Solid State Storage

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The Abstracts

Overview and Current Topics in Solid State Storage
Rob Peglar
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This tutorial provides introductory material and discussion of solid state storage. A comprehensive overview of the technology, from components to devices to systems, is provided along with an overview of several current topics surrounding the integration, deployment, use and application of solid state storage. The material is intended for those who are not familiar with solid state storage in the enterprise and wish to develop a working understanding of the technology and its usage.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand solid state storage technology in its various forms
• Understand common characteristics and behaviors of solid state storage
• Understand the benefits of using solid state storage in enterprise applications

Solid Business, Shifting Vision: What users can realistically expect from SSS in the next 2 years
Woody Hutsell
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This tutorial will offer an industry veteran’s perspective on evolving SSS user expectations during the next 2 years and the most likely vendor responses. The tutorial will identify what users will want from SSS, then offer a well-informed appraisal of which user expectations the vendor community should be able to satisfy, and which perhaps not. Challenges involved in satisfying expectations will be explored in depth. The audience will gain a greater understanding of what features, capabilities, and cost points SSS may honestly offer within the next 2 years, extremely valuable information for enterprises planning to deploy SSS.

Learning Objectives:

• Introduce the features and cost points most desired by current/potential SSS users
• Explore the challenges SSS vendors face in meeting these expectations
• Help users more successfully plan for future SSS deployments by identifying the SSS features vendors will most likely offer in the next 2 years.

Solid State Storage TCO Calculator
Terry Yoshii and David Stutznegger
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This tutorial will demonstrate the Enterprise TCO calculator, the result of the SNIA SSS TCO work group. Representatives from rotating disk, DRAM, and NAND storage joined together to create an application based calculator that will return the TCO benefits, performance gains, and green power benefits of different SSS solutions. Using inputs ranging from I/O characteristics to HDD specs and capacity, the calculator churns through possible RAID configurations, replacement rates, power/performance tradeoffs, and other computations to provide the optimal SSS setup. We will walk through a few of the calculations and many assumptions we make and demonstrate the adaptability of the calculator. The results include Power, Space, and storage savings, as well as expected total IOPS, and percentage reduction in power (green drive improvement).

Learning Objectives:

• Introduce the TCO calculator, the default assumptions, and how every user can benefit from the tool.
• Explore which application scenarios return the greatest TCO opportunities, and which may not be good for a SSS solution
• Educate datacenter users and providers of the overall $$$ impact of SSS storage, beyond what is seen in the upfront cost.

Storage Class Memory: the Future of Solid State Storage

Phil Mills
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This tutorial describes 8 new technologies currently under development in research labs around the world that promise to replace today's NAND Flash technology. These new technologies - collectively called Storage Class Memory (SCM) - provide higher performance, lower cost, and more energy efficient solutions than today's SLC/MLC NAND Flash products. In this tutorial we extrapolate SCM technology trends to 2020 and analyze the impact on storage systems. The material is intended for those people that are closely watching the impact to the storage industry - brought about by NAND Flash - and want to understand what's next.

Learning Experiences:

• State of the art for NAND Flash technology
• 8 technologies that could replace NAND Flash

Facing an SSS Buying Decision? Here is how SNIA is helping users evaluate SSS performance
Ray Lucchesi and Khaled Amer
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Solid state storage (SSS) technology offers a quantum leap in the performance of storage technology. However, a broad spectrum of products and architectures are flooding the marketplace, each with very different performance characteristics. Users have no consistent method of measuring or comparing the performance of vendor offerings. The SNIA SSS Technical Working Group established a Performance subcommittee to help the market with solutions for this problem. If you are considering using SSS in your IT environment, this tutorial is a MUST ATTEND.

Learning Experiences

• The tutorial will begin by introducing the many of the SSS performance issues.
• Next, the tutorial will present the SSS TWG Performance Sub-committee’s recommendations for metrics and methodologies to use in measuring and evaluating SSS performance.
• Finally, the tutorial will discuss ways to apply the Sub-committee’s recommendations to gain a better understanding of the differences between vendor SSS offerings.