Since the release of SNIA Emerald measurement test specification v2.0.2 in 2013 and the EnergyStar Data Center Storage Program V1.0 going into effect in 2013, storage system vendors across the industry have been testing their systems throughout 2014 and into 2015. Over 100 EnergyStar storage system test reports are available for public access at http://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-data-center-storage/results from vendors including Dell, DotHill, EMC, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, NEC, NetApp and Symantec. For data center owners procuring storage systems, there is a comprehensive repository of information to further a company’s IT energy efficiency improvement program when making new storage system decisions. Coupled with other ENERGYSTAR programs such as Servers and UPS, and TheGreenGrid PUE data center metric, CIOs have more cross-industry energy-related metrics and product specifics to make informed decisions for upgrades. Additionally for storage systems, using a several capacity optimization technologies can further reduce the total physical amount of storage required, further translating into energy savings. To learn more visit www.sniaemerald.com
Month: July 2015
Cloud Storage Development Challenges – An SDC Preview
This year’s Storage Developer Conference (SDC) is expected to draw over 400 storage developers and professionals. On August 4th, you can get a sneak preview of key cloud topics that will be covered at SDC in this live Webcast where David Slik and Mark Carlson Co-Chairs of the SNIA Cloud Technical Work Group, together with Yong Chen, Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University will discuss:
- Mobile and Secure – Cloud Encrypted Objects using CDMI
- Object Drives: A new Architectural Partitioning
- Unistore: A Unified Storage Architecture for Cloud Computing
- Using CDMI to Manage Swift, S3, and Ceph Object Repositories
You’ll learn how encrypted objects can be stored, retrieved, and transferred between clouds, how Object Drives allow storage to scale up and down by single drive increments, end-user and vendor use cases of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), and we’ll introduce Unistore – an innovative unified storage architecture that efficiently integrates heterogeneous HDD and SCM devices for Cloud storage systems.
I’ll be moderating the discussion among this expert panel. It should be an enlightening and lively hour. I hope you’ll register now to join us.
New Webcast: Storage Performance Benchmarking 101
There’s an art to making sense of storage performance benchmarks. That’s why ESF is hosting a live Webcast on this important topic. Please join us on July 30th for “Storage Performance Benchmarking: Introduction and Fundamentals.” At this Webcast, you’ll gain an understanding of the complexities of benchmarking modern storage arrays and learn the terminology foundations necessary for the rest of the series as Mark Rogov, Advisory Systems Engineer at EMC, Ken Cantrell, Performance Engineering Manager at NetApp, and I discuss:
- The different kinds of performance benchmarking engagements
- An introduction to the variety of relevant metrics
- How to determine the “right” metrics for your business
- Terminology basics: IOPS, op/s, throughput, bandwidth, latency/response time
If you’re untrained in the storage performance arts, this Webcast will bring you up-to-speed on the basics. My colleagues and I hope it will be an informative and interactive hour. Please register today and bring your questions. I hope to see you there.
Ethernet Roadmap for Networked Storage Q&A
Almost 200 people attended our joint Webcast with the Ethernet Alliance: “The 2015 Ethernet Roadmap for Networked Storage.” We had a lot of great questions during the live event, but we did not have time to answer them all. As promised, we’ve complied answers for all of the questions that came in. If you think of additional questions, please feel free to comment on this blog.
Q. What did you mean by parity of flash with HDD?
A. We were referring to the O’Reilly article in “Network Computing.” O’Reilly is predicting parity in BOTH capacity and price in 2016.
Q. When do we expect IEEE standards ratification for 25G speed?
A. 2016. You can see the exact schedule here.
Q. Do you envision the Enterprise, Cloud Providers, HPC, Financials getting rid of their 10/40GbE infrastructure and replacing that with 25/100GbE infrastructure in 2017? Will these customers deploy 100GbE/25GbE switch in the leaf layer in 2017?
A. Deployment will occur over a multi-year time span overall if only because switch infrastructure is expensive to upgrade, as reflected in the Crehan Research forecast. New deployments will likely move to 25/100GbE as new switches with 100GbE downstream ports become available in 2016. Just because the Cloud Service Providers are currently the most aggressive in driving new infrastructure purchases, they represent the largest early volumes for 25/100 GbE. Enterprise is still in the midst of the transition from 1GbE to 10GbE.
Q. What are some of the developments on spanning-tree derivatives vs. Dykstra based derivatives such as OSPF, FSPF for switches?
A. Beyond the scope of this presentation on Ethernet. Ethernet is defined by the IEEE for L1 and L2 in the ISO model. Your questions are at L3 and L4, which is handled by organizations like IETF.
Q. With all the speeds possible who is working on flow control?
A. Flow control at the 802.1 level is supported in the Layer 1/2 PHY & MAC by setting upper bounds on the delay through each layer which allows higher layers to comprehend the delays & response times to pause frames. Each new speed & PHY in 802.3 is accompanied by delay constraint specifications to support this.
Q. Do you have an overlay graphic that shows the Ethernet RDMA roadmap? If so, is Ethernet storage the primary driver for that technology?
A. Beyond the scope of this presentation on Ethernet. Ethernet is defined by the IEEE for L1 and L2 in the ISO model. Your questions are at L3 and L4, which is handled by organizations like IETF and the InfiniBand Trade Association.
Q. The adoption of faster and new Ethernet always has to do with the costs of acquiring new technology. How long do you think it will take to adopt/acquire faster Ethernet in datacenters now that the development is happening much faster than the last 20 years?
A. Please see the chart on slide 7 where Crehan Research predicts how fast the technology will diffuse into deployments.
Q. What do you expect as cost comparison between Ethernet and InfiniBand going forward?
Also, what work is being done to reduce latency?
A. Beyond the scope of this presentation. Latency is primarily a consequence of design methodologies and semiconductor process technology, and thus under the control of the silicon device manufacturers. Some vendors prioritize latency more than others.
Q. What’s the technical limitation as speeds go higher and higher?
A. A number of factors limit speeds going faster and faster, but the main problem is that materials attenuate signals as they travel at higher frequencies.
Q. Will 1GbE used for manageability purposes disappear from public cloud? If so, what is the expected time frame?
A. This is a choice for end users. Most equipment is managed on a separate network for security concerns, but users can eliminate these management networks at any time.
Q. What are the relative market size predictions for the expanding number of standards (25G, 50G, 100G, 200G, etc.)?
A. See the Crehan Research forecast in the presentation.
Q. What is the major difference between SMF & MMF for the not so initiated?
A. The SMF has a 9um core while the MMF has a 50um core. Different lasers are used for each fiber type and MMF typically goes 100 meters above 10GbE and SMF goes from 500m to 10km.
Q. Will 25G be available through both copper and fibre connectivity?
A. Yes. IEEE 802.3 work is currently underway to specify 25Gb/s on twinax (“direct attach copper)” to 5 meters, printed circuit backplane up to ~1m, twisted pair copper to 30m, multimode fiber to 100m. There is no technology barrier to 25G on SMF, just that a standards project to specify it has not started yet.
Q. This is interesting from a hardware viewpoint, but has nothing to do with storage yet. Are we going to get to how this relates to storage other than saying flash drives are fast and only Ethernet can keep up?
A. Beyond the scope of this presentation on Ethernet. Ethernet is defined by the IEEE for L1 and L2 in the ISO model. Your questions are directed at the higher layers. The key point of this webcast is that storage networking engineers need to pay much more attention to the Ethernet roadmap than they have historically, primarily because of NVM.
Q. How does “SFP 28″ fit in this mix? Is it required for 25G?
A. SFP28 connectors and modules are required for 25GbE because they give better performance than SFP+ that only works to 10GbE.
Q. Can you provide the quick difference between copper & optical on speed & costs?
A. Copper and optical Ethernet links are usually standardized at the same speed. 400GbE is not defining a copper link but an active Direct Attached Cable (DAC) will probably support 400GbE. Cost depends on volume and many factors and is beyond the scope of this presentation. Copper is usually a fraction of the cost of optical links.
Q. Do you think people will try to use multiple CAT 5e to get more aggregate bandwidth to the access points to avoid having to run Fibre to them?
A. IEEE is defining 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T to enable Cat5e to support faster wireless access points.
Q. When are higher speeds and PoE going to reach the point when copper based Ethernet will become a viable heat source for buildings thus helping the environment?
A. 
IEEE is defining 4 wire PoE to deliver at least 60W to end devices. You can find out more here.
Q. What are the use cases for 2.5Gb and 5.0Gb Base-T?
A. The leading use case for 2.5G/5GBASE-T is to provide the uplink for wireless LAN access points that support 802.11ac and future wireless technology. Wireless LAN technology has advanced to the point where >1Gb/s BW is needed upstream from the AP, and 2.5G/5G provide a higher speed uplink while preserving the user’s investment in Cat5e/Cat6 cabling.
Q. Why not have only CFP2 sockets right away with things disabled for lower speeds for all the intervening years leading to full-fledged CFP2?
A. CFP2 is defined for 100GbE and 8 ports can be used on a 1U switch. 100GbE switches are shifting to QSFP28 so that 32 ports of 100GbE is supported in a 1U switch at low cost. The CFP2 is much more expensive than QSFP28 and will not be used for lower speeds because of the high cost.
Data Recovery and Selective Erasure of Solid State Storage a New Focus at SNIA
The rise of solid state storage has been incredibly beneficial to users in a variety of industries. Solid state technology presents a more reliable and efficient alternative to traditional storage devices. However, these benefits have not come without unforeseen drawbacks in other areas. For those in the data recovery and data erase industries, for example, solid state storage has presented challenges. The obstacles to data recovery and selective erasure capabilities are not only a problem for those in these industries, but they can also make end users more hesitant to adopt solid state storage technology.
Recently a new Data Recovery and Erase Special Interest Group (SIG) has been formed within the Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) within the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). SNIA’s mission is to “lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information.” This fantastic organization has given the Data Recovery and Erase SIG a solid platform on which to build the initiative.
The new group has held a number of introductory open meetings for SNIA members and non-members to promote the group and develop the group’s charter. For its initial meetings, the group sought to recruit both SNIA members and non-members that were key stakeholders in fields related to the SIG. This includes data recovery providers, erase solution providers and solid state storage device manufacturers. Aside from these groups, members of leading standards bodies and major solid state storage device consumers were also included in the group’s initial formation.
The group’s main purpose is to be an open forum of discussion among all key stakeholders. In the past, there have been few opportunities for representatives from different industries to work together, and collaboration had often been on an individual basis rather than as a group. With the formation of this group, members intend to cooperate between industries on a collective basis in order to foster a more constructive dialogue incorporating the opinions and feedback of multiple parties.
During the initial meetings of the Data Recovery and Erase SIG, members agreed on a charter to outline the group’s purpose and goals. The main objective is to foster collaboration among all parties to ensure consumer demands for data recovery and erase services on solid state storage technology can be performed in a cost-effective, timely and fully successful manner
In order to achieve this goal, the group has laid out six steps needed, involving all relevant stakeholders:
- Build the business case to support the need for effective data recovery and erase capabilities on solid state technology by using use cases and real examples from end users with these needs.
- Create a feedback loop allowing data recovery providers to provide failure information to manufacturers in order to improve product design.
- Foster cooperation between solid state manufacturers and data recovery and erase providers to determine what information is necessary to improve capabilities.
- Protect sensitive intellectual property shared between data recovery and erase providers and solid state storage manufacturers.
- Work with standards bodies to ensure future revisions of their specifications account for capabilities necessary to enable data recovery and erase functionality on solid state storage.
- Collaborate with solid state storage manufacturers to incorporate capabilities needed to perform data recovery and erase in product design for future device models.
The success of this special interest group depends not only on the hard work of the current members, but also in a diverse membership base of representatives from different industries. We will be at Flash Memory Summit in booth 820 to meet you in person! Or you can visit our website at www.snia.org/forums/sssi for more information on this new initiative and all solid state storage happenings at SNIA. If you’re a SNIA member and you’d like to learn more about the Data Recovery/Erase SIG or you think you’d be a good fit for membership, we’d love to speak with you. Not a SNIA member yet? Email marty.foltyn@snia.org for details on joining.
Save the Date: SNIA Emerald Training Webinar July 20-21
The SNIA Green TWG (Technical Work Group) and Green Storage Initiative (GSI) will deliver 6 hours of training through a webinar format on July 20th and July 21st. Each day will feature a 3 hour segment from 1PM–4PM Pacific time; July 20th will cover the technical details of the SNIA Emerald v2.1 Specification and supporting test tools; and July 21st will cover the program details for SNIA Emerald Programs, USA EPA EnergyStar Program, and supplementary sessions by testing services and certifying body services.
A highlight of the changes in the V2.1 Specification include:
- Corrections and clarity to the V2.0.2 specification
- Required use of Vdbench and a SNIA provided Vdbench test script
- Improvements in COM testing
- Changes in pre–fill criteria percentages
- Change in metric stability criterion
- Online and near–online categories are combined
To RSVP for the July 20–21 webinar training, please send an email no later than July 16th with your name, title, email address, company name to emerald-training@snia.org. There is no fee to register and attend the training. After the training sessions, training materials will be posted to www.sniaemerald.com. A detailed training agenda along with the webinar details will be emailed to those who have registered.
The Life of a Storage Packet
Keeping storage as close to the application as possible and reasonable is important, but different types of storage can make a big difference for performance as well as types of workloads. Starting with the basics and working to more complexity, find out how storage really works in this first of the Packet Walk series of the “Napkin Dialogues” series. Warning: You’re on your own when tipping the pizza delivery person!