EXPERT SPEAK
Dan Cobb is Dell EMC Fellow for Global Technology Strategy
Why all-flash may be the only storage tomorrow
Dan Cobb at Dell EMC explains why flash technologies may be the road map forward into tomorrow ’ s software defined storage devices . administration , power and cooling are taken into consideration .
Enterprise Strategy Group compared the total cost of ownership of traditional hybrid storage arrays , dedicated flash and disk-based systems , with a mixed workload storage consolidation on all-flash array for a mid-sized software development company .
The study found that consolidating traditional storage deployments dedicated for production , development , test and virtual desktop infrastructure operations on all-flash array resulted in 3.8 times reduction in total cost of ownership over a period of five years . This delivered an average annual storage total cost of ownership savings of $ 561,000 .
There is more to the enterprise use of all-flash storage arrays than just total cost of ownership and operational expense . Working on the financial aspect simply removes a reason to not consider the change .
Hard disks have had a fantastic run by any measure , happily spinning in datacentres across the globe . However , it is likely nearing its conclusion , at least for most primary data storage use cases .
There is no denying that flash media is on its way to becoming the dominant technology in primary storage , especially with the performance and bottom line benefits it offers .
IDC claims that accelerated growth in cloud adoption and performance-hungry workloads are driving businesses towards flash storage technologies . There is strong evidence behind IDC ’ s claim . As this pace of change continues to gain momentum , it is time to dispel any residual myths and misunderstandings revolving around flash once and for all .
Myth # 1 , Flash is not relevant to business The modern enterprise needs to work quickly with near real-time data , making flash a realistic choice to achieve the required levels of performance . Many information intensive organisations are already making extensive use of flash to extract the maximum performance from their IT investments . Flash enables the kind of data agility that is central to the operations of these businesses . Furthermore , flash also has a positive impact on the bottom line .
Put simply , the move to flash is just too logical and attractive . We are entering an era where storage will be software-defined , flash focused , automated and simpler to manage . This will unlock a world of opportunity for businesses , and turn IT from an operational necessity into a strategic function .
Myth # 2 , Flash is expensive Businesses can achieve a significantly lower total cost of ownership with flash , once data reduction , compression and deduplication , reduced maintenance , simplified
Myth # 3 , Flash wears out quickly Flash has no moving parts . Physical wear and tear is a key cause of failure in traditional disk . In stress tests , the failure rates of flash disks are much lower . The wear and tear on flash media is often due to the development of hotspots , the physical locations on the drive where data is repeatedly written . Today , flash drives are constantly monitored and proactive steps are taken to prevent the development of hotspots .
With these workload management improvements , reduced mechanical failure rates , and improved durability , flash drives actually have superior physical life that spans over the mechanical hard disk drives they are displacing .
So , flash has a clear path to own the future of data storage . Earlier , businesses questioned why flash ? Today as they face the digital future in 2017 and beyond , the more relevant and urgent question has become , Why not flash ?
58 Issue 04 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS