IS IN-MEMORY COMPUTING MAKING THE MOVE TO PRIME TIME?

IS IN-MEMORY COMPUTING MAKING THE MOVE TO PRIME TIME? EMC and Intel work with multiple in-memory solutions to make your databases fly Thanks to cheaper random access memory (RAM) and improved technology, inmemory computing is now a viable option for database administrators looking for extreme performance. Although many companies offer in-memory computing options, you shouldn t get locked into a one-vendor solution for your database processing, storage, and backup needs. EMC supports in-memory solutions from multiple vendors, while providing scalability, availability, and efficient, reliable disaster recovery. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACCELERATING TO RAM SPEED 2 DON T GET BLOCKED BY OLDER TECHNOLOGY 2 PLAN AHEAD BEFORE YOU JUMP 3 EXPERIENCE THE IN-MEMORY ADVANTAGE TODAY 3 VIRTUALIZING THE MEMORY-CENTRIC PLATFORM 4 WHAT CONFIGURATION WORKS BEST FOR YOU? 4 ACCELERATING INTO THE FUTURE 5 EMC PERSPECTIVE

ACCELERATING TO RAM SPEED Until recently, the unparalleled transaction speeds of in-memory computing were hindered by massive costs and complex deployments. But recent technology improvements and significant price drops in RAM have made the once hypothetical solution a real possibility for businesses in search of a competitive advantage derived from low latency operations. By running transactions in memory, queries can be processed exceptionally fast. The sheer speed allows sub-microsecond responses for time-critical events such as stock trades, but it also enables users to run much more complex analyses of data for making better business decisions, for shrinking time-tomarket for new products, or for reducing research and development costs. DON T GET BLOCKED BY OLDER TECHNOLOGY Memory-centric databases offer a major speed jump over more traditional disk-centric data management solutions that are optimized to expect data to reside on disk in chunks of typically 8K or larger blocks. The conventional block-based approach helps organize data efficiently for the file system, but is less than optimal during processing in RAM, where the cumbersome data structure is preserved. For example, processing gets bottlenecked during tree-traversal, when a record is traced through index blocks of pointers to other index blocks, step-by-step through a series of time-consuming lookups. EMC and Intel can help reduce this overhead by optimizing disk input/output (I/O) and providing efficient flash-based storage. But even with these options in their toolkits, DBAs often spend considerable time and money adjusting disk caches to reduce overhead by keeping blocks in memory as much as possible. With most newer, memory-centric data management solutions, the user experience is not affected by the speed of disk I/O, because transactions are handled entirely in RAM. You might retain traditional I/O to persist data for restart and recovery, but the active queries are processed in memory without the overhead of buffering and moving data into and out of storage. In some solutions the in-memory structure is different than the block storage used for persistence on disk, which can add overhead to backup and recovery operations. Several optimizations can reduce that overhead, but many newer solutions increase efficiency by mirroring the in-memory structure in the disk images for faster recovery times.

STORAGE OPTIMIZATIONS CAN IMPROVE PERFORMANCE FOR BOTH IN- MEMORY AND TRADITIONAL DATABASE ECOSYSTEMS Whether you rely on in-memory or traditional computing, there are several ways you can help optimize your data to slow the growth of storage hardware in your data centers while using Intel Xeon Data deduplication uses data pattern matching to help eliminate large blocks of replicated data. Data compression can also help efficiently and significantly reduce the storage space taken up by data, and newer techniques available with Intel Xeon processors can perform real-time compression without compromising performance. Intelligent tiering dynamically allocates data by moving hot data to faster storage devices such as SSDs and moving bulk cold data to slower, lower cost, and larger capacity hard disk drives. PLAN AHEAD BEFORE YOU JUMP Of course, moving to in-memory computing is a lot more complex than simply installing large amounts of RAM. For a start, you need to ensure your applications are designed to support in-memory computing, and you need appropriate restart and disaster recovery mechanisms. Since RAM is not persistent, data is usually copied to storage for restart and recovery purposes. Optimization of restart and recovery then becomes a performance issue. EMC high performance flash solutions provide exceptional optimization for in-memory data that has been persisted to non-volatile media.1 Bulk data loads from storage can also cause a performance problem with inmemory databases. In the same way that EMC flash technology enhances performance of the persistence layer, database loading can be enhanced when unstructured data feeds that reside on disk are put on lower latency EMC flash products. EXPERIENCE THE IN-MEMORY ADVANTAGE TODAY There are a number of in-memory solutions available now, which when coupled with increasingly affordable RAM make in-memory computing very appealing and attainable. Solutions powered by EMC and Intel technologies can provide exceptional performance, scalability, and availability for the persistence layer of in-memory technologies, regardless of the solution you use. For example, a recent study showed the higher speed and data durability attained from deploying McObject extremedb in-memory database system (IMDS) with EMC XtremSF server-based Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) flash cards for transaction log storage.1 For the database operations most likely to induce latency, an in-memory database system with transaction logging (IMDS+TL) storing its transaction log on a hard disk drive (HDD) outperformed the conventional DBMS using HDD storage by more than 5 times, even with the disk-based DBMS employing caching to minimize I/O. In addition, dramatic gains were achieved when using EMC XtremSF server-based PCIe flash cards to store the transaction log. The technology enabled the IMDS+TL to achieve a 2,100% speed advantage over the on-disk DBMS. Thin provisioning allows storage to be automatically allocated to servers, on a justenough and just-in-time basis, making more storage available and reducing the need to overprovision storage. Table 1: Performance of on-disk DBMS and EMC XtremSF (blue line) versus McObject extremedb IMDS+TL and EMC XtremSF (red line) as the benchmark application scales from 2 to 36 concurrent processes.

INTEL HARDWARE HELPS OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE EMC storage solutions based on multi-core Intel Xeon processors are optimized for energy-efficient performance, advanced data protection, and scalability for enterprise workloads. When you store and process data with servers powered by the Intel Xeon processor family, you can better: Enable processing of storage workloads in the storage subsystem where the data resides Attain an efficient balance of compute and I/O Eliminate bottlenecks in the system Deliver higher performance Reduce storage costs This level of acceleration isn t limited only to McObject. When you combine EMC XtremSF PCIe cards on servers powered by efficient Intel processors, you can accelerate the persistence layer of memory-centric architectures, regardless of the inmemory solution you deploy. That means you should see similar performance gains from using EMC XtremSF PCIe cards with other technologies, such as MongoDB database solution. VIRTUALIZING THE MEMORY-CENTRIC PLATFORM EMC also provides an exceptionally efficient and robust virtualized platform for inmemory computing by supporting virtual SAP HANA on VMware vsphere 5.5 for highend business applications. Virtual SAP HANA on vsphere 5.5 lets you run several smaller SAP HANA instances on a single physical server, which allows for much greater flexibility, better utilization of existing resources, and improved overall efficiency. Specifically, virtual SAP HANA lets you: Significantly reduce SAP HANA deployment times. Enable live migration of virtual SAP HANA instances using VMware vsphere vmotion. Avoid additional costs for hardware appliances by using their existing SAP HANA certified server and storage. WHAT CONFIGURATION WORKS BEST FOR YOU? To determine the most efficient options for your environment, you can assess the overall service level agreements (SLAs) and business objectives for your company, and then implement solutions that suit the transaction speed and temperature of your data, while providing for fast, reliable restart and disaster recovery. Whether using inmemory or conventional solutions, storage optimizations can help increase overall efficiency while reducing the storage footprint in your data center. For more detailed information on how to determine the best overall solution for your environment, EMC can provide you with tools you can run to help you evaluate your specific data use patterns. The EMC tools can analyze thousands of performance reports with an analytical engine to evaluate: The number of physical reads/writes The size of physical reads and writes Input/output operations per second (IOPS) Latency After you collect this data, EMC representatives can analyze the results and work with you to create a personalized plan for implementing in-memory or conventional computing solutions with optimized storage and effective backup and recovery for your environment.

ACCELERATING INTO THE FUTURE When it comes to innovative solutions like in-memory computing, EMC continues to evolve by designing and collaborating to stay ahead of the curve. For example, with the recent acquisition of Silicon Valley startup DSSD, EMC can offer solutions that provide both low latency access and the high capacity required for memory-centric application architectures. Through this and other emerging solutions, EMC is continuously striving to optimize the alignment of converged infrastructures with memory-centric database models. By using new flash, OS, and management technologies to augment traditional storage, EMC can make in-memory computing cheaper, more scalable, and more reliable. Regardless of the in-memory database solution you configure, EMC and Intel offer a full range of appliances, software-based solutions, and virtual storage solutions to provide the best combination of performance, cost-effectiveness, and more complete protection of data to keep your business humming. For more information, contact your EMC sales representative or EMC Business Partner. CONTACT US To learn more about how EMC products, services, and solutions can help solve your business and IT challenges, contact your local representative or authorized reseller or visit us at www.emc.com. 1 McObject. Gaining an Extreme Performance Advantage. http://www.mcobject.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=download&pageid=1367&sectionid=154. EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and XtremSF are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc., in the United States and other jurisdictions. Copyright 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 06/14 EMC Perspective H13240 EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. www.emc.com