xflash

Dave Vellante

so describe in more detail - what exactly is x-flash?

xFlash is treating flash as an eXtension of DRAM - instead of going though the traditional SCSI stack multiple time to commit a write, Atomic writes do that only once and very quickly.

Dave Vellante so xflash by definition bypasses disk protocols?

Dave V - yes - no multi-phase disk protocols. The write can be completed in sub-microsecond time - down to 100 nanoseconds (not allowing for load on the system).

David Floyer7

However, for future designs off applications where analytics are integrated with transactions it will be an essential ingredient to have very low latency IO

3 Votes Vote

Stuart Miniman

there are a number of solutions (@pernixdata @qlogic @proximaldata) that network flash, how is this different?

Ed Walsh

Do you anticipate future application designs will intelligently leverage a relatively small pool of high performance storage and bulk tier of storage with rich data services?

3 Votes Vote

Dave Vellante that's a great question - will those data services by SW-defined and independent of media or will they be "superglued" to the device?

David Floyer Ed - absolutely - a key requirement is the ability to ensure that active data is in the flash, and that there is an efficient way of taking data from the active layer to a lower-cost inactive layer. The key to this is an meta-data architecture.

Ed Walsh

It seems a great opportunity for app vendors to optimize data placement since the app can intelligently anticipate needs

David Floyer0

Good question Dave - for todays application designs - those who have very fast growing interconnected databases.

Dave Vellante

traditional databases or new key value stores?

Both - traditional databases have great locking challenges and will need low latency quicker - KV stores will have greater transaction capability but have other constraints

Dave Vellante0

So @dfloyer...we're talking about sub microsec response times...how many customers really need that capability?

In the Algorithm Era applications will be replacing most operational human decisions - those algorithms will be looking a vast amounts of data to make decisions (e.g., real time pricing). Increased data and history will mean better decisions!

Dave Vellante so what happens to the humans in your scenario?

David Floyer The smart ones own the algorithms ... the rest work in Amazon warehouses for $7/hour

Crowd Captain1

How does virtualization play with the new hyperscale flash market in the enterprise

Stuart Miniman

article posted today from @VMwareStorage discussing EMC ScaleIO with VMware http://cormachogan.com/2013/12/05/a-closer-look-at-emc-scaleio/

Ed Walsh

@virtualswede posted a good series of ScaleiO architecture and performance with virtualization http://purevirtual.eu/2013/11/29/microsoft-sql-server-testing-with-scaleio-on-vmware/

Stuart Miniman1

We've seen huge growth in hybrid flash arrays, big launches of all flash arrays - can a solution be built of even lower latency which still having enterprise functionality?

The business driver towards high performance systems will be applications that can radically lower the cost of doing business. Imagine you are OpenTable and you want to provide special offers to customers near a client restaurant. You have <1 sec!...

Dave Vellante0

Here's the @dfloyer piece on server san (X-Flash) http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Enabling_Real-time_Big_Data_Processing_with_Xflash_-_Very_Low_Latency_Server_SANs

Stuart Miniman0

Welcome to the #xflash CrowdChat - discussing a new category of flash: very low latency server SANs