NVMe SSDs are the most expensive non-volatile storage in today’s data centers. But optimizing your ROI on NVMe can be tricky. Conventional wisdom says the highest performance with the lowest latency is achieved by installing the SSD directly into the server and scaling throughput or IOPS in a parallel fashion by adding more servers, each with its own NVMe SSD. However, increasing IOPS or throughput to match your workload is directly proportional to the amount of NAND Flash and power settings on the SSD. If your workload requires a small amount of storage, as most databases do, but your need for speed is high, it is likely that the number of servers, SSDs, and power is much higher.
Dial It In
Pavilion’s standards-based design, using NVMe-Over-Fabrics and intuitive user interface, lets you increase IOPS or throughput without increasing the amount of SSD capacity or the number of servers to achieve your performance goals. For example, if you have a database instance that is 1.5TB, but you need 3 million 4K Random Read IOPS, simply define a 1TB NVMe logical, set IOPS parameter to 3M and Block Size to 4KB, hit enter and go. It’s that simple.
Contrast this approach to direct-attached NVMe storage inside a server; you will be purchasing at least 3 NVMe SSDs and at least 2.7TB of capacity. At an average cost of $2/GB for NVMe SSDs, the amount of unused is 1.2TB or $2,400, not to mention the additional servers, software licenses, space, power, etc. required.
While it is possible to get this type of performance out of a traditional All-Flash Array, remember that the Pavilion system with NVMe-Over-Fabrics is instantly reconfigurable for another workload with zero downtime. AFA’s are dedicated volumes on a Fibre Channel or iSCSI path where re-use of those volumes requires a complete tear-down and reconfiguration, complete with a scheduled downtime.
The same speed dial principle applies to bandwidth. Need a massive data warehouse load in a tight time window? Dial-up write bandwidths up to 60GB/sec. Need 50+ 8K video streams for a VR application? Dial-up the read bandwidth, all the way to 120GB/sec! Since Pavilion’s NVMe-oF Storage Platform can house up to 72 Enterprise NVMe SSDs, there is plenty of capacity to keep that content online in primary storage.
The premise is simple, the outcome extraordinary. Pavilion lets you rethink performance storage. All you have to do is dial it in.