INTERNATIONAL 
Continuous Adaptive Data Placement
Accelerating Application Performance
XIO Continuous Adaptive Data Placement (CADP) is unique patented breakthrough technology that changes the economics of storage by enabling Hyper ISE storage systems to provide the best price/performance/capacity ratios of any storage system in the industry.
IT professionals have a limited number of options when it comes to increasing IOPS. The traditional method is to add more disk drives to storage systems and “wide stripe” those disks. This approach is extremely expensive, as a greater number of disk drives are required to store data. Another option is to implement SSD, but many users have found the potential performance benefits falling short of expectations, especially at the cost it demands. The recent trend includes storage systems with automated tiering software but these solutions typically use simple policies that place the most active data onto the fastest and most expensive tier. However just because data is active does not mean it requires high performance. Performance always comes at a price, which is why it is essential to optimize resources based on the needs of the application.
True SHD
CADP creates a unique and efficient approach called True SHD, which is an amalgamation of SSD and HDD as a single pool of storage. CADP calculates whether there will be a real performance benefit placing hotspot data onto SSD drives. This ensures that the Hyper ISE SSDs are used optimally and only performance-driven data lives on these drives.
CADP is drastically different from automated tiering solutions that rely on simple active/inactive states to dictate the demotion/promotion process. Active data is not synonymous with performance. Automated tiering is a binary process that has no real insight to the actual performance requirements of data. Additionally, this process can take hours and even days. CADP is intelligent and sophisticated analytical software that understands application I/O behavior in real-time, it identifies hotspot data and performs ROI calculations to determine if there will be a real performance benefit to placing data on SSD. CADP is a continuous real-time process that is constantly analyzing and learning application I/O behavior.
Figure One: True SHD Enabled by CADP
Read/Write Ratios
Hyper ISE has been optimized based on I/O behavior to achieve greater price/performance ratios. All new writes go to cache and HDD first. CADP then finds the hotspots and places them on SSD in real-time in larger extents so writes are minimized on the SSD drives within Hyper ISE. This is an essential aspect of CADP, utilizing MLC SSD, which is optimized for reads and is far less expensive than SLC SSD. Considering that typical read/write ratio is 70% read and 30% write in the majority of environments, this is especially valuable.
Price/Performance/Capacity
CADP maintains a “heat map” of application performance (see Figure 2), focusing on hotspots and continuously balancing between MLC SSD and SAS HDD. As a result, Hyper ISE uniquely provides the right combination of price, performance, and capacityin real time and at all times.
Figure Two: CADP Hotspot Analysis
Hyper ISE users are achieving between 60,000 and 200,000 IOPS in a single 3U system supporting 14.4 TB of usable capacity. Additionally, Hyper ISE pricing is competitive with storage systems that are considered price leaders and they are only generating between 5,000 and 30,000 IOPS with approximately the same amount of usable capacity. In short, Hyper ISE is comparable from a price per GB perspective while eclipsing other solutions in terms price per IOPS.
CADP and Caching
Using intelligent caching algorithms in storage greatly improves application performance. Caching algorithms have been used within storage systems for decades and move data in and out of cache memory based on I/O behavior such as pre-fetch and historical trending. This tier, however, is also the most expensive, which means it is often a limited resource.
CADP also analyzes I/O behavior, but very differently from caching techniques. Caching is actually more like automated tiering technology, demoting and promoting data from memory to disk based on activity/inactivity. It treats all active data equally. As discussed, CADP creates a single logical pool from SSD and HDD continuously monitors application performance, placing only active “hot” data on SDD based on an ROI calculation that determines a real performance benefit can be gained. Caching and automated tiering solutions lack this level of intelligence, and “see” performance as a black and white condition — neither understand or are concerned with hotspots. Additionally, CADP is complementary with caching creating additive performance working in conjunction within the Hyper ISE.
The Need for Speed
A number of environments absolutely need high performance; Hyper ISE is a no-brainer decision for these use cases. These include databases that need to drastically reduce query times and high performance analytics. Other environments simply need performance issues to be non-existent. Even if you don’t need high performance 80% or even 90% of the time, when it is needed, it is essential. In IT, solutions are often implemented based on high-end requirements and not their steady state. Additionally, performance bottlenecks are created by virtual desktop environments, server virtualization and multi-tenant cloud applications because there is massive contention for the same storage resources.
The real value is in what users are able to achieve with Hyper ISE, which include reducing database query times by up to 20 times, the ability to drive far greater consolidation of their server virtualization environments, often from 10:1 to up to 50:1, and Hyper ISE can support thousands of virtual desktops on a single system.
A New Class of Storage – Performance-Driven Storage with True SHD
Hyper ISE is a new class of storage system based on its unique True SHD architecture. It is easy to manage, it provides Enterprise-class reliability, and it outperforms storage systems that are up to ten times more expensive. Hyper ISE provides the best price/performance/capacity ratios of any storage system in the industry, enabling its users to implement new applications, achieve greater levels of consolidation, and free up capital. Hyper ISE represents a market shift that changes the economics of IT, opening the floodgates of new opportunities for its users.
