EMC VFCache is a Simple Read Cache

I was not pre-briefed on this product, and I’m not all that thrilled at the prospect of attending a launch webinar, so what you read here is based on my own research and reading of the available information as of this morning.

When EMC announced Project Lightning last year, company insiders expressed surprise to me. It seems that many had never heard of the project, and those that had didn’t think it was far enough along to be announced. I didn’t even bother to write about the Project Lightning announcement at the time. But today EMC unveils the production product that came out of Project Lightning.

VFCache is a filter driver that caches writes

EMC VFCache appears to be a simple and straightforward offering:

1. A PCIe SSD from Micron or LSI sits in the server and acts as a read cache to accelerate performance
2. EMC software also runs on the server, snooping on I/O and filling the cache with relevant data

There’s not a lot more to the product than that. EMC will sell the PCIe SSD and bundled software as VFCache, and will no doubt market the heck out of this product. Perhaps the only novel twist is the so-called “split-card” mode, which allows the card to act as a write cache. But EMC only supports this for transient “throwaway” data with direct attached storage (DAS) as a backend. There’s no way a conservative, enterprise focused company like EMC would risk sanctioning a writeback cache with no redundancy or data protection features.

VFCache uses a filter driver installed in the VM guest

Perhaps the biggest limitation of the initial VFCache offering is its limited applicability to enterprise server virtualization environments. VFCache uses a filter driver installed in each VM guest, and includes no hypervisor drivers though there is a vCenter plug-in. This makes VMware vMotion very tricky, involving scripting to remove and re-add storage. This means VMware SRM will not easily work, and there is no support for clustering, either.

This is no surprise, since VFCache appears to the host as a local storage volume (AKA, a disk drive or LUN) which would disappear if a virtual machine is moved to another server. Virsto solved this problem by virtualizing storage presentation to the hypervisor, and Fusion-io’s ioTurbine software does not interfere with vMotion either. EMC will likely go in this direction in the future, but it’s a big hole in the product for now.

You might also like reading Micron Bursts Into the PCIe SSD Market to learn more about the card EMC is using

The News: EMC Is in the Host-Based Storage Business

The primary use case for this product is server I/O acceleration. This is desperately needed, as applications and servers are rapidly outrunning the capabilities of conventional storage arrays. EMC and other legacy array manufacturers initially tried to address this I/O imbalance with tiered storage and in array caching. Indeed, these technologies are fairly effective at accelerating the performance of conventional disk storage arrays.

But flash manufacturers like Fusion-io (not to mention Micron and LSI) absolutely demolished storage array performance with their in-server offerings. EMC faced the prospect of losing out on the high-performance storage market. EMC simply could not allow their bread-and-butter enterprise customers to look elsewhere for strategic, high-performance storage for high-profile applications.

VFCache gives EMC salespeople a silver bullet when customers demand maximum performance, but this launch may not spell doom for the flash startups. For one thing, it legitimizes host-based flash cards as a viable component of enterprise storage architectures. It also opens the door to comparison between SAN storage and non–SAN alternatives that go well beyond what EMC is currently offering.

Shared Flash Storage Is on Deck: Project Thunder

"Project Thunder" will externalize the PCIe flash cards over a high-performance "Server Area Network"

As part of the VFCache introduction, EMC is also talking about Project Thunder, a shared version of VFCache. At the very least, thunder will allow multiple servers to access a shared pool of flash cache. This should allow VMware vMotion and DRS to function, and could be much more than that.

EMC could build a high-availability, high-performance all-flash storage array that may even use InfiniBand as an interconnect. The new Nimbus Data E-Class storage array matches this description perfectly, and their CEO tells me that performance over InfiniBand is indeed comparable to in-server PCIe flash cards. It seems logical for EMC to enter this market, if only to disrupt the momentum of Fusion-io and the rest of the all-flash storage upstarts.

Read more about the Nimbus E-Class: The First Big, Redundant, All-Flash Enterprise Array

The only fly in the ointment here is the recent consolidation of the InfiniBand market. Mellanox bought Voltaire, and QLogic sold out to Intel, putting that protocol on tenuous grounds. Perhaps 40 or 100 Gb Ethernet will emerge as a viable alternative for high-performance connectivity, or perhaps these products will retrench on shared PCI Express instead. Micron recently purchased Virtensys for just such a product, and Xsigo has been making big waves in the area of converged I/O as well. The market clearly need something better than Fibre Channel for maximum performance storage, even if InfiniBand isn’t it.

Stephen’s Stance

EMC VFCache (née Project Lightning) is a fairly simple offering: A server-based PCIe flash card that acts as a read cache with no integration with storage arrays or hypervisors. But EMC’s entrance into the host-based flash storage market is a powerful demonstration of the wave of disruption caused by flash-based storage and high-performance computing. Although I am not all that impressed with the product itself, I would be distressed if EMC had not introduced it.

VFCache illustrations are copyright EMC Corporation and are used here with permission

More solid, independent VFCache coverage:

• EMC Enters The Market With “Me Too” Flash Products (Chris Evans)
• Cache Splash and Complex is the new Simple (Martin Glassborow)

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2012. | EMC VFCache (aka “Project Lightning”) Is One Small Step, But an Important One
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• Things I wrote
  • VMware ESX SATA and PATA Compatibility Cheat Sheet
  • VMware ESX FCoE CNA Compatibility in Plain English
  • Samsung SP-H03 Pico Projector Review
• Other great posts
  • Wikibon are stepping up their game lately with some great posts like this: HP and Intel Help Open the FCoE Market
  • Mini Microsoft is always worth reading: Microsoft FY11Q2 Results
  • Greg Ferro talks about The Importance of Provider Independent IPv6 Addressing
  • Scott Lowe does his own “back from the pile” and he has some great links in Technology Short Take #10
  • I’m so excited to have Chris Wells join us from Tokyo for TFD! vSamurai – Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Japan, 仮想化, クラウドコンピューティング, 日本 – EN – Gonna Have A Field Day!
  • Sean Clark will also come to TFD: Tech Field Day 5 – San Jose – SeanClark.us
  • It was way late, but the Freedom to Tinker Predictions for 2011 is really worth a read
  • I totally agree: 3D is a massive headache! Why 3D Doesn’t Work and Never Will
  • Jason Boche did some great work this week: Jumbo Frames Comparison Testing with IP Storage and vMotion
  • Derek Schauland has a great idea: Synchronization from Drobo to the cloud
  • Xsigo is taking on King Kong: The Inside Story: What Cisco says About Xsigo
  • Erin Collopy is back in her new blog with the importance of knowing your audience

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, January 28, 2011
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Tech Field Day is all about community

As some readers of my blog know, I organize the independent Gestalt IT cooperative. We’re a group of folks who investigate and discuss enterprise IT technology, writing articles, running online communities, and organizing live events. Field Day is our chance to come together in various locations for face-to-face meetings with interesting product and technology companies. We’re in San Jose this week for our first networking-focused Field Day event, and things are getting interesting!

Networking on Networking

We brought a dozen well-known networking pros to San Jose for Field Day, most of whom had never met in person. It’s ironic that our online-centric world highlights the value of live interaction to such an extent, but it was evident right from the start. While planning the event, Greg Ferro and I put together a list of dozens of possible delegates, finally picking a “dream team” we hoped to get involved. Amazingly, just about every one of these folks walked through the doors and sat down Wednesday night!

The networking community is much like other enterprise IT crowds like storage and virtualization. They are reeling from the pressures of vendors driving adoption of products, the impact of server virtualization, and the increasing industry consolidation. A key topic of discussion was the continual assault on perennial market leader, Cisco. They see an opportunity for HP, Juniper, Brocade, and the other challengers to chip away at Cisco’s margins and topple their control of major niches.

Consolidation on Ethernet and IP continues to be a challenge. Network-centric vendors try to pull storage and other traffic into their traditional protocols, and the results are controversial to say the least. Topics like TRILL, FCoE (and FCoTR), and DCB/CEE caused intense debate in this crowd. But their discussions were nearly as heated when discussing Apple’s role in the enterprise world, the future of IT, cloud computing, and many other topics besides. The talk ranged to photography (cameras seem to be a hobby for many), coffee, travel, and family as well.

HP’s Attack on Cisco

Thursday began with a half-day session at HP’s beautiful Executive Briefing Center. The focus here was the burgeoning war between HP and Cisco. HP’s A-series networking products (acquired with 3Com) appear to match the technical capabilities of Cisco’s high-end datacenter networking equipment, but the Field Day crew remained skeptical. They continually returned to questions about HP’s support for professionals like themselves with documentation and training, as well as their long-term commitment to the networking field.

They were impressed by HP’s Intelligent Management Center (IMC) demonstration, and presenter Les Stuart was ready and able to field their questions. The S-series of security products (acquired with TippingPoint) also piqued interest, though many were concerned about the pricing.

Through it all, though, everyone remained respectful of HP. They seems ready to take on any company everywhere in the data center stack. Although questions remain on whether they will succeed, everyone agreed that they are uniquely positioned due to their size, resources, customer footprint, and broad product range. HP is the enterprise IT company to watch.

SolarWinds: Mining Metrics

Being a storage guy, I was not familiar with SolarWinds, but just about everyone in this networking group had experience with them. In fact, this session was much more focused on feedback and suggestions than education and exploration. SolarWinds dived deep into their ability to collect performance metrics and presented their future architecture for scalability. Although it was difficult for me to follow the discussion, the Field Day crew was impressed!

Cradlepoint Links 3G/4G and the LAN

Turning the tables, the Field Day delegates were unfamiliar with one of my favorite networking companies, Cradlepoint. This small firm from Boise markets a line of routers that link networks with wide-area wireless data on 3G/4G mobile networks. Tech Field Day runs on a PHS300 battery-powered router while on the road, and I am impressed with the MBR1200 high-availability router I’m testing at my home office. Once they took a look, the entire Field Day crew was excited about this technology, even suggesting new product ideas.

Force10 Takes the Whiteboard

Breaking from the more-corporate sessions of the day, Force10 eschewed the projector and turned to the whiteboard exclusively. Steve Garrison gave the lay of the land before turning the session to a deep dive into networking architecture and the company’s 10 GbE products. The Field Day delegates really responded to this presentation method, a lesson that future presenters would be wise to learn!

Computer History and the Babbage Engine

Thursday ends with a retreat to one of my favorite San Francisco locations, the Computer History Museum. All delegates, presenters, and a few friends will gather for socializing, ogling artifacts from our industry, and even a demonstration of the Babbage Engine!

Friday: Juniper, Arista, and Xsigo

Tomorrow will see Juniper Networks, Arista Networks, and Xsigo Systems take the floor. I will update this post with coverage of their sessions tomorrow evening!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Notes From Networking Field Day 2010
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I will be posting every Sunday as part of an experiment in offering more in-depth content.

There has been a lot of discussion in the storage industry about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), making it the toast of Storage Networking World, but this technology remains relatively unknown to end users. Like so many storage protocols before it, the $10,000 question is whether FCoE will take off like iSCSI or fizzle as a niche product like FCIP, DAFS, and so many others.

If it does succeed, another critical question is what this means for iSCSI, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, and to a lesser extent AoE, expanded SAS, and other options for SAN storage. The enterprise data center is poised for a complete change in server connectivity, with 10 Gb Ethernet converged network adapters (CNAs) and new core switches carrying both network and storage traffic, and this holds promise, especially in virtualized environments. But CNAs do not equal FCoE, and iSCSI, conventional Fibre Channel, and other protocols are roaring ahead. What impact will FCoE really have?

Why FCoE Matters

With 8 Gb Fibre Channel and alternative storage solutions leveraging InfiniBand now available (and with 10 Gb iSCSI imminent), many would ask why we need another enterprise block storage medium. In real-world applications, FCoE at 10 Gb will likely deliver roughly the same performance as 8 Gb native FC. But FCoE will be one or two years late and (initially) more expensive. Although active standards participation and “plug fests” mean FCoE will likely be more interoperable than Fibre Channel was in its early years, the lack of support from operating system manufacturers is troubling. Plus, users will soon be able to build a very similar infrastructure by mixing iSCSI and 10 Gb Ethernet, and this will include all the advantages of IP and solid support.

So why pay more for the same performance from an untested protocol? It’s all about the future, and enterprise users will go where the market goes, just as wide availability of VHS tapes buried Betamax. Storage, network, and SAN vendors alike are lining up solidly behind FCoE as the next-generation enterprise interconnect. Although InfiniBand plays Betamax in this home video metaphor, with superior technology and availability, FCoE’s VHS camp has all the market ammunition. To paraphrase the (alleged) words of Bob Metcalfe, no matter what the technology looks like, the future of networking will be called Ethernet.

The biggest storage vendors are behind FCoE simply because they see that converging and leveraging I/O technology makes sense for them. They can swap out the physical and data link layers from Fibre Channel to Ethernet relatively easily, so the FCoE switch is an easier change than iSCSI. It is likely that they will be able to leverage commodity Ethernet hardware to reduce (their, not your) cost and increase profit margins once this switch is made. Plus, FCoE will potentially increase SAN attachment rates (and thus enterprise storage market penetration) thanks to the potential availability of converged network adapters (CNAs) on the server side, and the cost-effectiveness that sharing a CNA between network and storage implies. From the storage side, FCoE is all good.

Also see my posts on FCoE versus iSCSI and Cisco VFrame

The drive is similar on the network side. The era of differentiated SAN and LAN producers is over – all of the major networking and SAN vendors are repositioning themselves as next-generation I/O providers, setting up a battle in the network space to rival the mainframe shakeout of the 1980s and the PC wars of the 1990s. Converged I/O is the business model for connectivity vendors, and most are taking up the “data center Ethernet” (DCE) charge (also called “converged enhanced or enterprise Ethernet” or CEE) which includes FCoE as the storage protocol for virtual I/O. iSCSI is still there in a DCE world, but FCoE will take center stage for the enterprise market.

Counting the Benefits of FCoE

It may seem strange to declare an upstart like FCoE the winner when established options like InfiniBand, conventional Fibre Channel, and iSCSI are already out in the market, but this examination of the vendors indicates that it is indeed the case. Is this a case of the tail (vendors) wagging the dog (consumers)? Perhaps, but they will come along willingly given the strong case presented by converged and virtualized I/O.

Enterprise buyers are ready for a next-generation SAN technology, and some are beginning to look at 8 Gb Fibre Channel. The few that really need performance will certainly buy 8 Gb FC today, but this has little bearing on the overall prospect for FCoE. When an application requires performance and money is available, purchases will be made regardless of future strategy.

Enterprise storage and network architects are beginning to consider the implications of server consolidation and virtualization. As they see footprint shrink thanks to compact or blade servers and server virtualization, they will begin to question the proliferation of interconnects on the back end required to keep up with the I/O demands of these super servers. Already, virtual I/O purveyors like Xsigo are making hay in this market, and, as mentioned above, their SAN and LAN vendors are spreading the message, too. It won’t be long before they are convinced.

Also see my posts on VMware VDC-OS and VDC-OS vStorage

Many people mistakenly assume that DCE means pushing all protocols through a single LAN, but this is not the case. These networks will be engineered like SANs from the start, with redundant connections and transparent failover. Although storage and network connectivity will share the same physical “pipe”, they will certainly be segregated on separate VLANs and protected with quality of service technologies. They have to be separated – FCoE (lacking IP) will require a totally different network topology than LAN connections.

So Who Buys FCoE?

Note that, throughout this discussion, I am referring only to the large-scale enterprise data center storage market. Smaller corporate environments have already embraced iSCSI en masse, expanding the penetration of consolidated storage concepts beyond anything Fibre Channel could ever accomplish. And small office and home networks are beginning to embrace these concepts as well, but are relying on protocols like CIFS and AFP for file servers and may begin to look at ATA over Ethernet (AoE) and proprietary protocols like the one pushed by Zetera/NetGear instead of iSCSI.

This leaves us with a layer cake of appropriate protocols from the smallest to largest networks. But all have one thing in common: They are all converged and they are all carried in Ethernet packets. Bob Metcalfe was right!

Update: Storagebod points out that FCoE might see its first application in inter-switch links and other similar storage network infrastructure connections. And Chris Mellor at The Register points out that SAS is already displacing FC as an internal drive interconnect.

See my posts on Gestalt IT for similar enterprise IT infrastructure commentary

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Reality Check: The FCoE Forecast
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Overall, I was impressed with many of these products this last year, but certainly CommVault, HDS, ProStor, Xsigo, and Akorri (winners all) stood out with important products. I too was surprised to see the absence of some heavyweights: Symantec’s strength in archiving and backup didn’t net them an award, and both Emulex and QLogic were skipped for the 8 Gb FC market. EMC was overlooked, too, but I’m certain that will be remedied for 2008 after the flurry of excellent new products announced these last few months.

Backup Software

• Winners: CommVault’s Simpana 7.0 – an impressive product that brings a very wide range of data protection features in an integrated package. They’d be in my top three! Next was the intriguing RecoverGuard from Continuity Software, a product which intrigues me. Finally, Yosemite’s amazingly priced FileKeeper Professional took bronze – I definitely would have put this up there, too!
• Strong contenders: EVault’s solution would have been my pick since it effectively tackles a real need – mobile and SMB data protection! Also, Symantec’s strong NetBackup 6.5 upgrade deserved more attention.

Backup Hardware

• Winners: NEC’s HydraStor HS8 isn’t a platform I’m familiar with – I’ll have to take the judges at their word! But I can’t argue with silver and bronze winners, Copan and ProStor’s cool RDX – both are truly revolutionary products and deserve the spotlight.
• Strong contenders: I would definitely have added Gresham’s Clareti VTL to the list – it’s much more than “just a VTL” and I hope it gets some more attention!

Disk and Disk Subsystems

• Winners: Seagate’s Momentus 5400 FDE.2 deserves considerable attention, bringing built-in hardware encryption to the mobile data market – every mobile disk should have this technology! NetApp’s FAS2000 (silver) is nice enough, but I was much more impressed with the bronze-winning USP V from HDS this year.
• Strong contenders: I would have given the USP V the top prize for 2007, but I can’t argue with the little Seagate disk. The AMCC 3ware 9600 RAID adapter deserves some attention, too.

Storage Management Software

• Winners: Akorri’s BalancePoint (gold) impresses me much like bronze-winning Onaro’s Application Insight does. Both make the big leap from “storage” to “application data”, and both are worthy winners. I’ve never used the silver-winning Finisar NetWisdom product, but it looks like others are impressed with it.
• Strong contenders: This was a crowded field, and Symantec, WysDM, Quantum StorNext, and the rest probably came close. I agree with the Akorri placing, but would have picked one of these instead of the potentially mis-categorized Finisar product.

Networking Equipment

• Winners: Xsigo took the top honors with their InfiniBand-based VP780 platform. This is truly a next-generation product, and it is getting serious attention and traction, and deserved a spot on the list! Riverbed’s excellent Optimization System (silver) also deserved its ranking, but I’m not familiar enough with the Storwize product to know if it’s truly bronze-worthy.
• Strong contenders: I would have tipped either QLogic or Emulex‘s 8 Gb offerings for a spot. Despite my jokes, 8 Gb FC is an important element of the modern SAN and both companies have carved out a compelling product, but apparently neither shipped in volume until this month…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Reacting to TechTarget’s Storage Products of the Year
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.