In-Line De-Dupe on EMC VFCache

EMC Corporation at VMworld 2012 set a benchmark for enterprise flash efficiency by delivering in-line cache deduplication on EMC VFCache, a server flash caching solution that turbo-charges performance in mission-critical Oracle, Microsoft and SAP application environments-up to 3X in some cases.

EMC also extended interoperability between VFCache and VMware vSphere vMotion to enable flexible movement of VMs in environments accelerated by VFCache.

EMC continues to invest in its flash portfolio, delivering the performance benefits of flash without sacrificing the benefits of network storage HA, DR, data integrity, and reliability. This approach is why EMC shipped a record amount of flash capacity in the second quarter of 2012.

Technology Highlights:
With the addition of in-line deduplication of cached data for a larger effective cache, the cache size of VFCache is increased in environments with applications leveraging high deduplication gains. This capability delivers better cost per gigabyte and extends the life expectancy of the card.

Deeper Integration: VFCache is now deeply integrated at the virtual, storage and server levels to maximize mission-critical application environments.

VFCache now delivers:

• Automation of vSphere vMotion environments for efficient administration. VFCache interoperability with vSphere vMotion makes it faster and easier to achieve continuous up-time and fluid operations, complete environment maintenance, and enable migrations-helping customers accelerate their journey to the cloud. Through the EMC VSI plug-in for VMware vCenter, it enables VMware administrators to handle other priority tasks, and ensures BC with no system downtime when migrating operations.
• Simplified management, more streamlined operations, and greater visibility into operational information. VFCache contains the foundational capabilities to provide VMAX storage administrators with more operational information, such as VFCache’s relationships to specific LUNS, more performance statistics, and error condition reporting. These capabilities represent another key step toward EMC’s vision of high performance automated tiered storage. Customers continue to benefit from VFCache’s turbocharged performance with the protection for. EMC is also committed to integrating VFCache with the rest of its storage portfolio-including VNX in 2013.
• Support for Cisco’s upcoming offering of LSI’s customized PCIe Flash mezzanine cards for UCS B-Series Blade Servers (announced in May 2012).

Performance: The latest version of VFCache supports multiple PCIe cards per server and delivers more capacity options-with support for new 700GB PCIe cards-to cache larger working sets and offer greater performance to customers. In addition, the firm continues to optimize and advance the performance of enterprise workloads by lowering latency through tuning of the VFCache caching algorithms.

In addition to VFCache, customers with mixed workloads can choose from EMC’s hybrid arrays armed with FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) technology that automates the movement of ‘hot’ data onto Flash drives and moves ‘cold’ data to high-capacity drives.

For VDI or test and development environments with 100% ‘hot’ data, customers will be able to leverage all-flash arrays that will deliver the raw performance required with innovative new technologies from Project X through EMC’s acquisition of XtremIO (announced in May 2012).

For persistent data stores with performance intensive workloads-including high-frequency trading or online gaming, EMC will offer Project Thunder, a server network attached appliance built entirely of PCIe flash (announced in February 2012).

Availability
Deduplication and other new VFCache enhancements are available through EMC and its channel partners.

Henrik Sorensen, SAP operations manager at L’Oreal Danmark SNS, said: "L’Oreal has made cosmetics for a century-and we are the worldwide cosmetic leader. We manage 27 global brands that are distributed throughout 130 countries. Information is gold to us-and drives our ability to innovate. The benefits of flash technology are a key piece of L’Oreal SNS IT strategy. We use VFCache to boost the performance of our SAP application environment. With a powerful capability like deduplication-support for higher capacity drives-and VMware affinity, EMC is delivering L’Oreal SNS with an even better, faster and simpler way to achieve peak performance results for our mission-critical applications."

Scott Heffner, network operations manager, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, said: "Wentworth-Douglass Hospital has evolved and grown since its doors opened in 1906. We are now one of the largest acute care hospitals in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. Data is central to delivering the best care possible to patients, which is why we rely on EMC technologies-including VMAX 10K, EMC RecoverPoint, Avamar, and Data Domain solutions-in a VMware virtualized environment. With new VFCache support for Cisco UCS blade servers, we will use VFCache in our virtual EMC VMAX environment to achieve the performance required of our demanding IT needs. One thing hasn’t changed since 1906, and that is that the patient is still the center of our timeless tradition of providing compassionate and comprehensive care-EMC technologies help enable us to deliver exactly that."

Jeff Janukowicz, research director, Solid State Drives and Hard Drive Components, IDC, said: "IDC expects that annual Flash capacity shipped in the enterprise will grow by 20X by 2016 thanks to the ever-growing number of applications, the digitization of data, cloud and Big Data. Storage I/O is a critical performance bottleneck for many data intensive applications. Flash is the essential ingredient in the industry’s race for application speed. With these latest updates to EMC VFCache, EMC is delivering efficiency that didn’t previously exist for the customer. This addition to its comprehensive Flash portfolio is an important evolution."

Eric Kaplan, VP Engineering at Ahead, said: "Ahead enables companies to take advantage of key technologies driving the next-generation data center. As our clients’ trusted technology advisor, we partner with EMC to provide best-of-breed products and services to our customers, providing the support and direction they need to make IT a competitive advantage for their business. EMC VFCache helps our customers’ applications reach the performance they need while delivering the data protection their business demands. With added capabilities for deduplication and user-initiated VMware vMotion, VFCache delivers new levels of efficiencies to our customers."

Steve Gillaspy, senior director Product Management Unified Computing Systems, Cisco Systems, Inc., said: "Flash storage has proven to be a very disruptive and opportunistic technology to drive application performance. We are working with EMC and other partners to continue to deliver solutions that help to enable our customers to run their mission-critical applications faster. With EMC VFCache and Cisco UCS Blade Servers, customers are finding a simpler way to drive efficiency and productivity in the data center."

Gary Green, VP, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware, Inc., said: "VFCache interoperability with VMware vMotion is about simplicity and automation for our customers. We’re committed to delivering customers flexibility, efficiency and choice. As virtual environments continue to grow-and become more complex-it is interoperability  like VFCache and vMotion, as well as continued innovation in PCIe Flash, that will address what customers need to handle the IT transformation occurring in the market today."

Mark Sorenson, SVP and GM, Flash Business Unit, EMC, said: "Since 2008 EMC has led the market in enterprise Flash innovation-setting in motion the industry’s move to flash enabled storage arrays. EMC is uniquely positioned to help customers take advantage of flash technology, and we continue to invest and innovate to offer purpose-built solutions for specific use cases and deployment options. Our approach is ‘no-compromise’-offering hybrid flash enabled storage arrays, flash in the server, and flash via the network. With the addition of deduplication, VMware interoperability, and performance enhancements to VFCache, we’re yet again setting the pace for the industry-and delivering customers-the most optimized and efficient offering."