Recently, our company introduced a new product - . It's a versatile platform with a performance-driven design that enables multi-dimensional scaling, continuous data reduction (compression and deduplication), and next-generation media support. PowerStore uses microservice architecture, advanced storage technologies and integrated machine learning.
It is about this device that we want to tell you in detail - there is still little information and, we hope, it will be not only pleasant, but also useful to receive it first-hand. In today's post, we will go over the key properties and features of the solution, and in the next post we will dive deeper into technical details and development issues.
Benefits of new storage systems:
- Modern microservice architecture. The system is based on a container architecture, when individual OS components are separated into separate microservices. Microservice architecture provides portability of functions and rapid implementation of new functionality. This architecture allows you to quickly adapt previously written functionality to a new platform. microservices are autonomous and do not affect each other, the microservice architecture allows for higher reliability of the entire system compared to a monolithic architecture. For example, a firmware update often affects only individual modules rather than the entire system (or its core) and, as a result, runs more smoothly.
- Use of advanced storage technologies. Support for Storage Class Memory (SCM) Intel Optane and NVMe All-Flash eliminates system bottlenecks and dramatically increases system performance and response time.
- Continuous data reduction on the fly. The always-on data compression and deduplication mechanisms allow you to reduce the volume occupied by data within the system and optimize storage. This reduces the cost of acquiring and operating the system and improves work efficiency.
- Flexible solution scalability. Dell EMC PowerStore solution architecture supports both vertical and horizontal scaling, so you can efficiently plan for infrastructure expansion by increasing capacity or computing resources independently of each other.
- Built-in data protection mechanisms. PowerStore systems have a wide range of built-in data protection mechanisms - from snapshots and replication to data encryption and integration with antivirus programs. The system also integrates extensively with external solutions from both Dell Technologies and other vendors.
- Apps ON. With the system-integrated VMware ESX hypervisor, customers can run custom virtual machines directly within the system.
- Integration with VMware. PowerStore is designed to be deeply integrated with VMware vSphere. The integration includes VAAI and VASA support, event notifications, snapshot management, vVols, and PowerStore Manager VM discovery and monitoring.
- Unified Data Access. PowerStore provides application data storage in a variety of formats, from physical and virtual volumes to containers and traditional files, with the ability to work on a variety of protocols - block, file and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols). This capability makes the system highly flexible and allows IT departments to simplify and consolidate their infrastructure.
- Simple, modern control interface. The system management interface - PowerStore Manager - was developed based on the requirements of our customers for ease of system management. This is a web interface that runs on the controllers of the PowerStore system. It is available via the HTML5 protocol and does not require the installation of additional plugins.
- Programmable Infrastructure. Simplifies application development and reduces deployment time from days to seconds with VMware integration and support for leading management and orchestration frameworks including Kubernetes, Ansible, and VMware vRealize Orchestrator.
- Intelligent Automation. Built-in machine learning algorithms automate time-consuming workflows such as initial volume planning and placement, data migration, load balancing and troubleshooting
- Infrastructure insights. Dell EMC CloudIQ storage monitoring and analysis software combines the benefits of machine learning and human intelligence to analyze system performance and capacity in real time, and store historical data to provide a unified view of your Dell EMC infrastructure. Dell Technologies plans to integrate CloudIQ with its full portfolio of solutions for even deeper analytics.
The platform is represented by two types of systems:
- - acts as a classic storage system.
- - acts as a hyper-converged solution that allows you to run customer virtual machines, combined with a dedicated, classic storage system.
With the integrated capabilities of VMware ESXi, PowerStore X models provide the ability to host I/O-intensive applications directly inside the PowerStore system. Using native VMware engines (vMotion), you can move applications between PowerStore storage and external solutions. The embedded VMware ESXi hypervisor runs customer applications alongside the PowerStore operating system as VMware virtual machines. This innovative design is ideal for storage-intensive applications, providing additional compute and high-performance storage for your existing environment or any scenario where density, performance, and availability are key considerations.
Clear examples where AppsON is the perfect fit for our customers are:
- Dedicated infrastructure for a single application. For example, for a database that requires a dedicated server, storage, as well as some additional binding, for example, for backup. In this case, you can buy one single PowerStore system that will close all tasks, because. the application itself and the media server can be deployed within a PowerStore host without the need for additional infrastructure.
- ROBO (remote branches and offices). Many customers are faced with the task of replicating the infrastructure of the main data center to the periphery in some form in order to ensure the operation of remote branches of their companies. Previously, you had to buy separate servers, storage systems, switches to connect them, and also puzzle over how to protect the infrastructure and, most importantly, data. We propose, as in the previous example, to follow the path of infrastructure consolidation within a single solution - Dell EMC PowerStore. You will receive a complete infrastructure within a 2U chassis, consisting of a pair of fault-tolerant servers connected to high-speed storage.
Both types of systems are presented as a line of models with different technical characteristics:
An important feature of PowerStore systems is the ability to upgrade an already purchased system in the future. Here's how.
- Traditional upgrade of junior models to older ones allows you to avoid unnecessary investments at the system purchase stage: there is no need to immediately buy an expensive solution, the potential of which will be fully revealed only after a few years. The upgrade procedure is a regular replacement of one controller for another, it is performed without stopping access to data.
- With the right architecture, the system can be upgrade to new generation, which will keep it up to date and increase its service life.
- There is a way lay the possibility of upgrading the system at the stage of procurement. There is a special option for this. , which allows you to either update the system by upgrading it to a new generation, or upgrade the system to an older and more productive model.
Licensing
Dell EMC PowerStore is licensed under the All Inclusive model. The customer receives all available functionality together with the system without additional investments. As new array functionality is released, it will also become available to customers through firmware upgrades.
Physical volume optimization
Dell EMC PowerStore includes several methods to improve data storage efficiency by reducing the physical volume used by data:
- subtle allocation of space;
- compression - has a hardware implementation and is performed using a separate physical chip, as a result of which the process does not affect system performance;
- data deduplication - allows you not to store only unique data, without repetitions.
Dynamic pools
The Dell EMC PowerStore is equipped with an extent-based RAID system to handle disk failures. A large number of RAID elements is a single logical space that forms a pool that the end user works with.
Dynamic RAID architecture provides 5 key benefits:
- reducing recovery time after a disk failure by parallel recovery from multiple disks;
- uniform distribution of write requests to all disks;
- the ability to mix disks of different sizes in one pool;
- the ability to expand the capacity of the system by adding disks one or more;
- the ability to discard a physically dedicated hot spare allows the system to rebuild data blocks using all healthy disks.
High availability
Storage is fully fail-safe and includes a range of high availability methods. These methods are designed to withstand component failures in the system itself and in external infrastructure, such as network outages or power outages. If an individual component fails, the storage system continues to serve the data. The system can also withstand multiple failures if they occur in separate sets of components. Once an administrator is notified of a failure, the administrator can order and replace the failed component without repercussions.
NVMe SCM
SCM (Storage Class Memory) storage media are high-performance, non-volatile drives built on Intel Optane technology. NVMe SCM drives have lower latency and better performance than other SSDs. NVMe is a protocol that allows access directly through the PCIe bus. NVMe is designed with the low latency of high performance media in mind. NVMe SCM drives serve as a storage layer for PowerStore, used for user data or metadata. At the moment, volumes of 375 and 750 GB are available.
NVMe NVRAM
NVMe NVRAM are high performance drives used to enhance the PowerStore caching system. They are accessible from both system controllers and allow the system to easily cache incoming records. Drives run at DRAM over PCIe speeds for exceptional performance. Their design allows them to function as non-volatile media, and the PowerStore can quickly store incoming writes and acknowledge operations to the host without alerting the second controller. Datastores are installed in pairs to mirror data to each other in the event of a hardware failure.
This approach made it possible to significantly speed up the operation of the data storage system:
- firstly, controllers do not have to spend cycles of their CPUs synchronizing cache data with each other;
- secondly, all recording to the drives occurs in a 2 MB block, because. the system accumulates this amount of data before writing the data to discs. Thus, the recording turned from random to sequential. As you understand, this approach significantly reduces the load on data warehouses and the controllers themselves.
Clustering
Each Dell EMC PowerStore appliance is deployed as one of the nodes in the cluster, as clustering is part of the architecture of this platform. Currently, no more than four PowerStore nodes can be combined into a single cluster. If you are deploying a multi-device cluster, you can perform this task during the initial configuration process, or you can add devices to an existing cluster in the future. A PowerStore cluster can be scaled down by removing devices from an existing cluster, effectively splitting one large cluster into two smaller ones.
Clustering Dell EMC PowerStore devices provides many benefits.
- Scale-Out scaling to increase the amount of system resources by adding additional computing nodes - processor, memory, capacity and interfaces for connecting to hosts.
- Independent increase in storage or computing resources.
- Centralized management of a multi-node cluster.
- Automatic load balancing between cluster nodes.
- Increased reliability and fault tolerance.
power store manager
PowerStore Manager provides storage administrators with a simple and intuitive interface for configuring and managing a cluster. It is based on HTML5, does not require any additional software to be installed on the client, and helps to accomplish the following tasks:
- Initial setup of a new PowerStore node.
- Add or remove nodes from an existing cluster.
- Cluster resource management.
The capacity of a cluster is an aggregation of the capacities of individual cluster nodes. Savings statistics are available for the entire cluster.
To balance the load between cluster nodes, a load balancer is provided, the task of which is to monitor the utilization of individual cluster components and assist in automatic or manual data migration between cluster nodes. The migration procedure is transparent for servers and is performed by hardware, without involving server resources.
Instead of a conclusion
This is a short story about we are finishing. In this article, we've covered the key technical and economic points you need to understand when planning your PowerStore system purchase, from clustering to licensing and planning for future upgrades. Many technical issues remained behind the scenes, and we will be happy to tell you about them either in the following articles or when communicating with the sales department specialists.
In conclusion of the article, I would like to note that the first systems sold have already been deployed in the data centers of our customers, distributors and partners have purchased demo systems and are ready to show them to you. If the system aroused your interest, feel free to contact our partners and representatives to work on your projects.
Source: habr.com