Product Announcement Webinar and Live Demonstration

Mark Christie – Senior Systems Engineer

StorMagic SvSAN 6.1

Introducing StorMagic

What do we do?StorMagic SvSAN eliminates the need for physical SANs by exposing the storage of an industry

standard server as a virtual SAN thereby dramatically reducing CAPEX and OPEX.

How does SvSAN achieve this?StorMagic’s virtual SAN converts the internal disk, flash and memory of industry standard servers

into robust, cost effective and flexible shared-storage.

Where is this most applicable?SvSAN is deployed for hyperconverged infrastructure for multi-site enterprises and SMEs and server-

based storage arrays as an alternative to a traditional physical SAN.

1 to Thousands

of Sites

Large and small deployments

from enterprises with 1000s of

sites to SMEs with a single site

Global Customer

Adoption

Within 72 countries, organisations

depend on StorMagic for sever

and storage infrastructure

Global Partner

Network

Wherever you are, StorMagic has

resellers, integrators, and server

partners to meet your needs

Across Many

Verticals

Retail, health, government,

industrial, education, finance,

pharma and many more

Introducing StorMagic

What is a S torage Array ?

A disk array is a hardware element that contains a large group of

hard disk drives (HDDs). It may contain several disk drive trays and

has an architecture which improves speed and increases data

protection. The system is run via a storage controller, which

coordinates activity within the unit.

Wikipedia Definition:

Storage Array Components

• SAN Presentation iSCSI

Fibre Channel

• SAN Switch Ethernet (iSCSI)

Fibre channel

• Physical Storage Controller CPU

Memory

Dedicated Storage Hardware

• Enterprise Drives 10K or 15K SAS

SSDSSD

Storage Controller

Utilise industry standard server as a Virtual SAN

SSD

Storage Controller

SSD

Virtual Storage Appliance

Hypervisor

Use Cases: Hyperconverged or Server -based Storage Array

• Hyperconverged

Shared storage and compute platform

Possible appliance compute/storage scale lock-in

Simplified management & scale-out

• Server -based Storage Array

Dedicated shared storage

Always scale compute & storage independently

Flexible/cost effective physical SAN alternative

StorMagic SvSAN: Overview

“SvSAN turns the internal

disk, SSD and memory of

industry standard servers

into highly available shared

storage”

• Tie-breaker service for SvSAN mirrors

• Prevents data inconsistency AKA ‘split brain’

• This ensures In the event of a single failure there is no interruption in service

In the event of multiple failures there is no corruption or loss of data

• Local or Remote Supported as Windows service, Linux daemon, packaged VM,

Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

Withstands 3000ms latency

Up to 20% packet loss

9kbs bandwidth required per SvSAN mirror

• Single NSH instance for 1000s of mirrors across clusters

SvSAN - Neutral Storage Host (witness)

• Tie-breaker service for SvSAN mirrors

• Prevents data inconsistency AKA ‘split brain’

• This ensures In the event of a single failure there is no interruption in service

In the event of multiple failures there is no corruption or loss of data

• Local or Remote Supported as Windows service, Linux daemon, packaged VM,

Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

Withstands 3000ms latency

Up to 20% packet loss

9kbs bandwidth required per SvSAN mirror

• Single NSH instance for 1000s of mirrors across clusters

SvSAN - Neutral Storage Host (witness)

• Tie-breaker service for SvSAN mirrors

• Prevents data inconsistency AKA ‘split brain’

• This ensures In the event of a single failure there is no interruption in service

In the event of multiple failures there is no corruption or loss of data

• Local or Remote Supported as Windows service, Linux daemon, packaged VM,

Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

Withstands 3000ms latency

Up to 20% packet loss

9kbs bandwidth required per SvSAN mirror

• Single NSH instance for 1000s of mirrors across clusters

SvSAN - Neutral Storage Host (witness)

SvSAN - Management & Integration

• Centralized Management & Monitoring from the Datacenter

• vCenter StorMagic Integration StorMagic Dashboard

Single/Multi VSA Deploy

NSH Deploy

VSA Restore

Create, expand and migrate storage

• Hyper -V Integration StorMagic Deployment Wizard

• Monitoring SNMP v2 & v3

SMTP

System Center Operations Manager

• Scripting tool box Powershell module

Deployment, configuration, firmware upgrades

Plugin script generation

Introducing SvSAN 6.1

Robust

Any Site, Any Network

Cost Effective

Lightest Footprint, Lowest Cost

Flexible

Today’s Needs, Future Proofed

I/O Performance statisticsCrucial I/O statistics now at your finger-tips to better understand your workloads.

Multiple VSA GUI deployment & upgradeDeploy and upgrade multiple VSAs through a single wizard and Out-of-the-box Experience

PowerShell Auto -script generationDeploy VSAs through a GUI and automatically generate a custom PowerShell script.

SSD Read/Write cachingEnable hybrid storage configurations combining the performance of SSDs with the capacity of HDDs.

Memory -based read cachingBlazing fast for most common reads. Modes: most frequently used, read ahead and data pinning.

Predictive auto -tieringData dynamically cached between storage tiers depending on frequency of access.

SSDSSD

Host architecture flexibility

• Underlying RAID configuration RAID 0,1,5,6,10

• Create multiple storage pools for shared storage NL-SATA, NL-SAS, SAS, SSD, NVMe

RDM, VMDK, VHDX

• Local storage for Hypervisor and VSA Hypervisor system files

VSA system drives

• SSD Caching – Read Write Optional, Advanced Feature

1 or more SSD per server for SSD Caching

• Memory Caching - Read Optional, Advanced Feature

As little as 1GB RAM per server

Hypervisor

SvSAN

Host architecture flexibility

• Underlying RAID configuration RAID 0,1,5,6,10

• Create multiple storage pools for shared storage NL-SATA, NL-SAS, SAS, SSD, NVMe

RDM, VMDK, VHDX

• Local storage for Hypervisor and VSA Hypervisor system files

VSA system drives

• SSD Caching – Read Write Optional, Advanced Feature

1 or more SSD per server for SSD Caching

• Memory Caching - Read Optional, Advanced Feature

As little as 1GB RAM per server

LUN3

600GB

Local DS

50GB

RAID Pool Storage

(0,1,5,6,10)

Cache Storage

(0,1,5,6,10)

LUN1

50GBLUN2

5.95TB

RDM, VMDK

600GB

RDM,VMDK

5.95TB

SSDSSD

Hypervisor

SvSAN

Host architecture flexibility

Synchronous Mirror

LUN3

600GB

Local DS

50GB

RAID Pool Storage

(0,1,5,6,10)

Cache Storage

(0,1,5,6,10)

LUN1

50GBLUN2

5.95TB

RDM, VMDK

600GB

RDM,VMDK

5.95TB

SSDSSD

Hypervisor

SvSAN

100,000+ IOps with 2x industry standard servers!

SSDSSD

Hypervisor

SvSAN

SvSAN – SSD Caching

SSD Read/Write Caching• Data acknowledged once written to Flash storage enabling for high random IO

performance• Sequentially written back to magnetics at a later time to minimize disk head

movements

Hot Blocks• Clean flushed data persists until space is required enabling read performance increase

Increase Performance and Efficiency • IO tracked to promote into cache tiers over time• Less workload on spinning disks enables greater efficiency

Sizing and Configuration• Single SSD or hardware and software RAID for protection• Recommended cache capacity 10% of pool storage• Example - 200GB cache, 2TB pool storage.

SvSAN 6: Memory based caching

Modern servers now have vast amounts of memory• Additional memory can be used to dramatically improve

storage performance• Frequently read data is cached in memory• Read operations are served from memory without ever

accessing a disk drive

Read-ahead mode• Detects sequential read streams to allow read ahead• i.e. when this block is read it is highly likely adjacent

blocks will be read• Enable for targeted workloads

Most frequently used mode (default)• SvSAN algorithm identifies and stores data based on

access patterns• Frequently accessed data blocks are stored in memory• Default mode benefits all workloads

Data pinning mode• Enter learning to create identical access pattern• Delivers most efficient read performance• Enable for targeted workloads

SvSAN - Predictive automated read caching & tiering

Intelligent read caching algorithm• All read I/Os are monitored and analyzed• Most frequently used data – “Hot” data • Cache tiers are populated based on access frequency

Tiering• RAM: Most frequently accessed data• SSD/Flash: Next most frequently accessed data• HDD: Infrequently accessed data – “Cold” data

Sizing• Assign cache sizes to meet requirements• Grow caches as working sets change• Use any combination of Memory, SSD/Flash and Disk

Play to the strengths• Play to the strengths of all mediums• Memory Highest IOPS• SSD/Flash Magnetic drives providing lower price per GB

SSD

3x1.2TB in RAID52.13TB VD1 & 50GB VD0

200GBSSD

SSD

3x1.2TB in RAID52.13TB VD1 & 50GB VD0

200GBSSD

2.13TBShared mirrored datastore

32GBSD

32GBSD

SvSANSvSAN

SvSAN – Demo Hardware Configuration

Customer data analysis: On -demand consumer service (US)

Read Write

Read/Write Ratio 40% 60%

Average Per Day 9GB 13GB

Average Block Size 30KB 11KB

Average IOPS 5 15

Workloads

• Network monitoring for on-demand service

• Back office apps

Challenge

• Customer was evaluating hyperconverged solutions

• Was considering full flash

StorMagic analysis

• Enabled I/O meta-data collection of a period of time in a live POC

Distribution of I/O sizes

Throughput and IOPS

Locality of access

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

16

:13

16

:53

17

:33

18

:13

18

:53

19

:33

20

:13

20

:53

21

:33

22

:13

22

:53

23

:33

00

:13

00

:53

01

:33

02

:13

02

:53

03

:33

04

:13

04

:53

05

:33

06

:13

06

:53

07

:33

08

:13

08

:53

09

:33

IOP

S

Time of Day (UTC)

Throughput IOPS

Read

Write

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

0

42

GB

87

GB

13

2 G

B

17

7 G

B

22

2 G

B

26

7 G

B

31

2 G

B

35

7 G

B

40

2 G

B

44

7 G

B

49

2 G

B

53

6 G

B

58

1 G

B

62

6 G

B

67

1 G

B

71

6 G

B

76

1 G

B

80

6 G

B

85

1 G

B

89

6 G

B

94

1 G

B

98

6 G

B

Nu

mb

er

of

acc

ess

es

Th

ou

san

ds

Locality of access

Read

Write

Estimates• SSD & memory: 94% of I/O being satisfied from read cache, when using 2GB

memory and 120GB SSD• Memory only: 94% of I/O being satisfied from read cache when using 2GB of

memory

Testing• Replay the exact workload collected from live environment• No best guess synthetic workload but exact patterns from data collection

Conclusion • Environment sufficient for workloads• Allocate a small amount of memory to satisfy almost all reads

6%

94%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Read Data Serviced by Tiers

Memory

SSD

Disk

0.37GB

67.85GB

0.00GB

10.00GB

20.00GB

30.00GB

40.00GB

50.00GB

60.00GB

70.00GB

80.00GB

% of Read Data Serviced by Tiers

Customer data analysis: On -demand consumer service (US)

SvSAN 6: Management

Multiple VSA GUI deployment Deploy multiple VSAs through a single wizard Incremental naming and IP addressing

Auto PowerShell script generation Deploy VSAs through a GUI and automatically generate a custom

PowerShell script Script variables clearly marked to enable easy editing Scale custom scripts for mass deployments

VSA OOBE (Out -of -box Experience) Stage VSA deployments on hardware Configure VSAs when installed onsite Configure through GUI or scripting

Upgrade multiple VSAs through GUI- Use a repository for VSA firmware's- Select multiple VSAs through the StorMagic dashboard for upgrading- Upgrade VSAs immediately or stage firmware for overnight upgrade- StorMagic handles VSA health check to not impact environment

SvSAN 6.1: Standard & Advanced Editions

Minimum cluster size 2

Synchronous Mirroring/High Availability ✔Stretched/Metro Cluster Support ✔Volume Migration ✔VSA Restore

1 ✔VMware vSphere Storage API (VAAI) Support ✔Centralized management and monitoring ✔Remote shared quorum ✔I/O performance statistics ✔Multiple VSA GUI deployment & upgrade ✔PowerShell Shell script generation ✔SSD Caching -

Memory -based caching - most frequently used mode -

Memory -based caching - read ahead mode -

Memory -based caching - data pinning mode -

Predictive cached tiering -

2

✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔

1 Vmware vSphere only

Standard Edition• Rich features for Software-Defined Storage

Advanced Edition• Adds powerful cached auto-tiering

• Disk, Flash and Memory

License, Maintenance & Support (M&S)• Perpetual License based on capacity

• 1 year M&S mandated

• M&S can be extended to 3 or 5 years

Capacity Levels• 2TB

• 6TB

• 12TB

• Unlimited TB

SvSAN - Hardware Requirements

Hardware Requirements

VMware vSphere

Microsoft Hyper-V (2012R2 and 2016)

Any x86 hardware platform supported by the chosen hypervisor

SATA, SAS, SSD

Hypervisor supported storage controller

Flexible RAID configuration

Switched traffic or direct connection

SSD

SvSAN - VSA Requirements

VSA – Virtual Storage Appliance

Linux Kernel

500MB Boot Drive 20GB Journal Drive

1 vCPU

1GB RAM (Standard) 2GB RAM (Advanced) Up to 32GB per VSA for Memory Caching

1Gb, 10Gb, 40Gb networking

SvSAN 6.1 Predictive Cached Tiering Deployment Examples

• I am selecting a new server and storage solution

Consider 3 tier architecture or hyperconverged and the best balance of storage tiers for capacity and performance

Solution 1: Hyperconverged with tiering across HDD, SSD and Memory.

Solution 2: Server-based storage array with tiering across HDD, SSD and Memory and separate compute

• I am considering an all flash array

Know your actual IOps requirement and decide how important low latency is

Solution 1: Memory caching with HDDs for lower capacity and lowest cost

Solution 2: Memory and SSD caching with HDDs for higher capacity and balanced cost

Solution 3: Memory caching with a full Flash array for highest performance and highest cost

• I am an existing SvSAN user with only HDD

Minimal invasive upgrade for maximum ROI

Solution 1: Leverage spare memory for Memory caching

Solution 2: Upgrade memory for Memory caching

• I am an existing SvSAN user with SSD caching or all Flash

Increase IOps and reduce latency with SSD and memory read/write caching

Solution 1: Add SSD read caching.

Solution 2: Add SSD and Memory read caching through spare memory or a minor upgrade

What’s the scoop on General Availability?

StorMagic SvSAN 6.1 will be on or before the 27 th April 2017.

However, you can get your hands on it next week!

Second technical preview window now open:http://stormagic.com/6-1-tech-preview/

Q&A and Next Steps

SvSAN Product Information

Product Options

SvSAN license 2, 6, 12 and unlimited TBs

License entitlement 2 mirrored servers

Maintenance and support Platinum - 24x7 / Gold - 9x5

For further information, please contact: sales@stormagic.com

Further Reading:

An overview of SvSAN - http://stormagic.com/svsan/

SvSAN Data Sheet - http://stormagic.com/svsan-data-sheet/

SvSAN White Paper - http://stormagic.com/svsan-6/

Download your free trial of SvSAN

stormagic.com/trial