Posts Tagged ‘IOPS’
Posted April 17th, 2013
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Delivering on Our Vision for Enterprise Storage
By Dani Golan
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Today is an important day, not just for Kaminario but, we believe, for the entire enterprise storage industry. Today is the day we announce the Kaminario fourth-generation K2 all-flash storage array. What is so important about our fourth-generation product? Here are a few key points:
Breakthrough TCO: With K2 v4 we have been able to increase the density by more than 500% while cutting the price in half. Why is this so significant? Lowering the cost of enterprise-ready solid-state flash storage has been one of the long-time goals of the industry. If you believe, as we do, that solid-state is the future of Tier One storage, then it must be cost-efficient for all applications, not just those requiring the highest levels of performance. And now it is. What’s more, Kaminario’s TCO breakthrough extends the viability of solid-state to a new class of mid-size customers who can now afford unprecedented levels of performance, resiliency and ease of use from their storage infrastructures.
Killer Performance: Even before today’s announcement Kaminario delivered by far the best performance in the industry, with world record SPC-1 results for sustained performance and price/performance. With K2 v4 we now have 400% more read/write bandwidth than our previous versions, with consistently low latency (120-microsecond writes). Topping it off, we still offer industry-leading IOPS performance. K2 v4 delivers significant across-the-board performance advantages over any other solution for any combination of workloads, be they OLTP, OLAP or virtualization. It’s a level of performance consistency that is unparalleled in the industry.
Bulletproof Resiliency: Our proven SPEAR Scale-Out Architecture maintains data integrity through any type of failure. For most workloads the performance levels of our solutions will be minimally impacted—usually less than 10%. We even guarantee that degradation will max out at 25%. What’s more, our snapshots are the most efficient in the storage industry, enabling instant restore and recovery from any snapshot with no impact on the performance of the production environment. Snaps can be taken in just milliseconds, 20 times faster than any legacy SAN system on the market today. We make snapshots sexy.
These are major advances in solid-state that have been more than five years in the making. They move storage technology to a whole new level. Don’t just take our word for it: Take a look at the new architectural white paper or better yet, the independent report.
On a personal note, it is an important day for me, as well as for the entire team here at Kaminario. From the beginning we envisioned a new era in enterprise storage driven by solid-state flash and a true scale-out architecture. As of today, that vision is a reality. What’s next? We can’t wait to tell you…
Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Flash, Flash SSD, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, latency, OLAP, OLTP, reads, Solid State Storage, SSD, Storage Performance, virtualization, writes
Posted in All Flash Storage Array | No Comments »
Posted March 25th, 2013
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Good Riddance Indeed to the Spinning Disk Era
INFOWORLD AUTHOR LAMENTS USE OF ANCIENT STORAGE TECH
By Kaminario
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Earlier this year, InfoWorld’s Paul Venezia penned Good-bye – and good riddance – to spinning disk. In it, he laments the continued use of “ancient storage technology” and foresees “a post-storage world” where the industry is “devoid of the painfully outdated yet ubiquitous spinning disk.”
His take fits our view that hard disks are headed the way of the floppy though he says that in some scenarios, HDDs will be used like the way tape is used today. I suppose the alternative is simply recycling.
Venezia says “rethinking centralized storage is a necessary part of this transition [to all SSD].” He is right, but you also have to rethink how you evaluate SSD storage solutions too. Innovation is making hardware dumb and software smart. SSD hardware in the enterprise is fast becoming a commodity and prices are falling in line with that movement. More important than the media itself when comparing your SSD options, software capabilities should trump hardware. Focusing too much on hardware and not enough on the software platform wrapped around it introduces greater risk of quick obsolescence and the inability to adapt to changing requirements.
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Tags:application performance, data protection, Database Performance, Flash, Flash SSD, I/O bottlenecks, I/O wait, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, Kaminario K2, latency, MLC, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD TCO | No Comments »
Posted March 6th, 2013
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Flash Immortal
Discovery could extend Flash life from 10,000 write cycles to more than 100 million
By Kaminario
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An interesting Gizmodo article entitled Hot Flash: The Secret To SSDs That Will Outlast The Universe discusses a new discovery claimed by Taiwanese Flash manufacturer Macronix that by periodically applying intense heat to MLC Flash for milliseconds they can increase its life from 10,000 write cycles to more than 100 million. How does it work? Flash writes erode transistor insulation slowly until eventually the chip is no longer viable. Add a quick jolt of 800 degree-centigrade heat and you can actually heal the insulation for another 5 to 10,000 writes.
No doubt this is an important discovery, but the truth is that the life limitations of flash are greatly exaggerated even today. Flash manufacturers and solution vendors have come up with a raft of technologies, including wear leveling, advanced error correction, and sophisticated digital signal processing, to ensure your Flash device can last almost as long or longer than a typical hard disk.
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, I/O bottlenecks, IOPS, latency, MLC, OLTP, reads, Storage Performance, writes
Posted in SSD TCO | No Comments »
Posted March 4th, 2013
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Next Phase of the MLC Flash Revolution – General Purpose Storage
USERS WANT SCALABILITY, DATA PROTECTION AND STORAGE PERFORMANCE TOO
By Kaminario
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In 2013, MLC Flash as general purpose storage will be a major area of industry attention because users are demanding many of the same features they are used to getting with HDD technology but with the added capabilities of MLC Flash. Customers must have scalability and data protection as well as performance to make the case to jump to SSD.
Focus on Scalability
Scalability is a cornerstone element of a general purpose storage strategy and a solid differentiator for Kaminario. However, we view it a little differently than other vendors:
Linear Scalability: Grow Capacity Not Complexity
There is a difference between adding capacity and scalability. Adding capacity is stacking storage hardware while scalability is intelligently absorbing storage. We view scalability as linear and driven by powerful software like SPEAR to enable distributed workloads managed from a single console. Linear scalability increases operational efficiencies and ease-of-use. Simply adding capacity means multiple management consoles, more complexity and more points-of-failure.
Linear Scalability Enables Consistent Performance of Mixed Workloads
Our view of true scalability provides users with consistent latency as IOPS and bandwidth are scaled up. Users should not have to pay a performance tax for consolidating applications or deploying data protection features. There should be no performance surprises.
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Disk latency, Flash SSD, I/O bottlenecks, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, solid-state SAN storage, SPEAR, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD Storage Performance | No Comments »
Posted February 26th, 2013
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Measure Performance Over Time and with Three Dimensions
ANALYST SURVEY LOOKS AT REAL-WORLD IOPS REQUIREMENTS
By Kaminario
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Tom Coughlin and Jim Handy, respected storage analysts, conducted a survey on how many IOPS are really needed for several popular enterprise applications to better understand real-world IOPS requirements. They asked respondents about their critical storage applications and how many IOPS those applications needed. More than 80 percent of their initial respondents said that their key app was a database, an OLTP solution or a Cloud storage service. About half of the respondents said their IOPS needs were in the 1k to 100k range. Coughlin and Handy note that other factors like latency contribute to overall performance, not just speed. You can view research details from a presentation that Tom did at the SNIA Storage Developer conference, How Many IOPS is Enough? or get the full report at How Many IOPS Do You Really Need?
Measure Consistent Performance
I am bringing this up now as a way to comment on how Kaminario looks at performance. We do not see performance as a point in time such as timing a runner in a single forty-yard dash. True performance is measured by consistency of speed and results over time and as capacity and applications are added. You shouldn’t necessarily buy an all-Flash array based of the performance of a single app because there are so many variables that can come into play down the road. This is one of the reasons that Kaminario is taking the general purpose storage approach with the K2. We think it is smarter to evaluate a Flash storage system in the context of your entire storage environment and future app needs. You don’t want to buy a system that gives you great value up front but falls short in mixed workload environments. You don’t want to have to buy a separate storage system when you introduce a new application or need to drastically scale up capacity.
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Flash SSD, high availability, I/O bottlenecks, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, latency, RDBMS Performance, Solid State Storage, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD Storage Performance | No Comments »
Posted December 5th, 2012
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What Kind of SSD Solution is Best for your Needs?
STORAGE SWITZERLAND POST SUGGESTS QUESTIONS TO ASK
By Kaminario
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Judging from industry chatter and published articles, it is clear that the debate about all SSD versus a hybrid SSD/HDD array is picking up. Our blog touched on this a little bit recently. This strikes me as a good thing. While we believe the industry is on a journey to the time when HDDs will be used like tape is today, naturally there are waypoints. People need to balance their storage needs and budget with all available options to them.
This brings me to an article I recently saw from Storage Switzerland titled Flash SSD May be the Answer, but It Raises Many Questions. It highlights some of the questions storage managers should start asking their vendors about SSD storage to arrive at the best type of SSD solution for their needs.
The story suggests questions about sharing capabilities, high availability and a few other topics that organizations should ask vendors. When we speak with customers, we try to ask questions of our own. So here are three questions we always ask customers considering a hybrid or all-SSD solution:
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, DataProtect, Flash SSD, I/O Performance, I/O wait, IOPS, Kaminario K2, latency, MLC, OLTP, RDBMS Performance, Solid State Storage, Storage Efficiency, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD Solutions | No Comments »
Posted December 4th, 2012
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Kaminario K2 Now Certified as VMware Ready
TIGHT INTEGRATION WITH VIRTUALIZATION SOLUTIONS CRITICAL
By Kaminario
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Yesterday, we announced that the Kaminario K2 all solid-state SAN storage solution achieved VMware Ready™ status. This news hints a little bit about the role we see for SSDs in the enterprise data center over the next few years. We believe that SSDs will become the standard for replacing hard disk and hybrids for general purpose storage.
In today’s IT environment, being the best at general purpose storage requires tight integration with virtualization solutions. For this reason, we consider being certified as VMware Ready to be a significant corporate milestone.
Kaminario has also joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner Program to show customers the benefits of the two company’s products working together seamlessly. Our participation will also make it easier for organizations researching VMware solutions to compare what we offer against other marketplace options.
Check out our new page on the VMware Solution Exchange. You can get details on Kaminario’s VMware certification and K2 benefits such as performance, scalabilty and data protection.
I’d just like to add a word of thanks to the engineers and others from both companies who worked diligently to make this happen. We’re proud to work with VMware to enable large and mid-size organizations to get the most return on their data center investments.
Tags:application performance, Database Performance, DataProtect, Disk latency, IOPS, Kaminario, VMware certified, VMware Ready
Posted in Virtualization | No Comments »
Posted October 23rd, 2012
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Application Performance Highlights Oracle OpenWorld
SSD CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
By Gareth Taube, Vice President Marketing, Kaminario
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This year’s Oracle OpenWorld proved both exciting and enlightening as Larry Ellison described Oracle’s cloud vision, including a new multitenant database robust enough for both public and private cloud deployments. There was also a lot of talk about hardware and software working together to achieve superfast DBMS performance, which was why we were happy to demonstrate a Flash-configured Kaminario K2 chugging through a typical database workload at more than 2 million IOPs and 20 GB/s throughput with an ultra-low latency of .98 milliseconds. Since performance and availability go hand in hand, we also demonstrated the K2’s DataProtect self healing and fast snapshot capabilities running an Oracle DBMS. Finally, we took the opportunity to survey more than 400 booth visitors about application performance, flash, and business impacts. The results were striking for the impact SSD can make not only on performance, but on the business.
Here are some of the highlights of our survey:
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Disk latency, Flash memory, Flash SSD, high availability, I/O bottlenecks, I/O Performance, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, OLTP, Oracle OpenWorld, RDBMS Performance, Storage Performance
Posted in Oracle Database Performance | No Comments »
Posted October 4th, 2012
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Performance is serious business, not a game
KAMINARIO RESPONDS TO COMMENTS FROM A STORY IN THE REGISTER
By Shachar Fienblit
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Editor’s note: Chris Mellor, of The Register, wrote an article about the K2 exceeding two million IOPS last Monday. Violin’s Jon Bennett posted a comment on the article. Kaminario’s response follows.
The comments written by Violin’s CTO mix apples and oranges from multiple benchmark data points resulting in false conclusions. Let me clearly and factually present the truth.
First, Kaminario did two different benchmarks: an audited SPC-1 benchmark designed to give customers an apples to apples comparison of vendor performance with an industry standard workload, and a second benchmark based on an IOmeter-based random read only workload identical to what Violin promoted at VMworld.
SPC-1, as the market knows, is a well-defined benchmark and has a very high write component (2/3). The result from that benchmark was 1.2M SPC-1 IOPS at a cost of $0.40 per SPC-1 IOP. World records! Clear, factual, audited. Violin is welcome to join us in the peer review of SPC-1 and do the benchmark.
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Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Flash SSD, I/O bottlenecks, IOPS, K2, OLTP, SSD, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD Storage Performance | No Comments »
Posted October 4th, 2012
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The K2 Tops Two Million IOPS Using a Single All-Flash Storage System
TEST RESULT SHOWS SPEAR SCALE-OUT ARCHITECTURE IDEAL FOR APPS REQUIRING HEAVY DUTY PERFORMANCE
By Kaminario
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As a follow up to the record breaking SPC-1 results we announced last July, this week at Oracle OpenWorld, Kaminario announced the company has achieved more than two million IOPS and 20 GB/s throughput using MLC Flash in a Kaminario K2.
The new result reaffirms the power and scalability of the SPEAR scale-out architecture to deliver premium storage performance without sacrificing data protection.
Respected analyst firm The Taneja Group reviewed and validated the test results. A full audit report will be published shortly.
Tags:application performance, Database Performance, Flash SSD, I/O bottlenecks, IOPS, K2, Kaminario, Kaminario K2, OLTP, OOW, Storage Performance
Posted in SSD Storage Performance | No Comments »
