-center-savings-enabled-by-flash-memory.html (accessed April, 0).. Floyer, David. Case Study: The Hunting of the RARC. (accessed March, 04). 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

6 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Executive Summary (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Executive Summary (continued) The other big change over the last 5 months is the entrance of well known, well capitalized vendors into the Flash Memory Storage Array marketplace. These vendors either bought one of the all-flash companies or enhanced one of their existing storage systems with flash-specific optimizations to create an all-flash array offering. Some of these incumbents sacrificed some of flash memory s potential to fit into an existing architecture. For example, those doing deduplication or compression exclusive post-process rather than in-line include EMC VNX, Dell EqualLogic, Dell Compellent and HDS HUS VM. Other traditional vendors found their architectures could do deduplication or compression in-line, including HP PAR, NetApp FAS, and the IBM San Volume Controller technology in Storewize and FlashSystem V40. In these examples, the incumbents bring their full set of enterprise features to the all-flash party. Storage Density Supremacy: Flash Memory Storage Crosses the Next Disruptive Boundary In what may serve as a validation of the commodity hardware plus specialized storage software approach, 04 saw the advent of multi-terabyte SSDs such as the Viking Technology apha Gb SAS SSD with raw capacity up to 4TB in a standard.5 form factor, and innovative SSD form factors like the Viking Technology SATADIMM and the IBM exflash that convert server DIMM slots into flash storage capacity. Flash Memory Storage Arrays were already able to deliver dramatically better IOPS and latencies for random IO workloads, and much better power efficiency than HDD-based storage. Now these all-flash arrays can also deliver storage density supremacy that has the potential to shrink the large physical footprint of storage systems in data centers. The Role of this Buyer s Guide For all these reasons, and more, many companies are interested in purchasing Flash Memory Storage Arrays for their data centers. The DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide is pregnant with fresh information that will accelerate the research process and increase confidence in the results of that research. As prior Buyer s Guides have done, this Buyer's Guide puts at the fingertips of organizations a comprehensive list of Flash Memory Storage Arrays and standardized data sheets that can assist them in this important buying decision. The use of this DCIG Buyer s Guide will enable an organization to formulate an exact opinion on features that are most imperative to them, then generate a short list of products to do further research andor acquire. The DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide accomplishes the following objectives: Provides an objective, third party evaluation of currently available Flash Memory Storage Arrays that evaluates and scores their features from an end user viewpoint. Scores and ranks the features on each Flash Memory Storage Array based upon the criteria that matter most to organizations and presents the results in easy to understand tables so they can quickly know which Flash Memory Storage Arrays are the most appropriate for their needs. Provide a standardized data sheet for each of the 9 Flash Memory Storage Arrays from 0 different storage providers so end users can do quick comparisons of the features that are supported and not supported on each Flash Memory Storage Array. Gives any organization a solid foundation for acquiring competitive bids from different providers of Flash Memory Storage Arrays that are apples-to-apples comparisons. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 4

7 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays How to Use this Buyer s Guide In determining how to best use the information contained in this Buyer s Guide, it is important to note that it is intended to help users accelerate the 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. It is also important to note that just because a product scored the highest in a particular category or is ranked a certain way does not automatically mean that it is the right product for their 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, what this Buyer s Guide does is give users some sense of how each product compares to other products classified in this Buyer s Guide, and offers insight into what product offerings are available on the market. DCIG recommends that you use this Buyer s Guide in the following seven ways: Eliminate the painstaking research associated with coming up with a short list of products that meet their needs. This Buyer s Guide ranks, scores and contains data sheets for 9 different products from 0 different vendors. Each product is scored and then ranked as Best-in-Class, Recommended, Excellent, Good and Basic based upon its score. In each product, more than 0 different features were evaluated, weighted, scored and then ranked. All an organization has to do is look at the scores and features of each product in order to come up with a short list of products for consideration. Do apples-to-apples comparisons of products from different vendors. In today s crowded Flash Memory Storage Array market, it behooves organization 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. Separate 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 scores and rankings of each product in this Buyer's Guide so they know when they are getting a good deal, a great deal or just a so-so one. Provides perspective on how products from less well known vendors compare against established and better known brands. Anyone involved with high performance storage systems has heard of IBM, but many of the companies providing these innovative products are less well known. This Buyer s Guide helps to remove some of that apprehension about buying from a less well known vendor or even a less well known model from an established vendor. Using this Buyer s Guide, organizations can see how these products from lesser known vendors as well as lesser known products from established vendors stack up. Normalizes complex terminology. Every segment across industries has a proclivity to adopt acronyms and jargon that is specific to it. The flash memory storage industry is no exception. In this dynamic and relatively young market, vendors often refer to the same capability in different ways. 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, included as Appendix A. 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, product data sheets for individual products can be printed out, laid down side by side and then the features on them quickly compared. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 5

8 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Helps justify buying recommendations to business teams. Nothing is easier for those on the business side to understand than a number when doing comparisons. So at the top of every product data sheet, a product score is included so the business side of the house can quickly see how the 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 include blogging, case studies, product reviews, executive white papers and special reports. 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 they were given preferential treatment in the Buyer s Guide. All it meant was 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 develop this Buyer s Guide. 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 good score on this Buyer s Guide, before or after completion. All research was based upon publicly available information, information provided by the vendor and the expertise of those evaluating the information. Because of the number of features analyzed, how these features were weighted and how these products were then scored and ranked, there was no way for DCIG to predict at the outset how individual products would end up scoring or ranking. DCIG wants to emphasize that no vendor was privy to how DCIG did the scoring and ranking of the products. In every case the vendor only found out the scores and rankings of its product after the analysis was complete. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria This DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide incorporates input from users and vendors to assist in defining the inclusion criteria for this Buyer s Guide. DCIG attempts to take into consideration as many variables as possible, though likely fails to account for all of them. This may have even resulted in a specific model not being covered in this Buyer s Guide when it rightfully belonged. DCIG will continue to refine both the variables for which we collect data and the inclusion criteria for future editions of the DCIG Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide. The rationale that was used to determine the inclusion and exclusion of specific models in this Buyer s Guide is as follows: Available as an appliance. Incorporated into rackbased data centers in a quick and familiar way. Fitting into data center design as a replacement for another storage array. Is NOT based on Microsoft Windows Storage Server. This requirement was put in place to eliminate products that are just standard server hardware with flash drives plus MS Storage Server. Flash memory has specific weaknesses that must be addressed if it is to be responsibly incorporated into storage arrays as primary data storage. This Guide includes vendors who have taken steps to address flash memory s weaknesses. Must support a configuration containing only SSDs. A number of established storage vendors have begun to offer flash as a cache or tier in their traditional arrays. To be included in this Buyer s Guide, an all-flash configuration of the array must be supported by the vendor. May support mixed configurations of HDDs and SSDs. Support for a hybrid SSDHDD does not disqualify a product as long as an all-flash configuration is supported and available as a specific SKU. Must use SSDs as primary storage. Flash memory is being incorporated into the data center in many different ways and in different roles. We are looking for arrays that support flash as the permanent home for data. Must support one or more of the following storage networking protocols: iscsi, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, NFS. There had to be sufficient information available to DCIG to make meaningful decisions. DCIG made a good faith effort to reach out and obtain information from 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 6

9 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays as many array providers as possible by providing surveys to them for them to complete. However, products have been excluded because of a lack of sufficient reliable data. Must be generally available by March, 04. A cut-off date had to be put in place or this Buyer s Guide would never be published. The -Step Process Used to Score and Rank Flash Memory Storage Arrays To score and rank each Flash Memory Storage Array model, DCIG went through an eight () step process to come to the most objective conclusion possible.. DCIG listed out all of the features available on all of the Flash Memory Storage Arrays. Prior to selecting the features that were included in the final evaluation in the Buyer s Guide, DCIG went through and quantified what features flash memory arrays possessed. As part of this process, DCIG normalized the list of features available on Flash Memory Storage Arrays such that a common name for each feature was established.. DCIG established which features would be included in the Buyer s Guide and which ones would not. One of the goals of this Buyer s Guide was to try to only include features on each Flash Memory Storage Array model that could be objectively and authoritatively analyzed. For example, Raw Flash Capacity was evaluated as a feature instead of Useable Storage Capacity. While useable flash capacity is what users ultimately care about, a consistent objective answer cannot be arrived at as most Flash Memory Storage Arrays offer multiple RAID options and differences in data compression and deduplication by type of data yield site-specific useable or effective flash capacity. Therefore, Maximum Raw Flash Capacity was selected as the feature to be evaluated since an objective answer could be ascertained and supported.. The features were broken down into four general categories. The features included in this Buyer s Guide broke down into a total of four broad categories that are reflected on each Flash Memory Storage Array data sheet. These four categories include & Software, Integration, Hardware, and Support. 4. Each feature had a weighting associated with it. The weightings were used to reflect if a feature was supported and potentially how valuable the feature is to an end-user compared to other options. For example, the Full File Clone feature is more of a Yes or No type of response whereas Methods covers a number of snapshot options. Each of these options is weighted and scored differently. 5. A survey that asked about all of the features scored in this Buyer s Guide was sent to each storage provider. Vendors were invited to complete the online survey. The survey elicits more data than was available on any vendor website to provide a more thorough analysis of each Flash Memory Storage Array. If a vendor did not respond to the invitation, a DCIG analyst filled out the survey on their behalf using the vendor s web site, other reliable publicly available information, and prior DCIG research where available. 6. All vendors were given the opportunity to review their data sheets before the final scores and rankings were determined. To ensure the information presented in this Buyer s Guide is as complete and correct as possible, DCIG provided each vendor a copy or copies of their filled-out surveys and the data sheets that appear in this Buyer s Guide without the scores and rankings on them. In this way they had the opportunity to validate the information and correct it before it was publicly released. 7. All of the features were scored based upon the information that was gathered. The weighting and scoring of the features were done by a DCIG research analyst.. The Flash Memory Storage Arrays were ranked using standard scoring techniques. One of the goals of this Buyer s Guide is to establish clear lines of differentiation between Flash Memory Storage Arrays with conclusions that are arrived at objectively. To accomplish this goal, the mean or average score for each classification was first determined and then the standard deviation. Using the mean of the scores from all of the Flash Memory Storage Arrays from which the standard deviation was calculated, DCIG developed a ranking for each array model based upon the following in each classification: Those models that were.5 or greater standard deviations below the mean were given the rank of Basic. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 7

10 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Those models that were.5± standard deviations above or below the mean were ranked as Good. Those models that were.5.5 standard deviations above the mean were ranked as Excellent. Those models that were greater than.5 standard deviations above the mean were ranked as Recommended. The model(s) with the highest score in each category were given the designation of Best-in-Class. It is for this reason that in each category the number of models that achieved a certain ranking varied. DCIG Comments & Thoughts Flash Memory Storage Arrays are the New Enterprise Array This Buyer's Guide approaches the evaluation of Flash Memory Storage Arrays with their use as replacements for traditional storage arrays in enterprise data centers, and scores the arrays with this use case in mind. This means that targeted solutions will not score particularly well in this Buyer's Guide. Support for integration and high storage densities garners quite a few points, but may not really matter for other use cases like NAS acceleration where the appliance is intended to be a transparent caching layer in front of legacy NAS storage. While not apologizing for the focus on flash as primary array, it is worth noting that other use cases are certainly valid. Storage purchasers evaluating arrays for other use cases may find the feature data shown on the data sheets is more important to them than the scores and rankings we assigned. An array that scores well in this Buyer's Guide may be a perfect fit for these other use cases, but so may a low scoring array. Flash Memory Storage Now Delivering Storage Density Supremacy The highest performing Tier enterprise hard drives top out at around 600GB, with 00GB drives being far more widely deployed. A traditional performance array maxes out at a storage density of about 5TB per rack unit. Twenty-four (6%) of the arrays in this Buyer's Guide deliver more than 5TB per rack unit. Seven (%) of the arrays in this Buyer's Guide offer more than 4x that storage density and two of the arrays can deliver 44TB of raw flash capacity per rack unit. Data efficiency technologies can effectively multiply that raw capacity by another 4x or more. Reasonable data center managers and designers should consider the impact that reclaiming 90% of data center floor space, as well as power and cooling might have on their data center requirements. Data Efficiency and Flash Optimization Techniques In the 0 edition of this Buyer's Guide, DCIG anticipated that data efficiency technologies would be more broadly adopted in Flash Memory Storage Arrays. At that point, only 4% of the arrays supported thin provisioning a number that has risen to 90%, with 56% also supporting automated storage reclamation. We also saw progress in support from compression, up from % to % of arrays. Support for inline deduplication remained flat at about one-third of arrays. Dealing with the Threat of Silent Data Corruption With flash capacity of these arrays growing from a few terabytes in 0 to more than a petabyte in 04, there is a much higher possibility for silent data corruption through hash collisions. This issue can be addressed through support for lossless deduplication, which involves read verifying all potential duplicates rather than relying solely on hashes for deduplication decisions. Twelve of the thirteen arrays that implement in-line deduplication also implement lossless deduplication. The Benefit of and Volume Copy Twenty-five (64%) of the arrays in this Buyer's Guide implement zero overhead snapshots & volume copy. This capability is useful in a number of ways. Because these snapshots have almost no impact on performance or storage utilization thus the zero overhead designation they can be taken as often as required to comply with recovery point objectives (RPO) set by the business. The combination of high performance flash memory storage and zero overhead snapshots can also be used to improve developer productivity. Daily development snapshots can be used by a company s developers to test against the full set of production data in what is essentially the production environment, yet without the risk of corrupting the actual production data. This is a huge improvement over working with a stale subset of production data that many developers are used to. OpenStack for Array Rapidly Gaining Vendor Support One development worth noting is the rapid adoption of OpenStack as a supported method of array management. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

11 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays While twenty-five (64%) of arrays can be managed via vcenter, and eight (%) can be managed via Microsoft s System Center or via the SMI-S standard, eighteen (46%) can be managed via OpenStack. This bodes well for OpenStack and for advancing data center automation. do so will discover that Flash is free. That is, the return on investment within the IT budget will be rapid, and the business benefits of accelerating all enterprise applications could truly be seen as an opportunity not just to upgrade storage, but to accelerate the enterprise. vsphere Integration On the integration front, some vendors have comprehensive support for s storage-related APIs while others completely eschew them. Twenty-six (67%) support all VAAI v4. APIs. Of the VAAI v5 features, the top five are Thin-Provisioning Dead Space at 44%, Full File Clone and at %, at %, and at %. Among the other storage-related API s, the top five supported features are SIOC at 5%, VASA at 49%, Storage DRS at 4%, VASRM at % and VADP at %. Cloud Storage Integration In 0 only WhipTail arrays claimed cloud storage integration. Now ten arrays (6%) make that claim, including Avere, EMC, HP, HDS, NetApp, and SolidFire. Feature Areas Where DCIG Expects to See Improvement Given the trend toward enterprises adopting a multi-hypervisor strategy, DCIG expects to find more arrays supporting integration with Microsoft Hyper-V for management and for Windows Server storage technologies. Only eight (%) of the arrays in this Buyer's Guide support Microsoft System Center (SCVMM SMAPI) or Microsoft Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX). Only five (%) support SMB.0. Some flash array vendors have decided that tiering is unnecessary in an all-flash array. Others have designed their arrays to automatically tier data, placing metadata and other hot data in NVRAM, DRAM backed by flash memory, or SLC SSDs. Some extend their tiering capabilities all the way to the public cloud. The emergence of multi-terabyte read-oriented SSDs that have a very low write endurance will give flash arrays that integrate multi-tier auto-tiering an advantage in safely incorporating these newer forms of flash into enterprise storage arrays. Think About Flash Memory Storage Arrays as a Systemic Opportunity The purchase of a Flash Memory Storage Array will be most easily justified and have the greatest benefit in businesses that think this through as a systemic opportunity. Many who DCIG Observations & Recommendations Best-in-Class Ranking Observations The Nimbus Data Gemini F600 earned the overall Bestin-Class ranking among all Flash Memory Storage Arrays in this Buyer s Guide. The Gemini F600 stood out in the following ways: Captured the highest score in the & Software as well as Hardware categories. Raw flash storage density of 4 TB per rack unit, scalable to PB in a 4U cluster. This raw flash density was exceeded by only two other arrays in this Buyer's Guide. The already high flash storage density is further enhanced through comprehensive flash optimization support, including lossless in-line deduplication and compression. The F600 features x QSFP+ ports for 56 Gb FDR InfiniBand and 40 Gigabit Ethernet. The comprehensive hypervisor integration score of the Gemini series was bested only by the HP PAR StoreServ In addition to excellent integration, the Gemini F600 is one of just eight arrays supporting Microsoft Windows Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX). By offloading the file transfer to the storage array, ODX minimizes latencies, maximizes array throughput, and reduces resource usage such as CPU and network consumption on the host computer in Windows Server 0Hyper-V environments. Recommendations The Gemini F600 multiprotocol unified all-flash storage system, introduced in August 0, is part of Nimbus Data s fourth-generation of all-flash arrays. Nimbus Data claims that this generation increases write performance by 4x and read performance by x to deliver up to million 4K write IOPS and million 4K read IOPS with latencies 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 9

12 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays of approximately 50 microseconds; at a 5% lower cost compared to the prior generation. Nimbus Data achieved this through three technology advancements:. A DSP in each enterprise flash drive that adapts the amount of electrical current used to write to flash-based on the age of the flash, minimizing flash wear.. Cell-level (rather than chip-level) wear-leveling algorithms that detect variations in flash endurance and adapt write patterns accordingly, eliminating hot-spots.. New Nimbus Data software that reforms random small-block writes into sequential large-block writes, reducing write amplification. Gemini all-flash arrays feature Nimbus Data s HALO software stack, a total system management solution offering thin provisioning, deduplication, snapshot, and administration tools. The Gemini F600 starts under US$0,000, and typically sells for between $50,000 and $50,000 as configured by customers. The standard one-year warranty can be extended for up to 0 years with a support contract that provides 4x7x65 support, a comprehensive hardware warranty, free software updates, and 4-hour onsite service worldwide. Recommended Ranking Observations The Nimbus Data Gemini F400 and the HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage earned the title of Recommended overall by achieving the ranking of Recommended in at least two scoring categories, and an Excellent ranking in the remaining categories. The Nimbus Data Gemini F400 shares all the features of the F600 with the following exceptions: The F400 features: x SFP+ ports, supporting 6 Gb Fibre Channel and 0 Gigabit Ethernet (versus the F600 s 40 GbE and 56Gb FDR InfiniBand). The F400 starts under US$50,000. The HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage earned the Recommended ranking and is distinguished by: Best-in-Class ranking in Integration, Recommended ranking in & Software and Support, and an Excellent ranking in Hardware. A single array can be scaled out to 4 mesh active controllers, and a total of 0 TB of raw flash capacity, which is further enhanced through in-line deduplication. Recommendations The Nimbus Data Gemini F400 is preferred over the F600 for environments that require Fibre Channel connectivity and that are willing to eschew InfiniBand and 40 Gb Ethernet host connectivity. The HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage unified all-flash storage system was introduced in June 0. Rather than acquire a flash array startup, HP started with the modern architecture of the PAR StoreServ system and added flash-specific optimizations. HP claims that the resulting system delivers more than 550,000 inputoutput operations per second with less than 0.7 millisecond (700 microsecond) response time. The HP PAR StoreServ architecture is highly regarded for its performance and how it manages data placement within its system. The HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage system has hardware-accelerated data compaction that reduces capacity needs by up to 50 percent without degrading performance. System-wide striping which automatically writes small chunks of data across all resources harnesses collective throughput, load balances the system and extends media life by eliminating hot spots. HP PAR StoreServ conserves storage capacity through its thin provisioning feature. The array allocates only as much storage to the application as it actually uses while holding the rest of the requested storage capacity in reserve until it is required. Another feature of thin provisioning is its Thin Persistence feature, which identifies the storage capacity no longer used by the application and automatically returns it to the available pool of storage. HP PAR Peer Persistence and Remote Copy software synchronously replicate data and then implement uninterrupted VM failover and failback without needing to implement a third-party appliance or replication software. The resulting active-active stretch cluster provides transparent data center failover to eliminate workflow disruptions. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 0

13 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Storage capacity used by the array s replication and snapshot features is efficiently managed by the unique methods that HP PAR StoreServ uses to provision storage. Therefore, organizations may use these features without detecting extra overhead on the system or having to buy extra storage capacity. The emergence of OpenStack storage technology has, among other things, created more confusion for storage purchasers. The good news is that HP PAR storage is a safe bet for enterprises that may wish to implement OpenStack in the future. This endorsement is due to: HP's support for these OpenStack block storage Cinder drivers on its PAR (FC and iscsi) storage arrays. HP s support matrices. HP s close alliances with hypervisor providers. HP s back-end support. The wide use of HP PAR StoreServ among top service providers. Excellent Ranking Observations The arrays that achieved a ranking of Excellent include the Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM, Tegile Zebi HA00, PureStorage FA-400 Series Controller, NetApp FAS50 and FAS690 Series AFA, SolidFire SF900, SF600 and SF00, and the Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS solution. These arrays were distinguished from the lower ranking arrays in the following ways: Similar to the Recommended arrays, the arrays that earned an Excellent ranking all did so by achieving high marks for non-disruptive operation, including non-disruptive upgrades. All offer robust thin provisioning included in the base software. All but Pure Storage and SolidFire provide unified SAN and NAS storage. All but SolidFire provide lossless deduplication, whether in-line (PureStorage, Tegile) or post-process (HDS, NetApp, Dell). All but SolidFire offer concurrent Fibre Channel and iscsi connectivity, but none offer InfiniBand host connectivity. All but SolidFire support caches of at least GB and store metadata separately from file data in these large NVRAM or SSD-backed DRAM caches. Achieved Excellent rankings in at least two scoring categories, with the Hitachi HUS VM and Tegile Zebi HA00 missing the overall Recommended ranking by less than 4 points. The HDS HUS VM, NetApp FAS50 and FAS690 achieved Excellent rankings across all four scoring categories. The PureStorage FA-400 Series Controller captured the Best-in-Class ranking for Support with their proactive intervention based on phone home data. The FA-400 array achieved Recommended in & Software, but was held back by a score of Good in the Integration and Hardware categories. Recommendations Every one of these Excellent Flash Memory Storage Arrays delivers impressive capabilities. Like the Recommended arrays, each solution offers feature rich management software and strong integration. These arrays vary widely in overall raw flash capacity as well as flash storage density, so businesses will want to give careful attention to their anticipated storage requirements. Dell, HDS and NetApp have all added flash optimizations to existing enterprise storage systems to bring these all-flash arrays to market. These offerings will be especially attractive to those businesses that want the benefits of flash storage, but want it from an established vendor, andor want to extend a storage environment with which they are already familiar. Unlike the startups, all three of these traditional storage vendors do charge extra for some of the management features and offer their deduplication or compression postprocess rather than in-line. The Tegile Zebi HA00 and PureStorage systems both achieved Recommended rankings in & Software, but were held back by a ranking of Good in Hardware. Maximum raw flash storage capacities of under 40 TB and storage densities of. and.4 TB per rack unit hurt their hardware scores. In contrast, the other top arrays are able to scale to at least 00 TB of raw flash storage and generally deliver more than 0 TB per rack unit. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

14 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays The Tegile Zebi HA00 was released in August 0. Subsequent software releases for the HA00 have delivered enhanced performance and greater levels of VM-awareness, but the HA00 has not taken advantage of the next generation of flash memory devices. It is an impressive system that is likely to see a hardware refresh soon that will enable the Zebi arrays to address larger amounts of raw flash storage. The PureStorage and SolidFire systems give evidence of their early focus on large-scale cloud service providers through their lack of specific enterprise features. However, SolidFire has announced that Fibre Channel support and other enterprise-oriented features will be generally available in Q 04. On the other hand, only PureStorage and SolidFire have typical sales prices below $50,000. The rest generally cost between $50,000 and $50,000 as implemented by customers, except for NetApp which starts around $00,000. SolidFire is the only vendor in this Buyer s Guide that has implemented erasure coding information dispersal algorithms instead of RAID. This approach should enable customers to achieve high levels of data durability and resiliency in the face of equipment failure. Solidfire s ability to scale capacity and performance to 00 nodes looks to be extremely flexible and robust and its solid quality of service management along with available automation tools make the SolidFire lineup worth a look, especially for enterprises interested in adopting a hyper-scale approach to their data center infrastructure. The arrays that achieved a Recommended ranking all employ custom silicon to accelerate certain functions. In contrast, the startups in the Excellent group have embraced the concept of leveraging standard x6 processors and off-the-shelf SSDs. Their focus is on software. The startups deliver excellent performance and functionality now, and it looks as though they may be able to more quickly take advantage of new processors and advances in flash memory devices, giving them a competitive advantage over time compared to storage vendors who embed their software into custom silicon. The NetApp FAS50 and FAS690 Series AFA are built on NetApp s Data ONTAP management software, which continues to rank among the most feature-rich storage operating system suites in the industry. NetApp s Data ONTAP management software continues to evolve at the forefront of storage operating systems. Those capabilities again came into play when coupled with the enhanced clustering features found in NetApp s latest Data ONTAP. release. All features enable these NetApp arrays to successfully deliver among the broadest range of features for those organizations looking for a single array that may be used in multiple roles. Good Ranking Observations The eight arrays earning a Good ranking include the EMC VNX-F, Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS7600, GreenBytes IO Offload Engine, NetApp EF550 Flash Array, IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition, IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution, Kaminario K and IceWEB ERX. Most of the arrays ranking Good overall, actually achieved Excellent Integration scores with support for all VAAI v4 features These products were held back from overall Excellent rankings by lower & Software andor Hardware scores All arrays support concurrent Fibre Channel and iscsi connectivity, except for the iscsi-only Dell EqualLogic PS60-FS7600 Four of the Good arrays typically sell for under $00,000 as configured by customers, placing them within reach of a broad range of businesses Recommendations The EMC VNX-F is an all-flash array based on the VNX7600. The VNX-F outscored its peers and most of the Excellent arrays in integration. It is also the only array in this group from an established vendor that combines concurrent SAN & NAS unified storage with concurrent Fibre Channel and iscsi host connectivity for deployment in the broadest set of data center environments. The Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS7600 combines Excellent integration, with up to 9. TB of raw flash capacity per appliance, post-process deduplication and compression. While Dell is not claiming sub-millisecond response times or millions of IOPS, this array delivers a relatively affordable allflash option to the EqualLogic environment. The GreenBytes IO Offload Engine is a designed-forflash startup that combines comprehensive data efficiency 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

15 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays features with strong VAAI integration to deliver a targeted desktop virtualization solution to enterprises. The NetApp EF550 Flash Array is the second generation flash array built on the Engenio platform. It scales to 9TB with density of 9.6TB per rack unit. NetApp claims the EF550 can deliver more than 400,000 IOPS and sub-millisecond latencies. The EF550 runs the SANtricity software platform, but does not support either deduplication or compression data efficiency technologies, though it does support thin provisioning. The IBM Storwise V7000 FlashSystem Edition combines IBM San Volume Controller (SVC) technology with flash storage technology acquired from Texas Memory Systems. The V7000 FlashSystem edition virtualizes an IBM FlashSystem 0, providing thin provisioning, real-time compression and IBM Easy Tier flash storage management. The IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution combines IBM San Volume Controller (SVC) technology with the IBM FlashSystem 40. This product was announced in January 04. The IBM FlashSystem 40 is the first new model delivered since the TMS (Texas Memory Systems) acquisition. It delivers roughly double the performance of the prior generation at half the price. IBM claims it deploys five-times faster than the 0 and now features non-disruptive microcode upgrades for non-stop operations in enterprise IT. The Kaminario K was announced in September 0, with the K v4 announced in April 0. The K v4 more than tripled the IOPS of the prior generation to a claimed. million IOPS, and added some features important to enterprises including support for VAAI v4 and non-disruptive upgrades. As DCIG was finalizing this Buyer's Guide, Kaminario informed us that it expects to release its next generation product in Q 04, with support for deduplication and compression, native replication and a vcenter Plug-in for array management The IceWEB ERX provides multiprotocol unified storage, but with no support for VAAI integration its appeal to most enterprises will be limited. Nevertheless, data efficiency features such as: thin provisioning, in-line deduplication and compression, concurrent SAN and NAS, concurrent Fibre Channel, and iscsi connectivity combined with a list price of less than $50,000 may get the attention of some businesses. Basic Ranking Observations The nineteen arrays that earned a Basic ranking include all six Violin Memory arrays, Astute Networks ViSX G4 appliance, EMC XtremIO X-Brick, Huawei Enterprise OceanStore Dorado00 G and Dorado500, IBM FlashSystem 40, Avere Systems FXT 400 and FXT 4500, Aberdeen AberNAS NL, Skyera skyhawk and the Cisco Whiptail arrays. Every array that earned a Basic overall ranking also ranked Basic in at least two of the four scoring categories. All but three arrays received & Software scores in the Basic range. All but four received Hardware scores in the Basic range. Most are SAN-only and support only a single storage networking protocol at a time. Consistent with a focus on low latency, of the 9 arrays support InfiniBand connectivity. Most of these arrays do not support VAAI API s or any of the other storage API s. Most offer neither deduplication nor compression. Recommendations With some of these arrays carrying starting prices above $50,000, a Basic ranking is not equivalent to cheap or low performing. The criteria for scoring this Buyer's Guide slanted heavily toward Flash Memory Storage Arrays as full replacements for enterprise primary storage arrays. Many of the Basic arrays are focused on ultra-low latency for maximum performance in specific application scenarios. Despite the Basic ranking, these arrays may still be a good fit for a particular scenario. On the other hand, with the current generation of products it is possible to achieve low latencies and high capacity without compromising on full enterprise features. Violin Memory arrays are performance focused, claiming sub-50 microsecond latency for the 6600 series, and sub-500 microsecond latency for the 600 series. Although they lack deduplication and compression, they can achieve a raw flash storage density of up to. TB per rack unit. Thin provisioning is supported. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

16 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Astute Networks ViSX G4 is marketed as an application acceleration appliance that integrates with existing storage infrastructure rather than replacing existing storage. Therefore, Astute avoids supporting redundant controllers and advanced multi-pathing features on purpose. As a result, in a checklist comparison the ViSX doesn t stack up like a storage array but it might be a good and cost-effective solution to an otherwise stubborn SAN performance problem. The ViSX G4 is an iscsi-only solution. It is one of just 7 arrays that supports densities of greater than 0TB per rack unit. It was designed to work well in a virtual server environment, where nearly all of the storage related management would be done from the point-of-view of the server administrator. It supports VAAI and many storage APIs, and achieved a Good Integration ranking. EMC XtremIO X-Brick delivers essential VAAI integrations and some data efficiency technologies including thin provisioning and in-line deduplication, but not data compression. Metadata is stored in DRAM rather than NVRAM or DRAM backed by flash, so uninterruptble power supplies are required in order to protect critical metadata from loss. IBM FlashSystem 40 is IBM s product focused on absolute performance. IBM claims consistent read latencies of 5 microseconds and write latencies of 90 microseconds from an enclosure that currently achieves a storage density of TB per rack unit a density exceeded only by the Skyera skyhawk. beyond that already impressive storage density. This iscsionly, U array is light on other management and software capabilities, and wholly lacking in integration. It ships with an integrated 40 port Gb Ethernet switch for direct connection to hosts or to data center switching fabrics. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA, ACCELA-D, INVICTA and INVICTA INFINITY achieve a Good Integration ranking based on support for all VAAI v4 APIs as well as VASA, AQDT and SIOC. All but the ACCELA also support thin provisioning, though none support deduplication or compression. As a group, the Cisco Whiptail arrays had the lowest and Software scores of any in this Buyer's Guide. These arrays do achieve a respectable raw flash storage density of TB per rack unit. Huawei Enterprise Dorado 00 G and Dorado 500 are among the oldest products in this Buyer's Guide. They have fallen behind other arrays that have had recent product refreshes. It seems likely that these systems will receive significant upgrades soon. Although they support thin provisioning, they offer neither deduplication nor compression, making the raw storage density of 4.TB per rack unit already in the bottom 0% of arrays in this Buyer's Guide even less compelling. Avere Systems FXT 400 and FXT 4500 were released in late 0, though more recent software releases continue to add capabilities to these systems. These arrays are marketed as edge filers that provide flash-based NAS acceleration and virtualization. They provide a global namespace plus FlashMove and now FlashCloud to facilitate the non-disruptive migration of data from NAS to NAS, or NAS to private or public cloud environments. Aberdeen AberNAS NL is intended to provide unified SAN and NAS to SMB (small to mid-sized businesses) that could otherwise not afford a flash-based system. Performance claims are below 00,000 IOPS and latency greater than millisecond. Skyera skyhawk achieves the highest storage density of any array in the Buyer's Guide at 44TB per rack unit of unified SAN and NAS storage. It also delivers the full set of data efficiency technologies to multiply the effective capacity well 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 4

17 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY S AND RANKINGS The scores and rankings for the Flash Memory Storage Arrays contain the following information: A chart that includes the scores and rankings for all of the products The mean and the standard deviation that were used to establish how each Flash Memory Storage Array was ranked A summary of the primary findings 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 5

18 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE S AND RANKINGS The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Nimbus Data Gemini F600.4 Best-in-Class. Nimbus Data Gemini F Recommended. HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage 6.6 Recommended 4. Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM 06.0 Excellent 5. Tegile Zebi HA Excellent 6. PureStorage FA-400 Series Controller Excellent 7. NetApp FAS50 Series AFA Excellent. NetApp FAS690 Series AFA 95.7 Excellent 9. SolidFire SF Excellent 0. SolidFire SF600.7 Excellent. SolidFire SF00.06 Excellent. Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution 7.5 Excellent. EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) Good 4. Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS Good 5. GreenBytes IO Offload Engine Good 6. NetApp EF Good 7. IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition 7.0 Good. IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution 77.5 Good 9. Kaminario K 67.0 Good 0. IceWEB ERX 5. Good. Violin Memory Violin Basic. Violin Memory Violin Basic. Violin Memory Violin Basic 4. Violin Memory Violin Basic 5. Astute Networks ViSX G Basic 6. Violin Memory Violin Basic 7. Violin Memory Violin Basic. EMC XtremIO X-Brick 47.4 Basic 9. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G Basic 0. IBM FlashSystem Basic continued on next page 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 6

19 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE S AND RANKINGS (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY 4.5 Basic. Avere Systems FXT Basic. Aberdeen AberNAS NL 4.97 Basic 4. Avere Systems FXT Basic 5. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA 4.4 Basic 6. Skyera skyhawk 9.90 Basic 7. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D 9.64 Basic. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA 9.6 Basic 9. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado500.6 Basic Total Number of Products 9 Rankings Highest Score.4 Lowest Score.6 Average (Mean) 6. Standard Deviation 7.9 Recommended Excellent Good Basic DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 7

20 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE & Software Scores and Rankings The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Nimbus Data Gemini F Best-in-Class. Nimbus Data Gemini F Recommended. Tegile Zebi HA Recommended 4. PureStorage FA-400 Series Controller 50. Recommended 5. HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage 50. Recommended 6. Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM 4.70 Excellent 7. SolidFire SF Excellent. SolidFire SF Excellent 9. SolidFire SF Excellent 0. GreenBytes IO Offload Engine.5 Excellent. EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) 5.7 Excellent. NetApp FAS50 Series AFA 5. Excellent. NetApp FAS690 Series AFA 5. Excellent 4. Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution.45 Good 5. IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition.65 Good 6. IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution.5 Good 7. IceWEB ERX 9.7 Good. NetApp EF550.9 Good 9. Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS Good 0. Kaminario K 4.5 Good. EMC XtremIO X-Brick.5 Good. Skyera skyhawk.4 Good. Violin Memory Violin Good 4. Violin Memory Violin Basic 5. Violin Memory Violin Basic 6. Violin Memory Violin Basic 7. Violin Memory Violin Basic. Violin Memory Violin Basic 9. Aberdeen AberNAS NL 9.90 Basic 0. Astute Networks ViSX G Basic continued on next page 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

21 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE & Software Scores and Rankings (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Avere Systems FXT Basic. Avere Systems FXT Basic. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G.60 Basic 4. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado Basic 5. IBM FlashSystem Basic 6. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA 9. Basic 7. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY 9. Basic. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D. Basic 9. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA 7. Basic Total Number of Products 9 Rankings Highest Score 55.0 Lowest Score 7. Average (Mean) 7.79 Standard Deviation.7 Recommended Excellent Good Basic DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 9

22 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Hardware Scores and Rankings The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Nimbus Data Gemini F Best-in-Class. Nimbus Data Gemini F Recommended. Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM. Excellent 4. HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage. Excellent 5. NetApp FAS690 Series AFA 7.4 Excellent 6. NetApp FAS50 Series AFA 5. Excellent 7. Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution 4.40 Excellent. Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS Excellent 9. Kaminario K.0 Excellent 0. SolidFire SF Excellent. NetApp EF Excellent. SolidFire SF Excellent. Tegile Zebi HA Good 4. SolidFire SF Good 5. PureStorage FA-400 Series Controller. Good 6. IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition 5.0 Good 7. IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution 4.5 Good. IBM FlashSystem Good 9. GreenBytes IO Offload Engine. Good 0. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G.0 Good. Violin Memory Violin Good. IceWEB ERX. Good. EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) 0.7 Good 4. Avere Systems FXT Good 5. Violin Memory Violin Basic 6. Avere Systems FXT Basic 7. Violin Memory Violin Basic. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY.95 Basic 9. Violin Memory Violin Basic 0. Violin Memory Violin 6.00 Basic continued on next page 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 0

23 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Hardware Scores and Rankings (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAYS RANKING. Violin Memory Violin Basic. Cisco Whiptail INVICTA 7.55 Basic. Astute Networks ViSX G Basic 4. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA 6.45 Basic 5. Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D 6.5 Basic 6. Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado Basic 7. Skyera skyhawk 5.5 Basic. Aberdeen AberNAS NL.75 Basic 9. EMC XtremIO X-Brick 9.0 Basic Total Number of Products 9 Rankings Highest Score 5.4 Lowest Score 9.0 Average (Mean) 5.9 Standard Deviation 9. Recommended Excellent Good Basic DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

24 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY MODELS 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis.

25 Aberdeen AberNAS NL Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 7 DRAM GB GB SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 0 Max BTU Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM 4x7x65 Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods PSA Storage DRS 5 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

26 Astute Networks ViSX G4 Approximate Starting List Price: $,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 45.6 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 5 GB GB SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU 5 5 4x7x65 6 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

27 Avere Systems FXT 400 Approximate Starting List Price: $99,500 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER.6 TB 0 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 96 GB,69 GB Active-Active 50 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU 4x7x65 5 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

28 Avere Systems FXT 4500 Approximate Starting List Price: $59,500 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER TB 50 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.5 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 44 GB,46 GB Active-Active 50 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU 4x7x65 5 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 6

29 Cisco Whiptail ACCELA Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 5 GB GB SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports 4 4 InfiniBand Max Watts 00 Max BTU 64 4x7x65 9 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 7

30 Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D Approximate Starting List Price: Not Disclosed DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 5 GB GB SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports 4 4 InfiniBand Max Watts 00 Max BTU,04 4x7x65 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

31 Cisco Whiptail INVICTA Approximate Starting List Price: $49,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB 44 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM > 5U 5 4 GB 4 GB Dual-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports 4 4 InfiniBand Max Watts,440 Max BTU 4,96 4x7x65 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 9

32 Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $500,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB 70 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM > 5U 5 4 GB 4 GB Dual-Active 6 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports 4 4 InfiniBand Max Watts,440 Max BTU 4,96 4x7x65 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 0

33 Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER,500 TB 4,500 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 9. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 7 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 7 9 DRAM 4U 7 GB 9,000 GB Dual-Active 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU,07 Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM 4x7x65 4 Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods PSA Storage DRS Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

34 Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS7600 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 9. TB 07 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 9.6 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 7 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 6 DRAM U 5 GB GB Active-Standby 6 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 75 Max BTU,0 4x7x65 7 Years ** This vendor did not respond to DCIG requests for information. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

35 EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) Approximate Starting List Price: Not Disclosed DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4. TB TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods 5 Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS Capacity per Rack Unit TB DRAM 6 64 GB 4,00 GB Active-Active, Active- Standby, Dual-Active FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU x7x Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

36 EMC XtremIO X-Brick Approximate Starting List Price: Not Disclosed DCIG Scores and Rankings ** BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 0 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.7 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM > 5U GB GB Active-Active 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 750 Max BTU,559 4x7x Years ** This vendor did not respond to DCIG requests for information. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

37 GreenBytes IO Offload Engine Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 9.6 TB TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS 6 Capacity per Rack Unit TB DRAM 4U GB GB Dual-Active FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts,00 Max BTU 7,00 4x7x Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

38 HDS Hitachi Unified Storage VM Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 00 TB 00 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 5 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM > 5U 56 GB 64 GB Active-Active 6 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 600 Max BTU,46 4x7x Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 6

39 HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED BEST-IN-CLASS EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED APPLIANCE CLUSTER 0 TB 0 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 0 7 DRAM U GB GB Active-Active 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 45 Max BTU,540 4x7x Years, 5 Years on SSDs 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 7

40 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 40 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 5 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 4 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 5 DRAM U GB GB Active-Active 6 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports 6 6 InfiniBand Max Watts 660 Max BTU 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable.

41 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado500 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER.4 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 4. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM > 5U 96 GB 00 GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 9

42 IBM FlashSystem 40 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 66 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 900 Max BTU,94 4x7x65 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 40

43 IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution Approximate Starting List Price: $,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 66 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 5 4 DRAM > 5U 6 GB GB Active-Active, Dual-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts,00 Max BTU 4,45 Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM 4x7x65 Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods PSA Storage DRS Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

44 IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 6.5 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 5.5 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 5 4 DRAM U 6 GB GB Active-Active, Dual-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 60 Max BTU,9 4x7x65 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

45 IceWEB ERX Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings ** GOOD GOOD BASIC GOOD BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER TB TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods 4 Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS Capacity per Rack Unit TB DRAM 4U 6,04 GB,04 GB Active-Active, Active-Standby FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU x7x65 Years ** This vendor did not respond to DCIG requests for information. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

46 Kaminario K Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD GOOD BASIC EXCELLENT BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB 40 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 6 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 6 DRAM 4U GB GB Active-Active 0 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts,05 Max BTU 0,44 0 4x7x65 6 Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 44

47 NetApp EF550 Flash Array Approximate Starting List Price: $7,00 DCIG Scores and Rankings GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 9 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 9.6 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 5 DRAM U 7 4 GB 6 GB Dual-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 49 Max BTU,60 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 45

48 NetApp FAS50 Series AFA Approximate Starting List Price: $9,6 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB,56 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 6.7 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 6 DRAM 5U GB 4,096 GB Active-Active, Active-Standby 6 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 40 Max BTU,9 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 46

49 NetApp FAS690 Series AFA Approximate Starting List Price: $0,0 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB 4,60 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods 5 Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS 6 Capacity per Rack Unit TB > 5U DRAM 9 GB 6,000 GB Active-Active, Active-Standby FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 645 Max BTU,0 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 47

50 Nimbus Data Gemini F400 Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB,000 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 4 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 7 GB GB Active-Active 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 4 Max BTU,0 4x7x Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 4

51 Nimbus Data Gemini F600 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BEST-IN-CLASS BEST-IN-CLASS EXCELLENT BEST-IN-CLASS EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4 TB,000 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 4 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U 7 GB GB Active-Active 4 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 4 Max BTU,0 4x7x Year 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 49

52 Pure Storage FA-400 Series Controller Approximate Starting List Price: $00,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED GOOD GOOD BEST-IN-CLASS APPLIANCE CLUSTER 5 TB 5 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.4 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 5 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 0 DRAM > 5U 56 GB 6,000 GB Active-Active 6 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts 575 Max BTU,970 4x7x Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 50

53 Skyera skyhawk Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 44 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 44 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 50 Max BTU 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

54 SolidFire SF00 Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD GOOD GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER TB 00 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM 5U GB GB 00 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 450 Max BTU,55 4x7x DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

55 SolidFire SF600 Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 6 TB 600 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 6 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM 5U GB GB 00 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 450 Max BTU,55 4x7x DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

56 SolidFire SF900 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $00,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 9.6 TB 960 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 9.6 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM 5U GB GB 6 00 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts 450 Max BTU,55 4x7x DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 54

57 Tegile Zebi HA00 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT APPLIANCE CLUSTER 4.4 TB 4.4 TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick 6 in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP 6 5 DRAM U 9 9 GB 4,697 GB Active-Active, Active-Standby 6 SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand Max Watts Max BTU x7x days 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 55

58 Violin Memory Violin 6 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 4. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,400 Max BTU 4,66 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 56

59 Violin Memory Violin 64 Approximate Starting List Price: Not Disclosed DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 6 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.7 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,050 Max BTU,55 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 57

60 Violin Memory Violin 6 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $500,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 5 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.67 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,750 Max BTU 5.4 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 5

61 Violin Memory Violin 664 Approximate Starting List Price: Not Disclosed DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD GOOD APPLIANCE CLUSTER 70 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,500 Max BTU 4,96 4x7x65 4 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 59

62 Violin Memory Violin 6606 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 6.5 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit.7 TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,50 Max BTU, 4x7x65 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 60

63 Violin Memory Violin 666 Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000 - $50,000 DCIG Scores and Rankings BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC APPLIANCE CLUSTER 7.5 TB TB Tiering Caching Mgmt Per VM Per LUN Capacity per Rack Unit 5. TB Methods CONTINUOUS PERIODIC Eager-Zeroed-Thick in DRAM NVRAM & Policies Active Directory LDAP DRAM U GB GB Active-Active SCSI UNMAP Automated Storage Reclamation BLOCK FILE IN-LINE POST-PROCESS IN-LINE POST-PROCESS DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Wear Leveling Wear Monitoring & Alerting Write Coalescing Variable Stripe Sizing Data Aging Timer Tuning Proprietary Methods s Dead Space Full File Clone Fast File Clone VASA AQDT SIOC VADP vmsc VASRM PSA Storage DRS FC iscsi 0 40 Gb Ethernet Ports 6 Gb FC Ports InfiniBand 0 5 Max Watts,700 Max BTU 5,70 4x7x65 4 Years 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. 6

64 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Product Rankings Dashboard The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Aberdeen AberNAS NL Dell Compellent SC000-FS600 SSD SAN-NAS Solution Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Astute Networks ViSX G4 Dell EqualLogic PS60S-FS7600 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Avere Systems FXT 400 EMC VNX-F (Based on the VNX7600) Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Avere Systems FXT 4500 EMC XtremIO X-Brick Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Cisco Whiptail ACCELA GreenBytes IO Offload Engine Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Cisco Whiptail ACCELA-D HDS Hitachi Unified Storage VM Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Cisco Whiptail INVICTA HP PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Cisco Whiptail INVICTA INFINITY Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado00 G continued on next page 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 6

65 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Product Rankings Dashboard (continued) MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE Huawei Enterprise OceanStor Dorado500 NetApp FAS690 Series AFA Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic IBM FlashSystem 40 Nimbus Data Gemini F400 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic IBM FlashSystem V40 Enterprise Performance Solution Nimbus Data Gemini F600 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic IBM Storwize V7000 FlashSystem Edition Pure Storage FA-400 Series Controller Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic IceWEB ERX Skyera skyhawk Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Kaminario K SolidFire SF00 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic NetApp EF550 Flash Array SolidFire SF600 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic NetApp FAS50 Series AFA SolidFire SF900 continued on next page 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 6

66 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Product Rankings Dashboard (continued) MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE MANAGEMENT & INTEGRATION HARDWARE Tegile Zebi HA00 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 6 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 64 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 6 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 664 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 6606 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic Violin Memory Violin 666 Best-In-Class Recommended Excellent Good Basic 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 64

67 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays APPENDICES Appendix A: Definitions, Explanations and Terminology Appendix B: Storage Provider Contact Information Appendix C: Author Contact Information 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. 65

68 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Definitions, Explanations and Terminology This section contains brief definitions andor explanations of the terms used and assumptions made when developing the data sheets found in the DCIG 04-5 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer s Guide. These terms are in the same order as they appear on the individual data sheets. & Software A check mark indicates if the array includes a license for the, or features without an extra licensing fee. Methods (Total #) This score indicates if the array can do snapshots and how comprehensive the snapshot options for this array are. The number specifies the number of different supported elements available. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). Indicates if the array can asynchronously replicate data to another array from the same storage provider. Asynchronous replication may be continuous or periodic. Continuous: Every write IO is copied, stored in a local disk cache and then replicated as soon as possible to a secondary array. Periodic: A snapshot of one or more volumes is periodically taken with that snapshot and then replicated to a secondary array. The array can synchronously replicate data to another array from the same storage provider. Write IOs need to be received at the primary or source array and then copied and written to the secondary, or target array, with the write confirmed as complete by both before processing can continue. A storage optimization method where volume resources are allocated on the disk only when needed. Eager-Zeroed-Thick A thin provisioning optimization method used primarily in virtualized environments where volume resources are pre-allocated on the disk and the space then filled with zeros. This is done to indicate the space is unused and may be reclaimed as well as a method to overwrite data on storage space that was previously used by another virtual machine. SCSI UNMAP Using the SCSI UNMAP command, a host can inform a storage array that space may be reclaimed that previously had been occupied by a volume that has been migrated to another datastore or deleted. Automated Storage Reclamation An optimization strategy related to thin provisioning. Blocks that were allocated to a volume but are no longer used or needed are returned to a storage system s pool of unallocated storage capacity. A check indicates that this capability is supported natively by the array without the aid of rd party software. Indicates support for Symantec s Zero Reclamation API which allows reuse of areas of storage that have been filled with zeros in thin provisioning scenarios. Data deduplication saves space by storing only one copy of data when identical data is already stored on the array. is a feature that reduces the amount of data stored by encoding data using fewer bits than the original data by eliminating statistical redundancy. Like deduplication, data compression works in both SAN and NAS environments. Block: Deduplicates data on a per-block basis. Stores a pointer to an existing identical block of data rather than a second instance of the block. File: File deduplication stores a pointer to an existing identical file on the array rather than storing a second instance of the file. Some vendors call this single instance store. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-

69 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays (In-line vs. Post-process) In-line: Data is deduplicated before it is stored. Post-process: Data is first stored in its native or raw format and subsequently deduplicated. (In-line vs. Post-process) In-line: Data is compressed before it is stored. Post-process: Data is first stored in its native or raw format and subsequently compressed. DRAM NVRAM Deduplicated or Compressed Indicates if deduplication andor compression is applied to data in the array s DRAM cache or NVRAMflash memory cache in addition to the destination media. Doing so multiplies the effective capacity of these cache resources. Read verifying all duplicates rather than relying solely on hashes. The ability to create snapshots with almost no impact on IO operations and using very little storage. Generally this is accomplished through metadata-only operations on systems that store metadata separately from file data. Flash memory media have individually erasable segments, each of which can be put through a limited number of erase cycles before becoming unreliable. Various optimization techniques may be employed to address this flash memory weakness and extend the life of a flash module or SSD. Optimization techniques that may be supported include: Wear leveling: Arranges data so that erasures and re-writes are distributed evenly across the medium. In this way, no single erase block prematurely fails due to a high concentration of write cycles. Wear monitoring and alerting: The storage system tracks flash memory wear and issues a pre-failure alert to the management console so that media can be replaced before data loss occurs. Write Coalescing: Once any portion of a flash memory block holds data, the entire block must be erased prior to updating any data in that block. Buffering andor coalescing of writes to match erasure block size (EBS) reduces the number of erasures that must be performed. This technique enhances both the long-term performance and the life expectancy of flash memory. Variable Stripe Sizing: Matches the RAID stripe sizes to the underlying erasure block size (EBS). This technique enhances both the long-term performance and the life expectancy of flash memory. Data Aging Timer Tuning: Enables the storage administrator to adjust data again timers. An aspect of write buffering. Proprietary Methods: Other techniques implemented by the vendor to extend the life of the flash memory. Tieringcaching ensures the most critical data always reside on high performance media including DRAM, NVRAM, or Solid State Drives (SSDs), while less active data blocks are moved to the hard disk drive tiers. TieringCaching (Per VM Per LUN) Indicates if the array offers management of storage tieringcaching at the Virtual Machine or LUN level. at each level typically can be accomplished with system presets or user-defined policies. In traditional storage systems, metadata about a file is stored on the target media with the actual file data. Some storage systems store this metadata separately, generally on the highest performing media or in ways otherwise optimized for rapid reading. in DRAM NVRAM DRAM is the highest performing storage media in a storage system, but the contents of DRAM are subject to loss during a power failure. Systems that store metadata in DRAM should also have a mechanism for protecting DRAM from power loss andor a mechanism for storing a copy of the metadata on non-volatile media. NVRAM or DRAM backed by flash memory provides a storage media that performs like DRAM but has the benefit of being a persistent data store. Because NVRAM is much more expensive than DRAM, it is generally provided in much lower capacities; therefore, NVRAM capacity may limit the amount of metadata that can be stored. (Total #) A count of the workload prioritization methods supported by the array. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). Workload prioritization options include: IO automatically balanced across all VMsLUNSvolumes. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-

70 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays User-defined queue ratios (i.e. one VMLUNVolume gets 0%, another gets 0%) User-defined target IOPs for each VMLUNVolume User-defined target bandwidth for each VMLUNVolume User-defined target system response time for each VMLUNVolume User-defined guaranteed minimum IOPs for each VMLUNVolume User-defined guaranteed minimum bandwidth for each VMLUNVolume User-defined guaranteed minimum average system response time for each VMLUNVolume User-defined maximum IOPs for each VMLUNVolume User-defined maximum bandwidth for each VMLUNVolume User-defined maximum system response time for each VMLUNVolume User categorizes each VMLUNVolume into pre-defined service levels (i.e. Gold, Silver, Bronze) Sacrifice performance of lower priority workloads for higher priority ones during degraded state operation (disk drive rebuild, controller failure, etc.) (Total #) A count of the performance monitoring options. The array provides an application that monitors and reports on how an array s resources (disk drives, storage networking ports, cache, LUNs, VMs, etc.) are being utilized and how well they are performing. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). & Policies (Total #) A count of the automation and storage provisioning options supported by the array. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). Automation and provisioning options include: Policy-based storage selection Create storage templates to include SLAQOS requirements Provisioning via server groups linked to storage templates Self-service portal for server andor storage administrators Automated reclamation when virtual server is decommissioned Scheduling and notification of provisioning activities Exposes APIs for use by rd party storage automation tools Support integration with ITSM products (Remedy, Tivoli) SDK for integration with management software (Total #) Indicates a count of the network file systems supported by the array. A Network File System (NFS) is a protocol that allows the mounting of devices or file systems on other systems over a network. Options include NFS v, NFS v, NFS v4, pnfs (NFS v4.), dnfs (Oracle Direct NFS), CIFSSMB, SMB, SMB., SMB.0 (previously named SMB.), and WebDAV. Active Directory LDAP Active Directory: (ADS) The standard Microsoft Windows domain authentication system. ADS is an extension of the Kerberos and LDAP protocols. LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) provides a very simple indexed database that is often used to store contact and authentication information. Integration A check mark indicates the array has a vsphere plug-in to perform array based management functions. vsphere Integration for s Support for full integration with vsphere s snapshot capability either natively, or through a plug-in provided by the storage array vendor. Used to copy data andor create clones, avoiding the need to send data back and forth to a host. Full File Clone, or, is similar to the Extended Copy (XCOPY) hardware acceleration primitive provided for block arrays. This primitive enables virtual disks to be cloned by the NAS device rather than by using the Data Mover, which consumes ESXi host, CPU, and memory resources as well as network bandwidth. Allows vcenter to offload SCSI commands from the ESX server to the storage array so it can control the locking mechanism while the storage array does data updates. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-

71 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays The vsphere ESXi host issues a command to the array that it recognizes. This command instructs the storage array to write zeros to the virtual VMDK or VMFS LUNs. This generally occurs when initializing the virtual disk for a new VM. Support for this feature indicates that the storage array recognizes this vsphere primitive and performs this zeroing activity. Enables the storage array to zero out a large number of data blocks to speed the provisioning of virtual machines (VMs) and reduce IO. Dead Space Reclamation (SCSI UNMAP) Using the SCSI UNMAP command, an ESXi host can inform a storage array that space may be reclaimed that previously had been occupied by a VM that has been migrated to another datastore or deleted. The first enhancement was introduced to address concern regarding the impact on virtual machines when thin-provisioned datastore usage reaches 00 percent of capacity. Historically, this affected all virtual machines running on the datastore. With the release of the vsphere 5.0 VAAI primitives, if a thin-provisioned datastore reaches 00 percent usage, only those virtual machines requiring extra blocks of storage space are paused; those not needing additional space continue to run. After additional space is allocated to the thin-provisioned datastore, the paused virtual machines can be resumed. (Source: techpaper-vsphere-storage-api-array- Integration.pdf) Full File Clone This command is part of VAAI 5.0 and is a NAS hardware acceleration primitive. The vsphere ESXi host issues a command to the array that it recognizes. This command instructs the storage array to clone a virtual disk. Support for this feature indicates that the storage array recognizes this vsphere primitive and performs this cloning activity. Fast File Clone This command is part of VAAI 5.0 and is a NAS hardware acceleration primitive. The vsphere ESXi host issues a command to an array that supports this feature. This command offloads the creation of VM snapshots to the storage array. Support for this feature indicates that the storage array recognizes this vsphere primitive and performs these offload activities. This command is part of VAAI 5.0 and was introduced to mitigate the impact on VMs when thin-provisioned datastores reach 00 percent of capacity. The array alerts the vsphere ESXi host andor vcenter when specified thresholds are reached. Should a datastore reach 00 percent of capacity, only those VMs requiring additional capacity are paused while VMs needing no additional capacity continue to run. Support for this feature indicates that the storage array recognizes this vsphere primitive and performs this out-of-space alerting. This command is part of VAAI 5.0 and is a NAS hardware acceleration primitive. The vsphere ESXi host issues a command to the storage array that it recognizes. This command instructs the storage array to create thick VMDK files on NAS datastores. Support for this feature indicates that the storage array recognizes this vsphere primitive and performs this file allocation activity. enables vsphere functionality to display actual space usage statistics on NAS datastores without the use of third-party tools. Before the introduction of, it would have been necessary to use array-based tools to monitor the space being used on a thinly provisioned Virtual Disk Machine (VMDK) on a back-end data store. VASA vsphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness is a set of APIs that permit storage arrays to integrate with vcenter for management functionality. Storage Awareness collects configuration, capability and storage health information from storage arrays. This allows the administrator to build Storage Profiles based on capabilities. AQDT ESX.5 Update 4 introduced an adaptive queue depth throttling (AQDT) algorithm that adjusts the LUN queue depth in the VMkernel IO stack. This algorithm is activated when the storage array indicates LUN IO congestion by returning a BUSY or QUEUE FULL status. When LUN congestion is detected, VMkernel throttles the LUN queue depth. The VMkernel attempts to gradually restore the LUN queue depth when LUN congestion conditions subside. AQDT prevents the array from being flooded with LUN IO requests and enables the array to recover to a normal operational state. NOTE: This is not applicable for NFS mounted storage. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-4

72 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays SIOC Storage IO Control (SIOC) for is a dynamic control mechanism for proportional allocation of shared storage resources to VMs running on multiple hosts. VADP vstorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) is a data protection framework introduced in vsphere 4.0. VADP which enables centralized, off-host LAN free backup of vsphere virtual machines, reduces ESX host resources to do backup processing, and enables flexible backup windows. vmsc vsphere Metro Storage Cluster ( vmsc) is a new configuration within the Hardware Compatibility List. This type of configuration is commonly referred to as a stretched storage cluster or metro storage cluster. It is implemented in environments where disaster downtime avoidance is a key requirement. (Source: http: blogs.vmware.comvsphere005vsphere-metrostorage-cluster-white-paper-released.html) VASRM vstorage APIs for Site Recover Manager (VASRM) offers remote replication features enabling a device to failover to a recovery site. PSA To manage storage multipathing, ESXESXi uses a special VMkernel layer Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA). The PSA is an open modular framework that coordinates the simultaneous operation of multiple multipathing plugins (MPPs). PSA is a collection of VMkernel APIs that allow third party hardware vendors to insert code directly into the ESX storage IO path. This allows rd party software developers to design their own load balancing techniques and failover mechanisms for particular storage array. The PSA coordinates the operation of the NMP and any additional rd party MPP. (Source: selfservicemicrositessearch.do?language=en_us&cmd= displaykc&externalid=075) Storage DRS Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) provides virtual machine placement and load balancing mechanisms based on IO and space capacity. Hardware (Appliance) The maximum amount of raw flash memory storage capacity in terabytes (TBs) that the array can have under its management. This number only includes the array s footprint and not the storage capacity of other systems it may have virtualized. (Cluster) The maximum amount of raw flash memory storage capacity in terabytes (TBs) that a fully configured cluster of arrays can have under its management. This number only includes the cluster s footprint and not the storage capacity of other systems it may have virtualized. Capacity per Rack Unit The maximum amount of flash memory that this product can provide per standard EIA rack unit. This measure of storage density is presented in terms of Terabytes (TB) per rack unit. The minimum number of standard EIA rack units required to deploy this solution. (Total #) Lists the standard RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) levels supported by the device. Examples include: RAID 0 (striping without mirroring or parity), RAID (mirroring without striping or parity), RAID 5 (block-level striping with distributed parity), etc. Information dispersal algorithmserasure coding allows an array to store data across multiple locations as a way to enhance redundancy and protect against data loss. (Generally used as an alternative to RAID.) (Max DRAMMax) The maximum number of gigabytes (GBs) of cache that each array controller can support. Max RAM: Specifies the maximum number of gigabytes (GBs) of DRAM cache. Max: may consist of any combination of DRAM, NVRAM and SSD. Active-Active: Two controllers are configured with multipathing software and have concurrent access to the disk drives that are then presented as LUNs to attached hosts. In the event a controller fails or is taken offline, attached host(s) may detect little or no interruption in service as the other controller takes over for the failed unit though a drop in performance may occur. This is considered an enterprise class feature. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-5

73 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Active-Standby: All LUNs are controlled and assigned to a single active controller through which all storage IO traffic is routed. A secondary standby controller takes over the storage IO traffic for the active controller should it fail or be taken offline. The secondary controller also assumes control of the array s LUNs at any time. Dual Active: Both controllers are active and have concurrent access to the drives that are presented as LUNs to the attached hosts. The difference from Active-Active is that half of the storage array s LUNs are assigned to and controlled by one controller and the other half of the LUNs to the other so a LUN can only be accessed down one path through one controller at a time. If a controller should be taken offline or fail, the other controller assumes control for its LUNs. (Max) The maximum number of CPU processor cores available in one fully-loaded rack-mountable controller chassis. (Max) The maximum number of controllers that the model can support in a single logical configuration. An X indicates that this array does not support a scale-out configuration. FC The ability for the storage array to communicate with applications using both block (SAN) and network file system (NAS) clients at the same time. Fibre Channel (FC) is used as a networking protocol to transmit data between computer devices, such as a server and a storage device. iscsi Internet Small Computer System Interface (iscsi) is a block-based protocol for running SCSI commands over Internet Protocol (IP) on Ethernet to access storage resources. The ability for the storage array to connect to hosts over Fibre Channel and iscsi at the same time. (Max) The maximum number of ports available in any configuration to connect the array to hosts or to a dedicated storage network. Controllers that support both Ethernet and Fibre Channel may also support concurrent use of both technologies. See for additional clarification. Ports for managing the array or interconnecting multiple storage controllers are not included in this count. 040 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max) Indicates the maximum number of Gb, 0 Gb and 40 Gb Ethernet storage networking ports supported by the array in any configuration. 6 Gb FC Ports (Max) Indicates the maximum number of Gb and 6 Gb Fibre Channel storage networking ports supported by the array in any configuration. InfiniBand Indicates the maximum number of InfiniBand storage networking ports supported by the array in any configuration. InfiniBand ports are generally offered as 40 or 56 Gb connections. (Total #) The native array capability to: update controller code, replace an entire controller, add a controller, add storage shelvesnodes, and migrate data without disrupting the availability of the storage system. Redundant and hot swap power supplies, fans, and drives are also included in this measure. The number specifies the number of different supported elements available. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). (Celsius) The supported range of operating temperatures for this unit. Max Watts The maximum power draw of one fully-loaded rack-mountable controller chassis. Max BTU The maximum heat dissipation of one fully-loaded rack-mountable controller chassis. Support Specifies the hours when support is available under service contract. Examples include: business hours (9am 5pm, weekdays), 4x7 (4 hours a day, seven days a week, but not holidays) and 4x7x65 (4 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays). 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-6

74 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued) The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays (Total #) A count of the methods of support offered by the vendor. Options include: phone, , web chat, remote monitoring, remote loginproblem resolution, dispatch technician onsite, dispatch technician onsite with 4-hour GTD response, same-day delivery of replacement parts, pre-failure shipping of replacement parts, and proactive remediation based on phone home data. The number specifies the number of different supported elements available. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). (Total #) A count of the methods of support offered by the vendor. Hours of availability and support methods may differ from those offered for on-contract arrays, and may require a fee. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the DCIG Interactive Buyer s Guide (IBG). Indicates the length of standard warranty that is included with the array at no extra cost. 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. A-7

75 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Appendix B Flash Memory Storage Array Provider Contact Information Flash Memory Storage Array Provider Contact Information Aberdeen 040 Pioneer Blvd. Santa Fe Springs, CA For more contact information: Astute Networks 505 Ave of Science, Suite 50 San Diego, CA [email protected] For more contact information: Avere Systems 90 River Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 5 USA [email protected] For more contact information: CISCO-Whiptail 9 Whippany Road Building, 6 & 7 Whippany, NJ [email protected] For more contact information: Dell Dell Way Round Rock, TX For more contact information: EMC Corporation 76 South Street Hopkinton, MA [email protected] For more contact information: GreenBytes, Inc 75 Promenade Street, Suite 5 Providence, RI GRN.BYTE [email protected] For more contact information: Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 45 Lafayette Street Santa Clara, California For more contact information: Hewlett-Packard Corporation 000 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA using this form: aspx?qid=6 For more contact information: Huawei 5700 Tennyson Pkwy., Ste. 500 Plano, TX For more contact information: 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. B-

76 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Appendix B Flash Memory Storage Array Provider Contact Information (continued) Flash Memory Storage Array Provider Contact Information IBM Corporation New Orchard Rd Armonk, NY [email protected] IceWEB 900 Shaw Road, Suite Sterling, Virginia [email protected] For more contact information: Kaminario, Inc. 75 Grove Street, Suite -400 Newton, MA, USA [email protected] For more contact information: NetApp 495 East Java Drive Sunnyvale, CA Nimbus Data Systems, Inc. 70 Gateway Blvd, Suite 00 South San Francisco, CA NIMBUS [email protected] For more contact information: Skyera, Inc. 704 Automation Parkway San Jose, CA [email protected] For more contact information: SolidFire 60 Pearl St, Suite 00 Boulder Colorado [email protected] For more contact information: Tegile Systems, Inc. 000 Jarvis Ave Newark, CA TEGILE [email protected] For more contact information: Violin Memory, Inc. 65 Clyde Ave Mountain View, CA VIOLIN ( ) [email protected] For more contact information: Pure Storage 650 Castro Street, Suite #400 Mountain View, CA [email protected] For more contact information: 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. B-

77 04-5 FLASH MEMORY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Appendix C Author Contact Information The Insider s Guide to Evaluating Flash Memory Storage Arrays Author Contact Information DCIG, LLC 75 Madison Street Omaha, NE CONTACT Ken Clipperton DCIG Managing Analyst [email protected] WEBSITE 04 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. DCIG: Empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis. C-