X-IO TechnologiesAll Flash Arrays – Saviour of the storage world ?October 2013

Jim LitkePrincipal Systems EngineerX-IO

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

State of the Market

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Lots of Hype in the Marketplace

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One Size does not fit all use cases

Increasing Performance

SATA

Hybrid Arrays

TraditionalRAID

All Flash Arrays

Incr

easin

g Ca

pacit

yGB/$

IOPS/$Performance

C

All HDD Arrays

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

What does the market think ?

http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/2870/uk-xio-wp-allflashvshybridstorageresearch-130618-final.pdf

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Total 1001-3000 employees

More than 3000 employees

Financial services Manufacturing Retail, distribu-tion and transport

Other com-mercial sector

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

How clear are you about the benefits offered by flash-only arrays vs. traditional HDD arrays?

Market Clarity

Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #1: HDD-based arrays are history – the future is all-flash

44%

29%

14%

12%

1%

Which of the following is the most ideal storage solution for your

business? Mix of hard disk & enterprise gradeflash with real-time tiering of data

All hard disk based, with SSD cache

All flash based, enterprise grade

All hard disk based

All flash based, consumer grade

Level of belief: LowReality: Myth – Users clearly favor a “right tool for the job” approach

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #2: All-flash is faster than hybrid storage

Level of belief: HighReality: Myth - Different media types provide varying benefits

• 76% believe all-flash is faster• Flash can lower latency for

random reads• Sequential writes is another

story• Must evaluate real-world

workloads rather than marketing benchmarks

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #3: All-flash always runs cooler and requires less power than hybrid storage

Level of belief: HighReality: Myth – Real life customer tests have proven this

• 75% believe this perception • Flash modules/SSD’s draw less

power as raw components• Storage arrays are not just raw

storage• CPU’s, cache memory, etc are

required

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #4: All-flash is more reliable than hybrid storage

Level of belief: MediumReality: Myth – Hybrid arrays can deliver true “zero touch” duty cycles of over 7 years

• 40% agree. Not majority, but significant• Due in large part to proliferation of SATA in

enterprise arrays• Cell failure on NAND silicon results in shorter

duty cycle• Proper vibration dampening and cooling, and

self-healing technology can result in failure rates as low as 0.1% per annum

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #5: All-flash costs the same as hybrid storage

Level of belief: LowReality: Myth – Customers should look at real-life workloads and 5 year TCO

• 60% do not expect price parity for several years to come

• High cost of all-flash cited as single biggest barrier to deployment

• Dedupe and compression claim to lower amount of raw storage

• Ironically, it’s usually low performance datasets that benefit most from dedupe/compression

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #6: Using consumer-grade flash is acceptable for most enterprises

Level of belief: LowReality: Myth – Customers clearly see the risk of such technologies

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Seven Deadly Myths

Myth #7: Most businesses need the performance all-flash offers

Level of belief: LowReality: Myth – For most orginizations, all flash arrays are complete overkill for their requirements

• 90% believe no actual need for promised performance

• Less than 10% of businesses peaked above 100,000 IOPS

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

28%

21%18%

12%

12%

8% 3%

What two things do you most look for when buying high-performance storage?

Reliability

Price

Speed

Operating costs

High availability

Support

Long warranty

Price / Peformance / RELIABILITY

Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential 15

Analysts finally taking note

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Achieving the Best of Both Worlds

Traditional Enterprise

HDD Storage

High Performance

Flash StorageStrengths

PriceProven Technology

Low Risk

WeaknessesLatency

Perceived ReliabilityDensity / Scale

StrengthsI/O Performance

Low LatencyLow Power*

WeaknessesFinite Lifetime

Mixed workload abilityCost

BalancedPerformance

CostReliability

Hard Drives for…Capacity

Sequential WorkloadsLongevity

Flash Drives for…Low Latency

Random WorkloadsFootprint

Real-Time

Hybrid Storage

• Only real-time Hybrid Storage available

• High Performance

• Low Power• True

Balance of Cost, Risk & Growth

• Unique 5 year inclusive warranty

Balancing Cost, Growth & Risk

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Consistent Performance

High Availability

Zero-Touch Reliability

Scale-Out Manageme

nt

Risk

Cost Growth

AcceleratedPerformance

IntelligentStorageElement

DeliveringHighest Performance in the Storage marketplace with HDDs

Hyper ISE

with CADP

DeliveringSSD

performance with low cost,

TCO and operational

simplicity

Performance where it’s needed

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

• The requirement High Performance Storage for a bespoke app – large sequential write

followed by random reads

• The competition Whiptail & Violin Memory

• The challenge Be “good enough” AND help the customer’s energy problems

• The result Performance the same Power usage 50% lower than Violin Five year CAPEX cost 33% of Violin price Additional concerns around Violin roadmap and serviceability

Proof from the field

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

The X-IO Effect

Large Housing Association

UK

Reduced virtualisation support calls by 80% with capex spend at less than 70% of incumbent storage vendor

Industrial ManufacturerGermany

Reduced SAP Transaction times by 90% with an investment of $100,000

Retail Banking ISVReduced “close of business” time from 4 hours to 40 minutes and changed storage footprint by 93%

Cloud Services ProviderUK

Increased I/O performance by 25x and improved VM deployment speed by 20x

Large Independent School District - US

Reduced virtual desktop login times by over 90%

X-IO Technologies – Confidential

Storage is all about Balance

Risk

Cost Growth

• Hard drives are far from dead Capacity where it’s needed – Don’t focus too much on IOps

• Flash is a tool, not a solution Activity based tiering can be dangerous – Use real time IO analysis

• The storage marketplace is changing Storage should provide performance and reliability – not whistles and bells

• Look at 5 year TCO, not just acquisition price Also balance $/GB and $/IOP – Not mutually exclusive

THANK YOU

Jim Litkejim.litke@x-io.com