Full spectrum solid state

On the other side of the storage network, are solutions that are likely to be more recognizable. There are also significantly more vendors “south” of the storage network border. Neuralytix recognizes roughly 15 vendors, most of which are start-ups. There are four points of integration “south” of the storage network. Each integration point has a varying degree of complexity and sophistication. These four integration points are depicted below in Figure 2.

Solid State Storage Systems (SSSS)
Solid State Storage Systems (SSSS) is arguably the most hotly contested segment of the solid state market. The vendors in this market look to usurp the traditional storage system with all-flash arrays. The argument made consistently by all vendors is that the performance of flash over HDDs is not questionable. It will perform significantly better.

They further argue that through the integration of cost effective multi layer cell (MLC) flash technology and intelligent data efficiency technologies (such as deduplication or compression), that the cost of a SSSS is comparable to traditional storage systems. As noted earlier, SSSS differ from SSSD as they integrate a data management platform that mirror those found in traditional storage systems.

These include (but are not limited to) snapshot technology, replication technology, high availability fail-over storage controllers. In some cases, vendors have also provided common network file systems protocols including NFS and CIFS.

All flash based storage vendors argue that the environmental benefits (that translate directly into the reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) are critical factors to consider. Neuralytix concurs with this assertion; although, in many cases, the most notable reduction in TCO is physical footprint. One of the vendors in this space claims that it has helped a major financial services client reduce footprint by a factor of over 20 to one.

Vendors providing solid state storage systems (SSSS):
£ EMC with its as yet unavailable XtremIO solution;
£ GridIron Systems with its OneAppliance FlashCube solution;
£ Kaminario with its K2 solution;
£ Nimbus Data Systems with its S-series and Gemini solutions;
£ Oracle/Sun with its F5100 solution;
£ Pure Storage with its FlashArray solution;
£ SolidFire with its SolidFire storage system;
£ Skyera with its Skyhawk solution;
£ Violin Memory with its 6000-series solution; and
£ WhipTail with its Accela and Invicta solutions.

As can be seen, there are at least ten notable vendors in this space that Neuralytix recognizes for the purposes of this report.

Of all the flash solutions, the SSSS vendors are likely to produce the most disruption to the storage systems market. They will attempt to challenge traditional beliefs that HDD technology is required and is the most economical approach to mass data storage. These vendors have the best opportunities in industry-specific applications, and the mid-market. Mid-market end-users are known for their cost-sensitivity. They are less known for their reluctance to do technology refreshes. Given that flash technologies represent a next generation in storage systems, many will be attracted by the relative cost differences between traditional storage systems and SSSS, as well as with the promised performance capabilities of SSSS.

Intelligent Solid State Caching Appliances (SSCA)
Perhaps the singularly most under-recognized solution in the flash storage market is the solid state caching appliance (SSCA). These appliances sit in-band on the storage network and cache read and/or writes I/O’s at the network level. The appliances have specialized operating systems.

These solutions serve to provide minimal disruption to existing environments, while still providing the performance benefits of solid state storage technologies.

Vendors providing Solid State Caching Appliances (SSCA):

£ Alacritech with its ANX1500 solution
£ Astute Networks with its ViSX solution
£ Avere Systems with its FXT solutions
£ CacheIQ with its RapidCache solution
£ Dataram with its XcelaSAN solution
£ GridIron with its OneAppliance TurboCharger family of solutions
£ Violin Memory with its vCACHE solution

These vendors differentiate themselves by the type of caching it provides. Some provide SAN caching, while others provide NAS caching.

Cache extension for storage controllers
There are only two competitors in this category: IBM and NetApp. Each takes a completely different approach.

IBM, in its XIV storage system uniquely uses SSDs to extend the cache memory in the XIV controllers. The SSDs are not a tier, and not available as part of the general storage pool. This gives IBM a very flexible design since IBM can take advantage of higher capacity SSDs as they become available; while maintaining an excellent price:performance ratio as it exclusively uses serial-attached SCSI (SAS) nearly drives.
Using SSDs also give IBM the flexibility of altering and optimizing the “hot” active data to mass storage capacity ratio. This design also removes IBM’s ties to manufacturing or outdated engineering.

NetApp is unique in its use of flash memory to extend its storage controller with flash memory. A FlashCache card can be inserted into the NetApp storage controller that extends the available cache past the standard configuration.

In many instances, to gain an improvement in overall storage systems performance, this simple addition can be sufficient. The solution allows end-users to extend the life of NetApp storage by giving it a mid-life “shot in the arm” of computer adrenaline in the form of flash memory.

Some argue that EMC’s FASTcache is a competitor against NetApp’s FlashCache, although Neuralytix does not agree. EMC’s FASTcache, available on its VNX family of storage systems, integrates advanced tiering software (FAST) with SSDs that are integrated into the hybrid storage systems. NetApp’s FlashCache on the other hand,
is a separate and distinct hardware modules for NetApp’s controllers

Vendor providing cache extension for storage controllers:
£ IBM with its SSD caching in XIV
£ NetApp with its FlashCache.

Solid State Disk Drives (SSDs)
The simplest way of introducing flash memory into storage is simply by adding or replacing HDDs with solid state disks (SSDs). Simply put, SSDs are flash memory that have been housed in a standard HDD physical casing and intelligence has been integrated to make flash memory act and be presented just like an HDD.

Although EMC must be recognized as the first to introduce SSDs into traditional storage system, essentially making its arrays a hybrid storage system, almost all traditional storage systems vendors now have options to integrate SSDs into their storage systems.

Vendors providing Solid State Disks (SSDs):
£ Intel
£ OCZ
£ Samsung
£ SanDisk
£ Seagate
£ STEC
£ Western Digital

Software is key
When it is all said and done, software is key. Whether it is a firmware upgrade for a storage controller, as in the case of NetApp’s FlashCache, or the integration of an entire storage operating system found in SSSS, software is ultimately what will make or break flash memory.

Even in traditional and hybrid storage systems, the need for auto-tiering software makes SSDs more than just another disk medium. The tiering software brings value through automation.

In the case of solid state solutions “north” of the storage network, software will help ensure that the right I/O’s land on the flash, and the inappropriate I/O’s write through to the backend traditional storage.

NetApp is noted above with its update to its Data ONTAP operating system on its storage controllers to take advantage of FlashCache. Commendation must also be extended to Fusion-io (through its acquisition of ioTurbine) and EMC with its combination of VFCache and FAST.

In the virtual environment, the virtual environment, accommodations must be made to override the hypervisor’s management of I/O’s that can ultimately be an interleaved set of I/O’s originating and destined for any number of virtual machines (VMs). Fusion-io had the foresight to see that, and through its acquisition of ioTurbine, was able to provide software that bypasses the hypervisor disk management, and allow VMs to write directly to its PCIe-based flash devices. Ultimately, this takes away additional layers of abstraction, complexity and latency. It also gives the end-user more control on how the resource is used and deployed.

EMC, with a more comprehensive set of flash offerings (both currently available and announced), saw the opportunity to leverage its PowerPath software in a similar manner to Fusion-io. Since EMC also had traditional and hybrid storage arrays the VFCache, it is able to intelligently manage those I/O’s that could and should be cached at the server level. Those that can be cached on solid-state only volumes, and those I/O’s that should be auto-tiered to lower cost storage.

IBM may have entered later than its competitors, but upon completion and integration of its announced acquisition of Texas Memory Systems (TMS), IBM’s portfolio of solid state solutions will measure up competitively against major rival EMC. IBM announced delivery of its next generation EasyTier software that will allow it to extend the functionality that integrates with PCIe and SSSD solutions (TMS’ RamSan solutions). To demonstrate its commitment to these solutions, it demonstrated the feature at its recent IBM Edge event in June.

Recognition should also be given to Violin Memory for its continued development of software solutions with its OEM and server systems partners.

With the majority of solutions that are marketed being hybrid solutions, either as a tier (automated or otherwise), or as additional performance enhancement point solutions for specific applications, management software will also be a critical element in terms of which vendors end-users will ultimately end up choosing.

For example, it is less likely for an end-user to integrate storage solutions from three different vendors (such as the incumbent storage systems vendor, plus a server based flash vendor, augmented and managed by a third automated tiering and data management vendor).

Neuralytix reiterates its position that vendors must invest in solutions that cover multiple integration points along the solid state spectrum – all flash, hybrid, server based and storage systems based.

Neuralytix™ perspective & business value assessment
Neuralytix has stated previously that it believes that flash storage is going to have a similar impact on the storage market as technologies such as RAID and SATA.

All end-users should integrate flash-based storage technologies into their environments, but only after careful consideration and consultation with their vendors and resellers regarding the most optimized placement and deployment of flash.

Start-up flash vendors are not going to become leading storage systems vendors overnight. There are many enhancements that will continue to evolve as it relates to solid state storage, in particular around the memory technology.

Do not expect solid state storage capacity pricing to match HDD pricing. The ultra high areal-density found in today’s 3.5” HDD technology (those HDDs that have a capacity at or above 2TB) will still make HDDs the most economical random access storage medium for a very long time.

For end-users and vendors alike, although this report specifically excludes those solutions that are capable of supporting hybrid SSD and HDD solutions, Neuralytix believes that these solutions will be the dominant go-to-market form factor at least for the next three to five years. Companies including (but not exclusively) Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp have spent significant development funds in enabling their traditional storage systems to be able to support and benefit from the inclusion of solid state storage.

Some companies, such as HP have even gone to the extent of marketing variations of its traditional storage systems with solid state only configurations. This is a good way for these companies to enamor the installed base to adopt all-flash solutions.

Winners and Losers
The most obvious winners are the flash memory chip vendors – Intel, Micron, Samsung and Toshiba in particular.

The speculators who believe flash technology means the death of HDD are grossly incorrect to the point of demonstrating acute short-sightedness. In the short term, the HDD vendors will see a slowing in demand for high performance disk drives with a shift over the longer to towards high areal-density HDDs. Neuralytix believes that in the long term, the demand for HDD capacities may return close to historic levels as through the need for reliable data access resulting from data processing output, Big Data and compliance activities.

The biggest winners will be vendors who provide solutions at various integration points and complementary software solutions to take advantage of these solutions for the multitude of various workloads and I/O demands.

Amongst them are EMC, Violin Memory and IBM. Other vendors include NetApp through its partnership with Fusion-io, HP, through its partnership with Violin Memory and Oracle. Oracle is distinct in that although they have multiple solutions addressing multiple integration points, its solutions are purely designed to optimize the Oracle RDBMS.

While no one is likely to argue over Oracle’s leadership position in the RDBMS and transaction processing workloads, there are many new and emerging workloads that demand very high I/O performance and leverage non-relational database technologies. These include analytical, Big Data and high-performance computing environments.
IBM is likely to be the dark horse in this race. Its decision to acquire TMS plus its leadership in the development of next generation non-volatile, commercially viable memory solutions including Phase Change Memory (PCM) is likely to put them in a different class altogether.

The biggest losers in this competition are those vendors that do not provide solutions in multiple solutions that address a variety of integration points and those that are unable to develop (or partner to develop) software solutions that can optimize their solutions for key applications and workloads.

This whole market is still very nascent. The market should expect continued merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the next 36 months as major vendors take the decision to buy over build.

Neuralytix believes that the winning integration points will be the PCIe card, and a variation of the SSSD. Next generation SSSD’s are likely to be more aligned to SSSS. A combination of data management software, solid state storage management software, and capacity sharing using an industry standard x86 servers with PCIe based flash is most likely to be the next generation of SSSS, with SSSDs being a more exclusive use case.

In terms of integration points “south” of the storage network, expect to see a continued development and variation on the hybrid storage system and storage network caching. Taking a very long term speculative view (say, towards 2020), Neuralytix believes that there will ultimately be only three integration points – the in-server integration point (“north” of the storage network); the hybrid storage system (“south” of the storage network); and the highly intelligent, highly cached network itself.

The bottom line
Neuralytix believes that technology should drive business value. The business value assessment of solid state storage is best viewed in terms of output and productivity.

From a revenue perspective, end-users should forecast and budget for top line stability or growth as the primary ROI of investing in solid state technologies. From a productivity perspective, end-users cannot mistake performance for capacity. Combining these two factors, organizations should take both the top line and bottom lines into account when investing in new technologies such as solid state storage.

Smaller organizations may be attracted by the simplicity and performance characteristics of SSSS; but if a SSSS does not decrease the required capacity investment with a corresponding improvement to the top line, then this would be a poor investment.

Organizations should also consider the long term opportunities for integrating solid state storage. Relying on a key tenet of Neuralytix’s beliefs as it relates to Big Data, “if you’re not doing it, your competitors are™”. Ask what you can do with your data, and how these and
new processes can provide a competitive advantage for your organization.