Accelerating database performance remains a top use case for all-flash arrays, so it makes sense that most all-flash array systems only support block storage. However, only supporting block means that the customer assigns the “raw” volume to a server and…
Technically, if an All-Flash Array (AFA) supports hard disk drives, it is no longer an AFA. What if however, the system could start as an AFA and then later, to save costs, move older data to inexpensive, high capacity hard…
Most primary storage systems and software provide some form of data protection. That protection comes in the form of protection from media failure (typically RAID), snapshots and clones. All-Flash Arrays (AFA) seem to provide a better than average level of…
All-Flash Arrays are the model of inefficiency and as flash media increases in density and performance, the cost of this inefficiency becomes more obvious. Enterprise solid-state drives (SSD) deliver 70,000 IOPS per drive but most AFAs need 24 drives or…
In the early days of All-Flash Arrays (AFA) deduplication was a key catalyst for adoption. Server and Desktop virtualization environments benefited greatly from the technology because of the similarity between virtual machine images. The environments also didn’t have the same…
Generally speaking, most All-Flash Arrays (AFA) increase performance by adding more processing power, more RAM and more drives. Adding more of any of these components also adds more cost. The only significant cost reduction method that most storage software solutions…
The raw performance of a single enterprise flash drive is often higher than 70,000 IOPS. Most all-flash arrays, even though vendors fill them with 12 to 24 flash drives, deliver only a few hundred thousand IOPS. The cause of the…
Next generation all-flash arrays (AFA) face a serious problem; they will provide more capacity than most data centers need. While too much capacity doesn’t sound like a problem it will be because organizations are still going to pay for it.…
Our last blog, “Are Cloud Providers Really Efficient“, discussed how cloud providers, from a resources perspective, aren’t really any more efficient than the typical data center. The provider’s use of automation and their scale is what separates them from the…
A compelling reason to move applications to the cloud is how easy providers make storage management. To the users, cloud storage seems frictionless. They just “order-up” the capacity and performance they need, and the cloud gives it to them. Behind…
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