Direct NFS – Design Considerations for Next-gen NAS Appliances Optimized for Database Workloads

NAS appliances have traditionally been a popular choice for shared storage as they support a standardized and mature NFS protocol and leverage inexpensive Ethernet networking. However, the NFS protocol and traditional NAS appliances are designed for general purpose file system storage. Database workloads are very unique in the kind of requirements they place on a storage system. Different database workloads can have very different response time or bandwidth requirements. Along with the traditional database requirements of atomicity and consistency; critical database systems also have strict uptime and high availability requirements. Database workloads have the ability to convey this information to the storage. This session will explore some novel ideas to help design the next generation of NAS appliances and integrate newer NFS protocols and breakthrough technologies such as flash storage for optimizing database performance.

Learning Objectives

Database Workloads and storage performance