Sponsored By: NetApp

In this episode we talk new persistent memory IO technology with Andy Grimes, Principal Technologist, NetApp. Andy presented at the NetApp Insight 2018 TechFieldDay Extra (TFDx) event (video available here). If you get a chance we encourage you to watch the videos as Andy, did a great job describing their new MAX Data persistent memory IO solution.

The technology for MAX Data came from NetApp’s Plexistor acquisition. Prior to the acquisition, Plexistor had also presented at a SFD9 and TFD11.

Unlike NVMeoF storage systems, MAX Data is not sharing NVMe SSDs across servers. What MAX Data does is supply an application-neutral way to use persistent memory as a new, ultra fast, storage tier together with a backing store.

MAX Data performs a write or an “active” (Persistent Memory Tier) read in single digit µseconds for a single core/single thread server. Their software runs in user space and as such, for multi-core servers, it can take up to 40 µseconds. Access times for backend storage reads is the same as NetApp AFF but once read, data is automatically promoted to persistent memory, and while there, reads ultra fast.

One of the secrets of MAX Data is that they have completely replaced the Linux Posix File IO stack with their own software. Their software is streamlined and bypasses a lot of the overhead present in today’s Linux File Stack. For example, MAX Data doesn’t support metadata-journaling.

MAX Data works with many different types of (persistent) memory, including DRAM (non-persistent memory), NVDIMMs (DRAM+NAND persistent memory) and Optane DIMMs (Intel 3D Xpoint memory, slated to be GA end of this year). We suspect it would work with anyone else’s persistent memory as soon as they come on the market.

Even though the (Optane and NVDIMM) memory is persistent, server issues can still lead to access loss. In order to provide data availability for server outages, MAX Data also supports MAX Snap and MAX Recovery.

With MAX Snap, MAX Data will upload all persistent memory data to ONTAP backing storage and ONTAP snapshot it. This way you have a complete version of MAX Data storage that can then be backed up or SnapMirrored to other ONTAP storage.

With MAX Recovery, MAX Data will synchronously replicate persistent memory writes to a secondary MAX Data system. This way, if the primary MAX Data system goes down, you still have an RPO-0 copy of the data on another MAX Data system that can be used to restore the original data, if needed. Synchronous mirroring will add 3-4 µseconds to the access time for writes, quoted above.

Given the extreme performance of MAX Data, it’s opening up whole new set of customers to talking with NetApp. Specifically, high frequency traders (HFT) and high performance computing (HPC). HFT companies are attempting to reduce their stock transactions access time to as fast as humanly possible. HPC vendors have lots of data and processing all of it in a timely manner is almost impossible. Anything that can be done to improve throughput/access times should be very appealing to them.

To configure MAX Data, one uses a 1:25 ratio of persistent memory capacity to backing store. MAX Data also supports multiple LUNs.

MAX Data only operates on Linux OS and supports (IBM) RedHat and CentOS, But Andy said it’s not that difficult to add support for other versions of Linux Distros and customers will dictate which other ones are supported, over time.

As discussed above, MAX Data works with NetApp ONTAP storage, but it also works with SSD/NVMe SSDs as backend storage. In addition, MAX Data has been tested with NetApp HCI (with SolidFire storage, see our prior podcasts on NetApp HCI with Gabriel Chapman and Adam Carter) as well as E-Series storage. The Plexistor application has been already available on AWS Marketplace for use with EC2 DRAM and EBS backing store. It’s not much of a stretch to replace this with MAX Data.

MAX Data is expected to be GA released before the end of the year.

A key ability of the MAX Data solution is that it requires no application changes to use persistent memory for ultra-fast IO. This should help accelerate persistent memory adoption in data centers when the hardware becomes more available. Speaking to that, at Insight2018, Lenovo, Cisco and Intel were all on stage when NetApp announced MAX Data.

The podcast runs ~25 minutes. Andy’s an old storage hand (although no grey beard) and talks the talk, walks the walk of storage religion. Andy is new to TFD but we doubt it will be the last time we see him there. Andy was very conversant on the MAX Data technology and the market that it apparently is opening up for this new technology. Listen to our podcast to learn more.

Andy Grimes, Principal Technologiest, NetApp

Andy has been in the IT industry for 17 years, working in roles spanning development, technology architecture, strategic outsourcing and Healthcare.. For the past 4 years Andy has worked with NetApp on taking the NetApp Flash business from #5 to #1 in the industry (according to IDC). During this period NetApp also became the fastest growing Flash and SAN vendor in the market and regained leadership in the Gartner quadrant. Andy also works with NetApp’s product vision, competitive analysis and future technology direction and working with the team bringing the MAX Data PMEM product to market. Andy has a BS degree in psychology, a BPA in management information systems, and an MBA. He current works as a Principal Technologist for the NetApp Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit with a focus on PMEM, HCI and Cloud Strategy. Andy lives in Apex, NC with his beautiful wife and has 2 children, a 4 year old and a 22 year old (yes don’t let this happen to you). For fun Andy likes to Mountain Bike, Rock Climb, Hike and Scuba Dive.