Other solutions comparable to IBM FlashSystem with regard to performance?

I am sure Pure Storage is a great choice

Pure Storage PURPOSE-BUILT Flash systems (FlashArray, FlashBlade...). Nothing can touch their architecture and their Evergreen model of ownership is nuts!

Research them all if you want, ask all the vendors lots of questions and challenge what they claim. Ask them for customer references so you can talk to actual users. Pure is not more expensive...you have to look at the life of your investment and TCO...no data migrations ever, no forklift upgrades in years 3-5 that are innevitable with other vendors, all software features included now AND in the future! There's a reason Pure Storage has an NPS score of 87 (world class on a scale of -100 to 100) and DellEMC and NetApp have scores of 4 and 7, respectively (yes, you read that right). Customers of Pure love being a customer, there must be a reason right? Of course you can always look at the Gartner quadrant for All Flash Arrays and see Pure as the leader 5 years running, but that only speaks to technology and innovation (which is obviously important too). But what about the whole experience of being a customer of the company you're investing in? If you aren't familiar with Pure Evergreen ownership model then learn yourself about it...get that education and you'll be shocked in a good way

I think Pure Storage All Flash NVMe

Pure Storage All Flash NVMe

Are you sure you really need new storage? We recently worked with a company using EMC storage. EMC monitored their array and generated some pretty terrible performance metrics at both the array and the server level. EMC then provided a proposal to upgrade the array to Flash. The client had also been working with us and he indicated their VMs had been in use for several years with normal user activity, but they had never defragmented a VM. He ran PerfectDisk vSphere on his VMs and then had EMC monitor the array again. A comparison of the statistics showed 10 of the 14 array metrics improved by an average of 96%. On the server side 7 of 9 metrics improved an average 46%. For this client defragmentation costs $5K while a new array was over $100K.

Sometimes you need new storage, but before you plop down a ton of cash, try taking care of your VMs. The vSphere documentation says to "Defragment the file systems on all guests"; there is a reason they make this recommendation. By the way, defragmented VMs are 17-27% faster on Flash as well.

Everyone seems to love Pure storage since they have a really good sales team and you can tell who owns it or another platform based on responses. 1) what are you on right now and is it working? Storage can escalate very quickly into what you don't need. 2) What does expansion, licensing, years 4 & 5 of maintenance look like? Pure's capacity-growth includes needing to upgrade the controllers at certain points, which is an extra cost/GB often not "highlighted" in the sales process. Nimble has the same issue and has had a reputation of under-sizing to win the deal and then circling back to upgrade controllers later. Measure 2x & cut 1x on this. 3) Viability of the company: Pure has had 3 x profitable quarters (earning/share) in the last 4-years and HP & Dell don't look too interested in them. HP seems to be pushing Nimble more than Pure based on OS & flexibility of the platform. 4) FLexibility/Cost: Everyone is flexible and you can add & scale but what is the cost? Most storage admins lay it on the line to buy an AFA array for 3-5yrs, and cannot go back to the well for an upgrade 1-2yrs later if they need to exercise that "flexibility" in CFO land that flexibility is a capital expense. 5). Everything is relative: if you have a 100TB on AFA do you grow at 10%/yr? i.e. 10TBs? If that's the case, your 3 x 3.84TBs away from necessitating that need (especially with comp & dedupe) do you have to buy a whole shelf? Or can you add drives and expand your RAID set? 6.)Who are you buying from? Direct? i.e. is your vendor a vendor or a strategic partner who knows your business and will give you options vs. 1 x platform no matter what you say for your project/data sets/growth/financial outlook? 7). The BEZEL: It's all intel chips and a few manufacturers of SSDs & NVME standardized on a few OEM platforms like supermicro (Nimble) or Xyratex or SEagate Chassis's for the most part. Point is the Hardware has consolidated to a few hardware manufacturers/vendors that can print bezels and then Storage manufacturer loads their OS (this is what DellEMC is doing right now i.e. loading OS onto a few standardized platforms. Point is: don't be a bezel snob & B). HW consolidation has allowed lower barriers of entry to manufacturers that don't have to live with 20yrs of stacking code so players like Pure, Nimble, Compellent, EqualLogic, etc... to come on the scene with a good OS. 8). Everyone talks about NVME/SSD, etc... and it's all a means to get the data closer to the compute layer i.e. the servers. Manufacturers like Datrium (founded by VMware & DataDomain founders) have conquered this by essentially having 2x copies of your data 1 x copy on the servers on all flash and the 2nd copy on spinning disk. They leverage the servers to do Compression & dedupe, encyrption, and block all non-unique writes so their "SAN" on the backend only records unique writes and all reads come from the host on All-flash and don't traverse the backend network. So if you stand up 1,000 VDIs, that server takes on the I/O and doesn't disrupt the "SAN" which can degrade performance across the board or push you into an upgrade. Additionally AFA-arrays have 2 x controller= fixed performance vs. Datrium has limitless since it's on the hosts. It also provides more flexibility at a lower cost since you upgrade the flash on the "fron end" i.e. the servers vs. buying another PURE shelf which is 10x more costly. Hope this helps...

In my opinion, Pure Storage

Hello,

The IBM Flashsystem FS900 is an example of a next generation flash system that leverages NVMe based SSDs to deliver ultra low latencies and highest grade performance. Further it integrates well with existing SVC installations as well. Comparable products would be the following:

1. Dell EMC Powermax 8000
2. NetApp AFF800
3. Pure Storage FlashArray /X 70
4. HPE 3PAR Storserv 9000 – not my first choice.
5. Hitatchi VSP F1500 – A great product but not pure NVMe based.

Of these my first preference would be the Powermax 8000 and the next would be a toss up between NetApp and Pure. Again before you finalize on an array, you would want to list out the use cases, the kind of systems that will connect/use this system and capabilities you need along with capacity. The IBM system is a Tier-1 system with which I would compare Powermax and Hitachi. Also you need to think about the larger ecosystem currently in place. All those things will drive your choice. For example if you were to take replication, IBM has metro and global mirror options which have been around for ages. The EMC SRDF option is THE gold standard and the same is true to Hitachi True Copy. I would start by listing down use cases, capabilities, capacity, performance, connectivity options etc and narrow the choice down to two or three products after which it is generally driven by commercials. Hope this helps. On a sidenote, you wont go wrong with either IBM Flashsystem or Powermax.

Pure Storage is the Flash Storage Industry Leader 5 years running according to Gartner. We disrupted the Storage space leading with innovation. Also, anyone recommending Dell just read this blog.purestorage.com/beware-of-old-school-architectures-claiming-to-be-mission-critical/

Have a look at Infinidat. InfiniBox storage solutions provide faster than all-flash performance (latency, IOPs, and throughput), seven nines availability, and up to 8PB in a single floor tile. Worth the time to look at, especially if your capacity requirements exceed 500TB going forward.

The short answer is no, because IBM uses micro controllers and not the traditional design of a microprocessor based AFA. IBM's micro controllers negate the performance issues associated with processor-based cache limitations and the latency associated with a bus design. There is no design that can approach the performance and reliability of this design.

My experience with PureStorage // X10, // X20 and // X50 models has been excellent.

Hi all
If aware of what it's built upon, please take a look at SMCs own solutions. NetApp is also in this tier 1 space together with both DDN and PURE. Comes to PB/$ PURE is hard to beat. NetApp with it's ONTAP AI release is very good too. But then one gains if already being a NetApp house.

regarding performance of Pure X array, two questions to ask:
1. could you think multipathing should not be mandetory to enterprise business? by far, the latest version of NVMe is 1.3, it doesn't support multipathing, need multipathing? wait for the next version.
2. what about the performance if X array support ALUA or even symmetric A/A controller? you know, controller collabration will create extra overheads and then increase the overall latency.

do you really have clear answers to these 2 questions?

Evaluate the following solutions:

1) PureStorage FlashArray //X

2) HPE Nimble Storage FlashArrays

With regard of performance Pure FlashArray is the best positioned system in the storage market. It outstanding performs in every data pattern scenario. It's an All Flash Array with full NVMe backend and frontend. This means you have microseconds latency to get data from flash and to present it to the host. SAN FC 32 Gbs or 10 Gbs iSCSI ethernet supported. Data resides on specialized flash modules engineered to be directly accessed by Purity operating system through multiple concurrent NVMe queues. Performance are guarantee even during component failure or scheduled maintenance because of redundancy architecture. Reliability is six-nines with no need of software business continuity functions implemented.

I has been storage and DB over 2 decades.... know many solutions inside out. Not because of working in particular vendor, just reckon FlashArray is the obvious answer to the question. No only consistent low latency, but also rich function, extreme simple to operate, no hassle on future inevitable technology refresh (as it is evergreen).

The IBM FS900 AE3 is an amazing purpose built flash array using IBM's Flashcore technology. The unit itself has an all HW data path composed of FPGAs and quality NAND technology based on the IBM/Micron partnership. In the model the question refers is built in HW compression that has near ZERO performance impact. The FS900 does not come with a software stack but is built for speed above that which you would typically see with a tuned NVMe array. It is a perfect array for application acceleration when used as a preferred read array or virtualized by IBM's SVC or other array running IBM's SDS Spectrum Virtualize software. Recently, IBM took this very same FlashCode technology in the FS900 and miniaturized it including the built-in penalty free HW compression into a 2.5" drive format called the IBM Flashcore Module or FCM. These offer faster and much more space efficiency than any NAND technology out there and can be used in place of or with NVMe SSDs in the new V7000 Gen3 product and the the FS9100 series arrays. Both of these arrays come with a FULL featured data service software: IBM Spectrum Virtualize. IBM WON the 2018 FLASH Summit award for Most Innovative Flash Technology for these FCMs.

BTW, I do not work for IBM. We are a multi vendor VAR and Cloud provider.

If this is a heads down beat on the box type of environment then I can understand why you are interested in IBM's 900 FlashSystem. It offers amazingly consistent performance and reliability. There is realistically very few options for this performance at this total cost of ownership. For example, the EMC Powermax is more than twice as expensive and unless you are a big EMC customer the staffing requirement is much higher. You could look at EMC's xtremeIO R or T, but the drives are of low capacity and they do not offer the latest advancements in RAID technology, plus the software options are limited. You should also look at IBM's 9100 FlashSystem since the economics are comparable to the 900 and the 9100 is a big focus for IBM going forward. If you do not need a box with really high performance and reliability then consider Pure and HP, but the savings will be minimal if any. Beware Pure is cheap to get into, but you get jacked on the back-end of the investment cycle.

"Performance" can be read in more than one way.... minimal latency? throughput? IOPS? Growth? Other? Looking at the suggestions, I'll avoid the "me too" and suggest SolidFire (by NetApp). They aren't the fastest or least-latency (that's probably XtremeIO - SF basically has 1msec or less), but IMO are more resilient to failure. They are a scale-out model that grows with you, adds performance and capacity as you add nodes. It's resilient - can automatically recover (protect data) from a drive failure, or even node failure - and has QOS per volume (min/max/burst IOPS), can grow with you incrementally, and even allows you to gracefully deprecate/remove older nodes. Supports VASA and OpenStack (api) - it's probably more of a carrier platform, but we've found it fits nicely here (we've added add'l nodes since initial deployment).

I think you can consider Pure Storage All Flash Array //x series (NVMe). With highlight Effortless, Evergreen, and Efficient.

There are many options. You can find great models from Dell EMC, today’s storage market share leader.
Depending on the workload and capacity, you can choose an AFA among Powermax, XtremIO, Unity, SC, Isilon and ME4.

There are many options. Most vendors are switching to all flash technologies and many hybrid arrays are being steadily dropped from current ranges.
Probably the most useful to look at if you want a high end AFA with many features is XtremIO from DellEMC. However, if you also want replication try Dell Unity (mid range) or PowerMAX (enterprise class)

Netapp AFF or Huawei Dorado V5070

Having worked with Dell EMC, NetApp, and now HPE, I would recommend HPE 3PAR All Flash array, 3PAR has been been a leader in All-Flash Storage, as well the pioneers in SCM / Memory Driven Flash technology, this was highlighted by IDC.

The future is SCM - Storage Class Memory.

All-Flash Array should provide you with the below: (3PAR does much more than below):
Disaster recovery
Management console (Ease of Use, very powerful and feature rich GUI)
AI-driven management
REST APIs for cloud orchestration
Support for security standards
Elastic concurrency
High capacity
High performance
compression and deduplication
snapshotting
replication
thin provisioning

www.hpe.com/emea_europe/en/storage/3par.html

Dell EMC VMAX All Flash Storage there are two types VMAX 250F and VMAX 950F (this one with performance of up to 6.7 million IOPS ),and it Supports block and file, open systems, mainframe, and IBM i.

Netapp AFF

You may want to look at the IBM FS9100 series, NimbusData A/B/C/D models
nimbusdata.com/products/exaflash-platform/all-flash-arrays/
or DDN storage Flash portfolio
www.ddn.com/

I had three self deployed customer references and success stories of IBM FS900 Flash Storage, not in health care but in financial sector. We achieved more than our expected required performance. My suggestion is IBM NVMe Based All Flash Storage, because it's new and batter technology.

In answer to your question any other industry solution, yes EMC XtremIO Flash.

Regarding to my real cases reference, Pure Storage Flash Array NVMe will better for you. Pure 1 Meta proactively solved some issues in my installation cases.

I think best replacement is NetApp NVMe

Pure Storage is the same solution in HW, but SW is very diferent. IBM is better

You may want to look at the IBM FS9100 series. It's the next generation/evolution of the FS900. It supports NVMe (not just "NMVe ready") as well as IBM's own FlashCore technology (purpose-built solid state drive technology) and run IBM's Spectrum Virtualize software that enables virtualization of external (read: other vendor) storage arrays.

We have several FS9100 clusters installed at a Managed Service running infrastructure for a large medical center.

We have V9000 flash storage and another Vendor that is as good of performance if not better for enterprise class is Hitachi, F-series.

Consider also the DellEMC powermax solutions.

Pure, EMC, NetAPP, Fujitsu are all in the same Space Ball. "Ludicrous Speed"
One needs to look beyond the IOPS when evaluating. Performance also counts in
service, support, non-interruptive upgrades. Stopping this technology to perform
service is a Ludicrous thing of the past. www.youtube.com/watch

NetApp AFF800 NVMe & Pure of cause, but Pure more expensive