T E C H N O L O G Y

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SSD and the Enterprise breaking the array

June 2009
Solid state technologies have long been in play on the periphery of the storage
market, where those with specialized storage needs have demanded performance
capabilities far beyond the ability of spinning disks to deliver. Since the earliest
days of computing, the hard disks that serve as the very foundation for data
storage behind computing have failed to keep up with the growing capabilities of server buses,
network fabrics, and computer processors. While the capacity of disk has exponentially
improved, the performance of rotational disk has at best demonstrated a linear improvement.
In turn, those with unusual performance demands have long been forced to seek out
alternatives to the traditional rotational disk, and have often found that solutions built on solid
state whether DRAM based storage arrays, or database caches could be an answer to their
problems.
More recently, solid state technology in a disk form factor, or SSD, seems to be marching
toward the point of near ubiquity in the marketplace. In convenient intersection with their
growing performance demands, the enterprise is finding that SSD is making solid state more
accessible than ever. Alongside the convenience of a disk form factor, NAND-based SSD
densities continue to increase, prices are rapidly dropping, and the list of suppliers is
continuously increasing. Moreover, enterprises pressed for power and cooling efficiency must
pay attention in a power hungry and heat plagued data center, solid state devices consume
less power, and create less heat than the spinning disks that currently eat up data center power.
Unfortunately, in the midst of this rapid charge of a new technology into the market, the
conversation around SSDs often misses the big picture. While details like MLC versus SLC,
CMOS process wavelengths, NAND chips, write penalties, read disturb errors, and more are
important, those details distract from a more significant enterprise conversation. That
conversation is one of overall storage solution architecture.
When it comes to SSD based storage solutions for the enterprise, the issue that should be
discussed is how to cost effectively achieve the right balance of both capacity and performance.
While SSD is about performance, many vendors fail to simultaneously approach SSD with a
reasonable focus on cost effectiveness, flexibility, and scalability. Doing so will create a stark
contrast to many traditional arrays that use restricted numbers of premium units to offset
architectural limitations. With this in mind, well assess the challenges before SSD arrays, and
take a look at one solution the EqualLogic PS6000s that promises to deliver a tradition
breaking approach that will make SSD granularly scale-out total array performance like few
other solutions on the market.
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T E C H N O L O G Y
SSD in context
Looking around the market at the broad
number, type, and affordable cost of solid
state technologies leaves little doubt that
the age of end-to-end, processing-tostorage, solid state is upon us. A quick
glance at the market yields solutions like
network-based caching devices, database
and application acceleration devices, server
localized PCIe-based storage, external
scalable pooled memory devices, and more.
But it is the introduction of NAND flashbased Solid State Disks (SSDs) that has
most drawn the enterprise storage
architects attention. And in turn, nearly
every major solid state technology
manufacturer in the world is offering or
considering a SSD type device including
powerhouses like Toshiba, Samsung, and
Intel. Various other vendors focused
specifically on SSDs are continuing to
innovate including the likes of STEC,
BitMicro, SandForce, Pliant, and others.
Yet solid state storage solutions are not all
that new, and have long included devices
that were not in disk form factor. So why
the sudden excitement about SSD? The
reason is clear the sudden promise of
simplicity. Implementing legacy solid state
technology has long been fraught with
challenges, and those challenges are only
getting bigger in todays data centers built
on complex tiers, pools, and networks of
storage technology. Often the right data sets
could not be easily moved, and the
standalone nature of many solid state
solutions limited how broadly they could be
applied to challenges across multiple
systems. While the vendors of those
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technologies became expert at peering into

storage systems and leaping over hurdles,
every implementation of these technologies
was still a one-off, customized exercise. The
familiar form factor and cost effectiveness
of SSD seems poised to change this through
broad, flexible, and easy deployment.

Scalability that breaks the

storage array, and the bank
The truth is that while the promise of
simplicity makes SSD look useful
everywhere, the limitations of traditional
storage architectures can stand in the way
of simplicity. While in many domains solid
state is the fodder for a whole new
generation of innovation including bus
architectures, disk and memory caching
techniques, b-tree algorithms, parallel file
systems, data read/write techniques, and
more solid state has to date generated
very little change in the architecture of the
traditional enterprise storage array. In turn,
SSD can end up being far from a technology
that is simply interchangeable with disk.
Without due diligence on the part of the
vendor
and
the
customer,
the
implementation of SSDs can remain mired
in the struggles of past approaches, while
carrying consequences of premium costs
and limited usefulness.
The challenges of building SSD based
storage systems become particularly
obvious when assessing the most common
limitations of solutions on the market
today. Lets look at the specific limitations
of typical solutions, and the associated
challenges for storage system design:

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T E C H N O L O G Y
1. Performance doesnt add up.
Conventional storage systems often
retard the potential performance of
SSDs by introducing additional
bottlenecks. We often see this today
when traditional arrays offer less per
device or aggregate performance
than the underlying SSDs are known
to deliver in isolation.
The challenge: SSDs require
extreme performance that often
cant be delivered by traditional
array controllers.
2. Limited Numbers. Conventional
storage systems often limit the
number of physical SSDs that can be
incorporated in a single array. This is
typically
due
to
controller
architecture where caching software
and hardware has not been designed
to keep up with the low latency and
high performance of SSDs.
The challenge: Adding SSD in
unlimited numbers can exceed the
capabilities of any storage
controller.
3. Restricted in use. Many arrays
promising SSD support today may
allocate SSDs to entire volumes, with
no ability to broadly share SSDs
across many data sets, and little
ability to easily migrate volumes to
and from SSDs as performance
demands change. Moreover, such
arrays may limit the use of advanced
storage features such as thin
provisioning or snapshots with SSDs.
Altogether,
such
restrictions
encumber SSD use with the same
challenges as external appliances
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difficult data placement choices,

difficult data management, and
significantly
different
storage
management.
The challenge: The huge delta
between SSD and traditional disk
capacity and performance requires
sophisticated integration before it is
effectively applied to dynamic
demands, and cost effective use.
4. Scaling breaks the array.
Finally, conventional storage arrays
that are limited in controller
configurations may easily exceed
either internal or external storage
array bandwidth when SSD is used.
When
bandwidth
is
limited,
contention
between
lower
performing rotational disk and SSD
devices can easily limit the total
performance of a storage array to
levels even well below that of limits
created by internal controller
architecture.
The challenge: Not only must total
controller performance support
SSD, but to break the barrier of
limited or fixed SSD configurations,
the total internal and external
bandwidth of a solution must scale.
These are not atypical limitations, and this
list in fact describes many of the SSD
implementations in the market today. Most
conventional array controllers were not
designed with SSDs in mind. It is not
unusual for us to encounter end users who
have implemented SSD devices behind midrange arrays that may fall short of being
able to deliver upon the full potential of
even a single SSD device. With such arrays,

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T E C H N O L O G Y
when the end user implements SSDs with
the intent of scaling performance to the
next level, they find that SSD is not a
panacea, and they still face the traditional
scale-up paradigm performance ceilings
when it comes to harnessing SSDs more
performance beyond the little boost a few
SSD devices can provide still necessitates
the disruptive addition of more controller
horsepower, or an entire additional array.
In such cases, SSD as a performance
solution is just a disguise, and the problems
of storage silos, limited throughput and
IOPS, and management issues are still
lurking beneath the covers.

Focus on Dell EqualLogic

Since the company was founded in 2001,
EqualLogic has been focused on delivering
innovative iSCSI storage solutions that
combine the power of multiple PS series
storage arrays into one virtual pool of
storage. Using this architecture, any device
in the Dell EqualLogic series of arrays
(including prior generations) can be used as
a standalone array, or combined with other
arrays to create a centralized pool with any
mix of SSD (PS6000S), SAS (PS6000XV
and PS6000X models) or SATA (PS6000E
and PS6500E) disks. Administrators can
leverage this consolidated, scalable storage
architecture to ease management, balance
overall storage capacity and performance to
meet application requirements, and move
data across any tier of disk within an
EqualLogic Group.
The Dell EqualLogic PS6000S
In March of 2009, Dell announced the
addition of a PS6000S model to the
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EqualLogic lineup a purpose built storage

array for SSD disks. In addition to acting as
any other Dell EqualLogic PS6000 system,
the PS6000S is dedicated to SSD. Within
the PS6000S, Dell elected to optimize
underlying SSD for performance as well as
cost, and uses either 8 or 16 50GB SSD
drives. Since the total performance of a pool
of EqualLogic storage can be optimized by
adding
additional
PS6000S
arrays,
administrators can granularly tune their
total storage environment for an ideal
balance of cost, capacity and performance,
without missing out on performance
because of price, or being limited in
performance because of array architecture.
A single group of EqualLogic PS6000
storage can contain up to 12 PS6000 arrays,
including up to 12 PS6000S SSD arrays for
an aggregate SSD capacity of 9.6TB. Within
that total pool of storage, any single volume
can be dynamically and non-disruptively
moved across storage tiers, so that it is
optimally placed on the best performance or
capacity disk.
With Dells recent announcement of the
EqualLogic PS6000S we were eager to
assess how it stacks up to solving the
challenges we see facing SSD use in
traditional storage arrays. Our assessment
is as follows:
Challenge Met: Ability to perform
With a building block approach made up of
small, manageable units that are each
tasked with only managing dedicated SSD
media, EqualLogic PS6000S arrays can
deliver full un-bottlenecked performance
from the SSD media to the application.
Since growth takes place by adding and

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T E C H N O L O G Y
pooling
PS6000S
arrays,
controller
performance grows in lockstep with SSD
performance.
Challenge Met: Unlimited SSDs
EqualLogic has harnessed the PS6000
series scale-out architecture for scaling SSD
devices. This allows multiple SSD-based
PS6000S arrays to be combined together
into a single SSD storage pool for a total
SSD capacity measured in TB rather than
GB (up to 8 arrays, or 6.4TB of storage
capacity in a pool, and 12 arrays, or 9.6TB
of storage capacity in a group).
Challenge Met: Full featured SSD
storage
While SSD optimization is important, it
falls short of the goal line if it limits the
storage features that can be used on SSD.
Once again, by purpose building the
PS6000S array for SSD, EqualLogic has
maintained every EqualLogic storage
feature. For example, PS6000S can be
managed together with other non-SSD PS
series arrays for a tiered storage system.
Moreover, PS6000S SSD volumes can make
use of every PS series feature like
transparent
non-disruptive
volume
migration, snapshots, volume copies, thin
provisioning, and more.
Challenge
Met:
Total
system
scalability
By purpose building the PS6000S as an
SSD System, EqualLogic has been able to
turn their attention to optimizing for cost
effective media and focus on delivering
optimal system performance through
scalability Since the PS6000S is designed to
optimize underlying media, the EqualLogic
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leverages cost effective Samsung SSDs. By

pooling PS6000 arrays to increase the total
IOPS available in a storage pool, cost
effective SSD media can easily be scaledout to deliver better performance than
limited numbers of premium media, at an
optimal $/GB price point.
Since PS6000S SSD storage is expanded by
adding multiple arrays together into a
single storage pool, total front-end (host
interface) and back-end (disk interface)
bandwidth is simultaneously scaled with
capacity. Meanwhile, PS6000S storage
arrays added to a pool automatically load
balance traffic to the pool. This innovative
approach to scaling, which EqualLogic
labels scale-out, sets a PS6000S storage
pool free from bandwidth constraints of a
small number of ports, and allows it to scale
to large numbers of SSDs without running
out of bandwidth.
Next Generation SSD Integration
In our view, the EqualLogic PS6000s is
representative of a new approach to
integrating SSD that is changing the
traditional storage array paradigm when it
comes to scalability. Such solutions are
shifting to scale out or widely clustered
architectures that are granularly additive in
controller performance and bandwidth.
When focused upon the special purpose
task of SSD support, such architectures can
easily unleash access to broad and
practically unlimited numbers of SSD.
Compared to conventional array designs
that limit performance, scale-out SSD
architectures can better match an
enterprises needs no matter how they
might change.

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T E C H N O L O G Y
Conventional Array

B R I E F
Next Generation Array
Application IO demand

IOs Per Second

Array IO limit

Application IO demand

IOs Per Second

Array IO limit

Addition of SSD extends

performance but only

to the next limit

imposed by controller

architecture

The ideal controller architecture

granularly scales out performance

(as well as capacity) to match

application requirements. Note,

this also maximizes cost effectiveness.

Addition of Disks

scales performance

to a limit
Number of devices in conventional array

Number of devices in next generation array

Figure 1: SSD performance scalability. The IO intensity of enterprise workloads fall along
a curve, requiring precise tuning of storage to deliver performance at optimal cost. With
traditional arrays (left diagram), performance cannot be precisely matched, and results in either
too much performance at excessive cost, or a performance impact on applications. Scale-out SSD
can keep performance in lockstep with demands (right diagram).

SSD scalability makes SSD cost

effective
SSD is seen as a performance-only
technology. The truth is, SSD has the
potential to also drastically change capital
and operational costs of storage, and
making SSD scalable is key to realizing the
cost advantages of this fundamental change
in how storage is architected.
SSD and total storage system costs
Today, key storage systems are often
configured and purchased with the number
of spindles determined by performance
requirements. In turn, organizations buy
more storage systems than they need, and
end up with wasted capacity on each
system. When SSD is brought to bear,
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organizations can more effectively match

storage array performance to their
performance needs, and avoid purchasing
unneeded storage capacity. When the costs
of multiple storage arrays and array
software licensing are assessed, SSD in a
single array can often yield a lower cost of
acquisition
than
overprovisioning
underutilized disk spindles for the sake of
performance. But where SSD behind
traditional architectures can yield cost
savings, they will do so with limited effect.
With the right scalable SSD architecture,
the cost of SSD investments can be
leveraged many times over by adding to
the number of SSD devices, at a much
smaller incremental cost over time, scalable
SSD architectures may avoid several more

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T E C H N O L O G Y
expensive future array purchases that may
be necessary over time if using traditional
arrays with more limited performance
capabilities.
SSD and storage operational costs
Of equal impact, SSD can optimize the
operational cost of storage by reducing the
number of arrays and associated software
that must be maintained, reducing the
amount of floor space consumed, and
avoiding duplicative array hardware that
must be powered and cooled. Over time,
there is little doubt that a total cost of
ownership case can be made for any SSD by
examining the sum total of these costs in
detail. With scalable SSD, these benefits can
be leveraged to greater effect once again by
reducing the need for multiple array
purchases that may be necessary over time
if using traditional arrays with more limited
performance capabilities.
Moreover,
scalable SSD will also avoid the significant
operational costs associated with migrating
data, or dividing workloads where
traditional arrays with limited total
performance are used.

Taneja Group Opinion

Architecture
makes
for
enormous
differences between storage solutions, and
SSD calls attention to this like never before.
Our recommendation is clear - do not buy

B R I E F

an array thinking that you can address

performance needs with the addition of
some expensive SSD. Look holistically at
the whole system architecture, and make
sure that the solution has the flexibility to
fully integrate SSD with your storage
practices, while scaling well beyond your
current near term requirements.
We believe unequivocally that the ultimate
success of SSD in the enterprise is
dependent upon the architecture of the
array. While flash technology will
undoubtedly find widespread adoption in
many types of devices, the SSD device itself
will not succeed to its full potential in the
enterprise without deep attention to how it
is integrated with existing storage array
systems.
Moreover, do not fool yourself into thinking
block storage falls into a couple of different
buckets and that the availability of flash
means arrays can be configured for any
need. In reality, classic array architectures
may already keep users from reaching the
full potential of their storage technology.
Scalable array solutions like the EqualLogic
PS6000 will leverage SSD to greater effect
by applying SSD to performance problems
across a wide pool of storage volumes.
Meanwhile scalability can unlock the door
to more cost effective SSD device use that
will magnify the cost benefits of SSD.

.
. NOTICE: The information and product recommendations made by the TANEJA GROUP are based upon public information and sources
and may also include personal opinions both of the TANEJA GROUP and others, all of which we believe to be accurate and reliable.
However, as market conditions change and not within our control, the information and recommendations are made without warranty of
any kind. All product names used and mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. The TANEJA GROUP, Inc. assumes
no responsibility or liability for any damages whatsoever (including incidental, consequential or otherwise), caused by your use of, or
reliance upon, the information and recommendations presented herein, nor for any inadvertent errors which may appear in this document.

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