2020-21 DCIG Enterprise Midrange Hybrid Array Buyer's Guide

This study was posted by By Ken Clipperton, lead analyst, storage, and Jerome Wendt, president and founder, DCIG, LLC, on January 16, 2020.

2020-21 Enterprise Midrange Hybrid Array Buyer’s Guide

DCIG announced the availability of its 2020-21 Enterprise Midrange Hybrid Array Buyer’s Guide.

It helps enterprises assess the enterprise midrange hybrid array marketplace and identify which array may be the best fit for their environment.

It includes data sheets for 14 enterprise midrange hybrid array series that achieved rankings of Recommended and Excellent. These products are available from ten vendors including Dell EMC, FUJITSU, Hitachi Vantara, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Infinidat, iXsystems, NetApp and Tintri.

Vendors listed alphabetically in each category

The storage landscape has changed dramatically over the last several years. For any business looking to refresh its storage infrastructure, these changes have created a whole new world of possibilities.

Enterprise storage has achieved order of magnitude improvements across multiple vectors including latency, capacity and density. These improvements are driven largely by the integration of flash memory-and now other persistent memory technologies-into enterprise storage systems. This integration includes the emergence and rapid adoption of the efficient, low-latency NVMe and NVMe-oF protocol standards.

The storage ownership experience has also been transformed along several vectors.

These include:
• Sophisticated storage analytics with proactive technical support
• Automation
• New acquisition and deployment options

Not all change is good. The evolving global regulatory environment adds risk and complexity to data stewardship. Security threats abound. Nevertheless, modernizing enterprise storage infrastructure is a transformational data center and business opportunity.

The following 5 products earned the ranking of Recommended:

Hitachi Vantara VSP G Series
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Series
HPE Nimble Storage HF-Series Adaptive Flash Array
Huawei OceanStor 5000 V5 Series
NetApp FAS Series
Hitachi Vantara VSP G Series (G900)

Hitachi Vantara VSP G Series (G900)
These arrays differ from the other Recommended products in that they can make use of flash memory in both standard SSDs and the Hitachi flash module (FMD).

The Hitachi Vantara Storage Virtual OS (SVOS) recognizes these media types and can prioritize the I/O traffic based on predefined service levels and maximums assigned per volume. This enables enterprises to tailor storage performance to meet specific application workload requirements. For instance, they can deploy FMDs for latency sensitive, I/O-intensive workloads and leverage SSDs or HDDs for applications that still require performance, but at a lower price point. SVOS rich array of features are licensed in bundles and a-la-carte.

The midrange VSP models also differ from the other Recommended products in that they are based on a dual-controller, active-active architecture. The other Recommended products can scale-out to 8 or more controllers. While scale-out configurations offer greater overall scalability of performance resources, the VSP G900 can provide up to 17.3PB of raw capacity, plus compression, inline deduplication and post-process deduplication to further enhance effective capacity. For enterprises that require file protocol support, Hitachi Vantara offers scale-out file services on top of the VSP block storage via separate HNAS filer appliances.

Hitachi Vantara VSP is one of only 3 products in this guide that offers cross-stack analytics. Hitachi Infrastructure Analytics Advisor is a SaaS offering generates alerts when QoS threshold values are exceeded or when a significant deviation from the baseline performance values occurs. It can generate mitigation plans to address high CPU utilization or pending write cache rate.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Series (20840)
It provides a mesh-active scale-out cluster of up to 8 controller nodes with up to 160 processor cores and 160 storage networking ports per cluster and up to 9.8PB of raw capacity. HPE 3PAR Peer Motion allows for up to 4 of these mesh-active clusters to be federated and managed as a single entity. HPE offers an optional HPE 3PAR 750GB NVMe SCM Module that uses Intel Optane memory to extend the read cache.

The HPE 3PAR StoreServ’s standard performance resources are supplemented by the HPE 3PAR Thin Express Gen5 ASIC. The ASIC works in parallel with the CPU to offload compute-intensive data services. It provides zero block detection, inline deduplication, and Persistent Checksum (T10-PI). It also accelerates thin provisioning, thin persistence, automated space reclamation, metadata operations, and manages the PCIe cluster interconnect. Consequently, 3PAR ASIC allows each CPU core to accomplish more.

Broad protocol support plus rich QoS features enable confident consolidation, guaranteeing the performance of critical applications through bandwidth, IO/s, and latency thresholds autonomically managed based on predefined service levels. HPE takes an all-inclusive approach to licensing.

HPE goes beyond just providing a RESTful management API by offering pre-built integration with 3rd party automation and infrastructure management frameworks, including Chef, Puppet, and Ansible. This speeds integration into existing data center infrastructures and facilitates digital transformation.

HPE InfoSight’s cross-stack analytics tool, VMVision, pinpoints the source of application performance issues whether the problem originates in storage, the network, or the application host. InfoSight’s recommendation engine can recommend configuration changes for things like unbalanced nodes, unbalanced storage utilization, unbalanced drive configurations, or capacity utilization. InfoSight predictive analytics and proactive support maximize uptime and offer optimization recommendations that help IT free IT staff to focus on other business priorities.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ storage is also available as-a-Service via HPE Greenlake.

HPE Nimble Storage HF-Series Adaptive Flash Array (HF60)
The dual-controller array can provide up to 1.4PB of storage. An 8-node cluster can provide 5.7PB of raw capacity, enhanced by compression and deduplication. Nimble Storage supports host connectivity via up to 96 FC ports and 112 iSCSI ports. Although HPE does not publish performance claims or even some key hardware specs, the platform uses an ultra-low-latency NVDIMM write cache, and a large flash memory read cache to accelerate reads and writes.

HPE Nimble Storage provides comprehensive InfoSight predictive analytics capabilities that are tightly integrated with proactive support. HPE InfoSight has app-aware intelligence that considers real application behavior and makes recommendations driven by AI. The maturity of InfoSight results in the complete automation of level 1 and 2 support with 86% of problems predicted and auto-resolved-a distinguished capability unmatched by any other storage vendor.

Beyond checking all the boxes in the Proactive Support and Predictive Analytics category – the only product that does so – the “fix it once for everyone” philosophy behind this integration of analytics and support has resulted in six nines of availability across the installed base and avoided hundreds of high severity incidents.

HPE goes beyond just providing a RESTful management API for its Nimble Storage arrays by offering pre-built integration with 3rd party automation and infrastructure management frameworks, including Chef, Puppet and Ansible. This speeds integration into existing data center infrastructures and facilitates digital transformation.
HPE Nimble Storage is also available on-premises as-a- Service via HPE Greenlake and as HPE Cloud Volumes for multi-cloud environments.

Huawei OceanStor 5000 V5 Series (5800 V5)
These arrays consist of dual-controller enclosures. Up to 4 enclosures can be interconnected to form an 8-node cluster with more than 55PB of raw storage capacity and up to 384TB per rack unit, the highest density of any product in this guide.

The OceanStor 5000 V5 Series arrays offer unified storage with support for all block and file protocols. This unified storage capacity is accessed via up to 288 ports of host connectivity, including the full range of Ethernet and FC speeds. OceanStor is one of only two products in this guide that support IB connectivity.
The mature and feature-rich OceanStor OS is certified to support a wide range of applications and data center environments. Huawei’s SmartQoS provides comprehensive QoS capabilities that optimize resource utilization for mission-critical applications through LUN-specific policies. SmartQos ensures that the required IO/s, bandwidth or latency requirements are met. The OceanStor V5 arrays streamline storage infrastructure via the SmartVirtualization feature, which consolidates and centralizes heterogeneous storage systems. SmartVirtualization eliminates data silos, simplifying storage management, data migrations, and DR procedures.

Huawei offers proactive support and predictive analytics via its eService Intelligent Cloud Management System, which relies on periodic collection and uploads of operations data including alarms, configuration data, performance data, system logs, and disk information.

Huawei offers the OceanStor 5000 V5 Series arrays as branded on-premises arrays with licensing based on feature bundles plus a-la-carte licenses for premium features.

NetApp FAS Series (FAS8300)
It scales to 7.3PB of raw capacity per dual controller pair. NetApp supports clusters of up to 24 nodes. A fully scaled-out NAS cluster consists of 12 HA pairs with a maximum raw capacity of over 88PB; the most of any product in this guide. NetApp FAS Series (FAS8300) offers storage densities up to 360 TB/RU.

By supporting clusters with 3x the nodes of other products in this guide, these clusters also provide the highest port counts for host connectivity with up to 576 storage networking ports. FAS8300 is 1 of 2 products in this guide that support the full range of Ethernet and FC speeds. It is the only product in this guide that supports NVMe/FC for low-latency connectivity to hosts.

These arrays provide an unified storage infrastructure supporting both SAN and NAS protocols. They can also be clustered with NetApp AFF all-flash models, enabling enterprises to move workloads between high-performance all-flash tiers as well as higher capacity HDD tiers on FAS models.

The firm offers pre-built integration with 3rd party automation and infrastructure management frameworks, including Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and SaltStack. This speeds integration into existing data center infrastructures and facilitates digital transformation.

NetApp is the only vendor that offers the full range of acquisition and deployment options that DCIG identified. NetApp’s SDS and STaaS offerings support can accelerate enterprise cloud adoption and corporate initiatives that are based on public cloud services. These also give enterprises great flexibility in how they deploy storage across multiple locations.

FAS8300 licenses are for feature bundles, with value-added features licensed a-la-carte.

Excellent Ranking
9 products achieved an Excellent ranking in the guide.

These products include the following:

Dell EMC Unity XT Series
Dell EMC SC Series
Fujitsu Eternus DX S4 Series
IBM Storwize V7000 Series (Gen3)
IBM Storwize V5000E Series
Infinidat InfiniBox Series
iXsystems TrueNAS M-Series
iXsystems TrueNAS X-Series
Tintri Intelliflash T-Series

Dell EMC Unity XT Series (880)
It is the follow-on product to the Unity and VNX products. The dual-controller system offers up to 16PB of raw capacity, up to 64 CPU cores, 768GB of DRAM, and 24 storage networking ports. It also offers up to 192TB/RU of storage, one of the highest densities among the Excellent arrays. It offers comprehensive file and block protocol support, including support for VMware VAAI NAS primitives, making it a good candidate for workload consolidation.

The company offers pre-built integration with 3rd party automation and infrastructure management frameworks, including Puppet and Ansible. This speeds integration into existing data center infrastructures and facilitates digital transformation.

Dell EMC CloudIQ is a no-cost, cloud-based software offering that provides a web-based monitoring interface. CloudIQ storage analytics compares collected system data (alerts, performance, capacity, and configuration) vs. Dell EMC best practices to determine a Proactive Health Score for each array. Issues are presented along with recommended remedial actions.

Unity XT offers more deployment flexibility than the other Excellent ranked products. In addition to a branded appliance, Dell EMC offers Unity as SDS on-premises and in the cloud. Dell EMC also offers Unity as vendor-managed cloud volumes.

Dell EMC Series (SC9000)
It is a dual-controller array that provides up to 6PB of raw storage plus compression and post-process deduplication. Deduplication occurs when the array moves data to the HDD drives as part of the automated storage tiering process. The SC series offers a range of management methods, including pre-built Puppet integrations. It is the only Excellent ranked product that supports 100GBE connectivity, in addition to 16/32GB FC support.

Fujitsu Eternus DX S4 Series (DX600)
It is a dual-controller array that provides up to 32PB of storage capacity at up to 360 TB/RU, highest among the Excellent ranked products. Eternus DX S4 Series includes rich data protection features and is the only Excellent product that supports the T10-PI standard for end-to-end data integrity. Automated QoS policies can be set based on targets and maximum IO/s through pre-defined service levels.

Fujitsu is one of two products ranked Excellent that support both array-based encryption and self-encrypting drives.

The firm offers the product as a branded appliance, and licensing is via software bundles plus a-la-carte feature licenses.

IBM Storwize V7000 Series (Gen3)
The product can be clustered to provide up to 31PB of raw storage capacity in an 8-node cluster, accessed via up to 64 storage networking ports. Rich data services and pre-built Chef and Puppet integrations facilitate integration into enterprise data centers. Storwize integrates automated storage tiering with automated QoS to meet enterprise workload requirements.

Like most of the other midrange arrays in this buyer’s guide, IBM offers cloud-based predictive analytics that enhance capacity planning and infrastructure optimization recommendations that also tie into proactive support offerings.

The company offers the Storwize V7000 Gen3 as a branded appliance with licensing via software bundles plus a-la-carte feature licenses.

IBM Storwize V5000E Series (V5030E)
It runs the same software as the V7000, but in a smaller set of configurations. Storwize V5000E clusters scale to 4 nodes and a still robust 23PB of storage capacity, accessed via up to 40 storage networking ports.

IBM offers a full range of services, including cloud-based predictive analytics and proactive support.

Infinidat InfiniBox Series (F6300)
The company is a newcomer among the products covered in this guide. Its founders have deep experience in enterprise storage and historic storage pain points. InfiniBox is designed for unified storage at multi-petabyte scale, offering up to 4PB usable capacity per 3-node cluster. The architecture is unique in that is uses triple-active redundant nodes as part of a design that is resilient to multiple concurrent failures. The architecture is DRAM-focused, using learning algorithms with a goal of satisfying all reads and writes from DRAM. Infinidat’s Neural Cache accepts writes to DRAM, replicating them to another node in the cluster before acknowledging the write. Each node provides 1,024GB of DRAM, 2x to 4x the DRAM capacity of most other midrange arrays. flash memory is used as a secondary cache.

Its InfiniBox FLX is its STaaS on-premises offering that includes a complete hardware refresh every 3 years. All hardware, software licenses, warranties, monitoring, and support are covered in an all-inclusive subscription agreement. InfiniBox is also available in a vendor-managed cloud.

Licensing is all-inclusive. Predictive analytics and 3 years of support are included at no additional cost.

iXsystems TrueNAS M-Series (M50)
It provides unified file and block storage via a highly-available dual-controller architecture that delivers up to 10PB of raw storage capacity. The caching-oriented architecture leverages large DRAM caches, NVDIMMs and SSDs. The M50 array supports up to 1,536GB of DRAM, 32GB of NVDIMM, and 40 CPU cores per node pair.

TrueNAS is one of two Excellent products that support 100GBE connectivity in addition to FC. Broad protocol support, combined with these performance resources, makes TrueNAS an excellent workload consolidation. TrueNAS arrays are the only products in this guide that provide block, file and S3-compatible object storage.

TrueNAS is built on OpenZFS technology for enterprise data services and ZFS CRC to ensure data integrity. Licensing is all-inclusive. iXsystems provides remote monitoring and proactive remediation as part of its standard 3-year warranty.

In 2019, iXsystems introduced TrueCommand unified management and predictive analytics software. TrueCommand enables proactive support and capacity planning based on analytics. These do not require a cloud connection. Therefore, they work even on air-gapped systems.

iXsystems TrueNAS X-Series (X20)
It uses the same software as the TrueNAS M-Series arrays. It offers a maximum of 840TB of raw storage capacity. The X20 array supports up to 128GB of DRAM and 12 CPU cores per node pair. A maximum of 8 storage networking ports offer 10 GbE, 25 GbE, and 16GB FC storage network connectivity.

TrueNAS arrays are the only products in this guide that provides block, file, and S3-compatible object storage.

Tintri Intelliflash T-Series (T4800)
DDN acquired the Intelliflash product line from Western Digital and now offers it under the Tintri enterprise storage brand.

The Intelliflash T-Series offers up to 1.2PB of raw storage capacity at densities of up to 82TB/RU. The Intelliflash OS is based on ZFS technology, with metadata optimizations that facilitate enterprise data services, including inline deduplication.

T-Series performance resources include 48 CPU cores per active-active dual-controller array, plus 464GB of DRAM and 16GB of NVDIMM caches to accelerate data operations.

The firm includes predictive analytics and proactive support as part of its all-inclusive approach to licensing.

It makes Intelliflash available as a traditional appliance and as on-premises SDS.