MS SQL Server & Solid State Storage November 2013 Gavin McLaughlin Solutions Development Director X-IO International Cutting through the marketing hype - what really is the role of Flash in the data centre?

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Storage is all about Balance The Storage market is suddenly changing  Market drive to towards Software Defined Storage  Influx of new technologies and new vendors Realisation that vendors have been taking advantage for too long  Three year lifecycles should not be the norm  Why is it not possible to fill storage to 100% ? Storage is all about balance  Cost, Risk & Growth are equally important when it comes to storage selection

X-IO Technologies – Confidential 3 Performance Capacity Cheap and Deep Flash Speed Required HDD Capacity Required Traditional RAID All Flash Arrays Backup, Archive Web 2.0 Cloud Exchange Rich Media Serving Virtual Desktops / Servers OLTP/ BI Routine File Serving Virtual Dev Servers Trading Desk HPC Increasing Performance Increasing Capacity Application Workloads Require More Performance £/GB £/IOP Risk Cost Growth

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Who’s making all the noise ?

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Are all messages the same ?  Violin pitching innovation and performance.  Pure Storage pitching de-dupe and consumer grade pricing.  SolidFire pitching “Quality of Service” for service providers.  Many many more stories are out there – all proclaiming that HDDs are dead  However remember that flash is a tool, not a solution Matching NEED to SOLUTION

X-IO Technologies – Confidential 6 IDC Whitepaper 2012 Data optimisation is the key to achieving balance In essence, achieving the best economics for storage, balancing performance, capacity and price will require a combination of solid state and hard disk storage in the foreseeable future…..

X-IO Technologies – Confidential What does the market think ?

X-IO Technologies – Confidential How clear are you about the benefits offered by flash-only arrays vs. traditional HDD arrays? Market Clarity Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential The Market IS Confused What are the three main differences between flash-only arrays and hybrid (mixed flash and hard disk) arrays? 75% of respondents thought hybrids use more power 40% of respondents believe AFAs are more reliable Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Price / Performance / RELIABILITY Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential What’s the ideal solution ? Source: Vanson Bourne Market Survey for X-IO, 2013

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Achieving the Best of Both Worlds Traditional Enterprise HDD Storage High Performance Flash Storage Strengths Price Proven Technology Low Risk Weaknesses Latency Perceived Reliability Density / Scale Strengths I/O Performance Low Latency Low Power* Weaknesses Finite Lifetime Mixed workload ability Cost Balanced Performance Cost Reliability Hard Drives for… Capacity Sequential Workloads Longevity Flash Drives for… Low Latency Random Workloads Footprint Real-Time Hybrid Storage Only real- time Hybrid Storage available High Performance Low Power True Balance of Cost, Risk & Growth Unique 5 year inclusive warranty Balancing Cost, Growth & Risk

X-IO Technologies – Confidential X-IO’s patented Continuous Adaptive Data Placement (CADP) uses SSD for the data blocks that require SSD performance at any given moment, and HDD for sequential and truly random basic I/O Result: higher operating performance at lower first-order cost. Old ModelNew Model Proof point with Temenos and SQL 2012

X-IO Technologies – Confidential The ISE: High Performance RedKnee on Oracle & Exadata: April 2011 RedKnee on SQLServer & ISE: February million subscribers250 million subscribers 2 billion CDRs < 12 hours4.9 billion CDRs < 12 hours 50,000 operations/second+60,000 operations/second 10 TB “presented capacity” 5.3 TB “Exadata Smart Flash Cache” 19.5 TB “presented capacity” 12 TB SSD +$4M~$750K Against Exadata, 2.5x the performance for 20% of the cost Real world Example

X-IO Technologies – Confidential Storage is all about Balance Hard drives are far from dead  Capacity where it’s needed – Don’t focus too much on IOPS  Not all HDDs are equal AND it is possible to get more from drive Flash is a tool, not a solution  Activity based tiering can be dangerous – Use real time IO analysis The storage marketplace is changing  Storage should provide performance and reliability – not whistles and bells Look at 5 year TCO, not just acquisition price  Also balance £/GB and £/IOP – Not mutually exclusive

THANK YOU Gavin McLaughlin