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resistion
These guys seem to have no clue. MLC only offers 2x more density, but the ...
arielmaislos
With the reality of cloud storage and computing upon us, data center experts are ...
Microsoft calls for 'cloud' flash, server SoCs
Rick Merritt
11/16/2011 6:26 PM EST
MILPITAS, Calif. – Big data centers want lower power flash chips and integrated processors, said an executive who helps design Microsoft's warehouse-sized facilities. Containers are also on their way out in favor of larger building blocks, he said.
"We are maniacally focused on performance per Watt per dollar," said Dileep Bhandarkar, chief architect of Microsoft's global foundation services group that runs an undisclosed number of global data centers.
Electrical and mechanical issues consume up to 80 percent of the budget for the big data centers than draw 25 to 50 Megawatts and house tens of thousands of servers each. "That's why it's a big deal if we can save even one Watt on a server processor," he said, speaking at an annual conference here hosted by LSI Corp.
Specifically, Bhandarkar called for a new flash variant he called "cloud multi-level (CMLC) flash" that has moderate performance and lower power consumption. "We have started to use MLC flash drives because they give 30 to 40 percent more performance in some apps and have an added cost that’s lower than that, and they only drive power up two or three percent," he said.
Microsoft uses the flash drives in two configurations, one with a hardware cache controller and one without. "I don’t see flash drives replacing hard disks—they are just another layer in the memory hierarchy," he said.
"But we don’t need maximum bandwidth in flash--that's expensive and the power goes up," Bhandarkar said. "I don’t want a drive with two million IOPS--I'll settle for one with 20,000 IOPS, but there's an opportunity for the industry to define what I call cloud MLC," he said.
Microsoft operates tens of data centers in at least eight countries to run more than 200 services including its Bing search, MSN, Hotmail and Azure cloud services.
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resistion
11/16/2011 7:39 PM EST
The replacement cycle of C-MLC flash will be an issue. They should be looking more carefully at alternative NVM's.
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chanj
11/17/2011 1:48 PM EST
MLC has 1/10 of write endurance than SLC. It may impose a maintenance issue for services which involve heavily writing such as mail server and storage server. In order to accomplish the green initiative, a better storage architecture has to be engineered. There seems to be opportunities, doesn't it?
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arielmaislos
11/21/2011 6:27 AM EST
With the reality of cloud storage and computing upon us, data center experts are absolutely right to focus “maniacally” on their search for a pragmatic balance of performance, power, density and cost. Getting this right is the only way that cloud resources will successfully deliver a high-quality user experience while under the heavy workload of a shared environment.
In a performance-per-Watt-per-dollar world, SSDs will certainly be the big lever for efficiently boosting performance, increasing density, and reducing power consumption as part of a multi-tier architecture. As Mr. Bhandarkar suggests, SLC SSDs are impractical in a cloud scenario because their size and cost won’t appeal to anyone who is focused on lean-and-green data center metrics. MLC represents the best way to optimize performance, power, and density at a much lower cost per GB than SLC.
There is an opportunity for us in the industry to define “Cloud MLC.” To some extent, Cloud MLC already exists in the form of low power, cost effective MLC SSDs, but only those MLC SSDs that actually perform at enterprise-class levels – defined by high IOPS performance and Read/Write endurance. The flash/SSD industry must continue to bring highly innovative flash controller technology (such as Anobit’s Memory Signal Processing) to market if we are to answer Mr. Bhandarkar’s visionary call for viable cloud flash solutions.
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resistion
11/21/2011 7:51 AM EST
These guys seem to have no clue. MLC only offers 2x more density, but the wearout is order of magnitude worse at least. You have to spend more energy to verify you got the correct two-bit state. Spend more energy, and replace more than twice as often, you lost the cost.
Then there is the Pareto aspect. Memory is not the big power consumer, compared to the processor and even the cooling method itself. It is just trendy to tout SSD's right now, especially in the wake of the Thai floods. But too little too late.
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