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Invest in the right flash storage solutionService provider edition

As a service provider, you have a special set of challenges

You need the ability to provide differentiated offerings that set you apart from your competitors. And you need a predictable cost structure that allows you to provide value while maintaining competitive pricing and margins.

You know that your competitors look at flash storage options as a way to improve service and gain competitive advantage. You understand the benefits of flash in terms of raw I/O performance, but you also know that flash can be costly and that there are risks involved.

The right flash technology will create a competitive advantage, allowing you to provide differentiated services to your customers while helping you build your bottom line. The wrong technology could leave you scrambling.

How do you maximize your return on investment, minimize your risk, and provide the service levels and cost structure necessary to meet customer expectations? How do you get past the hype to find the best flash solution for your business?

This easy-to-read guide was developed specifically for service providers with those questions in mind. You’ll come away armed with key considerations for your business and critical questions to ask vendors before investing in flash storage arrays.

IntroductionYour customers demand high performance, always-on availability, and assurance that their data is always safe (secure and protected from loss). You need scalable, flexible solutions that are reliable, efficient, and easy to manage.

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You need enterprise-class availability and predictably high performance, but you also need something more: the ability to match service levels to your customer’s requirements in real time.

The demands of multi-tenant environments create distinct challenges—preventing resource contention and performance degradation from mixed workloads; preventing a single tenant from monopolizing resources; responding to peak demand and offering each customer the right level of service at the right time—and you must accomplish all of that in an environment with always-on availability.

One size does not fit all

Providing the right SLAsYou’re looking for a way to achieve higher service levels for more tenants with reduced infrastructure and cost. You’re running a multi-tenant environment with unique quality of service (QoS) requirements for each of your customers.

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What to look for:

1. Proven enterprise-class availabilityA single failure should never affect your entire customer base or put your bottom line at risk. Don’t bother with arrays that are not proven capable of 99.9999% availability.

2. Assured QoS levelsSupport for multi-tenancy is an obvious must-have requirement; each tenant has unique QoS requirements. Look for flash storage that allows you to deliver different QoS levels without having to physically partition resources. Storage management should allow flexibility to control and prioritize applications, workloads, and tenants by specifying minimum and maximum performance thresholds. It should then automatically adjust service to maintain necessary QoS levels. This feature prevents a single tenant or workload from monopolizing resources and will ensure that QoS objectives are met across your customer base.

3. Storage federationMeet the constantly changing needs of your multi-tenant data center with the ability to move data and workloads between arrays without impact to applications, services, or tenants. You should be able to simply and non-disruptively move data between storage systems without additional management layers or appliances, allowing you to provide each customer the right level of service at the right time.

4. Bullet-proof your customers’ dataComponent failures happen, so consider massively parallelized architectures that tend to perform well even under failure conditions. Your flash arrays should be designed to eliminate single points of failure. Look for arrays with availability features like redundant power supplies, fans, and controllers. Persistent Cache and HA Enclosure capabilities (striping across drive enclosures) not only provide data protection but also help maintain performance in the event of component failure. Data integrity checks, like T10 DI F, can ensure that each write onto your flash arrays exactly mirrors the request from the host. Additional features like hot-swappable flash modules and non-disruptive capacity expansion will prevent outages for required maintenance.

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Look for flash that delivers different QoS levels

A flash storage solution can help you to provide differentiated service or it can handcuff you. Architectures that allow you to mix and match flash, hybrid (part flash/part disk), and spinning disk arrays while seamlessly moving data back and forth between arrays to meet QoS requirements allow you to provide the right differentiated service at the right cost for your customer.

The cost of flash storage is probably less than you think. Flash arrays featuring data compaction technologies and Tier 1 data services, like those described in this guide, can be purchased for as little as $1.50 per useable GB of storage. Techniques like thin provisioning and granular allocation units allow you to stretch your investment even farther.

Flash cost is less than you think

Creating competitive advantageYou gain competitive advantage by differentiating your offerings, providing a unique level and quality of service at a lower cost.

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What to look for:

1. The right solutionMixing and matching flash and hybrid arrays in your data center can provide the ultimate QoS flexibility, especially if those arrays share a common architecture and common data services. For example, you might replicate backups from your flash environment to a lower service level, spinning-disk array. Look for storage options that can integrate without requiring complicated and expensive third-party solutions.

2. Extended lifeFlash storage modules are vulnerable to wear and tear from write-intensive operations. You can extend media lifespan by reducing the number of unnecessary write operations and by balancing workload. Look for technologies like deduplication to prevent redundant writes and system-wide write technology optimizations that balance the load evenly across all flash media. This avoids the creation of hot spots and potential points of failure and extends the life of your investment. Also look for the ability to monitor wear on flash media, making it easier to plan routine maintenance or media replacement. Look for vendors who offer a 5-year warranty on their solid state drives.

3. Operating costsHigh-density SSD drives (1.6-1.9 TB SSDs or larger) can reduce your storage footprint by as much as 80% over comparable disk storage, with a corresponding reduction in power consumption. Capabilities like simplified storage management, simple backup and recovery management, autonomic storage tiering, etc. can reduce the operations overhead of managing your storage environment.

4. Data reductionTraditional storage pools are over allocated to allow for future growth, resulting in underutilized capacity. This is inefficient and drives up cost. Look for just-in-time provisioning capabilities and take advantage of data compaction techniques like deduplication and fine-grained allocations to maximize storage usage and reduce cost.

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The right flash choice will improve the bottom line

Maximizing performanceOne of the lures of flash storage is performance: hundreds of thousands of IO PS at sub-millisecond latency. But there is more to performance than the raw speed of the storage media. Performance must be scalable, consistent, and predictable. This can be a challenge for some flash arrays. To achieve these performance objectives, you’ll need a storage architecture that’s optimized for flash.

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Every element, from storage media to controllers to cache to network bandwidth, must be designed to take advantage of the performance characteristics of your flash arrays.

Multi-tenancy can complicate things, creating mixed-use scenarios that can degrade performance. In a service provider environment, you need architectural features that minimize the impact of multi-tenancy and make the most efficient use of storage resources.

Flash is as much about simplicity as about speed

What to look for:

1. Flash optimized architectureYour flash arrays should provide hundreds of thousands of IO PS with consistent sub-millisecond latency. That’s a given, but here’s the catch: that performance gain doesn’t mean much if you don’t have the right architecture in place to fully realize the performance potential of flash storage. You need an architecture that avoids bottlenecks in the entire I/O path (controllers, cache, firmware, etc.) to gain the full benefits of flash. Look for a system that employs massively parallel design elements such as multi-controller scalability and system-wide striping.

2. Scalable, consistent and predictable performanceTo support growth, consider platforms that scale into the 100s of terabytes at a minimum. Platforms should scale easily and non-disruptively. Architectures that use dedicated hardware to perform specific functions, such as RAID parity calculations and deduplication, can free-up (offload) array CPU resources, keeping those resources available to provide more complex data services.

3. BandwidthFlash media is fast (hundreds of thousands of IO PS per second with sub-millisecond latency) and can easily saturate bandwidth and controllers, creating performance bottlenecks. Look for solutions that scale beyond 2-node architectures. If you’re using an FC network, you’ll want arrays that support Gen-5 16Gb/s FC. These features enable greater performance and capacity scalability without increasing the size of your array.

4. Mixed workload supportMixing transactional and throughput-intensive workloads can cause resource contention and degrade performance due to the resource demands of large-block I/O operations on resource controllers. CPU cycles are consumed by moving data instead of delivering Tier-1 data services. Look for design that offloads the workload from controllers so that CPU cycles can be dedicated to delivering advanced data services.

5. Cloud-specific design featuresLook for design features that can specifically improve multi-tenant performance. Mesh-active clustering allows each volume to be active on every mesh controller in the system, supporting load balancing and scalability. System-wide striping of data and I/O for each volume allows accelerated and consistent performance while avoiding single points of contention. Cache processing can be optimized to minimize latency and avoid cache bottlenecks.

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Cache processing can be optimized to minimize latency

Meeting performance and QoS requirements is just part of the story

Recovery processes should be simple and efficient without requiring expensive and complex backup appliances or software and should allow you to achieve low recovery time objectives (RTOs) and zero data-loss recovery point objectives (RPOs), without compromising performance.

Your customers will need to demonstrate to auditors and compliance officers that you can prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. You’ll need a flash solution that can completely isolate a customer’s data from end-to-end, ensuring that sensitive data is never compromised.

Keeping data secure and protectedHigh availability and uncompromising data protection are must-haves for any data center. Your clients’ business operations depend on the availability of critical data. Backup processes that don’t fully protect their data leave them (and you) vulnerable. Backup should be non-intrusive—it shouldn’t create performance impacts or require system downtime.

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What to look for:

1. Simple and efficient backup and recoveryPrimary and secondary storage shouldn’t need complicated or expensive software-based processes to talk to each other. Look for architectures that support native data movement between primary and backup storage domains. In this scenario, data protection becomes a function of storage, eliminating the need for additional management layers and making backup and recovery less intrusive on application processing. Setup and operation should be simple with “do-it-yourself” controls for both backup and recovery operations.

2. Tier-1 data servicesEnterprise-class features like synchronous/asynchronous replication, data migration, and transparent data center failover solutions might seem like table stakes for Tier-1 storage solutions, but many flash arrays lack these enterprise-class data services. Some deliver these services using external appliances, adding cost and complexity.

3. Application-integrated data protectionLook for storage arrays that integrate with existing tools, enabling hypervisor and application owners to control backup and recovery processes directly from their preferred system management consoles. The best solutions will also offer the ability to create application-consistent backups of leading business apps. Look for a solution that creates fully independent backup volumes that can be restored at the volume-level in the event of disaster. This level of data protection cannot be achieved with snapshots alone.

4. DeduplicationAn important component of backup processing is deduplication, which can reduce your backup storage requirement by as much as 20 times. Scalable, non-duplicated backups can also enable a greater number of recovery points, giving you more granularity and enhancing your ability to meet RTOs and zero data-loss RPOs.

5. Secure partitioningYour customers need to maintain compliance with PCI and other industry/government regulatory structures to ensure privacy. You’ll need to ensure that your flash storage is designed for multi-tenancy, allowing you to protect the privacy of each customer’s data by securely partitioning resources and securely isolating one partition from another within a shared infrastructure.

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Deduplication can reduce your backup storage requirement by as much as 20 times

Make sure you get the answers you need before investing

Providing the right SLAs

1. What are your multi-tenant capabilities?

2. How do you address delivering different QoS requirements?

3. Can your solution deliver different QoS levels without physically partitioning storage resources?

4. How do you prevent a single tenant from monopolizing resources?

5. How does your flash solution eliminate single points of failure?

6. How easy is it to migrate data on and off the flash array?

Keeping data secure and protected

1. How does the solution help meet low recovery time objectives (RTO) and zero-data-loss recovery point objectives (RPO)?

2. Can you support file, block, and full-volume recovery?

3. How will backup and recovery integrate with current processes?

4. Are there performance impacts associated with backup/recovery processing?

5. How are storage partitions isolated to prevent unauthorized viewing of sensitive information?

Maximizing performance

1. How does the array manage performance in mixed-workload scenarios where transactional and throughput-intensive workloads can create contention?

2. Are there dedicated processors to support CPU intensive operations like RAID parity calculations and deduplication?

3. What is the drive density and maximum capacity per array?

4. How is your architecture optimized to support flash performance?

5. Do you support 10Gb/s Ethernet and/or Gen-5 16Gb/s FC?

6. How do you prevent latency bottlenecks when processing mixed-transactional and throughput-intensive workloads?

Creating competitive advantage

1. What is the cost per useable GB of storage?

2. How does the solution support reduced operational cost?

3. Does the array provide capabilities like autonomic storage tiering and flexible QoS?

4. Is deduplication native to the storage solution or does it require additional server resources?

5. What capabilities does the array provide to extend the life of its SSDs?

6. What capabilities does the solution provide to help reduce overhead costs?

7. What is the warranty on the solid-state drive in your flash solution?

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About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. With a technology portfolio, spanning software, services, and IT infrastructure, Hewlett Packard Enterprise delivers solutions for customers’ most complex challenges in every region of the world.

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© Copyright 2015 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HPE products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HPE shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

4AA5-8281ENW, November 2015, Rev. 1

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