Paradigm Shift to Automatic

Storage Tiering (AST)

Joe Stout

Storage Manager

FICO

Training Objectives

• Identify FICO’s motivations for AST

• Understand FICO’s AST policy/strategy

for AST

• Make use of this info to make better

decisions about your own use of AST

Who/What is FICO/Fair Isaac?

• FICO scoring for credit bureaus

• Fraud detection for Credit Cards

and Insurance claims

• Marketing solutions to drive

profitability

• Debt collections and recovery

• Information Technology impact

– Hosting services

– Software development/support

– Customer data modeling

Who/What is FICO/Fair Isaac?

Banking

More than Half

of the Top 100 Banks Globally

Insurance

Two Thirds of the Top US P&C Insurers

Who/What is FICO/Fair Isaac?

Retail/ Consumer Goods

One Third of the Top US

Retailers

Health Care / Pharma

8 of the Top 10 Pharma

Companies

Government

100+ Government

Agencies

Recent Storage Paradigm Shifts

SAN

STORAGE

TIERING

AUTOMATIC

STORAGE

TIERING

AST Explained

• Automation dynamically monitors

and relocates data based on

application needs

• Monitors I/O activity

• Identifies data for relocation

• Automates migration during user-

defined windows

– Moves “hot” data to Flash drives

– Moves “cold” data to SATA drives

Automatically moves data to the

right storage tier for improved

performance and cost savings

Flash

Fibre Channel

SATA

What is Automatic Storage

Tiering (AST) ?

• Takes the guesswork out of provisioning

performance based multi-tiered storage.

Why AST at FICO?

• Advances in storage array technology

• Continuation of cost cutting measures

• Changes in customer base on Array

• Change in Data Center strategy

Advances in Storage Array

Technology

Integration at FICO

• Disk drive technology

– SATA - 2006

– FLASH / EFD - 2009

– SAS - 2011

• Thin provisioning - 2006

• LUN Migration – 2006

• Encryption for data at rest

• Increased Array processing power and

memory

• SAN/LAN bandwidth

Cost Cutting Measures

• Data Center Footprint

– Floor space

– Power/cooling

• # of personnel to administer storage

• Virtualize and consolidate hosts

• $

Changes in Customer

Base on Array

• More powerful SAN connected hosts

• Higher TPS requirements for hosted

clients

• Remove Vmware from array

• Added flexibility for quick reaction

Building for AST

• Existing array and SAN infrastructure

– Three Tiers of Storage

• 146GB FC 436 drives 50TB

• 300GB FC 452 drives 98TB

• 500GB FC 72 drives 26TB

• Total 960 drives 174TB

– No Encryption for data at rest

– No thin provisioning

– 2 GB SAN switches 608 SAN ports

Know your Data -Old Array

Role

Total GB

Tier 1

FC

146GB

Tier 2

FC

300GB

Tier 3

FC

500GB

Oracle 40,068 23,475 15,916 677

SQL 50,498 11,859 33,789 4,850

Vmware* 23,984 3,321 15,065 5,598

Exchange 5,602 996 4,606 --

App 34,669 6,592 21,729 6,348

Total Alloc 154,821 46,243 91,105 17,473

Total Avail 173,891 49,870 98,025 25,996

AST Modeling

FLASH-FC-SATA

• Pyramid 10-30-60

• Equal proportion 33-34-33

• Hourglass 37-26-37

• Inverted hourglass 20-60-20

• Hybrid – 10-45-45 SATA

Flash

Fibre Channel

Building for AST

• New array and SAN infrastructure

– Three Tiers of Storage

• 200GB EFD 59 drives 8TB

• 600GB FC 278 drives 122TB

• 2TB SATA 50 drives 100TB

• Total 353 drives 230TB

- Encryption for data at rest

- Thin provisioning

– 8GB SAN switches

• 448 SAN ports

Know your Data -New Array

Role

Total GB

Tier 0

FLASH

200GB

Tier 2

FC

600GB

Tier 3

SATA

2TB

Oracle 65,171 1,950 54,221 9,000

SQL 48,673 -- 45,104 3,569

Exchange 9,704 -- 9,704 --

App 34,949 -- 18,499 16,500

Total Alloc 158,497 1,950 127,528 29,069

Total Avail 230,734 7,702 122,389* 100,643

In use* 154,511 4,365 91,642 58,504

AST Strategy Factors

• Production/Development/Test

• Concentrate on high I/O, critical

services/servers

• Determine what servers/services can exist

in lower tiers

• Understand reaction/incubation time

• Create policies choices

• Promote up

• Be flexible

FICO AST Policies

Policy Tier 0 % Tier 2 % Tier 3 % Total GB

Exchange 10 100 20 9,704

File Server -- 10 100 9,553

Oracle_ORT 5 100 100 22,418

Oracle_Prod 40 100 100 21,888

SQL_ORT 100 100 40,317

SQL_Prod 10 100 30 22,748

Test 100 100 100 12,555

No AST -- -- -- 19,314

Total 139,183

Total Alloc 1,950 127,528 29,069 158,497

Total in Use 4,365 91,642 58,504 154,511

Lessons Learned with AST

• Understand your data and processes

• Determine your set aside (performance

and capacity)

• Maintain policy choices

• Determine important metrics

• Monitor and adjust as required

Summary

• Understand motivations why AST at

FICO

• FICO AST policy strategy

• Lessons from FICO’s use of AST

Your Questions