EMC Into PCIe SSDs

EMC Corporation outlined a strategy designed to accelerate the adoption and innovative use of flash storage technology in information infrastructures.  Flash memory stores and retrieves data an order of magnitude faster than mechanical hard disk drives and requires less power.

EMC incorporated flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) into enterprise storage in 2008 and has shipped nearly 14 petabytes of flash capacity in storage arrays since 2010, more than anyone in the industry.  Half of all EMC Symmetrix VMAX high-end storage systems and EMC VNX unified storage systems ordered now incorporate flash capacity.  

At EMC World, Pat Gelsinger, EMC President, Information Infrastructure Products detailed a multi-faceted strategy that is designed to further drive adoption of this technology, lower costs for customers and dramatically speed storage and application performance.

The strategy includes:

• A new PCIe/flash-based server cache technology – code-named Project Lightning – due later this year that will move data closer to the processor to accelerate performance. Integrated flash in the server as cache and as storage in the array, combined with EMC FAST software, creates a single intelligent I/O path – from the application to the data store.  The result is a networked infrastructure optimized for performance, cost and availability and more reliable than implementations relying on flash as direct-attached storage in the server.
• EMC plans to design, test and qualify MLC-based SSDs for enterprise-class applications and incorporate them into EMC systems later this year, making enterprise flash storage more affordable.
• EMC has sold and delivered several all-flash Symmetrix VMAX arrays to customers with demanding I/O workloads. Later this quarter, all-flash Symmetrix VMAX arrays will be offered as a standard configuration option.
• EMC later this year also plans to introduce a new all-flash configuration of its VNX unified storage system that will enable support of more virtual servers and more intense workloads. As part of industry benchmark testing, an all-flash VNX system recently demonstrated record performance.  
• To help facilitate these projects, EMC has created a dedicated Flash business unit to identify and exploit new market opportunities, new technologies and create and manage strategic partner and supplier relationships.

"Norton Healthcare’s data center supports five large hospitals and numerous other facilities in Kentucky. The addition of flash technology in our EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage infrastructure has resulted in significant performance improvements and efficiencies. We were able to reduce the number of drives we were using by 90%, with just 8 flash drives handling the workload of 88 traditional disk drives and we were able to reduce the time it took for batch processing jobs from six to four hours," said Steve Allender, Storage Architect for Norton Healthcare.

"The addition of SSDs to our EMC unified storage infrastructure has changed the way we look at database challenges. With flash technology, we’re seeing 10x performance improvements on our Oracle PeopleSoft ERP system, which supports some of our most critical applications. Previously, that same performance would have required hundreds of disk drives and would require significantly more energy and space. Now processes that used to take hours take less than 15 minutes and that allows us to provide better service to our students and faculty members," said Jeff Perry, Director of Infrastructure and Enterprise Operations, University of Kansas Information Technology department.

"As costs decline and functionality evolves, Wikibon members are increasingly adopting persistent flash technology at multiple points across the system and IO infrastructure; at the processor, storage controller and emulating disk drives in the array. This announcement underscores the importance of intelligent software architectures like FAST, which allow data to be managed and shared at different points across the infrastructure portfolio. Since the introduction of Enterprise Flash Drives in 2008, EMC has delivered a consistent cadence of flash and software innovations throughout the I/O stack and this announcement further advances the company’s strategic position," said  David Vellante, co-founder Wikibon.org.

"EMC’s flash strategy is all about making the shared IT infrastructure more efficient and dynamic.  Placing the information on the right media at the right time and placing the information closer to the processor at the right time provides the highest levels of performance and also the highest returns on investment because all of the resources are fully utilized. The key to this is EMC’s FAST software that adds a level of intelligence based on usage to automate the movement of the data through the I/O stack and, most importantly, ensures the integrity of that data," said Pat Gelsinger, EMC President, Information Infrastructure Products.