SolidFire Set To Change The Way We Buy Storage

June 2, 2016 By Adam Bergh 1 Comment

During today’s analyst event in Boulder, Colorado, the home of SolidFire, there was some big news dropped on the storage industry.

SolidFire has announced a plan they are calling “FlashForward”. The “FlashForward” program is essentially a capacity based licensing model for the SolidFire software, designed to separate out the capital spend on hardware and software. SolidFire has grown up in the service provider space and as such has seen unique trends in the industry. Gone are the days of licensing being tied to hardware. Gone are the days of rigid pricing models that don’t fit the on-demand nature of today’s businesses. The whole idea here is to offer supreme flexibility in a dynamic allocation pricing model.

To quote Dave Wright, SolidFire Founder, VP & GM: “The days of ridiculous storage hardware prices combined with software licenses forever bound to a specific piece of hardware are over. Customers want a fundamentally more flexible and fair way to procure storage in the next generation data center. FlashForward delivers our customers a more agile, cost-effective and future-proofed approach to buying storage relative to the unnecessary burdens imposed by legacy storage purchasing models.”

The key components of the FlashForward program that help contribute to this substantial cost savings include:

● Fully Perpetual & Transferrable Licensing – no need to rebuy software when upgrading or replacing hardware

● Granular Capacity Licensing – greater alignment of software license purchases with actual usage

● Provisioned Capacity-Based Pricing – eliminates the cost uncertainty stemming from unpredictable data reduction rates and the reliance on high data reduction workloads to make All Flash Storage cost effective by selling software licenses based on provisioned capacity

● Pooled Capacity Model – Software licenses are enterprise-wide, eliminating stranded capacity and allowing for seamless repurposing of hardware to new sites as business needs dictate

● Built-In Economies of Scale – built-in capacity-tier discounts ensure pricing goes down as deployed capacity goes up

This is really going to be game changing for the segment of storage buyers that are creating dynamic storage environments and want to break away from the traditional model of storage purchasing.

New Product Announcements

Image result for SF19210

Today SolidFire is announcing an all new storage node as well: the SF19210 Node

Here are some of the juicy specs of this new beast of a storage node: Twice the performance and capacity in the SF Series – and lowest cost per GB/IOPS. Up to 40-80TB effective capacity, 100,000 predictable IOPS and sub-millisecond latency.

This new node is going to be well suited for those huge database application needing massive IOPs and throughput.

SolidFire is also announcing version 9 of Element OS – Code Named Fluorine

● Integration with VVols – By integrating SolidFire’s Quality of Service (QoS) with VMware VVols, customers can achieve the most granular control over storage performance on a per-virtual machine (VM) basis. This functionality allows them to set min, max and burst IOPS levels, ensuring exact amounts of capacity and guaranteed performance for even the most performance-sensitive VMs. Both capacity and performance can be changed on-the-fly without migrating data or impacting performance.

● Increased Fibre Channel (FC) scalability – Element OS 9 doubles the number of FC node connectivity in a SolidFire cluster to four, allowing users to scale out to 40 storage nodes. Fluorine also increases the limit of IOPS per FC node from 300,000 to 500,000 IOPS, resulting in 2,000,000 IOPS per a four-FC node cluster — over three times better aggregate performance.

● Expanded VLAN features – New features within Fluorine allow for tagging default networks and supporting more flexibility in multi-tenant networks by enabling customers to use overlapping IP addresses on VLANs via separate routing tables, preserving limited IP address resources.

● New user interface (UI) – Re-built from the ground up, the new UI consolidates the storage system data into a single dashboard, saving customers time and resources.

SolidFire’s Field CTO Val Bercovici has this to say about the OS: “Element OS 9 (Fluorine) is a demonstration of our commitment to continuously improving and building an innovative, solid and flexible all-flash array for a broad range of use cases. By simply upgrading to Fluorine, customers gain access to a new set of features that help them transition to a service delivery infrastructure,” “Our unique software-based approach to storage allows customers to enable the next-generation data center in every data center and achieve what’s never been possible before.”

NetApp Releases the EF560 All Flash Array

January 27, 2015 By Adam Bergh 1 Comment

Speed freaks rejoice! Your calls for even more massive speed have been answered!

Today NetApp announces an update to the massively popular EF550 All-Flash Array – the EF560, and what’s in store for your IOPs hungry apps is nothing short of incredible!

The EF560 builds on the proven enterprise reliability and performance, and density of the previous gen EF540 and EF550 models, and takes it to a whole new level of performance.

For those out there reading this that don’t know much about NetApp’s E-Series line of storage, here is a quick refresher:

E-Series arrays block only (ISCSI and FC) performance and density optimized arrays.
E-Series arrays run the “SANtricity” operating system, not to be confused with Data ONTAP, NetApp’s unified protocol OS.
They are designed for speed and simplicity of operation. See my post on how to Deploy One in 30 Minutes
They employ several RAID types, but most notably the “Dynamic Disk Pool” feature, which takes all the complexity out of setting up and managing an array’s potentially daunting amount of disks.

On to the juicy details of the EF560 AFA!

As you can see from the below details, we have similar specs to the previous gen EF550 array, with the added addition of the much needed 12GB SAS and 54GB Infiniband connectivity options.

But what’s really the meat of this release is SPEED, and lots of it! Check on these performance test results:

Yes people, this is 650,000 IOPs at sub .8ms latency! What’s notable here as well is that there are little to no difference in the performance of the DDP RAID type vs. RAID-5 and RAID-10!

Check out some Oracle performance numbers:

On OLTP Databases, the EF560 has 2.5x improvement over the previous gen EF550!

Overall, this is a major performance lead forward for this All Flash offering from NetApp. This is a powerhouse monster that is going to turn a lot of heads and leave more than a few competitors scratching their heads.

Update: The Storage Performance Council (SPC) has released the results from the EF560 – Spoiler Alert! They are pretty amazing. You can download the full report here: http://www.storageperformance.org/benchmark_results_files/SPC-1/NetApp/A00152_NetApp_EF560/a00152_NetApp_EF560_SPC-1_executive-summary.pdf

Introducing the NetApp FAS2500! Get All Launch Details Here!

June 17, 2014 By Adam Bergh Leave a Comment

Today NetApp is announcing an all new line of hardware for their entry level customers.

Introducing the FAS2520, FAS2552, and the FAS2554!

With these new models NetApp continues to extend their leadership in entry hybrid arrays. These new models deliver superior flexibility and a more powerful unified storage platform.

All three new models include next-gen connectivity through 10GBase-T Ethernet or unified FC, FCoE, and Ethernet (UTA2) ports!

These new models make massive improvements in I/O consistency and enhance flash acceleration greatly over the previous FAS2200 entry line.

All three FAS2550 models will offer 3x memory to enhance the already industry-leading performance and will support even more more flash integration

We will get to the specs but check out the expanded scale-out support allows for clusters of 8 nodes totaling over 2.3PB of raw capacity!

Let’s Check out the new models!

The NetApp FAS2520

The new NetApp FAS2520 is a pretty nice piece of hardware for the entry level/branch office workloads.

It is a 2U box that has some pretty impressive specs.

36GB memory
32GB physical memory + 4GB NVMEM
Four 64-bit cores running at 1.73GHz
Single dual-core processor per controller
Offers low-cost 10G Base-T ports
NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI are supported
GbE management port
Faster install with System Setup
New bezel

Included software

All supported data protocols
Efficiency: FlexVol® volumes, deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning
Availability: Multipath I/O, MultiStore® technology
Performance: FlexShare® storage QoS
Data protection: RAID-DP®, Snapshot™, and Open Systems SnapVault® technologies
Management: System Setup, OnCommand® System Manager, OnCommand Unified Manager

The FAS2520 Rear View:

The NetApp FAS2552

The FAS2552 is also a 2U box that has some pretty impressive specs, similar to the FAS2520

36GB memory
32GB physical memory + 4GB NVMEM
Four 64-bit cores running at 1.73GHz
Single dual-core processor per controller
4 UTA2 Ports that can to 10GBe or 16GB FC
NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI are supported
GbE management port
Faster install with System Setup
New bezel

Included software is the same as the FAS2520

All supported data protocols
Efficiency: FlexVol® volumes, deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning
Availability: Multipath I/O, MultiStore® technology
Performance: FlexShare® storage QoS
Data protection: RAID-DP®, Snapshot™, and Open Systems SnapVault® technologies
Management: System Setup, OnCommand® System Manager, OnCommand Unified Manager

The NetApp FAS2554

The FAS2552 is also a 4U box that has same impressive specs as the other 25xx models.

36GB memory
32GB physical memory + 4GB NVMEM
Four 64-bit cores running at 1.73GHz
Single dual-core processor per controller
4 UTA2 Ports that can to 10GBe or 16GB FC
NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI are supported
GbE management port
Faster install with System Setup
New bezel

Included software is the same as the FAS2520

All supported data protocols
Efficiency: FlexVol® volumes, deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning
Availability: Multipath I/O, MultiStore® technology
Performance: FlexShare® storage QoS
Data protection: RAID-DP®, Snapshot™, and Open Systems SnapVault® technologies
Management: System Setup, OnCommand® System Manager, OnCommand Unified Manager

HA Config	FAS2554	FAS2552	FAS2520

Application environments	Midsize organizations and distributed sites of larger organizations	Midsize organizations and distributed sites of larger organizations that require smaller form factor and lower power consumption		Smaller organizations, remote offices, and local storage
Ideal for	Higher-capacity and performance needs	Higher-performance needs	Value-oriented deployments
Maximum raw capacity[1]	576TB	518TB	336TB
Maximum disk drives	144	144	84
Controller form factor	4U/24-drive	2U/24-drive	2U/12-drive
ECC memory	36GB	36GB	36GB
Maximum Flash Pool^Ô	4TB	4TB	4TB
NVMEM/NVRAM	4GB	4GB	4GB
On-board I/O: UTA 2 (8Gb FC/16Gb FC/FCoE/ 10GbE)	8[2]	83	N/A
On-board I/O: 10GBASE-T	N/A	N/A	8[3]
On-board I/O: GbE	4	4	4
On-board I/O: 6Gb SAS	4	4	4
OS version	Data ONTAP 8.2.2 or later
Shelves and media	See the Shelves and Media page (http://www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/disk-shelves-and-storage-media/index.aspx) on NetApp.com for the most current information
Storage protocols	FCP, iSCSI, NFS, CIFS, FCoE	FCP, iSCSI, NFS, CIFS, FCoE	iSCSI, NFS, CIFS
Host/client operating systems supported	Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Server^Ò 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, Windows XP, Linux^Ò, Oracle^Ò Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Apple^Ò Mac OS^Ò, VMware ESX^Ò

[1] Maximum raw capacity depends on the drive offerings. See the Shelves and Media page (http://www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/disk-shelves-and-storage-media/index.aspx) on NetApp.com for the most current information.

[2] FAS2552 and FAS2554 on-board ports can be configured as either an 8Gb/16Gb FC port pair or a 10GbE port pair and mixed combinations.

[3] FAS2520 on-board ports are 10GBASE-T only.

Setting Up A NetApp E-Series Array In Under 30 Minutes

April 30, 2014 By Adam Bergh 5 Comments

I wanted to put together a quick guide on setting up an E-Series array with a base configuration to show how fast you can have one of these online. In this example, I will use an EF550 array and demonstrate how we can go from out of box to having a LUN mapped in under 30 minutes.

This Guide Will Cover The Following:

The Software You Need
- SANtricity Storage Manager
- Open DHCP Server
Connecting To The E-Series Array
- Starting Your DHCP Server
- Launching SANtricity Manager
Creating Volumes on SANtricity

The Software You Need

SANtricity Storage Manager

We will need a couple pieces of software on your laptop to get things started. NetApp E-Series runs an operating system called “SANtricity”. You will need to download the SANtricity Storage Manager software from NetApp. In this guide we will be using SANtricity 11.10 which can be downloaded from Netapp HERE

Once downloaded, go ahead and install the software on your machine using all the default settings.

Open DHCP Server

The next piece of software that we will need need is a DHCP server. I run one locally on my Windows laptop. By default the E-Series arrays come preset to DHCP on the management ports. If you are connecting them to a network that has a DHCP server already running, you can skip this set. I prefer to directly connect the E-Series array to my laptop during initial setup. The DHCP server that I run on my laptop is called Open DHCP Server, which can be downloaded from HERE. Open DHCP Server is a light-weight open source DHCP server that can be run on your laptop that works perfect for setting up these E-Series arrays.

Configuring Open DHCP Server is pretty straight forward. I put a static IP on my laptop’s ethernet port of 192.168.1.1. Open the OpenDHCPServer.ini file and make the following changes:

[LISTEN_ON]
#Specify the Interfaces you would like Server to listen
#if you have more than one NIC card on your server
#always specify which cards will listen DHCP/DNS requests
#Requests from diffent Interfaces look for matching DHCP ranges.
#Requests from relay agents look for matching range to relay agent IP.
#upto 125 interfaces can be specified
#Default is All static Interfaces
192.168.1.1

[RANGE_SET]
#This is first and simple DHCP range section example,
#This example may be good enough for simple/home use.
#If you need range filters, look at example below
DHCPRange=192.168.1.2-192.168.1.3
;DHCPRange=192.168.5.1-192.168.5.254
#Following are range specific DHCP options.
#You can copy more options names from [GLOBAL_OPTIONS]
SubnetMask=255.255.255.0
;DomainServer=192.168.55.252
Router=192.168.1.1
#Lease Time can be different for this Range
;AddressTime=360

These settings will tell Open DHCP Server to listen in on your 192.168.1.1 interface and serve up two IPs via DHCP: 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3.

Connecting To The E-Series Array

Starting Your DHCP Server

Connect your laptop to the E-Series management port or ports if you happen to have a switch with you. Launch Open DHCP Server. If all is well you should see output like this below:

As you can see, my DHCP server is supplied 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3 to the management ports.

Launching SANtricity Manager

Now, launch SANtricity Manager. When you launch the software for the first time you will be greeted by the Add Storage Array Dialog Box.

Select Manual and enter the IP addresses your DHCP server gave to the array:

You should now have your E-Series array listed and ready to connect to:

Upon connecting to your array you will be greeted by a dialog box to create your disk pool. With SANtricty version 11.10, we now have the option of creating “Dynamic Disk Pools” instead of complicated RAID groups. This is now the preferred method of pooling your available space. Choose all disks and leave no spares. Super easy! To read more on Dynamic Disk Pools and why they rock, check out this brief white paper HERE.

In this example, my array only has 12 drives. I will add them all to the same pool. You can uncheck the “Allow me to create” check box so that it doesn’t take you to the volume creation wizard. We will do that later.

We now have available space to build volumes (LUNs) on the E-Series array. We should now set up access. If you have a Fiber Channel array you will need to zone it in real quick. My EF550 in this example is an 10GB ISCSI model. I will need to set the IP addresses on the ISCSI interfaces.

This is done from the Setup Tab, “Configure ISCSI Host Ports” button. It will launch a dialog box for you to specify the IP addresses for the HIC ports on the array. Simple enough.

The next order of business if to create a “Host Mapping”. A host mapping is basically inputting the end hosts WWPN or ISCSI IQN. This will give us something to map our LUNs to.

In this example I will be mapping to the ISCSI IQN of my laptop.

To start the host add wizard, go to the “Host Mapping” tab and right click on “Default Group” and Define a New Host.

Type in the name for the host.

Paste in your IQN, give it a user label and click the Add button.

You should now have a host you can map a volume to.

Creating Volumes on SANtricity

This is pretty easy and straight forward. Find your disk pool on the “Storage and Copy Services Tab”, right-click on the free capacity and choose “Create Volume”.