June 26, 2017 at 16:07Pure Storage: Hour // m has arrived
Hello, Habr! Many of you who monitor the All-Flash market have heard of Pure Storage. They were mentioned in the comments, vendor comparisons, ratings. One trouble - in Russia Pure was not for sale.
And now we are ready to tell you the following: Pure Storage has reached us and is about to enter the Russian market!
I am developing the areas of storage and IBS in Jet. One of my areas of activity is the search and adaptation of new vectors for the development of IT infrastructure. Among these vectors is an active transition to Flash-technologies and related changes in data storage and processing.
Now everyone understands that the use of mechanical disks for high-performance computing is a thing of the past. The era of Flash is coming. But, as we can see, today's All-Flash is most often just packed SSDs with traditional disk arrays. All the more interesting for us are completely new players, startups of this business - companies that do not carry the burden of technology 20 years ago.
Pure Storage now has 3 storage lines:
We noticed Pure Storage more than 5 years ago. Then nothing but an ironic smile, these guys did not cause. The pieces of iron from Supermicro with Linux on board, some shamanistic dances with code and third-party applications, a beautiful idea and not the best implementation. But time goes on, everything changes, and Pure Storage was able to create a really interesting product that began to capture America and Europe.
Why is Pure so interesting to us? Firstly, this is the architecture originally created under Flash. The guys have been making a product for many years that takes into account all the nuances of Flash, not mechanical disks. For example, compression and deduplication always work - they cannot be turned off, they are wired into the code itself, into the mechanisms for working with data.
Secondly, it works simply and quickly. Remember RAID Groups, LDEV's, pools, tiering, partitioning, spare disks? This is nothing. Launched an array - got capacity and performance. Added drives - got more capacity and performance. You don’t have to think about anything, everything is just r-a-b-o-t-a-e-t.
In addition, the architecture itself is interesting. On the one hand, this is a classic dual-controller array, on the other, there is a feature: data is not cached for writing to RAM, everything is stored on external NVMe modules. Thus, you can take out controllers on the go, change them to others, upgrade inside the line, between the lines - all without downtime. And without loss of performance - the system does not allow itself to load more than 50% in normal mode.
And the most delicious is the difference between the Pure business model in terms of sales and support.
The program "always up-to-date storage", aimed at constantly updating the array:
Thus, the guys say: "Buy an array from us once, and you will never have to re-buy it again." Obviously, they are going to earn on support and on capacity extensions. The approach is interesting, you will not say anything.
A program to guarantee capacity savings through deduplication and compression technologies. At the stage of calculating the configuration, you indicate what data will be stored on the array (for example, VMware 30TB, Oracle 15TB). Then the integrator and the vendor prepare a proposal in which the efficiency coefficient for the presented data will be written (for example, 5: 1). In this case, Pure Storage legally guarantees this ratio before selling. If it does not correspond to the real one, additional disks will be brought.
The picture below shows the average coefficient for the entire Pure Storage database (several thousand arrays), which is slightly more than 5: 1
The counter efficiency is published on the website of the manufacturer and is updated around the clock
www.purestorage.com/why-pure/efficient.html
Like many manufacturers offer something similar, but often it's just marketing. Pure erects the effectiveness of storage in a cult: gives legal guarantees, spells it out in proposals. Let's see how it will be in reality.
Together with the purchase of the array, you get free access to the cloud monitoring service Pure1. It includes not only a proactive service, when cases are opened automatically by the manufacturer at the time of the incident, but also predictive analytics from the cloud. Numerous diagnostic metrics arrive at intervals of 30 seconds from the entire installed base into the Pure1 Meta machine learning system, which allows you to prevent problems before they actually occur. According to the manufacturer, this technology has helped prevent more than 170 cases of priority 1 before they were opened.
The above features, collected in one product, make you look at this array in a completely different way. Pure can violate the established status quo in the storage market, reverse the attitude towards disk arrays, and facilitate the transition to Flash technologies.
The only problem is encryption. For a long time, Pure Storage could not enter the Russian market due to restrictions on the import of encrypted systems. At the moment, a special version of the OS has been released for Russia and China, for which the FSB notification has already been received. Now Pure is ready to enter our market - we expect the first deliveries in August.
Jet is Pure Storage’s top service partner. Now we are actively engaged in obtaining our own demo stand - we are aiming for July (it may very well be that our stand will be even earlier than that of the vendor in Russia). After that, we will be ready to provide you with a real Geek Porn - a full report on testing the array of the fastest growing Flash startup. As they say, do not switch! ;)
After our tests, you will also be able to experience a novelty in business - a demo stand will be available to all our customers. Follow the news.
I will be glad to answer your questions in the comments. If the task requires a more detailed study, write to [email protected] .
The author of the article: Vladimir Belyaevsky, head of storage systems at Jet Infosystems
And now we are ready to tell you the following: Pure Storage has reached us and is about to enter the Russian market!
Small introduction
I am developing the areas of storage and IBS in Jet. One of my areas of activity is the search and adaptation of new vectors for the development of IT infrastructure. Among these vectors is an active transition to Flash-technologies and related changes in data storage and processing.
Now everyone understands that the use of mechanical disks for high-performance computing is a thing of the past. The era of Flash is coming. But, as we can see, today's All-Flash is most often just packed SSDs with traditional disk arrays. All the more interesting for us are completely new players, startups of this business - companies that do not carry the burden of technology 20 years ago.
Pure Storage now has 3 storage lines:
- FlashArray // m - a line of general-purpose AF arrays, suitable for both demanding applications and conventional systems (so far only the // m-line will be available in Russia);
- FlashArray // x - NVMe Flash-array for the most performance-critical applications;
- FlashBlade is a horizontally scalable file and object AF array.
What is the Pure feature?
We noticed Pure Storage more than 5 years ago. Then nothing but an ironic smile, these guys did not cause. The pieces of iron from Supermicro with Linux on board, some shamanistic dances with code and third-party applications, a beautiful idea and not the best implementation. But time goes on, everything changes, and Pure Storage was able to create a really interesting product that began to capture America and Europe.
Why is Pure so interesting to us? Firstly, this is the architecture originally created under Flash. The guys have been making a product for many years that takes into account all the nuances of Flash, not mechanical disks. For example, compression and deduplication always work - they cannot be turned off, they are wired into the code itself, into the mechanisms for working with data.
Secondly, it works simply and quickly. Remember RAID Groups, LDEV's, pools, tiering, partitioning, spare disks? This is nothing. Launched an array - got capacity and performance. Added drives - got more capacity and performance. You don’t have to think about anything, everything is just r-a-b-o-t-a-e-t.
In addition, the architecture itself is interesting. On the one hand, this is a classic dual-controller array, on the other, there is a feature: data is not cached for writing to RAM, everything is stored on external NVMe modules. Thus, you can take out controllers on the go, change them to others, upgrade inside the line, between the lines - all without downtime. And without loss of performance - the system does not allow itself to load more than 50% in normal mode.
And the most delicious is the difference between the Pure business model in terms of sales and support.
Evergreen
The program "always up-to-date storage", aimed at constantly updating the array:
- every 3 years within the framework of the service contract, Pure Storage exchanges controllers for current models free of charge for customers (while you are on support, you always have new controllers);
- new generations of arrays do not require disk replacement, no migrations;
- lifetime warranty on drives (while there is support);
- Pure changes obsolete disks to new ones for free if the customer increases the capacity by 4 times;
- all licenses are included (even if new functionality is released).
Thus, the guys say: "Buy an array from us once, and you will never have to re-buy it again." Obviously, they are going to earn on support and on capacity extensions. The approach is interesting, you will not say anything.
RIGHT-SIZE GUARANTEE. Capacity guarantee
A program to guarantee capacity savings through deduplication and compression technologies. At the stage of calculating the configuration, you indicate what data will be stored on the array (for example, VMware 30TB, Oracle 15TB). Then the integrator and the vendor prepare a proposal in which the efficiency coefficient for the presented data will be written (for example, 5: 1). In this case, Pure Storage legally guarantees this ratio before selling. If it does not correspond to the real one, additional disks will be brought.
The picture below shows the average coefficient for the entire Pure Storage database (several thousand arrays), which is slightly more than 5: 1
The counter efficiency is published on the website of the manufacturer and is updated around the clock
www.purestorage.com/why-pure/efficient.html
Like many manufacturers offer something similar, but often it's just marketing. Pure erects the effectiveness of storage in a cult: gives legal guarantees, spells it out in proposals. Let's see how it will be in reality.
Pure1
Together with the purchase of the array, you get free access to the cloud monitoring service Pure1. It includes not only a proactive service, when cases are opened automatically by the manufacturer at the time of the incident, but also predictive analytics from the cloud. Numerous diagnostic metrics arrive at intervals of 30 seconds from the entire installed base into the Pure1 Meta machine learning system, which allows you to prevent problems before they actually occur. According to the manufacturer, this technology has helped prevent more than 170 cases of priority 1 before they were opened.
The above features, collected in one product, make you look at this array in a completely different way. Pure can violate the established status quo in the storage market, reverse the attitude towards disk arrays, and facilitate the transition to Flash technologies.
And where is Pure in Russia?
The only problem is encryption. For a long time, Pure Storage could not enter the Russian market due to restrictions on the import of encrypted systems. At the moment, a special version of the OS has been released for Russia and China, for which the FSB notification has already been received. Now Pure is ready to enter our market - we expect the first deliveries in August.
Jet is Pure Storage’s top service partner. Now we are actively engaged in obtaining our own demo stand - we are aiming for July (it may very well be that our stand will be even earlier than that of the vendor in Russia). After that, we will be ready to provide you with a real Geek Porn - a full report on testing the array of the fastest growing Flash startup. As they say, do not switch! ;)
After our tests, you will also be able to experience a novelty in business - a demo stand will be available to all our customers. Follow the news.
I will be glad to answer your questions in the comments. If the task requires a more detailed study, write to [email protected] .
The author of the article: Vladimir Belyaevsky, head of storage systems at Jet Infosystems
