Scale Radically Changes Price Performance with Fully Automated Flash Tiering
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Sorry for the Press Release copy, but we wanted to get a uniform announcement out about our new automated flash tiering technology and HEAT.
Scale Computing, the leader in hyperconverged technology across the mid-market today announced the integration of flash-enabled automated storage tiering into its award-winning HC3 platform.
This update to Scale’s converged HC3 system adds hybrid storage including SSD and spinning disk with HyperCore Enhanced Automated Tiering (HEAT). Scale’s HEAT technology uses a combination of built-in intelligence, data access patterns, and workload priority to automatically optimize data across disparate storage tiers within the cluster.
“Hyperconvergence is nothing if not about simplicity and cost. But it is also about performance, especially in the SMB to mid-size enterprises where most, if not all workloads will simultaneously run on a single cluster of nodes,” said Arun Taneja, Founder and Consulting Analyst of the Taneja Group. “Introducing flash into a hard disk based system is easy; the question is how do you do it so that it maintains low cost and simplicity while boosting performance. This is what Scale has done in these new models. The only decision the IT admin and the business user need to make is to determine the importance of the application and its priority. After that flash is invisible to them. The only thing visible is better application performance. This is how it should be.”
Scale Computing’s HC3 platform brings storage, servers, virtualization, and high availability together in a single, comprehensive system. With no virtualization software to license and no external storage to buy, HC3 solutions lower out-of-pocket costs and radically simplify the infrastructure needed to keep applications optimized and running.
This update to the HC3 HyperCore storage architecture combines Scale’s HEAT technology with SSD-hybrid nodes that add a new tier of flash storage to new or existing HC3 clusters. HEAT technology combines intelligent automation with simple, granular tuning parameters to further define flash storage utilization on a per virtual disk basis for optimal performance.
Through an easy-to-use slide bar, users can optionally tune flash priority allocation to more effectively utilize SSD storage where needed from no flash at all for a virtual disk, to virtually all flash by “turning it to 11.” Every workload is different and even a small amount of flash prioritization tuning, combined with the automated, intelligent I/O mapping, can have a big impact on the overall performance of flash storage in the HC3 cluster.
Unlike other storage systems that use flash storage only for disk caching, Scale’s HC3 virtualization platform adds flash capacity and performance to the total storage pool. Customers will immediately and automatically take advantage of the flash I/O benefits without any special knowledge about flash storage.
“Like any organization, we have applications that need maximum performance, applications where performance isn’t a priority, and still others where higher performance would be helpful but not mission critical,” said Mike O’Neil, Director of IT at Hydradyne. “But unlike some organizations, we weren’t in a position to dedicate the resources needed to support these differing workloads. With Scale, we will have an architecture in place that immediately and automatically allows VMs to take advantage of flash storage without us even thinking about storage or virtualization configuration.”
Scale’s HyperCore architecture dramatically simplifies VM storage management without VSAs (Virtual Storage Appliances), SAN protocols and file system overhead. VMs have direct access to virtual disks, allowing all storage operations to occur as efficiently as possible. HyperCore applies logic to stripe data across multiple physical storage devices in the cluster to aggregate capacity and performance. The HyperCore backplane network lets any node and any VM access any disk and is performance optimized to scale as nodes are added.
“With this release, we radically change the economics and maximize the value of flash storage for all customer segments, from the SMB to the enterprise,” said Jeff Ready, CEO of Scale Computing. “Many vendors use a flash write-cache as a way to mask otherwise sluggish performance. Instead, we have built an architecture that intelligently adjusts to the changing workloads in the datacenter, to maximize the performance value of flash storage in every environment.“
Scale is deploying its new HEAT technology across the HC3 product line and is introducing a flash storage tier as part of its HC2150 and HC4150 appliances. Available in 4- or 8-drive units, Scale’s latest offerings include one 400 or 800GB SSD with three NL-SAS HDD in 1-6TB capacities and memory up to 256GB, or two 400 or 800GB SSD with 6 NL-SAS HDD in 1-2TB capacities and up to 512 GB memory respectively. Network connectivity for either system is achieved through two 10GbE SFP+ ports per node.
The new products can be used to form new clusters, or they can be added to existing HC3 clusters. Existing workloads on those clusters will automatically utilize the new storage tier when the new nodes are added.
For additional information or to purchase, interested parties can contact Scale Computing representatives at https://www.scalecomputing.com/scale-computing-pricing-and-quotes
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Also, a more informal posting from our blog:
Turning HyperConvergence Up to 11
People seem to be asking me a lot lately about incorporating flash into their storage architecture. You probably already know that flash storage is still a lot more expensive than spinning disks. You are probably not going to need flash I/O performance for all of your workloads nor do you need to pay for all flash storage systems. That is where hybrid storage comes in.
Hybrid storage solutions featuring a combination of solid state drives and spinning disks are not new to the market, but because of the cost per GB of flash compared to spinning disk, the adoption and accessibility for most workloads is low. Small and midsize business, in particular, may not know if implementing a hybrid storage solution is right for them.
Hyperconverged infrastructure also provides the best of both worlds in terms of combining virtualization with storage and compute resources. How hyperconvergence is defined as an architecture is still up for debate and you will see various implementations with more traditional storage, and those with truly integrated storage. Either way, hyperconverged infrastructure has begun making flash storage more ubiquitous throughout the datacenter and HC3 hyperconverged clustering from Scale Computing is now making it even more accessible with our HEAT technology.
HEAT is HyperCore Enhanced Automated Tiering, the latest addition to the HyperCore hyperconvergence architecture. HEAT combines intelligent I/O mapping with the redundant, wide-striping storage pool in HyperCore to provide high levels of I/O performance, redundancy, and resiliency across both spinning and solid state disks. Individual virtual disks in the storage pool can be tuned for relative flash prioritization to optimize the data workloads on those disks. The intelligent HEAT I/O mapping makes the most efficient use of flash storage for the virtual disk following the guidelines of the flash prioritization configured by the administrator on a scale of 0-11. You read that right. Our flash prioritization goes to 11.
http://blog.scalecomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Screenshot-2016-04-19-13.07.06.png
HyperCore gives you high performing storage on both spinning disk only or hybrid tiered storage because it is designed to let each virtual disk take advantage of the speed and capacity of the whole storage infrastructure. The more resources that are added to the clusters, the better the performance. HEAT takes that performance to the next level by giving you fine tuning options for not only every workload, but every virtual disk in your cluster. Oh, and I should have mentioned it comes at a lower prices than other hyperconverged solutions.
If you still don’t know whether you need to start taking advantage of flash storage for your workloads, Scale Computing can help with free capacity planning tools to see if your I/O needs require flash or whether spinning disks still suffice under advanced, software-defined storage pooling. That is one of the advantages of a hyperconvergence solution like HC3; the guys at Scale Computing have already validated the infrastructure and provide the expertise and guidance you need.
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What's the TL:DR version?
When is it? Why should we be excited? What is it?
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@Breffni-Potter TL:DR - We (Scale) introduced SSDs next to NL-SAS drives in our HC2000 and HC4000 platforms with some awesome new tiering functionality.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Scale Radically Changes Price Performance with Fully Automated Flash Tiering:
What's the TL:DR version?
When is it? Why should we be excited? What is it?
When is it: Today (SAM has one already, so it's not theory, it's really on the market.)
Why Should You Be Excited: Simple GUI (just a slider) that makes high capacity spinning disk and high performance SSD tiering as easy as setting your desired performance priority.
What is it? Hyperconverged, Fully Automated Spinner / SSH Tiering system!
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These guys do an excellent job with their product as well. My last job got a 4 node cluster back when they were still doing the HC3x units, and it blew us out of the water how well it worked!
IIRC, They just added a 5th node not too long ago.
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@dafyre said in Scale Radically Changes Price Performance with Fully Automated Flash Tiering:
These guys do an excellent job with their product as well.
= blushes =
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@scale said:
What is it? Hyperconverged, Fully Automated Spinner / SSH Tiering system!
SSD? If SSH I'll need that acronym explained.
@scale said
Why Should You Be Excited: Simple GUI (just a slider) that makes high capacity spinning disk and high performance SSD tiering as easy as setting your desired performance priority.
Hmm, ok.
Let's assume I have zero IT knowledge or experience, how long would it take for me to go to 0, to deploying Scale in production. I'm guessing the whole product is built around click click and go rather than trawling through config settings?
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This is the post that I made about ours: http://mangolassi.it/topic/8983/new-scale-hc3-tiered-cluster-up-in-the-lab
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@Breffni-Potter SSD, not SSH (good catch). The product is designed for the IT generalist of small to mid-size businesses who doesn't have the time to specialize in every aspect of the infrastructure necessary to stand up a traditional virtualization environment. You can go from unboxing to spinning up new VMs in < 1 hr. Very "click click and go" as you guessed.
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I'm intrigued. How much of a presence does Scale have in the UK? Anyone based over here or any decent re-sellers? (not box shift distributors)
Is there a place I can go to see one
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@Breffni-Potter We have a UK office with a number of local resellers (who actually provide value beyond pushing boxes
). I have reached out to some of our local Systems Engineers to jump into the thread to make an introduction. They should be able to coordinate a time/place for you to see one. In the meantime, we do offer a weekly demo as well (http://bit.ly/HC3LiveDemo). -
@craig.theriac , thanks Craig. Hi @Breffni-Potter , I'm part of the technical team in the UK. As Craig mentions, we have kit here in the UK for on-site customer POC's. We are also at a few events this month, Spiceworld - London 10-11 May and IPEXPO - 18-19 May, where we will have live kit on display. If these events don't suit we would be happy to arrange a direct meeting(onsite or webex), whichever you would prefer?
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Nice! Sadly NOT the first HCI vendor to have a go to 11 option! (Although the first to put it in the GUI).
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Thanks for the quick response Ian.
@ian.smith said
We are also at a few events this month, Spiceworld - London 10-11 May
I'll be there! Will be interesting to look at it.
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@Breffni-Potter One of our founders - Jason Collier is on the floor at Spiceworld London as we speak
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@Aconboy said in Scale Radically Changes Price Performance with Fully Automated Flash Tiering:
@Breffni-Potter One of our founders - Jason Collier is on the floor at Spiceworld London as we speak
Oh cool. I'll try to steal some time
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@Breffni-Potter Yes, you can look for Jason Collier, Simon Marrion or Kevin Holmes who are all three present at the show.
