Software defined storage solutions like vSAN are gaining increased attention. But vSAN systems can only support one flash device. The challenge is one flash device may not be enough to handle all the I/O throughput from multiple applications. In this ChalkTalk video, Storage Swiss and Diablo discuss a wide range of topics concerning memory bus flash as well as how it may be a way for organizations to circumvent this vSAN limitation, while providing a more scalable way to deploy high performance server-side flash.
As we discuss in the video, vSAN requires the use of a flash tier and a data tier composed of spinning hard drives. While this architecture may be fine for some environments, some users may want the option to deploy more flash devices instead of hard disk storage to help meet performance demands. Diablo’s Memory Channel Storage (MCS) technology enables businesses to deploy ultra fast flash capacity (supporting latencies as low as 3.3 ms) by installing non-volatile flash memory modules directly on the memory subsystem, in the same DIMM slots normally reserved for DRAM. Diablo worked closely with VMware to develop a customized driver that allows data to be striped across multiple flash DIMMs but still present as a single flash device to the vSAN operating system. This allows vSAN users to deploy up to tens of TB’s of flash per server and achieve even higher performance since all the DIMMs are striped together and are working in tandem to service up I/O.
Diablo’s vSAN driver has also been optimized to work more efficiently by utilizing all the available threads on the core, which in turn, places less overhead on the CPU. The combination of increased flash capacity and performance along with efficient CPU utilization, could enable organizations to increase their VM to server densities and increase the ROI on their investment in virtualized infrastructure.
Diablo’s memory channel flash storage offering may be a very interesting way for organizations to deploy flash in a vSAN environment. By providing latencies that are as low as 3.3 micro seconds, Diablo’s DIMM based flash architecture, can dramatically accelerate virtualized applications, help consolidate infrastructure and increase the available flash in performance hungry virtualized environments.
This Video is Sponsored by Diablo
StorageSwiss.com - The Home of Storage Switzerland 