The technical value of WSSD validated HCI solutions, part 1

As many of you are aware, one of the most important scenarios enabled by modern versions of #Windows is the creation of a hyper-converged infrastructure ( #HCI ) through new technologies like Storage Spaces Direct ( #S2D). Right now, all the technology you need to create this infrastructure is simply baked into Windows Server Datacenter, waiting for someone to enable and configure it for their use. However, in order to receive support in a production environment, there are a number of quality hurdles that have to be cleared, particularly around the hardware used to create them. The work that goes into designing and testing these solutions is intense. As with any other Windows feature, you can do much of this work yourself. However, most IT organizations don’t have the resources to perform the same level of integration testing as our partner ecosystem. To ease your path to a high quality experience, we created the #WSSD program. WSSD enables our partners to easily list and sell fully tested and supported configurations. We recommend our customers use these pre-certified solutions instead of trying to build their own. Rather than just asking you to take our word for it, I’m going to attempt to provide an understanding of the kind of technical work these vendors do as integrators, and why building off the shelf is a bad idea for critical production workloads.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2018/02/20/the-technical-value-of-wssd-validated-hci-solutions-part-1/

Windows Server 2016 To Get 'Hyperconverged' Enhancements

#Microsoft is promising to describe new details this month about #hyperconverged infrastructure ( #HCI ) improvements that will be coming to the next major release of #WindowsServer2016. The details will be presented as part of the #MicrosoftIgnite conference, which starts this month on Sept. 25. However, Microsoft sketched out three of those improvements today in an announcement. They'll be arriving with Windows Server 2016 version 1709, which is expected to be released as a current branch in September or October. First, Microsoft expects to deliver increased efficiency with regard to data deduplication in HCI scenarios, namely "upwards of 95% data efficiency," according to the announcement. Next, Microsoft is promising an "all new management experience" for Windows Server 2016 HCI scenarios, as well as improvements to "reduce the operational expenses." Those details weren't described. Lastly, "persistent memory" silicon improvements will be coming, along with improved "erasure coding performance." Erasure coding breaks data into fragments and stores it across different locations. Persistent memory is typically described as providing faster data access on nonvolatile dual inline memory modules (NVDIMMs) because they have dynamic random access memory (DRAM) with a dedicated flash memory segment. Persistent memory hardware is helpful for use in computing environments that require "frequent access to large, complex data sets and environments that are sensitive to downtime caused by power failures or system crashes," according to Micron's description of the term.  And that's about it as far as Microsoft's bare bones sketch went regarding the coming HCI improvements. By HCI for Windows Server 2016, Microsoft is referring to a specific network arrangement that combines compute and storage functions together in a cluster. Windows Server 2016 offers "converged" and "hyperconverged" options, according to a 2016 Ignite talk by Steven Ekren, a senior program manager on the Windows Server team, who showed this slide:  [Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1. Converged vs. hyperconverged options for Windows Server 2016. Source: 2016 Ignite session. Quite a lot of that HCI technology is associated with the use of the Storage Spaces Direct technology in Windows Server 2016. Storage Spaces Direct is "software-defined, shared nothing storage" technology that's likely cheaper and faster to use than relying on storage area network (SAN) devices, according to a summary offered last year by Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Aidan Finn. Storage Spaces Direct promises the use of newer and lower cost storage devices, including "SATA, SSD and NVMe disk devices that were previously not possible with clustered Storage Spaces with shared disks," according to Microsoft's "What's New" document. Storage Spaces is the earlier software defined networking technology Microsoft released with Windows Server 2012. Here are the benefits of using Storage Spaces Direct, according to Ekren's 2016 talk:  [Click on image for larger view.] Figure 2. Benefits of Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016. Source: 2016 Ignite session. One catch for IT pros excited by the coming HCI improvements is that Storage Spaces Direct requires using the Datacenter edition of Windows Server 2016. It's not part of the Standard edition. Currently, there's a preview release of Windows Server 2016 (build 16278) available for testing. It includes support for "Storage Class Memory (SCM) in Spaces Direct" and support for "Cluster Sets" that "significantly increases hyper-converged SDDC [software defined data center] cloud scale by grouping multiple clusters into a larger fabric," according to an announcement.

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2017/09/07/windows-server-2016-hyperconverged-enhancements.aspx?m=1

Fujitsu offers Storage Spaces-based hyper-converged boxes

#Fujitsu has introduced a #Microsoft software-flavoured #hyperconverged infrastructure appliance product. #PRIMEFLEX for #StorageSpaces Direct uses Microsoft virtualised infrastructure software, including Storage Spaces, and comes in pre-configured and pre-tested systems based on Fujitsu's PRIMERGY x86 servers, all-flash storage, and networking. The Storage Spaces Direct technology - virtual SAN-like - comes from Windows Server 2016. Fujitsu says these systems provide highly available and scalable, software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays, but it did not provide comparative prices. The system comes in either all-flash or hybrid flash+disk configurations. It starts with two servers and scales to 16, with 384 drives, supporting up to 800 virtual servers or desktops with sub-millisecond response times – we presume if you have flash storage – and 150,000+ IOPS/server. There are quality of service controls for the storage, with per-VM IOPS limits, and erasure coding for in-system data protection.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/08/fujitsus_storage_spacesbased_hyperconverged_boxes/

Dell EMC Software-Defined Storage Paves Way for Data Center Modernization

New, enhanced products enable flexibility, lower IT costs, and speed return on investment with Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers

#Dell EMC announced new and enhanced software-defined storage (SDS) products that help customers modernize their data centers to lower IT costs, get quicker returns on their investments, and deliver new digital capabilities. The comprehensive software-defined storage portfolio will be further enhanced through support for Dell EMC PowerEdge 14thgeneration servers, providing increased levels of performance and scalability across a wide spectrum of applications and workloads.

Updates to #ScaleIO, #ECS and #IsilonSD Edge, along with the introduction of #ProjectNautilus and expansion of the Ready Node portfolio, allow customers to harness the power of #DellEMC as they move from traditional to modern data centers. These new software-defined storage capabilities provide a choice of deployment models—what every business needs to be able to grow and change. #Softwaredefinedstorage makes the enterprise infrastructure programmable and, therefore, more automated and easier to scale and manage than traditional infrastructure.

Dell EMC offers a broad portfolio of SDS solutions to provide the best fit for organizations based on business requirements, future plans, skill levels and geolocation challenges. Portfolio enhancements include:

Dell EMC ScaleIO.Next – The leading enterprise-grade software-defined block storage solution, ScaleIO will introduce new .Next features and enhancements.

Improved efficiencies by delivering inline compression, enhanced snapshots capabilities, granular thin provisioning and seamless volume migration.Greater performance and reduced latency using the latest Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers with NVMe flash drives.Simplified management for VMware with support for VMware Virtual Volumes.

Dell EMC ECS Updates – Multiple announcements related to Dell EMC's scale-out object storage platform, which is designed to provide cloud-scale, global data access to traditional and next-gen apps.

ECS.Next, features enhanced enterprise data protection and management capabilities, as well as advanced analytics support. Additionally, ECS software is certified to run on Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers.The ECS Dedicated Cloud Service, enables customers to use ECS through a hybrid cloud model. As a dedicated, single tenant offering hosted in Virtustream datacenters, the ECS Dedicated Cloud Service combines private cloud control with the hands-off operations and agility of the public cloud.

Preview of Project Nautilus: Dell EMC previews a new software-defined solution for storing and analyzing high volumes of streaming IoT data. Project Nautilus enables businesses to make real-time decisions based on streaming device data from across the globe.  Designed to work seamlessly with ECS or Isilon as its resilient storage tier, Project Nautilus brings real-time data processing capabilities to Dell EMC's unstructured storage platforms.

Dell EMC Ready Nodes portfolio enhancements   

Dell EMC VMware vSAN Ready Nodes – Now validated for PowerEdge 14th generation servers, these vSAN building blocks are quick and easy to scale and are pre-configured with the required amount of CPU, memory, network, input/output (I/O) controllers and storage to help customers reduce deployment risks and lower costs of their vSAN environments.Dell EMC ScaleIO Ready Nodes – Combines all the power of Dell EMC ScaleIO software with pre-configured Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to deliver performance, scale and flexibility. These easy-to-deploy building blocks will utilize the latest Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers, including NVMe Drives and NVDIMM options. Software feature updates include simplified management with auto-discovery, streamlined provisioning and storage node-only deployment mode.New Dell EMC Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Ready Nodes – Pre-configured Dell EMC PowerEdge servers provide the storage density and compute power to maximize the benefits of Storage Spaces Direct and the advanced feature sets in Windows Server 2016. Windows Server Software Defined (WSSD) solutions use Microsoft-validated designs and follow engineering best practices for seamless deployment and a steady-state operational experience. Dell EMC gets customers up and running without lengthy design and build time and offers a single point of contact for implementation and support services.

Dell EMC IsilonSD Edge enhancements - IsilonSD Edge can now be deployed on a single Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation server, bringing increased efficiency and a lower-cost entry point for smaller remote offices. The updates to the IsilonSD Edge platform also include support for VMware vSphere version 6.5, as well as deployment using virtual storage platforms like Dell EMC ScaleIO and VMware vSAN.

Dell EMC Executive Quote:

Jeff Boudreau, President, Storage, Dell EMC

"While software-defined everything is a critical piece of IT transformation, the reality is that we're still early with regard to the ability of enterprises to consume software-only offerings. Offering software-defined storage offerings for on-premises and the cloud, in a variety of deployment models including ready nodes, allows us to meet customers where they are today and take them where they need to be as they transform their IT and their businesses."

Availability:

ECS.Next and ScaleIO.Next have planned global availability in the second half of 2017.ECS Dedicated Cloud Service and IsilonSD Edge have planned global available in the second quarter of 2017.Dell EMC ScaleIO Ready Nodes and Dell EMC VMware vSAN Ready Nodes are available globally today and have planned availability on new Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers in mid-2017.Dell EMC Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Ready Nodes have planned global availability in June 2017 and planned global availability on new Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers in mid-2017.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dell-emc-software-defined-storage-paves-way-for-data-center-modernization-300453257.html

Microsoft’s Storage Spaces Reaches Maximum Density: RAID Inc. Certified JBOD for Windows Server 2016 Qualifies HGST Ultrastar 10TB Drive

#RAIDInc. has achieved #Microsoft certification status of the Ability EBOD Series of Enterprise JBOD storage enclosures for #WindowsServer2016, #StorageSpaces. RAID Inc. has additionally tested and qualified the complete line of HGST Ultrastar® He10 12Gb/s helium drives—including the high density 10TB model based upon third-generation HelioSeal® technology. ANDOVER, MA, (PRWEB) October 31, 2016 RAID Inc., a high performance computing solutions company, today announces it has achieved Microsoft certification status of the Ability EBOD Series of Enterprise JBOD storage enclosures for Windows® Server 2016, Storage Spaces. RAID Inc. has taken this designation a step further and qualified the complete line of HGST Ultrastar® He10 12Gb/s helium drives—including the high density 10TB model based upon third-generation HelioSeal® technology. With its holistic approach and true technical expertise, RAID Inc. welcomes the industry’s largest drive with qualification for the industry leading ultra-dense Ability EBOD 4U 84-Bay 12Gb/s SAS Enterprise JBOD. The massive 840TB capacity Enterprise-Class JBOD is a vital cog in the RAID Inc. range of Microsoft certified server, storage and networking solutions optimized for enterprise, cloud, and data center, as strategically aligned with Microsoft’s software-defined data center (SDDC) strategy. “Working closely with Microsoft, the team at RAID has accomplished notable successes deploying petabytes of Scale-Out File Server architectures featuring Storage Spaces,” says Trenton R. Baker, vice president marketing, RAID Inc. “By earning this Windows Server 2016 certification RAID Inc becomes the leader in storage at scale deployments for Storage Spaces. The Ability 84-bay Enterprise JBOD can meet practical budgetary restrictions and achieve a massive capacity architecture when teamed with the HGST Ultrastar He10 hard drives.”

http://www.pressreleaserocket.net/microsofts-storage-spaces-reaches-maximum-density-raid-inc-certified-jbod-for-windows-server-2016-qualifies-hgst-ultrastar-10tb-drive/

Microsoft Video: Software Defined Storage with Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016

A look at the latest updates to software-defined storage ( #SDS ) with #StorageSpaces Direct, new with #WindowsServer2016. Watch as Elden Christensen (Principal Program Manager, Windows Server) explains the advantages in terms of cost, performance, and reliability. Also, find out what your deployment options are from hyper-converge or branch offices to converge for enterprise scale workloads. Finally, you’ll see how this applies to disaster recovery. From the fine folks at #Microsoft.

http://www.dabcc.com/microsoft-video-software-defined-storage-with-storage-spaces-direct-in-windows-server-2016/

Mellanox Demonstrates Windows Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct at Flash Memory Summit

#Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced that the company will be showcasing a new #WindowsServer2016 #StorageSpaces Direct Demo at the Samsung Booth No. 307, at this week’s Flash Memory Summit. The demo runs over a four-node cluster, each node equipped with four of #Samsung ’s #NVMe cards and two of Mellanox’s ConnectX-4 100GbE RDMA-enabled NICs, which are connected by Mellanox’s Spectrum 2700 100GbE switch and LinkX cables. The solution delivers a total of 80GB/s bandwidth; representing more than 90 percent of the accumulating bandwidth that the NVMe cards can deliver locally to the servers. “As users continue to deploy larger and larger clusters that are connected over Ethernet only, the efficiency of today’s data centers depends heavily on networking capabilities,” said Motti Beck, senior director of Enterprise marketing, at Mellanox Technologies. “This demo by Samsung and Mellanox represents yet another proof point that higher performance networking enables faster data communication, and that offloading the network stack processing from the CPU to the IO is the optimal solution to deploy.” “Applications today need the right storage to process large amounts of data efficiently and to meet the nonstop demand for data,” said Jaeyoung Choi, Director, Memory Product Planning, Samsung Semiconductor Inc. “Using Storage Spaces Direct with Samsung’s NVMe SSD helps to meet critical high-volume performance and efficiency requirements with confidence.” “Using 4 #Samsung PM1725 NVMe SSDs per node connected by Mellanox 100GbE Spectrum switch, ConnectX-4 and cables, the cluster was able to achieve more than 80GB/s of throughput. Or about 750MB/s for each of the 112 virtual machines used, which is about one CD per second per VM,” said Siddhartha Roy, Group Program Manager, Windows Server High Availability and Storage, Microsoft.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mellanox-demonstrates-windows-server-2016-123000834.html