HPE Storage Users Group

Howdy,
Our shop has several 3par arrays (Vs, 7000, Ts and Fs series). They currently do not have SSDs yet, but are evaluating the option to do so next year.

One topic we'll be reviewing is whether to choose server-side flash cache or dedicated flash array. I'd like to hear follow admins' opinions or experiences on such topic. Any insights shared will be much appreciated.

Btw, our flash analysis will begin in 11/2014.

Thanks
Jason

server-side flash cache... What's that ?
dedicated flash array... 3PAR 7450 i suppose ?

One thing you will discover is that you get lower response time with local SSDs...
There you can ask what is the use of flash arrays...
Deduplication ?
Thin provisioning ?
Hardware replication ?
Security ?
Snapshots ?
Transparent failover with VMware and Windows ?
Clones ? Deduplicated clones ?
Adaptive Flash cache ?
What else ?
Maybe you can get most of that with fusion-io, violin, etc... Most of that, not everything. And for one server at a time, not all of your SAN connected servers.

The best thing you can do is contact some of your prefered storage providers (3PAR, Pure, Fusion-Io) and start a POC.

Thanks for your input.

Looking at Pernix Data FVP and its competitors for server-side flash cache.
Basically, their software utilizes local SSD or RAM to frontend read/write IOs to VMs as cache, and then de-stage the read/write IOs to backend storage. The virtualized environment will benefit the most from this.

As for dedicated flash array, we're looking at HP, IBM, Pure Storage, and EMC to see which one offers majority of the feature-sets you mentioned.

Our objective are:
1. show the differences between the server side caching (Fusion IO, Pernix, etc.) and the flash added to an existing array, or a dedicated flash array. (By separating vendors based on solution technology, we can narrow down to the top vendor from each solution)
2. Select one of these solutions (server side caching or full flash array) that has greater benefit with minimal cost to the company.