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Special Report
February 2015
ORACLE ROLLS OUT THE BIG GUNS:
Provides Enterprises a New Choice
in Flash Storage Arrays
By Jerome M Wendt
E M P O W E R I N G T H E I T I N D U S T R Y W I T H A C T I O N A B L E A N A LY S I S · W W W. D C I G . C O M
February 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
Table of Contents
1
Executive Summary
2
The Battle for Flash Storage Array Dominance Has Only Just Begun
2
The Enterprise Reticence to Adopt Flash
3
Kicking Flash’s Tires
3
Make the Proverbial Flash Tire-Kicking Count
3
5
6
7
Flash: The Next Enterprise Data Center Shock Wave
Oracles Rolls Out the FS1 Flash Storage System to Meet Enterprise
Flash Storage Array Demands
5
New Hardware Architecture
5
The Raw Power of the Oracle FS1
6
Industry Proven Software
The FS1 Custom-Made for Oracle Database
7
Hybrid Columnar Compression
7
Application Profiles
Bends to the Needs of the Enterprise
8Flash and HDDs
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 8
QoS Plus: I/Os of Priority Apps Get VIP Treatment
9
Efficient, Effective Automated Storage Tiering
10
Oracle FS1 Cloud Ready with Storage Domains
11
Accelerates VMs in Converged Infrastructures
11
In-box Software Licensing Included
12
Oracle Defines Enterprise Support and Service
12
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice
in Flash Storage Arrays
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February 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
Executive
Summary
Any enterprise that is looking seriously at the future of its data center infrastructure already
knows that flash storage arrays are part of it. Not surprisingly, a little over half of enterprises
have already deployed flash in some way (on the server, in existing storage arrays or in allflash arrays) to kick flash’s proverbial tires and verify its performance and stability claims.
Most results already show that nearly every flash storage array shipping today from almost
any provider outperforms any HDD-based array. Further, most of these flash storage arrays
are sufficiently stable such that enterprises may confidently host one or even a few of their
performance-intensive applications on them.
Yet looking only at a flash storage array’s performance and stability claims is a myopic way to
examine a technology that stands poised to replace existing production HDD storage arrays
in the coming years. While these claims should certainly be verified, it is equally if not more
important that enterprises examine flash storage arrays in the context of how well they can
host dozens, hundreds or even thousands of applications with varying workload requirements
and business value as well as meet data center SLAs for the near- and long-term. These
requirements make it critical for all-flash storage arrays to possess these features:
• A hardware architecture that scales horizontally in performance and capacity
• Self-optimized performance and cost for varied application workloads and priorities
• A broad set of mature, proven data management services
• Integration with high performance applications such as Oracle Database
• Integration with hypervisors widely used in virtualized environments
• Controlling allocation of available resources
The Oracle FS1 Flash Storage System provides the flash SAN storage solution that
enterprises are looking for to meet their data center SLAs in the near- and long-term.
Oracle FS1 offers a hardware architecture that exceeds the performance and capacity of
newcomers to this space as well as established storage players. Further, it brings forward
its extensive, proven data management services to provide the stability and reliability that
enterprises also want.
Maybe most notably, it is co-engineered with Oracle Database and applications and offers
unique features such as storage domains, Quality of Service with automated storage tiering
and Priority-In-Priority-Out I/O queuing that provides the system with a deep understanding of
the application layer that makes it ideal for deployment at the core of enterprise data centers.
With these enterprise-grade features, Oracle FS1 breaks new ground in the flash storage
array SAN battleground by delivering more than just high levels of performance. Using the
Oracle FS1, enterprises can finally move ahead with their plans to bring flash storage arrays
into the core of their infrastructure knowing that they can run multiple applications and
workloads and meet data center SLAs with confidence.
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February 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
The Battle for Flash Storage Array
Dominance Has Only Just Begun
Flash is widely predicted to be the future of enterprise
production storage. Flash storage arrays deliver performance that far exceeds conventional storage systems
architected for hard disk drives (HDDs), providing up to 20x
greater performance for read I/Os and 3x greater performance for write I/Os while consuming only about onetwentieth of the power of HDDs.
Despite flash’s strengths, many enterprises still only use
flash in a limited capacity if at all. A recent IDC study of
more than 1,000 storage administrators revealed that
many still view flash as too expensive or not suited for their
infrastructure. IDC’s research director for storage systems,
Natalya Yezhokova, says, “There are still plenty of end
users who believe they do not have the workload demands
or budgetary appetites for flash-based storage systems.” 1
These findings by IDC corroborate the results of a separate independent survey of IT professionals in medium
and large organizations released by 451 Research which
revealed that:
• A little over half have only deployed flash in
some capacity
• 37% have deployed hybrid flash arrays (arrays
that contain both disk and flash)
• 18% have deployed server-side flash
• 6% have deployed all flash arrays 2
This reticence to adopt and deploy flash enterprise-wide
stems from concerns such as broad market confusion,
different types of flash and multiple flash deployment
options among others. (See Side Bar—The Enterprise
Reticence to Adopt Flash.) As a result, enterprises have
tended to initially deploy flash in controlled test environments or only to solve their most pressing applicationspecific performance challenges such as those associated
with Oracle Database and other applications.
Regardless of how they deploy flash now, most enterprises
anticipate a day in the not too distant future when they
will use flash arrays much more broadly within their data
centers. In anticipation of that day, enterprises need to
do more than just test flash arrays. They need to identify
1. IDC. “Flash-Based Storage System Adoption Is on the Rise in Enterprises,
According to IDC.” Www.idc.com. IDC Corporate USA, 14 Aug. 2014. Web. 27
Nov. 2014.
2. Robinson, Simon, and Tim Stammers. “451 Survey Finds Enterprise Flash
Storage Adoption Real, and Growing.” TechTarget, Inc., 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 19
Nov. 2014.
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. The Enterprise Reticence to Adopt Flash
The enterprise reticence to adopt flash stems from a number of factors
which include:
• Market confusion. The DCIG 2014-15 Flash Memory Storage Array
Buyer’s Guide identified more than 40 different all-flash array models
from 20 different storage providers while the DCIG 2014 Hybrid
Storage Array Buyer’s Guide identified another 40-plus models from
17 different providers.
• Different types of flash. All-flash and hybrid storage arrays offer
one or more types of flash memory available which may include MLC
(multi-level cell), cMLC (consumer MLC), eMLC (enterprise MLC) and
SLC (single level cell). Each of these flash memory types has characteristics that influence their cost, endurance, power consumption,
total capacity and read and write performance.
• Multiple deployment options. Flash memory may be placed on the
server, in the network and in the storage array.
• No clear market leader. Enterprises tend to prefer storage technologies from clear market leaders. However, a definitive market leader has
yet to emerge for all-flash and hybrid storage arrays. Many storage
array models shipping today are either from start-ups or, if the model
is available from an established storage provider, it is a net new model
in their product lineup that they have internally developed, retro-fitted
an old model for flash, or is available as a result of an acquisition of a
flash start-up, such as Cisco, EMC and IBM have done.
• Immaturity of data management services. Enterprises want
a high degree of certainty when it comes to the stability of their
production storage arrays. Since many all-flash and hybrid storage array models are either available from start-ups or are net new
models from established providers, the maturity of the data management software and services on these arrays is often a question mark.
They offer few proof points and little is known about how well the
data management services on these arrays actually work.
• Adding flash into existing HDD-based arrays. To address
these enterprise concerns about the immaturity of data management services, established vendors are putting flash into existing
HDD-based arrays. This approach does address concerns about the
maturity of the array’s data management services. However, these
arrays were architected and optimized for HDDs, not flash, so they
may not include the functionality needed to manage flash nor fully
deliver on the potential performance improvements that flash offers.
In some cases this is analogous to retrofitting a 1981 Chevy Malibu
with a 2012 638HP Corvette ZR1 engine—if you try hard you can get
the engine to fit under the hood but the chassis cannot handle all that
power—and was never designed to work with it in the first place.
All of these factors contribute to the difficulty that enterprises have in
confidently identifying and then deploying the most appropriate flash
storage array in their production environments.
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
one flash array that provides the levels of performance,
maturity of data management services and overall stability
at an affordable price that will give them the confidence to
deploy it now with the goal of becoming the core of their
data center’s production environment, potentially hosting
hundreds of applications. A key in this process is to start
with a robust, high performance building block that may
scale horizontally to support petabytes of flash as opposed
to a point product that becomes unmanageable as a result
of data center sprawl.
Kicking Flash’s Tires
Enterprises making their initial foray into flash typically use
flash arrays with the following characteristics in controlled
environments:
• Application-specific deployments
• High levels of performance required
• Nominal amounts of flash capacity needed
(10 TB or less)
Deploying a flash array into these controlled environments
provides enterprises the opportunity to kick the proverbial
tires to document its improved performance and establish
baselines on product stability.
The problem with this limited, controlled approach is
that flash arrays from nearly all providers have matured
significantly in the last few years and can meet or exceed
the application or applications’ capacity and performance
requirements. Further, flash arrays have matured to the
point where their stability in these small environments is
less of an issue than even a few years ago.
However, for enterprises looking to deploy all-flash storage arrays at the core of their production environments,
this limited testing approach is not sufficient. Rather than
simply trying to confirm if a flash array performs well and its
software is stable, enterprises need to conduct a meaningful flash storage array evaluation that produces results
pertinent to their near- and long-term objectives.
Make the Proverbial Flash
Tire-Kicking Count
While enterprises still need to validate and test a flash
storage array’s performance and stability, the time has
arrived for them to broaden their evaluation to ensure that
the flash storage array offers the other capabilities that
Flash: The Next Enterprise Data Center Shock Wave
Enterprise data centers are experiencing a new shock wave as a result
of wide-scale virtualization. The shift from hosting applications on virtual
as opposed to physical machines is already well known and underway in
most enterprises. However, this shift from physical to virtual is causing
shock waves throughout the data center that are every bit as impactful
as virtualization itself.
As enterprises virtualize, they typically expect that the same or fewer
number of IT staff to better support a consolidated, virtualized environment
than a physical environment. This puts the onus on enterprise data center
managers to identify backend solutions that can handle the increased
number of virtual machines (VMs) while still delivering the performance
that this mix of physical and virtualized applications requires.
This is prompting the need for enterprises to begin their shift from HDD to
flash storage arrays to meet these increased demands for performance.
The increased density of VMs on physical ESX servers coupled with
the requirement to continuously deliver high levels of performance for
applications such as Oracle Database necessitate they introduce flash to
satisfy these high application performance demands.
Flash storage arrays offer write performance of up to 3x or more than
HDDs and read performance that is up to 20x or more than HDDs.
Coupling these increases in performance with flash’s reduced operating costs (flash only consumes a fraction of the power of HDDs,) lower
cooling costs (no moving mechanical parts so they generate less heat),
and longer life (some vendors now warranty flash for up to five years)
make flash storage arrays both compelling and disruptive. Enterprises
may accelerate application performance, consolidate more servers and
further simplify the management of their data center infrastructures just
by introducing a flash storage array into their infrastructure.
they will need to fully deploy it across their production
environments. This evaluation should include:
• Application integration. Every enterprise uses databases, with 97 percent of Global Fortune 500 companies
using Oracle Database in some fashion. While enterprises
can certainly place an Oracle Database on any flash
storage array, only Oracle’s flash storage arrays can
leverage the native data storage and data optimization
features that have been available since the release of
Oracle Database 11gR2.
• VMware ESX integration. Even more prevalent than
Oracle Database among Fortune 500 companies is the
VMware ESX hypervisor which is used by 100 percent.3
This makes it incumbent for the flash storage array to
3. VMware. “Choose a Customer-Proven Solution.” Customer-Proven Virtualization Technology from VMware. http://www.vmware.com/why-choose-vmware/customer/
virtualization-customers. VMware, n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
support VMware APIs for both array management and
data protection. Since the software on many of these
flash storage arrays is still relatively immature, the level of
integration with the VMware APIs can vary significantly.
• HDD and flash storage tiering. HDDs may no longer
be the future of storage media but they are not going
away any time soon either. The upfront cost of HDDs is
still a fraction of flash and provides adequate levels of
performance for many applications. This makes having
HDDs available as a storage tier desirable, especially for
infrequently accessed or archived data that does not
need the high performance of flash.
Even all flash memory is not created equal. For example,
SLC is the most expensive tier of flash and is best suited
for applications that generate large amounts of write I/Os
but do not need as much storage capacity. Others such
as cMLC and eMLC offer higher capacities than SLC
and similar performance in terms of read I/Os but are not
as well suited for write I/O. One emerging form of flash
even offers ultra-high levels of capacity (over 20TB) in a
very small form factor at a low cost per GB but only
supports very few writes to each cell.
These different tiers of flash and HDDs and their respective application use cases make it almost a necessity that
a flash storage array intended for broad enterprise use
support and manage these different tiers of flash and disk.
• Array controller architecture. The superior read/write
performance and low latency that flash offers over
HDDs is well known and documented. However, the
controllers, and indeed the whole system, needs to be
re-architected to achieve the high levels of read and
write performance and low latency improvements
expected of flash arrays.
Flash completely flips the equation in terms of where
the performance bottleneck resides on storage arrays.
In the past, HDDs were the performance bottleneck as
storage array controllers waited on responses from the
HDDs before they could continue processing data. With
flash the storage array controllers often become the
bottleneck as the flash media is now waiting on read
and write requests.
Overcoming this bottleneck requires that the hardware
and software on the controllers along with the interface
between the controllers and backend flash be properly
architected to fully harness and deliver on the full
potential of flash’s performance characteristics.
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. • Servicing mixed application workloads. Aggregating
the data and corresponding workloads of applications
puts a demand on the flash storage array to appropriately service their collective I/Os. Even though enterprises prioritize applications differently, many arrays
manage all application I/O in the same way by servicing
them in the order in which they arrive. A better way to
handle this task is to prioritize I/Os from mission and
business critical applications and service those with a
higher priority first before I/Os designated as business
internal or development/test.
• Segregating applications and workloads. As
enterprises consolidate and virtualize applications, they
also want the flexibility to segregate the applications and
their associated workloads by business unit, department,
user, or company. By using partitioning, each of these
entities may be assigned dedicated storage resources,
grant its administrators secure logins to access and
manage their data, and keep application data and their
workloads separate so they do not impact nor are
impacted by other application data and workloads
running on the same array.
• Scalability. The first flash storage array that many
enterprises bring in-house rarely has more than 10TB
of flash storage capacity. However, longer term very few
enterprises want to cap flash capacity at 10TB. So far,
very few flash storage arrays have demonstrated their
ability to scale beyond 10TB and still deliver the same
levels of performance that can be achieved at that
capacity. As enterprises evaluate flash storage arrays,
they should identify models that give them the flexibility
to scale up and scale out both capacity and performance to meet their longer term requirements.
• Product road map and viability. In cases where an
emerging or an existing storage provider is shipping a new
flash storage array, there are always questions regarding
the long term roadmap and viability of the product itself
as well as of the vendor. If offered by an emerging flash
provider, questions that immediately surface include “Will
the provider stay in business?”; “What proof points are
available to demonstrate its flash storage array works as
claimed?”; and, if working as designed, “Will the provider
eventually be acquired and, if so, by whom?”
Net new flash storage array models from existing
storage providers are not immune from scrutiny either.
While they may now offer a flash storage array, their
level of commitment to it may be commensurate with
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
how well it sells. Even assuming it does well, if a smaller
flash competitor starts to do well and achieves a market
leading position, it is conceivable they may abandon
their existing product in favor of acquiring one that puts
them in a position of market leadership.
By way of example, EMC is already in this unenviable
position of having to try to figure out which of its three
product lines—VMAX, VNX and XtremIO—it is going to
support as an all-flash configuration and for how long?
Will all three lines survive or just one or two? If the latter,
which one(s) will survive?
Oracles Rolls Out the FS1 Flash Storage
System to Meet Enterprise Flash
Storage Array Demands
The Oracle FS1 Flash Storage System addresses these
key concerns that enterprises have when choosing the
right flash storage array. Oracle FS1 delivers the performance and stability that enterprises expect when deploying a flash storage array for the first time. However, it also
positions enterprises to meet their longer term needs by
giving enterprises the flexibility to scale it and use it in the
multiple different ways that they will need to satisfy the
broader demands of their production environment.
New Hardware Architecture
Oracle did more than simply stuff flash drives into an existing HDD-architected system. Instead Oracle designed and
built a whole new hardware architecture specifically for
flash, with advancements including:
• PCI Express (PCIe). Moving to a PCIe interface
eliminates the performance bottlenecks potentially
caused by PCI-X. With PCIe every connected device
gets its own dedicated connection so it does not have
to share bandwidth with other devices enabling Oracle
to increase it I/O bandwidth by up to 20x over its
previous generation of storage arrays.
• RAID functionality in the controller head. FS1
controllers leverage multicore processors to efficiently
handle the load associated with managing and processing RAID. To improve the performance of the controllers,
Oracle increased the number of compute cores by 6x
and the amount of memory by 9x which contribute to
increasing the number supported active threads that
can run in parallel by up to 12x.
• 6Gb SAS for backend flash connectivity. FC and 6Gb
SAS are about equal in terms of throughput. However,
6Gb SAS delivers on the performance of flash at a price
point that is about half of FC while also giving enterprises
more flexibility to connect SATA and SAS HDDs to this
interface. In this way enterprises can more economically
scale the FS1 over time with the most appropriate media
for their environment.
The Raw Power of the Oracle FS1
A flash storage array is first and foremost measured by
its ability to perform. The Oracle FS1 delivers on this key
metric by, in most cases, vastly outperforming comparable
leading flash storage arrays. Published benchmarks reveal
that the FS1 provides the top notch performance that
enterprises expect a flash storage array to deliver.
An FS1 with up to 16 HA Nodes offers up to 2 million
50-50 read-write IOPs and can achieve up to 80GB/second
of throughput and move data at up 5TB per minute with
performance numbers that far outpace claims published
by competitive models. Consider:
• EMC XtremIO in its largest configuration could only
achieve about 400,000 IOPS when only write I/Os were
sent to it; 600,000 IOPs when subjected to a mix of read
and write I/Os; and, about 1 million IOPs when only read
I/Os were used.4
• Pure Storage, an emerging provider of flash storage arrays,
achieved 200,000 IOPS and 7GB/second of throughput
though it used a larger block size (32K) than industry
norms when benchmarking performance on its array. 5
• SolidFire, still another emerging provider of flash
storage arrays, claims to have achieved 7.5 million
IOPS. However, to achieve that number it had to use
100 nodes and it is unclear how those numbers were
achieved (presumably using read I/Os.) 6 Further, the
base unit from SolidFire is a 5-node cluster whereas a
base FS1 unit is 2 nodes which demonstrates the FS1’s
efficiency and performance.
Admittedly every storage provider’s performance claims
should be viewed with caution as all performance benchmarks are, by their very nature, subjective. Further, performance benchmarks are usually conducted in optimal
conditions using the most robust hardware and software
with vendors varying significantly in how much performance
4. “Xpect More Performance” EMC XtremIO. EMC, n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. http://www.xtremio.com/performance.
5. Tech Specifications for Independent Scaling. Pure Storage, Inc., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. http://www.purestorage.com/flash-array/tech-specs.html
6. SolidFire. “Start Where You Are. Scale to Where You Need to Go.” SolidFire Blog RSS. SolidFire, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. http://www.solidfire.com/storage-system/
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February 2015
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
data they publish. As such there is no guarantee that enterprises will achieve the same results when deploying the
solution in their environments.
That said, the FS1 outperforms many of these new allflash storage systems based upon performance numbers
published to date. Making these performance numbers
even more impressive is that the FS1 may also be configured with HDD tiers, a configuration not currently available
on any of the aforementioned competitive all flash arrays.
When viewed in this light and then comparing the FS1’s
performance to other arrays that started out as HDD arrays
and are now available in all-flash configurations, the FS1’s
performance exceeds them. The FS1 provides up to 4x
better performance than these arrays based upon some
of their published performance numbers. Consider:
• Recently published performance numbers for the all-flash
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 were in the 900,000 IOPS range,
about half of what a fully configured FS1 could deliver. 7
• The IBM XIV Storage System delivered 613,000 IOPS,
9.7GB/s read throughput, and 7.2GB/s write throughput.
8
These published performance numbers are respectively
one-third or less of what a fully configured Oracle FS1
system can achieve.
• The EMC VNX8000 achieved more than 730,000 IOPS
in a recently published benchmark. 9 This is again only
about one-third or less of what a fully configured Oracle
FS1 system can achieve.
These performance numbers demonstrate the advantages
of FS1’s purpose-built, flash-first design over HDD-centric
architectures populated with flash trays. In fact, the FS1
has distinct, dedicated paths for flash media and separate,
dedicated paths for HDDs and is not using HDD paths to
access flash.
Industry Proven Software
While the latest hardware was certainly needed for the FS1
to fully deliver on the performance potential of flash, the
FS1 stands apart from many other flash storage arrays as
it brings forward the proven data management software
previously used on the Pillar Axiom 600 enterprise SAN
storage system. Here again, Oracle made updates to key
data management features that storage arrays must possess
to gain an enterprise’s trust prior to deployment.
Two key features of the FS1 software include:
• Data management features preserved. Not every
feature on a flash storage array operating system is
needed to optimize and accelerate flash’s performance.
While operating system software enhancements are
certainly needed, many more features such as application and operating system integration, storage management and performance monitoring and optimization will
be used by enterprises on a day-to-day basis. The FS1
software has been deployed and used in hundreds of
customer accounts on thousands of storage systems for
well over a decade. This period of time and large number
of deployments has provided ample time for these
features to mature and be proven.
• New 64-bit operating system. To take full advantage
of the updated hardware on the FS1 and optimize its
flash performance, the FS1 operating system is now
64-bit Oracle Enterprise Linux. Using this 64-bit
architecture, the FS1 OS better leverages the more
powerful multicore processors in the FS1’s controllers
and better addresses the larger amounts of cache and
capacity available within the FS1.
The FS1 Custom-Made for
Oracle Database
More, faster multicore processors, improved hardware
interconnects, a 64-bit operating system and the availability of flash in the FS1 in and of themselves contribute to
accelerating Oracle Database performance. However, these
are features that other flash storage arrays may already
possess or will shortly as these are requirements to remaining a viable player in the flash storage array game.
A big differentiator for FS1 over all of its flash storage array
competitors is its co-engineering with the Oracle Database. As
such, the FS1 functions as an extension of Oracle Database
to optimize the available flash capacity and further boost its
flash performance. The FS1 flash storage array takes advantage of advanced storage features of Oracle Database which
are not available to non-Oracle storage arrays.
7. HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 All-flash Array: Performance without Compromise – Data Sheet (2013): 1-8. Hewlett-Packard Company, L.P., Dec. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2013/HPDiscoverBarcelona/HP3PARStoreServ_7450_datasheet.pdf
8. Urquidi, Julio. “IBM Storwize V3700 & XIV Storage System - 2014 Hybrid Storage Vendors and Comparison Guide.” Tom's IT Pro. A Purch Company, 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 02
Dec. 2014. http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/hybrid-storage-vendor-comparison,2-714-6.html
9 Martin, Dennis. “Evaluation of EMC VNX8000 and EMC XtremS W Cache.” (2013): 1-9. Print.
https://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/demartek-emc-vnx-8000-xtremesw-cache-2013-09.pdf
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Hybrid Columnar Compression
Many flash vendors are quick to point out that they offer
deduplication or that they accelerate Oracle Database
performance. However they fail to mention or simply do
not know that every header in Oracle Database is unique
and nearly every data block associated with each header is
unique as well, making deduplication ineffective.
Oracle Database essentially has its own internal compression engine which is Hybrid Columnar Compression
(HCC). This technology has proven to be far more effective than deduplication when looking to optimize storage
capacity for Oracle Database.This
is why this feature is available on
all Oracle storage systems which
include Oracle Exadata, FS1, and
ZFS Storage Appliance.
HCC was introduced with Oracle
Database 11gR2. It combines
both row and columnar compression methods with the benefits of
both formats. Storing column data
together with the same data type
and similar characteristics significantly improves the storage efficiencies achieved with compression.
Using this technology has resulted
in 10x to 50x compression rates
and a 40% reduction in storage
capacity requirements.
Application Profiles
Oracle FS1 comes with predefined Application Profiles that
provide tuned and tested out-of-the-box storage optimization for Oracle Database and key enterprise applications.
Application Profiles enable one-click provisioning so that
enterprises may optimize flash performance which serves
to expedite setup and deployment while minimizing human
error and ongoing administration.
Figure 1: One-click Oracle Database Provisioning
In addition, compressed tables stored on the FS1 flash
storage array can be cloned without decompression overhead and then be immediately made available for use in the
compressed format for development, test, quality assurance, reporting, and more. HCC technology also accelerates the performance of Oracle Database stored on the
FS1 flash storage array in the following two ways:
• First, when a compressed Oracle Database is modified,
the FS1 flash storage array does NOT need to decompress the data before modifying it. As a result, the FS1
storage array is not bogged down with decompressing,
modifying and then again compressing modified data in
Oracle databases as would occur on other storage
arrays that do not integrate with HCC.
• Second, when an Oracle database performs a query,
the FS1 sends compressed data results back to the
database server. This accelerates Oracle Database reads
since less data is sent over the network plus the FS1
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. storage array offloads the task of decompressing data to
the database server while saving network bandwidth.
Source: Oracle
For example, as shown in Figure 1, FS1 Oracle Database
storage profiles can disaggregate database components
such as index files, database tables, archive logs, redo logs,
control files and temp files so provisioning automatically
optimizes Oracle Database performance without requiring
detailed knowledge of the database components.
Application Profiles are currently available for Oracle
Database and a wide number of Oracle and third-party
applications, including E-Business Suite, JD Edwards,
PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP and Microsoft Exchange. New
application profiles can be added to the FS1, existing ones
modified, and all profiles may be exported from an existing
FS1 system to other FS1 systems to standardize storage
provisioning across global datacenters.
Bends to the Needs of the Enterprise
Despite the benefits that flash offers and how well the
Oracle FS1 integrates with Oracle Database, enterprise
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
resource planning (ERP), online transaction processing
(OLTP) and Oracle Database applications will often be
the only applications that can justify the business investment in flash.
Enterprise applications used for data mining, development/
test or in support of file and print applications will do just
fine with a mix of flash and HDDs. Still other applications
such as those used for archive, backup and video streaming will perform well solely on HDDs.
Yet, for enterprises that want to consolidate these application types that use HDDs onto a single storage platform,
they will need to choose an array that supports both flash
and HDDs. This requirement makes many flash storage
array models too pricey for broader enterprise use as they
do not support HDDs. They would have to buy an HDD
array or use an existing one. Oracle FS1 eliminates this
dilemma as it is the only storage array purpose-built for
flash that offers enterprises the option of exploiting the
economics of HHDs using flash and HDD tiers.
Flash and HDDs
The FS1 supports multiple tiers of flash and HDDs. On
the flash side, it offers two tiers of flash – performance and
capacity. The first tier, referred to as “Performance SSDs,” is
the faster 400GB flash drives used for mixed read and write
intensive applications. The second tier is a capacity tier that
uses 1.6TB flash drives which are best suited for applications
that generate high levels of reads and fewer writes.
On the HDD side the FS1 also supports two tiers of HDDs
that are available in both performance and capacity drives.
The performance HDDs are either 300GB or 900GB SAS
drives while the capacity HDDs are 4TB SAS drives. The
FS1’s support of this mix of flash
and HDDs gives enterprises the
flexibility to configure the FS1
in the most appropriate way for
their environment, or let QoS Plus
automatically tier data to match
the application’s requirements and
business priority.
To then optimize the performance
and capacity of both the flash and
HDDs, the FS1 leverages its 64-bit
OS, new high speed communication links with a SAS backend and
multicore processors that perform
parallel processing between the
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. performance controllers and the backend storage to
deliver the level of performance that enterprises expect
from their production flash storage array. Having separate,
distinct performance and storage controllers provides
enterprises the flexibility to then add and independently
scale the resources that they need exactly when and
where they need them.
QoS Plus: I/Os of Priority Apps Get
VIP Treatment
Features such as automated storage tiering and storage domains go a long way toward making it feasible for
enterprises to successfully host multiple applications with
different performance and priority requirements on the FS1.
Auto-tiering and I/O prioritization are intelligently managed
by the Quality of Service (QoS) Plus feature which may be
the crown jewel of the features available on the FS1. QoS
Plus provides the “brains” behind auto-tiering but also
re-prioritizes and re-orders application I/O according to
each application’s business value to the enterprise.
Storage arrays by default treat incoming read and write I/Os
from all applications the same (Figures 2 and 3.) Whether I/Os
are issued by an Oracle Database or an application retrieving
archival data, storage arrays ingest these I/Os in the order in
which they arrive and then process and service them in the
same order, just like IBM’s RAMAC did over 50 years ago.
The issue that this “First-In-First-Out” process potentially
creates in consolidated environments is that I/O from an
application doing archiving is handled in the same manner
as I/O from an OLTP application trying to access an Oracle
Database. This puts I/O processing out of alignment with
business priorities.
Figure 2: Conventional Storage Arrays' "First-In-First-Out" I/O Input
Source: Oracle
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The difference is that the FS1 recognizes each application’s respective I/O, correlates it to its profile and then
responds to each application's I/O based upon how it is
prioritized as Figure 5 illustrates.
Figure 3: Conventional Storage Arrays' "First-In-First-Out" I/O Output Source: Oracle
The FS1’s QoS Plus addresses this misalignment between
available technical resources and business priorities with
Application Profiles that have Archive, Low, Medium, High
and Premium priorities. Enterprises may use pre-tuned
and tested Application Profiles for Oracle Database and
key Oracle and third-party applications that come with the
FS1 to expedite storage provisioning with just one click or
create their own. These profiles are associated with each
application accessing the FS1 and serve two purposes:
1.Data associated with each application is placed on
the tier or tiers of storage associated with its FS1
application profile.
2.Read and write I/Os from each application are then
ingested and prioritized according to its application
profile to create a “Priority-In-Priority-Out” means of
handling I/O.
Using Priority-In-Priority-Out, the FS1 services I/Os associated with the highest priority applications first and then
services I/Os from other, lower priority apps according to
how they are categorized. As Figure 4 illustrates, I/Os still
come into the FS1 the same way as before—the order in
which they were sent.
Figure 4: FS1's "Priority-In-Priority-Out" I/O Input
© 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Source: Oracle
Figure 5: FS1's "Priority-In-Priority-Out" I/O Output
Source: Oracle
This gives enterprises more flexibility to mix and match
applications of different priorities on the same FS1 array
or within FS1 Storage Domains without worrying that I/O
from Archive or Low priority applications will affect their
Premium or High Priority applications. QoS Plus ensures
that I/Os from Premium and High priority applications
are serviced before I/Os from lower priority applications.
However it also ensures that I/Os from lower priority
applications are queued up so that their I/Os are serviced
in a timely manner to meet their respective service level
agreements (SLAs).
Efficient, Effective Automated Storage Tiering
The flexibility to add the right flash and HDD resources
only makes sense if enterprises have the flexibility to easily,
efficiently and effectively use them once deployed. This is
where FS1’s automated storage tiering comes into play.
The FS1 is certainly not the only storage array that
provides multiple tiers of storage and then automates
the process of tiering data across these storage tiers.
However it is the only storage array that stores and moves
data in 640K chunks which empirical evidence suggests
may be the optimal chunk size to most efficiently and
effectively implement automated storage tiering.
Some storage arrays (Table 1) store data in small 4K
chunks. Storing data in chunks of this size uses available storage capacity in a very efficient, effective manner.
However, as more data is stored the amount of overhead
associated with managing all of these chunks of data
eventually reaches a tipping point.
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
The storage system must track where each individual 4K
chunk of data is stored; create and store heat maps that
track how frequently or infrequently the data on that chunk
is accessed; and, then, if the frequency of access exceeds
or falls below a certain threshold, move that chunk of data
to a more appropriate tier of storage. The issue over time
becomes the metadata that is stored in the index.
As the amount of data under management grows so does
the size of the index which gradually slows its performance.
The size of the index becomes particularly problematic
if it should ever grow to the point where it cannot be
entirely stored in memory. At that point, the performance
of the index as well as the entire storage array will begin
to degrade substantially. Further, tracking and moving so
many small blocks of data between different tiers of storage will also create metadata overhead on the system as it
moves the blocks of data.
To mitigate this indexing issue that small chunks of data can
create, a number of storage systems (Table 1) store data in
larger chunks such as 256MB, 1GB or, in some cases, even
larger. Storing data in these larger chunk sizes reduces the
size of the index as there are fewer blocks with a smaller
heat map to track and manage. However, storing data in
larger chunks results in the available capacity within that
chunk not being used efficiently and effectively as well as
having a mix of data of different heat levels stored within the
chunk. Further, moving this large chunk of data may impact
either application or storage system performance and may
have to occur during off-hours if it can be done at all.
The 640K chunk size used by the FS1 strikes an appropriate
balance between these two extremes. Oracle has analyzed
the years of data that it has accumulated on the activity and
performance of data stored and accessed on its arrays.
This research has led Oracle to conclude that a 640K chunk
size is best suited to balance and optimize available storage
capacity, performance, data movement and index size for
the purposes of doing automated storage tiering.
Oracle FS1 Cloud Ready with
Storage Domains
Consolidating and hosting multiple different applications—
physical or virtual—on a single, centralized storage always
tends to be attractive from a financial perspective. In an
ideal world, existing storage capacity (flash or HDD) is
Table 1 – Storage Tiering Chunk Sizes 10, 11
Flash Storage Array
Storage Tiering Chunk Size
NetApp FAS Series
4K
EMC XtremIO
4K
Oracle FS1
640K
HDS HUS VM
42MB
EMC VNX2
256MB
HP 3PAR StoreServ
256MB
EMC VNX1
1GB
IBM XIV
1GB
better managed and utilized, less data center floor space
and power is needed and upfront capital and ongoing operating expenses are lower as they are spread out among all
of the applications accessing the array.
There are three issues with consolidating to a single array:
• Limited flexibility. Different business units, departments
and companies often have their own respective requirements. As such they need the flexibility to access and
configure the storage to meet their needs. Once consolidated, this flexibility may become much more limited.
• Competition for dedicated resources. Connecting all
applications to a flash storage array (all-flash or hybrid)
almost inevitably leads to every application owner
wanting access to the highest performing resource—in
this case flash storage. While storage tiering partially
helps to mitigate this issue, there will always be some
applications that should have first dibs on the available
flash capacity while other applications have no business
storing any of their data on this tier.
• Security. Consolidating multiple “tenants” in a single
physical entity can raise concerns about the security of
data between one tenant versus another. “Co-mingling”
data across a large storage system or in cloud environments accomplishes cost objectives but raises security
and privacy concerns.
The FS1’s Storage Domains feature gives enterprises with
different business units, departments, or users the flexibility they need to manage their data while also controlling
10.Burgess, Mark. “Comparing EMC, HDS and NetApp Storage Arrays – Part 1 (Block Features).” The SNS Tech Team Blog. N.p., 11 Mar. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.
11. Lucchesi, Ray. “IBM Easy Tier Automated Storage Tiering.” Slideshare. Silverton Consulting, 2 July 2013. Web. 8 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.slideshare.net/IBMIndiaSS/tsl03080-usen>.
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
access to the tier or tiers of storage capacity that their
specific applications require. Using FS1’s Storage Domains
feature, enterprises may create up to 512 domains in a fully
scaled out FS1, each with its own dedicated resources and
QoS Plus settings. In this way, enterprises have the flexibility to create:
• All-flash domains for their premium and high priority
applications that need access to flash and the highest
levels of performance
• Mixed media domains for their low to high priority
applications that need some mix of flash and HDDs
to deliver moderate to high levels of performance
• All-HDD domains for their archival applications that
only need acceptable levels of performance.
specific storage resources that they need without having
to compete or contend for them. By assigning high and
premium priority applications to domains that contain only
flash and separating them from mid and low priority applications that do not need access to flash, high and premium
priority applications such as Oracle Database get the
performance that they need while other applications may
only access HDDs or limited amounts of flash capacity.
These extreme levels of security and granular SLA
management within each of the Oracle FS1’s storage
domains position it very well for cloud deployments and
make it very suitable for cloud and managed service
providers to use as their preferred platform to create
private, hybrid and public clouds.
Accelerates VMs in Converged
Infrastructures
Virtual machines (VMs) that reside on converged infrastructures consisting of ever more powerful servers are well
on their way to becoming the norm in enterprises today.
Many of these VMs run on VMware ESX with VMware used
by more than 500,000 customers and found in 99% of
Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies.12 This combination
of convergence and virtualization puts a great deal of pressure on the backend storage array to scale both in capacity
and performance to handle the workload associated with
the dozens or even hundreds of VMs that each of these
powerful servers can potentially host.
Figure 6: FS1's Storage Domains
Source: Oracle
Using the FS1’s Storage Domains enterprises may
securely separate the workloads associated with each
application as each domain has its own dedicated
resources that may only be accessed and used by the
applications in that domain without negatively impacting
other domains. Further, each domain also has its own
secure login so each business unit or department retains
the flexibility to configure the storage resources assigned
to it without being subject to broader, more restrictive change control processes. Conversely, it also gives
specific business units and departments the option to put
in place the more restrictive change control policies that
they may need to manage their applications.
The other upside of assigning specific applications to
their own storage domains is that they get access to the
The FS1 can scale both its performance and capacity to
meet these demands. The FS1 starts in a configuration
as little as two controllers and approximately 1TB of flash
capacity to give enterprises the small footprint they often
desire to initially test drive its performance and stability. The
FS1 may then scale to as high as 16 controllers backed by
7 petabytes flash or nearly double that amount of capacity if
both disk and flash are used. As it can deliver up to 2 million
IOPs in its largest configuration, it is positioned to meet even
the most demanding enterprise data center capacity and
performance requirements associated with running hypervisors such as VMware ESXi, Oracle VM or Microsoft Hyper-V.
In-box Software Licensing Included
The FS1 flash storage array possibly possesses all of the
features that an enterprise could want. However, possessing these features is insufficient. Enterprises must actually
be able to use them in order to realize their value. Using
12.VMware, Inc. How a Hypervisor-Converged Software-Defined Data Center Enables a Better Private Cloud (2014): 1-17. June 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmware_advantage.pdf
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SPECIAL REPORT
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
them often comes down to licensing individual features
which can cause many enterprises to balk.
Oracle creates no such obstacles. All of the FS1’s in-box software features are included with the system purchase price­—in
other words there are no separate charges or the need to
negotiate software discounts. This includes features such as:
• QoS Plus with automated storage tiering and
Priority-In-Priority-Out I/O management
• Application Profiles
• Storage Domains
• Copy services: snaps and clones
• End-to-end data integrity checking
• Thin provisioning
• Native integration with Oracle Database features
such as HCC and Enterprise Manager
• Single-pane, multi-system management with
mobile access options (iPhone or Android)
By including all of the software licenses needed to power
the FS1, enterprises get all of the capabilities they need to
realize the maximum value out of their purchase without
incurring additional costs. In contrast, similar, but individually licensed capabilities in competitive offerings could
cost up to $250,000.
• Oracle is a $37 billion company with over 120,000
employees around the globe, and some 400,000
customers worldwide 13
• Over 60,000 people attended Oracle World in fall 2014 14
• Over 2.1 million attended Oracle World online
• 97% of Global Fortune 500 companies use
Oracle software 15
• Over 50,000 IT professionals become certified
in Oracle software each year 16
While arguably best known for its database software and
business applications, Oracle has also emerged as an
enterprise storage player having acquired several storage
companies since 2010, including:
• Front Porch Digital
• Greenbytes
• Sun Microsystems (including StorageTek)
• Pillar Data Systems
Through its acquisition of these various storage companies,
Oracle storage systems deployed in enterprise accounts of all
sizes for which it offers 24x7 support from IT staff available by
phone, on the web and in the field to assist in the implementation and ongoing support of its FS1 flash storage arrays.
Oracle Defines Enterprise Support
and Service
Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns:
Provides Enterprises a New Choice
in Flash Storage Arrays
Finally, one cannot talk about using a flash storage array in
an enterprise production data center environment without
examining how it will be supported and maintained. This
requirement alone can lead enterprises to dismiss flash
storage arrays from providers such as Pure Storage and
SolidFire. While they offer flash storage arrays, they may fail
to meet the standards for financial stability, long-term viability, and capability to provide the high level (and often global)
service and support that enterprises expect.
Enterprises need flash more than ever to meet the needs of
their performance hungry mission-critical production applications. To do this, enterprises must identify and implement
a flash storage array that is more than a single application
point product. Instead, they need to choose an enterprisegrade flash storage array with the battle-proven features
and functionality that can meet their broader infrastructure
requirements while cost-effectively supporting a wide variety of application workloads.
It is nearly impossible for enterprises to so easily dismiss
a storage provider like Oracle. Unlike smaller providers,
Oracle’s position in the enterprise coupled with its ability
to support and deliver on enterprise requirements is nearly
indisputable. Consider:
The Oracle FS1 Flash Storage System provides enterprises
with a highly available and scalable flash storage array that
has the features and functionality to meet the enterprises'
near and long-term needs. The Oracle FS1 is in a class by
itself with an architecture specifically designed to exploit
13.Oracle Fact Sheet
14.Wang, R. Ray. “Event Report: Oracle Open World 2014 – Day 1 #OOW14 - Enterprise Irregulars.” Enterprise Irregulars. Cloud Avenue, LLC., 28 Sept. 2014. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
15.Oracle.
16.ibid.
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Oracle Rolls out the Big Guns: Provides Enterprises a New Choice in Flash Storage Arrays
the power of flash for extreme performance with predictable latency and deliver leading economics through Quality
of Service-driven automated tiering of flash and disk media
coupled with its Priority-In-Priority-Out I/O queuing based
on business priorities.
Enterprises may start with an FS1 in a configuration as
small as two nodes with performance that is as much as
9x higher than EMC XtremIO at half the price and scale
out to host petabytes of flash capacity in a single logical
configuration. In its largest 16 node configuration, internal
Oracle tests have already shown that the FS1 can deliver
up to 80GBps of throughput and 2 million IOPs, more
than enough to meet the performance needs of the most
demanding set of applications. Further, with FS1's support
for up to 64 storage domains per dual node system, or
512 in a 16-node configuration, enterprises may confidently consolidate their applications onto a single storage
platform knowing that they have access to the resources
they need to meet their SLAs without contention.
Oracle FS1 breaks new ground in the flash storage array
SAN battleground by delivering more than just outstanding
performance which is often where other flash storage
arrays start and stop. The Oracle FS1 stands apart by
providing a highly available and scalable architecture
backed by a mature and proven suite of data management
services that are included in the base system that enterprises want and need to justify deploying and broadly using
a flash storage array in their production SAN environment.
This stands in contract to many flash storage arrays that
have minimal, immature or unproven data management
services as well as those that make these services available as separately licensed options. Further, Oracle FS1’s
co-engineering with Oracle Database provides significant
business value to organizations and gives it unique advantages over competitive storage systems which do not offer
this level of integration.
Using the Oracle FS1, enterprises can finally move ahead
with their plans to bring flash storage arrays into the core
of their SAN infrastructure to run multiple production
applications and workloads as opposed to creating hard
to manage silos with all-flash point products for single
application deployments.
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