Accelerating Performance in a Virtual Environment: Using Server-side Flash Storage

Steve Fingerhut, VP of Marketing, LSI Accelerated Solutions Division

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LSI: Who We Are

LSI Corporation is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together.

Industry Leadership  Strong relationship with Cisco from

their first entry into Servers

 25 years of storage leadership and innovation

 33M+ Storage controller units shipped

 Technology and market share leader in Enterprise flash

LSI is Everywhere Data Exists

Who is LSI

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SAN

The Datacenter Before virtualization

• Each server ran a single application –  Inefficient server utilization –  Lack of shared resources

Traditional SAN

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SAN

SAN SAN

The Datacenter

SAN

SAN

SAN

SAN

SAN SAN

Before virtualization

• Each server ran a single application –  Inefficient server utilization –  Lack of shared resources

• Datacenter complexity grew with every user or app added

Overall data center productivity and effectiveness is weakened

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SAN

SAN SAN

SAN

SAN

SAN

SAN

SAN SAN

Virtualization: Tangible Benefits • Datacenter simplification with

reduced server footprint

• Efficient server utilization

• Responsive provisioning and flexibility

High transaction rates with minimal response times is no longer just a goal, but a strategic imperative in virtual environments

SAN

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Performance Impacts • Storage performance

physically cannot keep –  CPU performance has increased

exponentially –  Hard drive performance has

lagged

SAN

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Performance Impacts

Potentially limits some of the benefits gained from virtualization

SAN

• Storage performance physically cannot keep –  CPU performance has increased

exponentially –  Hard drive performance has

lagged

• Data cannot be provided to the virtual machines fast enough –  Virtual applications are starved

for data

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How Do You Solve This Challenge?

What other options are there?

Replace your storage?

Replace all HDDs with SSDs

Buy more servers?

Adding more DRAM?

“Short-stroke” HDDs?

Cisco and LSI Bringing You High Performance to Provide Application Acceleration in the Data Center

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How Do You Solve This Challenge?

Replace your storage?

Replace all HDDs with SSDs

Buy more servers?

Adding more DRAM?

“Short-stroke” HDDs?

Acceleration Software Solutions

The Solution:

LSI Nytro XD EMC VFCache

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Application Acceleration • Dramatic application acceleration for

Cisco Blade servers

• Automated intelligent caching of frequently accessed data with Nytro XD or EMC VFCache software

SAN

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Nytro XD Nytro XD

Application Acceleration

Improved IT agility

SAN

Nytro XD

Nytro XD • Dramatic application acceleration for Cisco Blade servers

• Automated intelligent caching of frequently accessed data with Nytro XD or EMC VFCache software

• Optimized data IO rates for faster virtual server/physical server performance

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Demonstrated Results with LSI Nytro™ XD—Virtualization

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Nytro XD Transparently Accelerates Virtual Environments

Nytro XD with SAN

SAN

Nytro XD with SAN

SAN 3.8x More Transactions

35x Faster

SAN

Application

Operating System

Nytro XD Nytro WarpDrive + XD Caching SW

Nytro XD Software

App Data Hot Data Cold Data

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Demonstrated Results with LSI Nytro™ XD

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/Se

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nse

Tim

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s)

Nytro XD Transparently Accelerates SAN or DAS Arrays

10x Faster

iSCSI SAN

Nytro XD with iSCSI SAN

10x faster

iSCSI SAN

Nytro XD with iSCSI SAN

10x More Transactions

SAN

Application

Operating System

Nytro XD Nytro WarpDrive + XD Caching SW

Nytro XD Software

App Data Hot Data Cold Data

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Nytro Predictor: Easy as 1, 2, 3

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Why LSI Nytro in Flash

• World’s best flash management • Maximum available CPU, memory for performance

Performance Leadership

Optimized for Virtualization

Uniquely Positioned in PCIe Flash Solutions

Proven Enterprise Experience and

Partnership

•  Alleviates the I/O bottlenecks that are result of virtualization • More VMs can be handled by the same physical servers

•  Fully offloaded architecture does not tax server CPU •  Based on industry-leading Flash Storage Processor

technology

• Generations of successful validation in server ecosystem •  Based on a joint partnership between Cisco and LSI

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To Learn More

1. Meet with Cisco team members 2. Visit the LSI booth, #1921 Moscone

South – Real-world demonstrations – LSI theater

3. Go to www.thesmarterwaytofaster.com