Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 08 | Page 24

LATEST INTELLIGENCE PRESENTED BY NETAPP AFF VS. PURE STORAGE FLASHARRAY//M D ata has become the lifeblood of companies of all sizes and across all industries. Organisations are reinventing themselves to unlock new value from existing applications as well as next-generation social, mobile, cloud and analytics technologies. To address these demands, businesses must modernise IT infrastructure to accelerate application performance, improve data centre economics and adapt to evolving business demands with confidence. Download whitepaper here This document compares two all-flash solutions that might be considered by companies that are modernising their storage infrastructure to accelerate application performance: the NetApp AFF and the Pure Storage FlashArray//M. The FlashArray//M family consists of four different models: The M10, M20, M50 and M70, each of which is an independent, non-clustered array containing a pair of storage controllers and SSD devices. The NetApp AFF family is also made up of four models: the AFF A200, A300, A700, and A700S. Like 24 INTELLIGENTCIO the FlashArray, AFF storage controllers are deployed in pairs. However, unlike the FlashArray, as many as 12 AFF node pairs can be combined to deliver all-flash performance across 24 storage controllers as part of a single cluster. Although the FlashArray and NetApp AFF share some similarities in design, many critical points of differentiation exist. This analysis examines five essential criteria to consider when evaluating flash storage products and compares how the NetApp AFF and the Pure FlashArray stand up to each. Note that this analysis does not consider performance capabilities or storage efficiency features, such as compression and deduplication. You should conduct testing on vendor-provided systems using your own applications and datasets to validate performance and efficiency claims and guarantees. In cases where testing is not possible, we recommend that you consult published performance benchmarks from reputable, third-party organisations, such as the Storage Performance Council. www.intelligentcio.com