Beyond SSDs: flash and performance-sensitive computing

1. Summary

Solid state drives have helped redefine consumer and enterprise storage by replacing slower, more error-prone hard disk drives, but flash technology’s other benefits are still largely untapped. While flash remains substantially slower than DRAM, it is also dramatically less expensive. This balance between speed and cost opens new levels of performance to throughput-starved, disk-based applications, and reduces costs for other applications that currently run in RAM.

Flash is persistent and allows fast data transfer into memory for upgrades and service after a system start-up. Indeed, flash is developing many use cases in the marketplace. One is its ability to provide more effective and efficient storage for emerging big-data applications as well as applications that are otherwise input/output (I/O) intensive. Flash allows organizations that once could not afford all-memory I/O systems, to bring in-memory performance to these use cases and applications.

As a result, solid state drive (SSD) market growth is outstripping growth for hard-disk drives (HDD). This growth has resulted in new approaches for leveraging flash. We now have software that provides key-value object storage, with system-level optimization for specified in-memory compute (IMC) and NoSQL database applications. Using this technology, enterprises can unlock flash storage values, like high capacity and low latency, as well as perform extensive parallelism for more effective storage access. DRAM can be leveraged for cache, although this technology can also provide near-DRAM performance with the cost efficiencies of flash storage.

The shift in utilization of flash technology can drive more value within the enterprise, as those charged with building applications on massive storage systems seek less-expensive and more-efficient alternatives. THis report will help IT executives and storage teams evaluate their storage strategies with an eye toward flash because of its potential to provide the best ultimate value, without tradeoffs for performance and latency.

Key findings of this report:

• Emerging systems are driving bigger volumes of data that require processing at ever-faster velocity, so enterprises should seek storage solutions that provide the best price/performance.
• Enterprises should understand the exact price/performance breakpoints between traditional storage media, flash, and DRAM, and how flash storage can address the trade-offs among cost, performance, capacity, and persistence.
• Specific types of applications, such as those that are performance sensitive or even storage cost-sensitive, are typically good fits for this technology, but not all applications will benefit from flash.
• Flash brings different values to different market sectors, depending upon how they leverage flash from vertical applications. Those that drive complex data-oriented analysis processes typically gain the most benefit from flash.
• Designing applications to exploit flash storage is the future of flash technology. Indeed, middleware products are appearing that make this a much easier proposition for those who build and deploy applications that take advantage of flash. Traditional approaches to application development around HDD interfaces should be reconsidered.
• Over time, the improved storage cost/transaction processing performance can lead to server consolidation and significant cost savings.

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