1. SanDisk® DAS Cache
Brought to you by

2. Notices and disclaimers
Copyright © 2015 by Dell, Inc.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission from Dell, Inc.
This document could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Dell may make improvements or changes in the product(s) or program(s) described herein at any time without notice. Any statements regarding Dell’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
References in this document to Dell products, programs, or services does not imply that Dell intends to make such products, programs or services available in all countries in which Dell operates or does business. Any reference to an Dell Program Product in this document is not intended to state or imply that only that program product may be used. Any functionality equivalent program, that does not infringe Dell’s intellectual property rights, may be used.
The information provided in this document is distributed “AS IS” without any warranty, either expressed or implied. Dell EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose OR INFRINGEMENT. Dell shall have no responsibility to update this information.
The provision of the information contained herein is not intended to, and does not, grant any right or license under any Dell patents or copyrights.
Dell, Inc Innovative Way Nashua, NH USA
Brought to you by

3. What’s the problem with DAS solutions?

4. What’s the problem? – IO Latency
High IO latency from direct attached HDD storage slows applications, creating long wait times for users.
Processor speed has grown exponentially.
User expectations have grown exponentially.
HDD speed has not kept up.
CPU performance
Disk performance
User expectations are up here
Application Performance is down stuck here
Brought to you by

5. DAS solutions do not typically scale performance
and have a finite amount of performance ability
Slow application responses create long wait times for end users due to latency between direct attached storage and the application
Different hardware and operating system restrictions limit options for deploying a cache based DAS environment.
IT infrastructures are overprovisioned using a large number of SSDs in server- storage infrastructure to address performance requirements difficult to attain with rotating HDDs.
Brought to you by

6. and What if your DAS solution could…
…. allow you to dramatically accelerate your application performance and scale your business without massive infrastructure investment?
and
…radically speed your application performance via a quick, upgrade while ensuring data integrity?
Brought to you by

7. SanDisk® DAS Cache brought to you by Dell

8. Dell PowerVault MD storage
Introducing SanDisk® DAS Cache
Install
SanDisk® DAS Cache software
SAS Interconnects
SSDs
Dell PowerVault MD storage
Server-level caching software product for Direct Attached Storage using SSDs
- with the option to add PowerVault*.
Developed for Dell by SanDisk for use in select 13th generation, FX2 and R920 Dell PowerEdge™ servers,
Reduces latency and accelerates response times for applications needing improved I/O read and write.
SanDisk DAS Cache is transparent to the application and provides substantial performance increases for workloads such as OLTP, OLAP and Business Analytics.
An incredible combination of price, performance and enterprise features
Brought to you by
*Dell PowerVault MD with JBODS, SAS connected as DAS only, CANNOT be Shared Storage. The total capacity cannot exceed 256TB, and the number of volumes cannot exceed 2048.

9. SanDisk® DAS Cache: How it Works video
Watch this short video to discover how SanDisk® DAS Cache, can accelerate application performance as easily as 1, 2, 3 – and do it all without requiring a massive investment.
Brought to you by

10. How SanDisk DAS Cache works: server
SSDs as shared read/write cache pool
Rotating drives as storage inside next generation Dell PowerEdge servers
How SanDisk DAS Cache works: server
Server
Application
High IOPS
SanDisk DAS Cache
LowIOPS
Lower IOPS
RAID cont.
This configuration uses storage (internal to a server). In this configuration, some of the drives are SSDs, which are being used as the shared read/write cache pool; whereas the remaining rotating drives are being used as storage inside the server.
Brought to you by

11. PowerVault rotating disc storage PowerVault rotating disc storage
How SanDisk DAS Cache works: server and PowerVault
Shared read/write cache pool
Server
High IOPS
SanDisk DAS Cache
PCIe SSDs
Application
LowIOPS
Low IOPS
RAID cont.
Internal
Storage
RAID cont.
RAID cont.
This configuration uses NVMe PCIe SSDs and multiple storage drives (internal to both the server and Dell PowerVault* which is connected via a SAS connection) directly attached to a validated server.
External
PowerVault rotating disc storage
External
PowerVault rotating disc storage
Brought to you by
*Dell PowerVault MD with JBODS, SAS connected as DAS only, CANNOT be Shared Storage. The total capacity cannot exceed 256TB, and the number of volumes cannot exceed 2048.

12. PowerVault rotating disc storage PowerVault rotating disc storage
How SanDisk DAS Cache works: multiple storage devices
Shared Read/Write Cache Pool
SSDs added inside external PowerVault storage
Server
Application
High IOPS
SanDisk DAS Cache
LowIOPS
Lower IOPS
RAID cont.
Internal
Storage
RAID cont.
RAID cont.
This configuration uses multiple storage devices (internal to both the server and Dell PowerVault* which is connected via a SAS connection) directly attached to a server. The SSDs are in one of the PowerVault storage devices as the cache media for all I/O for the various storage to be cached.
External
PowerVault rotating disc storage
External
PowerVault rotating disc storage
Brought to you by
*Dell PowerVault MD with JBODS, SAS connected as DAS only, CANNOT be Shared Storage. The total capacity cannot exceed 256TB, and the number of volumes cannot exceed 2048.

13. SanDisk®DAS Cache can help you:
Reach greater performance
Deploy with flexibility
Maximize your resource utilization
Do more in less time using accelerated data analytics
Attain increased performance for high-IOPS Linux and Windows Server applications
Realize a lower cost per user and get more transactions per second, at a reduced application response time.
Select from a variety of options:
Connected media as cache
Storage controllers
Operating systems
R920, FX2 and 13th generation Dell PowerEdge rack, tower and blade servers
SSDs to meet your needs:
combine SSD resources across the entire server-storage infrastructure
use a single SSDs cache group to accelerate multiple local storage groups or volumes
Deploy up to four independent cache devices per server for different applications on the same server.
Brought to you by

14. A multitude of deployment options are available
Cache interfaces and devices
SATA and SAS SSDs
PowerEdge Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSDs
Fusion-IO PCIe-based SSD cards
Operating systems
Windows R2 , 2012, and R012 R2
Windows Hyper-V
Red Hat* Enterprise Linux 6.5 and 7.0
Novell® SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3, and Enterprise Server 12
VMware vSphere® ESXI™ 5.5 U2 **
Storage controllers
Chipsets
Host Bus Adapters (HBA)
Dell PowerEdge Raid Controller (PERC)
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe)
Dell PowerEdge servers
Dell PowerEdge FC430, and FC630
Dell PowerEdge R920, R430, R530, R630, R730, R730xd, R930
Dell PowerEdge VRTX or M1000e with M630
Dell PowerEdge T430, T630
External JBOD storage
Dell PowerVault MD with JBODS
SAS connected as DAS, not shared storage
Total capacity of 256TB and 2048 volumes
*XFS on Red Hat 7.0 Operating System is not supported by SanDisk DAS Cache at this time. Other file systems are supported in Red Hat.
**VMware vSphere® ESXI™ 5.5 U2 supported in Write-Through cache mode only at this time.
Brought to you by

15. Workloads that benefit from SanDisk® DAS Cache

16. Potential configurations for SanDisk® DAS Cache
Business need
Workload
SanDisk DAS Cache configuration guidance
e-Commerce
Online transaction processing (OLTP)
Dell PowerEdge R730XD,with a mix of NVMe SSDs as cache media and rotating drives for storage, running on Red Hat**® Enterprise Linux® operating system.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Dell PowerEdge R730XD,with a mix of NVMe SSDs as cache media and rotating drives for storage, running on Microsoft Windows operating system with Microsoft SQL Server.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Dell PowerEdge R730,with mix of SAS SSDs as cache media, and direct-attach Dell PowerVault* storage running on Microsoft Windows operating system with Microsoft SQL Server.
Hadoop
Analytics and Data warehousing
Dell PowerEdge R730XD,with mix of SSDs (NVMe or SAS SSDs) as cache media and rotating drives for storage, running on Red Hat** Enterprise Linux operating system.
Content Management
Random reads of database, or file reads on periphery servers
Dell PowerEdge T630, with mix of SAS SSDs as cache media and direct-attach PowerVault containing rotating drives for storage, running on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating system.
*Dell PowerVault MD with JBODS, SAS connected as DAS only, CANNOT be Shared Storage. The total capacity cannot exceed 256TB, and the number of volumes cannot exceed 2048.
**XFS on Red Hat 7.0 Operating System is not supported by SanDisk DAS Cache at this time. Other file systems are supported in Red Hat.
Brought to you by

17. SanDisk® DAS Cache: value for HPC-C
Accelerate NSS by deploying SanDisk® DAS Cache on the head node
N/W Link
Sequential auto-detect advantage
N/W Links
N/W Links
Brought to you by

18. Dell Fluid Cache for SAN and SanDisk® DAS Cache together

19. Content management solution: Fluid Cache for SAN and SanDisk® DAS Cache
Accelerate Read/Write response in the data center using Fluid Cache for SAN
Accelerate Read response for the internet periphery servers using SanDisk® DAS Cache
Data center
USA
Dell PowerEdge R630
Fluid Cache for SAN
SanDisk DAS Cache - Brasil
Dell PowerEdge R630
SanDisk DAS Cache - Japan
SanDisk DAS Cache - Ireland
Dell PowerEdge T630
Brought to you by

20. CRM solution: Fluid Cache for SAN and SanDisk® DAS Cache
Data center
Dell PowerEdge R730
SanDisk DAS Cache
Fluid Cache for SAN
The entire CRM system is on a Fluid Cache for SAN based solution, accelerating database access
Search engine and indexing for CRM is on a stand alone server running SanDisk DAS Cache
Brought to you by

21. Performance and press

22. 11x more SanDisk® DAS Cache when running OLTP on Microsoft SQL Server
* Results based on September 2014 whitepaper, “SanDisk® DAS Cache: OLTP Performance”. Tests run by SanDisk. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
more
database transactions*
when
running
OLTP on
Microsoft SQL Server
Intensifes Dell 730xd server performance
with up to:
11x
SanDisk® DAS Cache
Do not use in: South Africa, Ukraine, or Venezuela.
Do not use in : South Africa, Ukraine, or Venezuela.
Brought to you by

23. Principled Technologies test report: Consolidate databases with SanDisk® DAS Cache and R730xd servers
Consolidate up to 6 IBM 3650 M3 servers to 1 Dell PowerEdge R730XD with SANDisk DAS Cache.*
Download the test report* here:
*Based on Principled Technologies report "Consolidating older database servers with the Intel processor powered Dell PowerEdge R730XD using SANDisk DAS Cache," September 2014, commissioned by Dell. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability. For more information, please visit:
Do not use in Argentina, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey, Venezuela, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Chile, Hong Kong, Korea, South Africa, or Ukraine.
Do not use in Argentina, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey, Venezuela, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Chile, Hong Kong, Korea, South Africa, or Ukraine.
Brought to you by

24. And SanDisk® DAS Cache…
What the press
is saying about
Dell R730xd servers
And SanDisk® DAS Cache…
Dell PowerEdge R730xd
“Higher performance than ever before.”
– StorageReview
Read the full review at:
Dell World 2014

25. Financial Retail Education Healthcare Government Manufacturing
Who can benefit from SanDisk DAS Cache?
Financial
Retail
Education
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Government
Brought to you by

26. The SanDisk® DAS Cache difference
Write-back cache = accelerates data writes as well as reads
Use a variety of cache media: SAS, SATA or PCIe SSDs; and also Fusion I/O based SSD cards as cache
Cache is pooled within the server
Performance enhancements + data integrity protects write cache data
Cache stays warm on reboot
Priced per server, not per socket - and the license is perpetual
Up to 4 cache “devices” per server for multiple performance SLAs
Cache storage that spans across multiple PERCs, or even without PERC
Brought to you by

27. dell.com/dascache

28. Thank you.