Flash 101 Violin Memory Switzerland Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 1
Agenda - What is Flash? - What is the difference between Flash types? - Why are SSD solutions different from Flash Storage Arrays? - What are the characterics of Violin Memory Flash Storage Arrays? Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 2
SLC and MLC Comparison Single NAND Flash Cell SLC and MLC are Effectively the same technology, but with different programming logic Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 3
Different types of NAND Flash SLC: Single Level Cell Lower Capacity Fastest Flash, highest endurance, typically 100k P/E cycles MLC: Multi Level Cell Higher Capacity Slower, with lower endurance, typically 3-10k P/E cycles TLC: Triple Level Cell Higher Capacity Same characteristics as MLC Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 4
What Flash does Violin use? Violin Memory uses SLC for Performance Arrays MLC for Capacity Arrays But why not use TLC? TLC today is made for lowest cost point for the consumer market Only slightly cheaper than MLC Less dense on a per package basis than MLC (due to larger controller logic) Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 5
What is the difference between SSD and Flash? SSD s were created to behave like very fast individual disks based on Flash- NAND MLC SSD s therefore are used behind classical Storage Controllers using classical Disk-drive protocols such as SATA II or similar SSD s do not communicate nor can they be centrally managed with regards to scrubbing or garbage collection SSD s are using the Storage Controller RAID-levels which are optimized for harddisks and hurt Flash performance Violin designed the systems from ground-up for Flash including a patented vraid technology Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 6
Performance Challenges: SSD write cliffs Violin SSD-based 194k IOP 760 MB/s New Write operations get queued behind Erase operations Up to 60% performance drop Real issue is that Erase operations also get in the way of Read operations Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 7
Flash Is Redefining Tiered Storage Now! CAPACITY/RACK 1 PB 400 TB 100 TB Applica'on Accelera'on " DRAM- like Performance " Persistent block- storage Infrastructure Consolida'on " HDD- like Density/Cost " Storage- Cache Latency 10 TB 1 TB Mul$- core CPU Processor Cache DRAM Violin SLC Flash Arrays Violin Capacity Flash Arrays Storage Cache NVRAM SSDs Emula$ng HDDs 15K Disk Array SATA Array ns 1µs 150µs 400µs 500µs 2ms 8ms 20ms RESPONSE TIME (Access Delay) Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 8
Transition from spinning to solid state storage Disk only Disk + Memory cache Disk + SSD + Memory cache + FAST All Flash Array 1992, Data General Clariion Disk Array 2004, EMC DMX2, 32GB memory cache 2009, EMC VMAX 20K " 40K IOPS " 5,000 µsec latency " +100 TBytes 2012, Violin Memory v6000 " 500K IOPS " 500 µsec latency " +100 TBytes Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 9
What are the classical solutions? Band-Aid Approaches Add more spindles (widestriping) Short stroking Adding SSD to legacy array Read-Only flash cache FAST, Easy Tier High Acquisition Costs Higher Operational Costs Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 10 but what about Latency?
Tag:V6000 Violin is not SSD it is 3 rd Generation Flash 1 ST GENERATION HARD DRIVE REPLACEMENT " Integrated within exis$ng infrastructure " Incremental performance boost " Performance scaling limited by controller/server 2 ND GENERATION SERVER- CENTRIC SOLUTION " Dedicated to server " Non- HA " Performance and capacity scaling are limited by server 3 RD GENERATION PURPOSE- BUILT ENTERPRISE SOLUTION " Highly Available - 24x7x365 opera$on " Transforma$onal performance improvement " 100% Compa$ble with exis$ng investments & processes " Mul$tenant/shared The transition from spinning to solid-state storage is already underway. Steve O Donnell, ESG Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 11
What s the difference? The Violin Innovation Advantage Technological innovation at every layer from Hardware to Software Intellectual Property (IP) aggregation resulting in a fundamentally unique solution Deep software and hardware integration Toshiba partnership Violin Switched memory architecture VMOS - Violin Memory Operating System optimized for flash vraid - Flash optimized RAID vraid Group Violin 6xxx Toshiba Flash VIMM Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 12
No SSDs Violin Intelligent Memory Modules Core building block of the Memory Fabric Up to 1TB Flash per VIMM (max 32TB per array) Up to 6GB DRAM per VIMM for metadata & caching (max 382GB per array) Hot Swappable Proprietary flash endurance & wear leveling extending Flash life up to 10x Continuous data scrubbing Advanced hardware based ECC Automated in-place die failure handling Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 13
Engineered For Performance & Reliability IO modules FC, 10GE, IB, PCIe Interfaces Active/Active memory gateways Storage virtualization LUN configuration Array control modules Fully redundant Controls flash memory fabric System level PCIe switching Flash memory fabric Heart of the system IO MODULES MEMORY GATEWAYS ARRAY CONTROL MODULES FLASH MEMORY FABRIC 24 to 64 Hot Swappable VIMMs Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 14
Violin Memory 6000 Series Models 6212 6222 6232 6264 6606 6611 6616 Form factor 3U 3U Flash type Capacity (MLC) Performance (SLC) Raw Capacity (TiB) 12TiB 22TiB 32TiB 64TiB 6TiB 11TiB 16TiB I/O Connectivity Maximum 4KB IOPS (Mixed) Maximum Bandwidth (100% Reads) 200K IOPS 350K IOPS 8Gb FC, 10GbE iscsi, 40 Gb IB, PCIe G2 500K IOPS 750K IOPS 450K IOPS 800K IOPS 1M IOPS 1.5GB/s 2.5GB/s 4GB/s 4GB/s 3GB/s 3.5GB/s 4GB/s Nominal Latency 500 µsec (mixed) 250 µsec (mixed) Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 15
Core Requirements for Datacentre Grade Flash Highly Available and Scalable Predictable Low Latency read and WRITE Performance Mixed Workload (Open Appliance) Non Contended Multitenant/Shared Hot Swap and Global Support Presence Violin Memory Inc. Proprietary 16
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