Using Solid State Disk to Accelerate Applications

May 6th, 2012 8:30AM – 12:00PM

Over the past 2-3 years solid state storage has moved from the cutting edge of high performance computing into mainstream data centers speeding workloads from accounts payable to VDI.  But solid state disk technology has been advancing rapidly and the simple SLC good, MLC for laptops only rules of a few years ago no longer apply, IT managers have more solid state storage options than they can shake a stick at and need to be able to tell which one is best for their environment.  This workshop will bring the solid state storage products on the market into clear focus.  By the end of this workshop you’ll know what solid state technologies can best speed your applications and simplify your life.

Who Should Attend

IT managers and system administrators looking to use solid state storage to accelerate their applications or provide high performance storage for new workloads cost effectively.  Almost any organization using wide striped or short stroked 15K RPM disk drives can run their apps faster while saving money by adding solid state storage.

Part 1: How Solid State Storage Works

The introductory session discusses the various technologies used in building the Flash storage, the interface technologies to interconnect them, and how the drives are managed such as lower level wear leveling. In this session, we will dive deep into Flash storage and you will have a solid understanding of Flash, and alternative, technologies.

What you'll learn:

• Storage and application performance
• Throughput, IOPs and latency
• Solid State Storage Media
• DRAM
• Flash Memory
• How Flash Works
• Blocks, Pages and memory wear out
• SLC, MLC and eMLC
• Future Players
• Memristors
• Phase change memory
• Anatomy of a flash SSD

Part 2: Deploying Flash in Your Data Center

Now that we understand how flash works, and the problems flash presents, we’ll explore the options a typical system administrator has to speed up their workloads.  We’ll look at the architectures used to storage systems today and we’ll set your expectations on the benefits and trade-offs. We’ll pay special attention to virtual server and VDI workloads and how to speed them up without breaking the bank.

What you'll learn:

• Solid State Form Factors
• Rackmount
• Solid State Disks
• PCIe Flash
• Deployment options
• Hybrid systems
• Flash in the array vs. fresh hybrid designs
• Automated tiering
• In array caching
• All Flash Arrays
• Using all flash arrays with storage virtualization
• Server side caching