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WHIPTAIL

posted Mar 5, 2014, 11:17 AM by Rick McGee   [ updated Mar 5, 2014, 8:38 PM ]
Cisco acquired on October 29th 2013 
    Scalable Solid-State memory systems that accelerate application performance and simplify data center virtualized environments.
    Currently not to be sold as part as a Vblock, you can add as additional outside the Vblock but will not be supported by VCE

Why WHIPTAIL
    Enables workload to rapidly transact process, and analyze data into business intelligence, leading to operational and strategic advantage.
    Through a modular and scalable solid state memory platform, coupled with RaceRunner intelligent software
        
Hard Disk Drive Performance Limitations
    Access Times
        Rotational Latency
            The Time the disk platter access the data and rotates the platter to the next sector where the data is stored
            If the disk have spun past the data , the HDD has to wait for the rotation to complete the data read/write
        Seek Time
        Command Processing time
        Settle Time
    This performance has stood still since 1999, when the first 15K RPM disk became available
    All other media continue to improve performance at a pace
RAID penalty 
    For every write IO in RAID 6 there are 6 IO Operations required.
    Where in HDD you use around 30% of the disk and the rest is overhead (Short Stroking) 
    WHIPTAIL can use 75% of the disk with 25% for management 

Virtualization : The IO Blendar
    Blended IO, each VM has a read/write and one VM has to wait tell the VM's read/writes are finished, this could have the head jumping around the disk and all the reads and writes are all over the
    disk                 
    Atlantis ELIO
        Pipelines Writes to the disk 
SSD
    Doesn't care
    10 x throughput bandwidth
    100 x IOS's performance improvement
    1000 x less latency 

NAND based flash memory are mailer then HDD
    SSD's are typically more resistant to physical shock, run more quietly and require less POWER and COOLING
    For eery $1 in hardware the creates heat it takes you $3 dollars to cool that, assuming that you have hot and cold isles 

More Data Faster Data Complex Data
    Volume
        Capacity Volume Based storage
    Velocity
        Time Accelerate the write and read of application workload data 
    Variety
        Understand different solutions and formats
Hot Data 
    This is WHIPTAIL plays  
Warm Data
Cold Data 
 
8 Racks of HDD for every 1 Rack of SSD in DC footprint

Target Applications Workloads
    Email
    VDI and Virtulization Infrastures


Fusion IO (this will not go away)
    PCI Single Application/host based

AFA= All Flash Array 
    This is where the WHIPTAIL plays 
    This can be used with multiple work loads (MWL)

Cisco Solid State Systems 
    SSD and NAND Flash
        NAND Flash: Non-volatile memory
        SSD: A disk that has no moving parts; not based on NAND flash 
    NAND Flash is everywhere
        Your computer BIOS
        Compact Flash 
        SmartMedia 
        Memory Stick

    NAND
        Flash memory is a type of EEPROM chip consisting of cells with two transistor separated by an oxide layer: A Floating Gate and Control Gate
        NAND logic all inputs='1' > output='0' all other combinations > output ="1"

Wear Cycles
    Single Layer Cell
        30K r/w operations before they fail
    Multi Layer Cell 
    2k-5K r/w operations before they fail

This is rather small amount of times
    Invicta is saying that the wear time for their AFA is around 7 years for when the performance drops (under warranty)
        If the drive and there is a performance problem in a cell they will replace the drive within 7 years (this doesn't require smartnet)
    OEM for the FLASH is (Micron)  and uses a MLC

TRIM
    TRIM enables Garbage Collection to skip invalid state rather than moving it; reduces the number of erases

UCS Invicta OS: Enhanced Flash Management
    Receive 

UCS Invicta Block Translation layer (BLT)
    Organizes Random Data Patterns for Flash Writes (Think Tetris)
    On going process managed by the local controller 
    

RaceRunning = Invicta OS


Whiptail and UCS


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