ECONOMICAL, STORAGE PURPOSE-BUILT FOR THE EMERGING DATA CENTERS By George Crump
Economical, Storage Purpose-Built for the Emerging Data Centers Most small, growing businesses start as a collection of laptops and/or desktops. With limited internal resources, small budgets, and lack of IT staff, rather than create a data center they typically leverage software as a service (SaaS) for productivity and file sync and share for collaboration. Eventually, as the organization grows, they need more control over their infrastructure and the need for a data center emerges. That data center grows over time, typically starting as one server hosting one particular application, and then adding more servers and applications. Many organizations choose to implement server virtualization to gain hardware and IT administration efficiencies. The problem is that most storage systems don t scale the same way a data center emerges, which leads to wasted IT budget and inefficient use of storage resources. The Entry-Level Storage Problem The problem with most entry storage systems is a considerable gap between entry-level server storage and the first shared storage system which the organization purchases. Initially, for the first server, cost concerns force the organization to choose internal or DAS (direct attached storage) and count on the features of the operating system or operating environment (hypervisor) to manage and protect data. As application and server count increases, the IT staff adds server virtualization to improve resource efficiency. Virtualization almost always brings with it a desire to implement a shared storage system, which renders the internal or direct attached storage that the organization invested in as practically useless.
The New Requirements for Entry Storage Systems The number one requirement for an entry-level storage system is value. An emerging data center will likely compare the entry-level system to internal storage. While it is reasonable for the entry-level system to cost more, since it has more features and higher availability, it can t cost substantially more such that the emerging data center tries to make do with internal storage. The affordable entry price and value proposition must include reasonable maintenance and support costs. The second requirement is that an entry-level system needs flexibility to serve two purposes. Many emerging data centers first want to use the entrylevel system as an external, direct attached storage system but then later want to leverage the device for shared storage use cases, most notably virtualization or application clusters. This requirement is critical because the lack of this dual functionality forces the organization into a series of costly upgrades over time. First, it should move from internal storage to direct attached storage. Then when the organization decides it wants to leverage server virtualization, the entry-level storage system should move again to a shared storage system. Instead, the entry storage system needs to address both the direct attach storage need as well as the shared storage need. It should be adept at starting as a DAS system using SAS connectivity, and then later move to a shared storage array using either Fibre channel or iscsi. Sharing also means supporting common environments such as VMware vcenter. If the entry-level storage system is affordable, IT can get started on the right foot, The entry-level system should be so affordable that the emerging data center IT team can justify its purchase as part of the server acquisition. If the entry-level storage system is affordable, IT can get started on the right foot, which will not only save the organization money long term it also enables much more seamless data center growth. The third requirement is for all-around simplicity including installation, configuration, management and serviceability. A very small team of individuals typically staffs the emerging data center. Today s businesses deploy IT generalists, who wear multiple hats and seldom are storage system or storage networking experts. For the emerging data center, a single unit that can easily scale and grow over time is the easiest to implement, requiring only a few physical network connections along with basic configurations. Another challenge for the emerging IT team is establishing connectivity to the first set of applications or hypervisors. Most emerging data center IT teams lack experience with these types of installations. A remote installation service enables the organization to keep costs down and helps provide the IT team with the needed expertise. Operational management is another challenge and should be addressed as part of ease of use. The entry-level system should leverage an interface that is easy for IT to understand and operate, and offer web-based anywhere, anytime management. It should continuously guide the IT team through
required setup steps as well as alert the team to any potential problems with the system or configuration. Operational management is simplified by leveraging a HTML5 based GUI. The software should enable access to the most common commands and features in the fewest clicks possible. The entry-level storage system should grow beyond the easy to use HTML 5 interface if needed by leveraging a full command line interface as well as a REST API. Entry-level should not mean feature poor. The emerging data center needs a full complement of storage services. The fourth requirement of an entrylevel storage system is a set of software services that rival enterprise systems although at lower costs. Emerging data center IT staff doesn t have the time to sort through licenses, so it needs a system that includes all the software with the base unit. IT professionals should look for an advanced RAID protection strategy, thin provisioning, SSD based read cache, IP and FC based remote replication, snapshots, auto-tiering between storage types, volume copy, encryption and vcenter compatibility. A vital component of these features is data protection. A significant change for the emerging data center is the importance of its applications. IT, potentially for the first time, has to meet an expectation to recover applications quickly with minimal data loss. Backup software by itself is no longer good enough to meet the new expectations of the data center. The entry-level storage system needs to capture data changes quickly and frequently. A robust snapshot feature is a must-have. The snapshot feature needs to include an interface that makes it easy for IT to create a snapshot schedule and to guide them through the restoration of a prior snapshot. In addition to snapshots, the system needs to protect itself from media failure, but it needs a more sophisticated solution than traditional RAID. Entrylevel systems are likely to use hard disk drives (HDD) to meet at least part of their capacity requirements. The problem is RAID rebuild times on HDDs are significantly longer than flash drives, primarily as the capacity of the drive increases. The storage system software needs to rebuild RAID sets rapidly with minimal impact on system performance. Another new concern for the emerging data center is disaster recovery, now the loss of the data center is a genuine concern. IT needs to prepare for any potential of disaster. Most entry-level systems today and many mid-range systems are severely lacking in the ability to replicate data to a DR site asynchronously. When IT asks for a DR solution, the vendor often points them to a third-party software
vendor. Introducing another software vendor into the data center increases complexity and of course costs. The final requirement is scalable capacity and performance. Part of the scaling requirement included starting with a small footprint, less than 10TB, but offer the ability to scale in capacity to multiple petabytes either as a SAN or DAS implementation. The system should support hard disk drives, flash drives, and automatically tier data between those drive types. A flash tier enables the entry-level system to meet the performance requirements of the emerging data center as it starts and as it grows. The ability to mix flash and hard disk is critical because the emerging data center is under constant pressure to keep costs down. Since many entry-level systems don t support mixed media types, and those with this feature typically don t provide auto-tiering to move the most active data to flash seamlessly. Auto-tiering is critical for the emerging data center especially when a decision is made to implement a hybrid system. It enables the entry-level array to scale to meet the performance demands of the organization as it grows. The challenge is IT professionals in emerging data centers are managing many different tasks. They don t have the time to manually move data between storage tiers, which a system without auto-tiering requires. With autotiering the system can self-optimize itself to meet the changing performance needs of the data center. Introducing Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series - Entry Level Storage for the Emerging Data Center Dell EMC, a leading provider of storage systems for all markets recently introduced the PowerVault ME4 Series for emerging data centers. An organization considering its first server only orders a bare minimum of internal capacity and combines it with an ME4 block storage array. The ME4 Series, because of its affordability, and small starting capacity, and feature set, is an ideal complement to the first server in an emerging data center. Because of built-in SAS connectivity, it is simple to attach it to the server. Unlike many internal storage and most direct attached storage solutions, the ME4 Series has the flexibility and scalability for use as the organization s first shared storage system. The organization can leverage an iscsi or Fibre Channel (or even SAS) storage network to share the ME4 Series as the system supports all of these protocols. It can scale to over 320K IOPs and 4PB of capacity. The ME4 Series makes the transition from an emerging data center to a mid-range data center painless and less costly. The ME4 Series is more than just a hardware solution; it has a full complement of software typically found only in high-end storage systems. Most entry-level storage systems provide only minimal features like
thin provisioning and volume management. The ME4 Series also has data protection features like virtual copy, snapshots, asynchronous replication and supports self-encrypting drives. Additionally, it also has features that enhance the performance of the system like tiering active data from HDD to flash as well as a high performance read cache. It also has integration features like a VMware vcenter and SRM plugins. Each of these features becomes increasingly important to the emerging data center. The ME4 Series snapshot feature can interface via VMware to make clean copies of data. IT can then feed those snapshots to backup applications. The management interface of the ME4 Series easily guides the IT administrator through executing the snapshot, creating snapshot schedules as well as restoring snapshots to meet recovery requests. Most importantly, the ME4 Series doesn t compromise on availability. It has an active-active controller architecture that provides seamless failover if a controller fails. It also includes distributed RAID. This technology disperses parity data across multiple drives, which reduces rebuild times by as much as 95% when compared to more traditional RAID offerings. Not only does this maintain performance during a failed state, but it also reduces the customers exposure to another failure since rebuilds complete much faster. Distributed RAID lowers costs, by avoiding the traditional RAID cost overhead of additional parity drives and dedicated capacity. Of course, the ultimate availability test is how quickly the organization can recover from a site disaster. The ME4 Series built-in asynchronous replication capability works on both iscsi and Fibre Channel. The software guides administrators through the process of replicating appropriate volumes and verifying that the DR site is receiving updates. Comparing the PowerVault ME4 Series to Competition The ME4 Series covers a broad range of needs and markets, and compares favorably across a wide range of markets and price points. The ME4 Series can solve the needs of various use cases, such as video surveillance, backup to disk, VMware and Exchange. It s ability to scale is potentially its most significant advantage. Few units can start so small, yet scale so large. It supports all the latest interface connections like 12G SAS and 16G Fibre Channel. Its feature set, especially its auto-tiering capability is unique in the entry-level price band. StorageSwiss Take Many emerging data centers have been traditionally forced to make a series of compromises as they grow and evolve. Those compromises end up being costly, as each one typically forces the purchase of new storage systems until the organization officially reaches enterprise status. Rather than endure this expensive forklift upgrade process, the Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series provides the organization with performance, scalability, simplicity and enterprise-class storage software that enables a single purchase that is the foundation for data center growth. The organization can grow and evolve the ME4 Series from emerging data center to midrange data center with ease, meeting the needs of the business along the way.
The Firm Storage Switzerland is the leading storage analyst firm focused on the emerging storage categories of memorybased storage (Flash), Big Data, virtualization, and cloud computing. The firm is widely recognized for its blogs, white papers and videos on current approaches such as all-flash arrays, deduplication, SSD s, software-defined storage, backup appliances and storage networking. The name Storage Switzerland indicates a pledge to provide neutral analysis of the storage marketplace, rather than focusing on a single vendor approach. About Our Partner Dell EMC, a part of Dell Technologies, enables organizations to modernize, automate and transform their data center using industry-leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage and data protection technologies. This provides a trusted foundation for businesses to transform IT, through the creation of a hybrid cloud, and transform their business through the creation of cloud-native applications and big data solutions. Dell EMC services customers across 180 countries including 98 percent of the Fortune 500 with the industry s most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from edge to core to cloud. The Analyst George Crump is the founder of Storage Switzerland, the leading storage analyst focused on the subjects of big data, solid state storage, virtualization, cloud computing and data protection. He is widely recognized for his articles, white papers, and videos on such current approaches as all-flash arrays, deduplication, SSDs, software-defined storage, backup appliances, and storage networking. He has over 25 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the U.S.