Monday, October 19, 2015

High Performance, Low Latency, Hyper-Converged Computing


Recently 360is implemented several systems for clients who needed very high performance, within a stated budget, and had limited physical space and power to work with. For these clients we designed hyper-converged compute/storage units built from non-proprietary, commercial off the shelf components, supportable by their in-house IT team. Thanks to recent advances in storage technology it is now possible to obtain very high performance for a fraction of the cost of a traditional Server + SAN approach. Better still, these systems aren't subject to the vendor’s ideas of life-span (often artificially foreshortened), and can remain operational for 5, 10, or more years if required. You the customer, remains in control.
  • 70GB/sec streaming transfers, 4M IOPS, 4U of space, 5TB to 250TB raw capacity, 2.5PB per rack
  • 2GB/sec streaming transfers, 480TB raw capacity, 4U of space. 4.8PB per rack
  • 75% less power for a given performance level
  • 3X to 6X the performance when compared to similarly priced Server + SAN
  • On-site spares for instant access to replacement parts, forever
  • Scale-out capability with clustered filesystems like Lustre, GlusterFS, and Ceph
  • No chance the vendor can make the systems obsolete
If you are challenged to provide performance, either on-premise or in the cloud, then a hyper-converged system may be for you, and will certainly have a longer lifetime without vendor or service lock-in. For a fixed cost, a properly designed hyper-converged system will always deliver significantly more performance than Server/SAN systems. Let us know your constraints and we can give you an immediate indication of whether hyper-converged is for you.

About 360is
Our scientific approach to performance analysis and engineering has been proven in previous engagements. We work with top 5 Investment Banks, Telcos, and technology vendors. If you have an IT performance problem that is impacting your business, contact us to arrange a no-obligation meeting with one of our consultants.