1. Date August 7, 2008 Presenter Marty Turner
FlexCache
Date August 7, 2008
Presenter Marty Turner

2. FlexCache™ Overview Storage performance accelerator
25 March 2017
FlexCache™ Overview
Storage performance accelerator
Cache storage protocol
Supports NFS v2/v3
Cache architecture
Memory and disk
Volume granularity
Write-through
Origin System
Origin Volume
FlexCache Volume
NFS Clients
FlexCache System 2

3. FlexCache Overview Significant value across various workloads
Shared data sets
Repeated access
Random reads
High IOPS/concurrency
Across different verticals
Financial
EDA
Software build
Movie rendering
Energy exploration
Biotech

4. FlexCache Use Cases Three primary: (A) Scale out performance
(B) Reduce WAN latency
(C) Offload resources
Also:
Tiered storage
FlexCache Volumes
NFS Clients
Origin System
Caching Systems
Origin Volume
(A)
FlexCache Volume
(C)
Caching System
WAN
WAN
(B)
NFS Clients

5. Scale Out Performance Challenges FlexCache™ increases IOPS Benefits
Compute farms have huge demand
Storage performance dictates grid growth
FlexCache™ increases IOPS
Scales capability for shared data
Balances client load across multiple caching systems
Benefits
Extensive scalability
No need to replicate/mirror data
FlexCache Volume
SCALE
OUT
NFS Clients
Origin System
Caching System
Origin Volume ……
Caching System
FlexCache Volume

6. Reduce WAN Latency Challenges FlexCache™ reduces WAN latency Benefits
Wide area networks are slow
Ensure nodes are always processing
FlexCache™ reduces WAN latency
Caches data near client
Faster access times
Avoids the overhead of replication
Benefits
Reduced latency for NFS clients
Nondisruptive
Ease of management
Disk-space efficient
Reduces WAN utilization
Origin Volume
FlexCache Volume
Caching
System
WAN
WAN
Origin System
NFS Clients

7. Offload Resources Challenge FlexCache™ offloads resources Benefits
25 March 2017
Offload Resources
Challenge
Overloaded storage system or network infrastructure
FlexCache™ offloads resources
Origin available for other tasks
NFS ops served from cache
Benefits
Offloads storage
Offloads network
Simplifies administration
FlexCache Volumes
NFS Clients
Origin System
Caching Systems
Origin Volume
FlexCache Volume
Caching System
WAN
WAN
NFS Clients 7

8. FlexCache as Tiered Storage
Challenge
Provide cost-effective tiered storage
FlexCache paradigm
Primary is FlexCache
Secondary is origin
Migration is application driven
Benefits
No migration policies
Sharing data is simple
Data management on secondary
Primary 1
(FlexCache)
NFS Clients
Secondary
(Origin)
Cached Data
Fewer Drives
Data A’, B’
App Drives Migration
Primary 2
(FlexCache)
NFS Clients
All Data
Low Cost Drives
Data A, B, C
Cached Data
Fewer Drives
Data B’, C’

9. FlexCache Deployment Choices
FlexCache™ license: Multipurpose or repurposed FAS
Any FAS or V-Series with Data ONTAP® 7G
NetApp® SA system: Dedicated, cost-effective cache
Target Use Case
IOPS
Base Config Memory
Expandability
SA200
Entry Data Center/Remote Caching
11,500
2GB
No memory expansion
Storage up to 104TB
SA300
Mid Data Center Caching
34,500
8GB
Memory up to 40GB
Storage up to 504TB
SA600
Large Data Center Caching
220,000
32GB
Memory up to 112GB
Storage up to 1176TB

10. Customer Success: Cadence—Semiconductor EDA
25 March 2017
Customer Success: Cadence—Semiconductor EDA
Compute Farm
Caching Tiers
Origin
V6070A
FAS3050
FAS3050
IBM
Shark
SAN
FAS3050
FAS3050
“The true performance of caching will help us scale to 10,000 servers in the compute farm.” —Cadence success story 10

11. Customer Success: Major Studio—Movie Rendering
25 March 2017
Customer Success: Major Studio—Movie Rendering
Render Farm
~750 nodes
Render Farm
~750 nodes
18 Caching Systems
18 Caching Systems
WAN
10 Origin Systems
10 Origin Systems
“We cannot render movies without FlexCache.” —Customer quote 11

12. Thank you!
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