With 2017 set “to be the year of all-flash storage”, the all-flash revolution is finally going strong in data centres, but I wish I could say the same for consumer PCs!
Whenever I come across any computer these days with an old fashioned, magnetic spinning hard drive, I can feel its sloth - with even HPE’s sibling HP still with some computers in its consumer range offering 1TB HDDs in lieu of smaller capacity but vastly faster SSD speed demons.
Where hard disks were once incredibly fast, they’re now like being sedated while watching snails and slugs in a race to see who can be the slowest.
While PC manufacturers are still too profit-constrained to dump hard disk drives forever in consumer computers, relegating the hard disk forevermore to consumer-based extremely large backup storage devices (like the 5TB external 3.5-inch Seagate drive I bought from Officeworks the other day for AUD $199), the business data centre world has moved much faster on SSDs and flash storage than consumers.
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And so that’s why we’ve heard from Paul Haverfield, CTO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Asia Pacific & Japan, who writes to talk up the flashy world of all-flash storage, and why flash is in a very solid state.
Haverfield starts off by explaining that “in years to come, we might well look back on 2017 as the year the hard disk era finally gave way to the brave new world of all-flash solid-state storage.”
It has to be obvious that Paul would like everyone reading to buy HPE’s technologies, but that’s clearly no surprise, so let’s see what he has to say while keeping Haverfield’s technological and marketshare motives in mind, while he sells us on the flashily seductive storage spirit of SSDs and all-flash solutions.
Now, for those in the know who moved to SSDs much earlier this decade, hard disks for everyday computing have already long been dead.
However, as Haverfield continues, cost savings have joined “join the long-held performance benefits and use cases in hybrid cloud and software-defined storage become ever-more compelling, the surge in all-flash demand will continue to grow to fuel digital transformation.”
Driving change
What Haverfield says next is that “APAC organisations today need to support new applications and processes designed to drive value by creating faster, more compelling experiences for internal and external customers. The new digital world is all about social, mobile, cloud and virtual technologies. In fact, 80% of businesses believe digital transformation is now a reality for them, according to the HPE Digital Transformation Index."
We hear from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about “cloud first” and “mobile first”, but what Haverfield is telling us about is the "digital first" culture.
It’s also at this point that typing out Haverfield - a surname almost as long as mine but not quite - is going to start being replaced by “Mr H”, so hold onto your horses, your hoverboards and your Haverfields, and have at what’s coming next.
Mr H says it is “all about time to market and time to value. And that requires the breakdown of traditional technology silos and a move away from decision making by IT leaders as application development and even business development teams take the lead. It’s a more agile and responsive approach focused on cost optimisation and driving competitive advantage – and that requires a new approach to storage.”
Unsurprisingly, and very happily, HPE’s Mr H enters the no spin zone when he says that “Magnetic spinning hard disk storage is anathema to this new era of digital transformation. In fact, its data processing bottlenecks and constraints are a roadblock to innovation and growth, unable to support the rapid iteration of new features, apps and services organisations are increasingly demanding.”
So, where does this naturally lead us all to? The all-flash revolution
As you may or may not have expected, it’s time for Mr H to put the H in History Lesson, so let’s take a quick trip down memory lane in our own personal mind-Tardises.
What Mr H reminds us of is that “the move to the all-flash data centre has come in waves.”
We’re told that “The first wave was driven by performance enhancements – adding solid state drives (SSDs) to arrays to support workloads when all-flash was perceived as a more expensive medium used initially to accelerate individual workloads for mission critical applications – for example facilitating stock market trades in financial services firms.
“The second wave was driven by economics – savings on total cost of operations (TCO) of all-flash arrays accelerated investment in SSDs to improve performance while keeping overall cost at hard disk drives (HDDs) levels.
“Today, we are in the third wave of the all-flash revolution. Data growth and application development in the data centre are expanding exponentially and putting pressure on IT to consolidate more data on less infrastructure,” continued the Doctor as he slid sliders on the Tardis console as it smoothly shuddered through the slipstream of time... um... oops, I mean, Mr H says, as we continue down memory lane into the present.
It’s at this point that I’d like to remind you that “The Fifth Wave” was a particularly useless science fiction movie, so if you ever see it pop up in your Netflix playlist, you can safely skip it and re-watch "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" instead, because you’ll have more fun.
In any case, this “third wave” that we’re now in is “part of the drive for faster, more responsive, agile and efficient IT systems, that can keep pace with data growth and app development”, as seen by “organisations embracing hybrid cloud systems and software-defined storage, which go hand-in-hand with all-flash solutions.”
It does make you wonder if Daleks and Cybermen use all-flash solutions to exterminate their way to the top of the technological food chain, only to be struck down by the Doctor, but again - my timelines and this article keep intertwining.
Mr H puts me back on track by noting a huge advantage of an all-flash world: “It can improve the performance of most applications 10-fold – helping modern enterprises to drive digital change with consistently high performance at scale across multiple workloads and environments which is demanded by the hybrid cloud model.”
“As this trend continues,” continues Mr H, “we will see more enterprises adopt an all-flash mindset as they seek to transform their organisations, as was the case with Burson Automotive, an Australian automotive parts supplier.”
Here we’re told that “Burson Automotive wanted to replace existing infrastructure with scalable systems to support its business growth. As a result of a new HPE solution, which includes HPE BladeSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ 7450 flash storage, the company’s performance quadrupled. The new infrastructure has enabled Burson Automotive to cut operating costs, consolidate multiple systems, improve its disaster recovery capabilities and has provided the scalability to cope with future expansion.”
Thankfully Burson doesn’t have to smash Daleks or chop Cybermen down to size, but it does sound like it has exterminated threats to its aforementioned future expansion. HPE is all about Star Trek, anyway, so clearly, HPE’s tech has helped Burson “engage” its own move to warp speed.
This leads to the next question, or rather statement, on “How to get there”.
It’s been a long road, getting from there to here as we heard in the theme song to the Enterprise TV show, and longer still before we develop a true warp drive, but transition to an all-flash model is something businesses can achieve today, rather than sometime in the 24th century.
You see, when transitioning to an all-flash model, Mr H says that “IT buyers need to focus less on performance – which is a given with flash – and more on four key pillars: app ecosystems, operations, risk and future investments.”
You won’t need Commander Data’s advice to “consider how well all-flash can support key app workloads natively, and whether quality of service (QoS) policies can be applied on an app-by-app basis.”
In Star Trek's world, you'd simply "ask the computer," but in this one, ask yourself and others “whether provisioning can be integrated into the hypervisor or server provisioning toolset, and whether the platform supports containers natively as well as virtual machines.
“Does it provide a flash-optimised and integrated copy management platform for modern day backup/restore/cyber security protection, and does it meet DR needs without compromise?
“And can the platform bought today be easily upgraded to tomorrow’s technology – like NVMe?”
These are all important questions. People like to tune into WII-FM - What's In IT For Me - and these days, WII-FNVMe, too. These question perhaps aren't as important as “What is the meaning of life?” but if you value the lifespan of your business and wish to extend it, the questions above can be just as existentially important.
What else does Mr H advise?
“Consider OPEX,” he says, “consumption-based purchasing, up to around 5-10 cents per GB of protected all-flash storage per month. Going down this route should also allow trading in legacy HDD based storage; receive automatic and built-in technology refreshes; and have the flexibility to grow and shrink consumption on a month-by-month basis.
“As well as price, look at solutions which offer high IOPS at predictable response times under one millisecond; provide enterprise-class mission-critical availability and zero data loss; and petabyte scale.”
He also notes that “There’s quite a bit of confusion in the market about flash media warranties and support periods. Expect five years of warranty for replacements and an additional two years with support contracts – both regardless of wear-out status. It goes without saying that customer references, industry awards, benchmarks and analyst reports are a good source of independent info to help inform purchasing decisions.”
So, what of "Beyond 2017" in the world of all-flash storage?
Beyond 2000 was once a show we all watched in the 90s, and now we’re more than 17 years beyond that. We’ve had Star Trek Beyond, but beyond all these sci-fi references, what IS beyond?
Mr H says that “When we look back on 2017, we’ll see all the elements beginning to emerge which will eventually drive the pre-eminence of the all-flash data centre for primary workloads.
“Adoption will also accelerate over the coming years with the advent of “flash apps”: a new breed of big data applications designed to capitalise on the huge performance improvements offered by SSA technology to process mountains of data in near-real time.
“And with the advent of 3D-QLC (quad level cells) there could be a ready-made replacement for archive-grade HDD.”
So, with sci-fi becoming sci-fact on practically a daily basis, and with all-flash storage offering so much more than ever before, Mr H’s conclusion is rather apt.
He says: “Wherever you look, the future’s flash,” - and clearly, that’s no flash in the pan, but a solid, rolled gold nugget of truth.