True Efficiency & Converged Storage for Virtual Server and Desktop Environments Glenn Stewart - Systems Engineer Frank Moll – Eastern Canada Sales Manager

© 2011 Nimble Storage, Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute.

True Efficiency & Converged Storage for Virtual Server and Desktop Environments

Glenn Stewart - Systems Engineer

Frank Moll – Eastern Canada Sales Manager

© 2011 Nimble Storage, Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. 2

Company Snapshot

Company Snapshot‒ Founded in January 2008; Started shipping in August 2010‒ Headquartered in San Jose, CA‒ 170 employees and rapidly growing‒ Operations in US, Canada and Europe

Record-Setting Momentum Since Launch‒ Revenue ramp faster than any storage array startup‒ Employee base has quadrupled in the last 12 months‒ Rapidly growing installed base of over 400 customers

Foundations for Innovative Technology‒ Leadership team with deep technical expertise and industry experience‒ Top tier investors :


The Founding Premise – Capacity/Performance @ Odds

Can we optimize all of these

simultaneously?Data

ProtectionEase of

administration

Performance optimization

Capacity optimization

Technology Enablers1. Flash – a dramatic change!!

2. High density, low cost drives

3. Multi-core CPUs


The Nimble Storage Paradigm

Performance ANDCapacity Efficiency

Radically Better Data Protection

Pain-FreeOperations

Nimble Storage

True efficiency.

Converged storage.

Today

Server

VMVMVM

VM

– OR –

Server

VMVMVM

VM

Primary

Backup

DisasterRecovery

Applications

HighRPM

Drives

HighCapacityDrives

HighCapacityDrives


Nimble Optimized for Virtual Environments

Big performance and density gains Consolidate performance hungry apps Dramatically increase VM densityHuge storage savings 2–4x compression Zero copy clones saves up to 95% in

space Thin snapshots require 50x–100x less

space than full copiesNative stack integrations vStorage APIs enable rapid

provisioning Instant clones from gold images

available through vCenter plug-ins

VMware vSphere

vStorage APIs for Array Integration

Nimble vCenter Plug-ins


Better DR and Backups

Pain-FreeOperations

API


Nimble VMware Integration

Features Installed Components Description

SRM integration Nimble SRA Allows integration and interoperability with VMware Site Recovery Manager

iSCSI Connection Management Nimble Connection Service (CIM provider)

Nimble PSP

Allows efficient connection management to Nimble arrays in a VMware environment.Allows efficient path management to Nimble arrays in a VMware environment.

VAAI – WRITE-SAME Nimble OS (built-in) Enables WRITE-SAME VAAI API for fast disk creation.

VAAI – ATSVAAI – UNMAP

Nimble OS (built-in) – Q2/3 Nimble OS (built-in) – Q2/3

Enables Atomic test and hardware lockingEnables reclaiming of deleted block data

VAAI – Copy Offload Nimble OS (built-in) – Q2/3 VAAI – Enables hardware-assisted storage copy

vCenter integration vCenter plugin Enables Nimble-specific plug-in within vCenter for creating and managing datastores on Nimble arrays.

VMware synchronized snapshots (formerly known as VMware NPM)

Nimble OS (built-in) Enables application consistent snapshots within VMware environments.

VASA Integration Nimble VASA Provider – Q2/Q3 VAAI – Enables vSphere VASA APIs


VDI Challenges and Stresses

User experience demand

Cost per desktop

Impact on existing virtualization infrastructure

Proper sizing

Growth

Tuning

Protection (Backup and DR)

Administration (Overcoming complexity)

VDI Infrastructure

Hypervisor


VDI Demands Responsive, High-Performance Storage

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

WritesReadsIO

PS

Boot Storm

Workday

AV Scansand Patches

VDI Storage Requirements for Hundreds Desktops

9:00 AM 6:00 PM 10:00 PM


Inline Compression

DRAM

NVR

AM

NVR

AM

Variable-size blocks enable fast inline compression, saving 30-75%

Unique ability to compress data even for performance-sensitive applications

NIMBLE ARRAY

Nimble’s CASL Architecture


High-Capacity Disk Storage

Inline Compression

DRAM

All Data

NVR

AM

NVR

AM

NIMBLE ARRAY


CASL delivers very high write performance by always writing data sequentially to disk: – HDDs are poor at random IO

but good at sequential I/O– CASL always organizes

random writes into large sequential stripes

Using low-cost, high-density HDDs coupled with compression lowers costs substantially



Inline Compression

DRAM

All Data Large Adaptive Flash Cache

NVR

AM

NVR

AM

Cache-worthyData

NIMBLE ARRAY


CASL uses Flash SSDs as a cache to accelerate reads

CASL is over 10 times more cost-effective in using flash:– MLC flash: Converting random

writes to sequential writes minimizes “write amplification”, allowing the use of MLC SSDs

– No RAID overhead: CASL uses flash as a cache, thus avoiding the overhead of RAID protection

– Compression: Data on flash is compressed, saving space



Inline Compression

DRAM

All Data Large Adaptive Flash Cache

NVR

AM

NVR

AM

Cache-worthyData

NIMBLE ARRAY


CASL facilitates hundreds of backups in the same system:– Space efficient backups– Backup windows completely

eliminated as backups are near-instantaneous

– Restore time is in seconds Local replication facilitates

instantaneous failover in the event of a system failure

WAN efficient replication facilitates disaster recoveryIntegrated Backup

DR Site


Major Space and Power Reduction

30U replaced by 3U

• Replaced 30u of storage • with 3u of Nimble from a • space perspective.

• On the same CS240 we were able to cut processing time of a Informix DB from 1hr45min to 42 min!

• DB was VMotioned over from a EMC Cx310 with 40 300GB FC 4GB drives to a Nimble CS240.

• This is just one example of what our customers are experiencing


A Better Paradigm for Backup, DR, and Data Recovery

Hypervisor “By capturing virtual desktops via snapshot technology, the complete state of the desktop is protected. This also enables multiple recovery options, including physical-to-virtual, virtual-to-physical and virtual-to-virtual.” – Lauren Whitehouse, ESG

Cost-effective replication and cascaded snapshots (vaulting) simplifies DR as well as failover

Application and VM consistent


Radically Better Data Protection

Pain-FreeOperations

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/en-us/default.aspx



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Pain-Free OperationsPerformance AND

Capacity EfficiencyRadically Better Data Protection

Pain-FreeOperations

Easy to configure and use

Proactive wellness: beyond support

Deep application integration

Single SKU for all features

Intuitive management; Simple UI

Non-disruptive software upgrades

Real-time telemetry and health checks

Automated alerting and case creation

Configurable secure remote access

Deep VMware and Microsoft Integration

Application consistent data protection

Pre-configured application profiles


Observations & Results

Workloads are “interesting”‒ IOPS is not a best measure – latency (user experience) is better‒ IO sizes across the board – 4K to 64K+ (mostly random)‒ read/write ratios trend toward 50/50 (or as much as 20/80)‒ producing workloads is tough – agreeing on results – tougher‒ variances can be problematic

boot storms, login storms, scans, updates, backups steady state – light user -> heavy user ??

Test environments are tricky to manage‒ managing large “real” workloads‒ effect of hypervisor configuration (server, network etc.)‒ Order of Magnitude workload shift


”Tearless” VDI Storage Performance & Capacity Requirements

VDIRequirements

Controllers

Backup

SSD*

15k SAS

SATA

Swap - 500 GB

OS Base Image250 GB

User Data10,000 GB

User Profiles1,000 GB

OS Replicas1,500 GB

Required IOPS10,000

Nimble Storage Tiered Storage



Nimble Tuned for VDI

Volume Tunable RecommendationVolume Size Example 500GB-1TB

(enough to hold 25-50 Desktops at ~20GB/desktop)

Performance Policy – Block Size 4K(default = VMware)

Performance Policy - Compression Yes

Performance Policy - Caching Yes,

Volume Reserve 10-20%

Snapshot Reserve 10-20%(only on critical user volumes – assume Desktop volumes only snapped during IT ops)


Nimble Storage VDI Benefits

Increased performance and density‒ Flash caching supports boot storms‒ Sequential layout accelerates writes,

supports AV / patching operations‒ Result: 10x more desktop density

VDI Infrastructure

Hypervisor




supports AV / patching operations‒ Result: 10x more desktop density

Huge storage savings ‒ 50% inline compression‒ Thin provisioning‒ Zero-copy clones for master versioning‒ Result: 50-90% space savings

VDI Infrastructure

Hypervisor




supports AV / patching operations‒ 10x more desktop density‒ Result: 10x more desktop density

Huge storage savings ‒ 50% inline compression‒ Thin provisioning‒ Zero-copy clones for master Versioning‒ Result: 50-90% space savings

Improved data protection‒ Take frequent snapshots with no

performance impact‒ Efficient VDI storage replication‒ Result: complete, affordable backup

and disaster recovery

VDI Infrastructure

Hypervisor

OFFSITE

ONSITE


Nimble Products

Model Usable Capacity

Capacity with Compression

# of SSD Drives

# of SATA Drives Controllers

Active Network Ports

CS210CS220CS240CS260

4 TB8 TB

16 TB24TB

Approx. 8TBApprox. 16TBApprox. 32TBApprox. 48TB

2 (80GB)4 (80GB)4 (160GB)4 (320GB)

8 (1TB)12 (1TB)12 (2TB)12 (3TB)

DualDualDualDual

4666

CS220-10GCS240-10GCS260-10G

8 TB16 TB24TB

Approx. 16TBApprox. 32TBApprox. 48TB

4 (80GB)4 (160GB)4 (320GB)

12 (1TB)12 (2TB)12 (3TB)

DualDualDual

444


Canadian Clients

http://ca.startech.com/

http://www.torkinmanes.com/

http://www.maplesfundservices.com/


Learn More

For more information, visit www.nimblestorage.com: Detailed product and solution information White papers, analyst reports, and best practices guides Local events and conferences

For an onsite/Webex briefing, contact [email protected]

© 2011 Nimble Storage, Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute.

Thank You

Documents

True Efficiency & Converged Storage for Virtual Server and Desktop Environments Glenn Stewart - Systems Engineer Frank Moll – Eastern Canada Sales Manager