How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage

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1 White Paper How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage Strategies That Boost Performance and Lower Costs Paul Feresten, NetApp April 2014 Executive Summary Why is flash storage compelling? It is simpler than conventional storage. Instead of using a spinning disk and roving reading arm to store data, flash uses electricity to store data in addressable locations on a fixed, thin layer of oxide. Data is retained even when the power is off. There are no moving parts. As a result, flash storage has been shown to consume as little as 20% of the power yet read as much as 100 times faster than a traditional spinning hard drive. Flash storage also costs more per gigabyte than conventional storage. However, used in combination with conventional storage, flash can reduce overall costs compared to using conventional storage alone. Midsize businesses are combining flash and conventional storage to produce notable gains in performance and reductions in costs. This white paper examines several leading strategies, as demonstrated by three different businesses. It also reviews the range of NetApp flash solutions tailored for midsize businesses. The types of gains being achieved include: Faster response time Increased data throughput More users accommodated per storage system Competitive advantages in delivering services Savings by avoiding the need to purchase additional drives for performance Reduced power, space, and cooling costs

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Why NetApp Flash?... 3 Start Smart with Value... 3 Keep It Simple... 3 Look for Reliability... 3 Get Flexibility for the Right Fit... 4 The Business Impact of NetApp Flash Storage... 5 Boost Performance for VDI, Virtualized, and Cloud Environments... 5 Boost Performance for Transaction Processing/Database Response... 6 Control Costs, Despite Storage Growth... 7 Exploring Flash: Next Steps... 8 Appendix: Results at Three Midsize Businesses... 9 Frazier & Deeter Grows Its Bottom Line with NetApp Flash Pool... 9 StatPro... 9 Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Increases Productivity by 40,000 Hours a Year with VDI and NetApp Flash Pool LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1) NetApp Flash Storage Options for Midsize Businesses Figure 2) Flash Pool Performance Benefits How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

3 Why NetApp Flash? Nearly all midsize businesses face some common IT challenges: budgets are tight, data is increasing quickly, application speed is critical for competitive advantage, and the IT staff is small or nonexistent. Flash storage and particularly NetApp flash storage addresses all these challenges. Start Smart with Value Midsize businesses typically have many more spending priorities than they have capital. When purchasing IT infrastructure, it s critical to start right, with a choice that proves the best value over time. The Info-Tech Research Group, an advisory company, kept this requirement in mind as it evaluated storage from seven leading vendors. Info-Tech named NetApp a champion and winner of best overall value for small to midrange storage. Vendors were rated for viability, strategy, reach, and channel; their products were rated for features, usability, affordability, and architecture. See the complete Info-Tech report here. NetApp is the only company that received exemplary in seven out of the eight criteria and good or higher in all criteria. The report said that NetApp s introduction of Flash Pools brings flash performance to entry level systems where the cost of Flash Cache might be out of reach Advanced technologies and tools for thin provisioning, thin replication, thin snapshots, inline compression, deduplication, and efficient use of flash all help optimize disk utilization, as well as network bandwidth utilization. The last sentence in the preceding quote is a key reason why the best value in flash storage is a result of more than just the price per gigabyte of the storage devices. Some vendors in today s marketplace offer flash storage at a lower initial price, but without the added capabilities just discussed. The least expensive choice at the start can therefore turn out to be more expensive over time. The Info-Tech report named NetApp as champion because it leads by introducing features from its high-end storage to its flagship small to midrange product, which is the NetApp FAS2200 line of storage systems. Keep It Simple Another challenge is that midsize businesses typically have few or no IT staff. They need IT solutions that deploy quickly and are simple to manage. That s why NetApp storage systems such as the FAS2200 line have a new GUI-based System Setup utility: three simple screens enable a system to be up and running within minutes, nondisruptively. The systems are also simple to manage: automated management means little human intervention is needed. Hot data is cached automatically in real time according to usage frequency, and tools provide performance and diagnostic statistics to provide smooth operation. NetApp Flash Pool aggregates are also easy to scale: the NetApp Data ONTAP operating system enables midsize customers to easily and affordably upgrade to higher end systems and new capabilities or add storage capacity to their shared infrastructures with no downtime. Look for Reliability Since 2009, NetApp has been a global leader in flash storage and now has over 75PB of flash memory deployed that accelerate more than 5EB of storage around the world. In the midsize market, more than 10,000 customers turn to NetApp each year for their storage needs. NetApp technical support is also global, enabling businesses to get the support they need as they grow. 3 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

4 Get Flexibility for the Right Fit A variety of choices in NetApp flash enable midsize businesses to meet specific needs. Figure 1) NetApp Flash Storage Options for Midsize Businesses. At the array level, NetApp Flash Pool, a Data ONTAP feature, provides a combination of performance and value that helps midsize businesses start right and stretch their dollars. NetApp Flash Pool lets a business mix solid state disk (SSD) technology and hard disk (HDD) technology to create RAID aggregates that accelerate reads and writes. The Flash Pool aggregate automatically copies hot data onto flash for faster performance, delivering SSD-like performance at HDD-like prices. Flash Pool is available without additional software licensing. Implemented at the storage array level, it: Helps a business respond to challenging service-level agreements (SLAs) while containing costs Provides RAID-protected SSD storage, important for write-intensive applications such as online transaction processing (OLTP) Delivers cache persistence through high-availability (HA) failover events Boosts the efficiency of a data storage environment Lets low-cost SATA disk drives be deployed as the primary HDD tier, to minimize cost, space, and power Works out of the box with default settings, making it easy to deploy and simple to manage Flash Pool technology also seamlessly integrates with NetApp's industry-leading suite of nine storage efficiency technologies, further helping customers increase utilization and reduce power costs. NetApp is the only vendor offering this unique intelligent caching approach in the entry-level storage market, in its FAS2200 series systems. NetApp Flash Cache is available starting with the NetApp FAS3200 series. The systems can be flexibly configured with up to 2TB of high-speed Flash Cache PCIe cards inside the controller, to accelerate readintensive workloads. This intelligent caching enables a business to avoid purchasing more hard disk drives or solid state drives. NetApp FAS3200 series systems can also be configured with Flash Pool SSDs for workloads that need read and write acceleration. Combined with SATA HDDs, the result is SSD-like performance at HDD-like prices. If workloads require the utmost performance that technology allows, the FAS3200 can be configured with all- SSD disk shelves. 4 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

5 The Business Impact of NetApp Flash Storage Midsize businesses are using NetApp flash technology with three general strategies to achieve gains: Boost Performance for VDI, Virtualized, and Cloud Environments The ability to virtualize servers and use cloud services is making many midsize businesses more agile, while lowering costs. A number of businesses are also beginning to provide virtual desktops, enabling workers to be productive from anywhere and on any device. Running virtualized server, desktop, and cloud environments that can scale, however, requires high storage I/O. Flash storage can play a critical role in making high storage I/O affordable for midsize businesses. An Atlanta-based CPA firm named Frazier & Deeter shows how. Virtual desktops are critical to its core mission. The firm offers a range of assurance and advisory services in the areas of audit, tax, management consulting, personal tax planning, and compliance. It has been recognized as one of the top 25 best managed CPA firms in the United States, and with 250 employees, it is growing organically and through strategic acquisitions. The ability to deliver accounting audits and tax advisory services requires working on site at client locations, and to provide its staff with more flexibility, the firm deployed a Citrix-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). A Needed Jump in Storage I/O Although the firm s tax and audit professionals liked the ability to access their desktops from any location with an Internet connection, they desired better performance. In addition, the firm wanted to maximize storage I/O so it could virtualize more servers with VMware vsphere. Our storage environment is very read intensive, explains Adam Moleski, executive director of IT at Frazier & Deeter. We needed to accelerate random reads to ensure consistent performance, which we just weren t getting with the HP LeftHand infrastructure we had in place. For instance, users had to wait up to five minutes for applications to be available after logging into their virtual desktops. The latency caused work delays and critical applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, sometimes became unresponsive. We knew we had the right virtualization solutions in place, says Moleski. Citrix XenApp was the perfect fit for our tax department, and Citrix XenDesktop met our audit professionals more extensive needs. But our storage infrastructure was holding us back. Why Flash Pool Was the Right Fit Two instances of unplanned downtime with HP LeftHand prompted Frazier & Deeter to look for another storage solution: one that could deliver the performance necessary to support a full VDI deployment. The firm worked with NetApp partner ivision to deploy NetApp FAS2240 storage systems in its primary data center in Atlanta and at a disaster recovery site in Alpharetta, Georgia. To turbocharge its storage environment, Frazier & Deeter deployed NetApp Flash Pool intelligent caching technology. By offloading random read and repetitive random write operations from HDD to SSD, Flash Pool reduces latency and increases IOPS. Running Flash Pool on entry-level NetApp FAS2200 series storage systems is a cost-effective way for medium-sized businesses to achieve enterprise-class performance for virtual machines. ivision recommended the NetApp Flash Pool configuration, says Moleski. We can definitely fit more virtual desktop users per CPU per RAM, and NetApp allows us to do this while making the most of our power and cooling resources. If we had followed the approach some other vendors take and tried to achieve the same level of performance by increasing our spindle count with more SAS drives, we would have required a lot more power and generated a lot more heat. 5 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

6 98% Reduction in Latency With NetApp Flash Pool, Frazier & Deeter was able to achieve the random read performance necessary to support full VDI and virtualize 90% of its servers. Average latency for VDI workloads dropped from 150ms to 2.5ms, a 98% reduction. Virtual desktops are now available for use within 30 seconds after users log on. Users noticed a night-and-day difference in the performance of their virtual desktops after we deployed NetApp storage with Flash Pool, says Moleski. Other virtualized workloads are also benefitting from Flash Pool. Exchange Server latency dropped from 250ms to less than 5ms, he explains. Our SQL Server databases, document management system, and accounting software are also performing better. Users can reliably work from anywhere with an Internet connection and provide clients with a faster, smoother audit. Improved application performance means that our tax and audit professionals can deliver faster service to our clients, says Moleski. Data security has improved because all virtual desktop data resides in the data center instead of on laptops. An Adrenalin Shot to Storage Systems Fast application performance for users is critical to success at most organizations, and StatPro Canada offers another example of how to achieve it. The company serves professional investors with data for decisions through an interactive portfolio of analysis and management solutions and asset valuation services. The firm was growing, but success came with a price: increasingly heavy workloads slowed report processing and application response times. Users complained about latency and sluggish desktop performance. The company decided to deploy NetApp Flash Pool for each controller on its two NetApp FAS3240 storage systems. Latency dropped from several hundred milliseconds to 5ms, boosting response and report processing. The number of service tickets related to latency dropped dramatically, and the company is getting faster performance in its VMware and cloud environments, enhancing the interactive experience and value of offerings to clients. Flash Pool is like an adrenaline shot to our storage systems, says Mike Marechal, internal infrastructure team lead, North America, StatPro Group, plc. We went from sluggish performance to a highly responsive, efficient environment. Our customers are happy, and our operations run more smoothly than ever. Boost Performance for Transaction Processing/Database Response Another key use case driving flash adoption in midsize businesses is the need to speed up database and transaction processing. Consider , for instance. At most organizations, it is business critical, and that s especially true at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a Denver-based law firm with 530 employees. The firm has 14 offices in the western United States and Washington, D.C., and practices in the areas of corporate and business law, government relations and public policy, litigation, natural resources law, real estate law, and gaming law. enables attorneys and staff to collaborate and respond quickly. However, at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, users at remote offices were experiencing high levels of latency, prompting some users to contact IT about poor performance. Reducing Latency, Reclaiming Productivity Instead of buying more or faster drives or deploying an all-flash SAN, the firm used Flash Pool along with SAS and SATA disk on its NetApp FAS6210 storage system to achieve higher performance. latency is no longer noticeable, and the firm s VDI deployment is boosting attorney productivity by more than 40,000 hours a year. We determined that we needed 100,000 IOPS to provide good performance for our Citrix XenDesktop environment, says Rick Thompson, CIO. With NetApp Flash Pool, we re getting three times that. (See Figure 2.) 6 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

7 Figure 2) Flash Pool Performance Benefits Flash Pool provides intelligent caching capability to identify and host the subset of the data that is hot on the SSDs and increase IOPS, even for write-intensive workloads such as OLTP. Source: NetApp DS-3345, NetApp Flash Pool Data Sheet. StatPro Canada is also using flash to speed database transactions. After its success adding Flash Pool to its NetApp FAS3240 storage systems, it plans to deploy another NetApp FAS3220 with Flash Pool primarily for Oracle database workflows. Control Costs, Despite Storage Growth It s easy to see that flash storage improves storage I/O performance. It s less obvious why flash storage can also reduce costs and minimize the cost of growth. At StatPro, the performance improvement from NetApp Flash Pool enabled the firm to reduce the need for four additional shelves of HDDs, saving the firm $36,000 annually in colocation and energy costs. StatPro achieved a 100% payback on its investment in the NetApp storage systems and flash. The NetApp solution with Flash Pool allows us to deliver fast, efficient service to our customers at a lower cost, notes StatPro s Marechal. NetApp deduplication technology is providing additional savings because it reduced storage requirements 90% for indexes and pricing records, from 10TB to 1TB. Initially, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck had considered purchasing a flash-based SAN to dedicate exclusively to VDI. Flash Pool was so effective at improving I/O performance that we didn t need to buy a dedicated, flash-based SAN for VDI, saving us $200,000, says Larry McDonald, CTO. VDI Delivers Added Savings When flash storage makes virtual desktops practical for midsize businesses such as Frazier & Deeter and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a number of other gains result. Frazier & Deeter can now issue thin-client hardware instead of full desktops to most employees, cutting upfront hardware costs by 50%, the IT team reports. And when the firm acquires another company, which it has been doing from time to time, corporate data can be integrated in one week, compared to more than six weeks prior to virtualization and VDI, with much less potential for error. 7 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

8 Because the IT team manages a single golden image for desktops, support for endpoints is streamlined, avoiding the need to subcontract with local service providers for management and administration at remote office locations. The ability to use high-capacity, cost-effective SATA drives for file shares, user directories, and client data is reducing overall storage costs, while NetApp deduplication reduces capacity needs from 20% to 90%, depending on the nature of the data. With fast, uninterrupted access to virtual desktops and point-and-click restore capabilities, users spend more time working and less time waiting. As a result, user productivity and billable hours have increased, boosting both top- and bottom-line revenue. At Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, NetApp Flash Pool is allowing the firm to make much more efficient use of its storage while accommodating a growing VDI environment. We re providing a much better user experience by delivering VDI in an environment that runs NetApp Flash Pool, significantly improving productivity of our attorneys and staff, says Thompson. Exploring Flash: Next Steps In a world where data growth is accelerating, NetApp flash enables midsize businesses to boost storage performance while controlling costs. It s a key resource in being able to start right, keep it simple, and grow smart when it comes to storage. To learn more, visit 8 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

9 Appendix: Results at Three Midsize Businesses Frazier & Deeter Grows Its Bottom Line with NetApp Flash Pool Customer Frazier & Deeter, LLC Atlanta, Georgia Industry: Financial Services NetApp Partner ivision ivision.com Challenge Provide audit and tax professionals with smooth performance for Citrix-based virtual desktops. The Solution Deploy NetApp FAS2240 storage systems with NetApp Flash Pool intelligent caching technology to reduce latency. Benefits Improves employee productivity and increases billable hours, boosting top- and bottom-line revenue Reduces average latency for virtual desktops by 98% Allows firm to use thin clients, cutting up-front hardware costs by 50% Speeds service delivery with anytime, anywhere access to virtual desktops Users noticed a night-and-day difference in the performance of their virtual desktops after we deployed NetApp storage. Adam Moleski, Executive Director of IT, Frazier & Deeter, LLC StatPro Enhances Client Experience and Solutions Value with NetApp Flash Pool Customer StatPro Canada Inc. Toronto, Ontario Industry: Financial Services NetApp Partner Scalar Decision Inc. Challenges Better accommodate heavier workloads, which were delaying report processing and hindering application workflows Address sluggish desktop performance affecting access to the information clients need to run their businesses Reduce latency issues: the primary cause for increased service tickets 9 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

10 The Solution Deploy NetApp Flash Pool (SSDs and performance drives) for each controller on the company s two NetApp FAS3240 storage systems to speed access to portfolio analysis data and generate client reports more quickly. Benefits Latency reduced (several hundred milliseconds down to 5ms), enhancing performance and reporting $36,000 annual savings in colocation and energy costs (Flash Pool reduced the need for four additional shelves of HDDs, providing a full return on investment for the FAS3240 systems with Flash Pool) Plug-and-play deployment, activating Flash Pool in under two minutes and enabling everything within the aggregate to get the benefit of the SSDs automatically 90% reduction in storage requirements through NetApp deduplication (10TB to 1TB) Faster performance in the company s virtualized and cloud environments, enhancing the interactive experience and value of StatPro offerings to clients Dramatic reduction in latency-related service tickets Flash Pool is like an adrenaline shot to our storage systems. We went from sluggish performance to a highly responsive, efficient environment. Our customers are happy, and our operations run more smoothly than ever. The NetApp solution with Flash Pool allows us to deliver fast, efficient service to our customers at a lower cost. Mike Marechal, Internal Infrastructure Team Lead, North America, StatPro Group, plc Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Increases Productivity by 40,000 Hours a Year with VDI and NetApp Flash Pool Customer Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP Denver, Colorado Industry: Legal Challenges Provide robust performance for and VDI workloads Support continued growth while conserving budget The Solution Deploy NetApp FAS6210 storage system running NetApp Flash Pool to improve performance. Benefits Increases attorney and staff productivity by more than 40,000 hours per year Reduces latency Avoids $200,000 purchase of dedicated SAN for VDI Provides threefold more IOPS than recommended for virtual desktop performance 10 How Midsize Businesses Gain from Flash Storage White Paper

11 We re providing a much better user experience by delivering VDI in a FlexPod environment that runs NetApp Flash Pool, significantly improving productivity of our attorneys and staff. Rick Thompson, CIO, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP NetApp provides no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy, reliability, or serviceability of any information or recommendations provided in this publication, or with respect to any results that may be obtained by the use of the information or observance of any recommendations provided herein. The information in this document is distributed AS IS, and the use of this information or the implementation of any recommendations or techniques herein is a customer s responsibility and depends on the customer s ability to evaluate and integrate them into the customer s operational environment. This document and the information contained herein may be used solely in connection with the NetApp products discussed in this document NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp, Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, Flash Cache, Flash Pool, and FlexPod are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft and SQL Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. VMware and VMware vsphere are registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. WP