Hyper-Converged Infrastructures

It’s The Future

Amsterdam, 24th September 2015Howard Marks

Everyone Says So

• 30 years of consulting and writing for trade press– Now at NetworkComputing.com

• Chief Scientist DeepStorage, LLC.– Independent test lab and analysts

• Co-Host Greybeards on Storage podcast

@DeepStorageNet on TwitterHmarks@DeepStorage.Net

Your not so Humble Speaker

The Question is, Which Future?

Conventional Infrastructure is Complex• Virtualization simplified the

server• But complicates the infrastructure

– SAN and NAS replace server RAID– More east-west traffic

• Many vendors many UIs– No CLI task is easy once a quarter

• Rip, replace, migrate upgrade paths

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Hyperconverged Infrastructure• Simplify infrastructure by combining storage and compute• Storage management in VM or Hypervisor kernel process

– Pools SSD & HDD across multiple servers– Shared nothing, scale-out storage

• Must protect data against node failure• Can be sold as hardware or software

– Storage is software defined/driven

Storage Efficiency and Resilience• Dual controller, RAID-6

– Standard external storage today– Can survive 1 controller failure plus – 2 disk failures before data loss– 71% (5+2) to 86% (12+2) efficient

• Most HCI uses replication– 2-way can survive 1 controller failure OR 1 drive

• 50% efficient– 3-way can survive 1 controller failure AND 1 drive

• 33% efficient

• Erasure coding improves efficiency– Especially for large clusters– Can negatively impact random I/O

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Number of Appliances

Two Locations and RAID• Creating a Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA)• VSAs great solution for ROBO, SMB• Local storage, may require RAID controller• Publish as iSCSI or NFS• Example: Stormagic

– Basic iSCSI VSA 2 nodes $2500

Isn’t Deduplication The Answer?• Deduplication and compression take CPU and RAM• CPU cycles on HCI Host are expensive

– Typical server $8-15,000• 10 2.6Ghz cores, 256GB RAM $10K

– Software• vSphere Enterprise+ $6990• S&S 3yrs $5244• Windows Data Center $6155

• Big storage VMs mean less resources to run your VMs• Deduplication on spinning disk creates read bottlenecks

The Hyper-Converged Appliance• Most appliances are just servers

– High density cabinets optional– Simplivity adds ASIC based dedupe– NVDIMMs a possibility

• Software provides storage smarts

HCI Appliance

• Better qualification– Possibly Tighter integration

• Faster time to value• Simplified support• Generally higher price• Limited selection of nodes

– 4:1 Compute/CPU• Limited capacity

Software Only

• Greater flexibility– Range of hardware

• E3 to 24 drives– Deployment models

• Storage on bare metal

• Maintain server vendor• Every system a snowflake

Reference architectures & meet in channel models blur the line

• HCI not as attractive at scale– 20 servers and storage cost less than– 24 servers with HCI– vVols make external storage easier

• Virtualization admins may not be paranoid enough

HCI Market Leaders• Nutanix

– Appliances, direct and via Dell– Storage based on GFS– vSphere or Acropolis (KVM) w/Prism management

• Simplivity– Appliances, direct, Cisco, Lenovo– Hardware assisted dedupe– Integrated multi-site, S3 backup– NFS for external servers

VSAN/EVO:RAIL• Runs in vSphere kernel• Hybrid or all flash*

• Requires n-1 witnesses for n replicas– So 5 nodes for FTT=2

• New in 6.1– 2 node with external ESX witness– Metro synchronous replication

• EVO:RAIL– OEM spec for 4 node/2u– Generally overpriced

Smaller, More Specialized Solutions• Scale Computing, Nimboxx

– Use open source KVM w/management GUI– 3 node total cost under $30,000

• Pivot3– Erasure coding, 12 drive bays

• Good for orgs with lots of cold data

• Breqwatr Cloud Appliance– HyperConverged Openstack