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PowerEdge Product Group

Other considerations for optimized SDS

SDS solutions are designed to accommodate network bottlenecks however, it is logical that

reducing latency and increasing bandwidth can also increase the efficiency of the storage

pool by reducing the replication time required to protect the pool. “All Flash” environments

in particular can deliver significantly higher Input/Outputs per second (IOP’s) than traditional

disks and the subsequent increase in disk activity can more quickly be processed in an

environment where network latency is reduced and/or network bandwidth is increased.

Dell EMC Engineers addressed both of these elements in the MX-Series. First, all compute

devices have standardized on 25Gb/s Ethernet which more than doubles the throughput

available with existing 10Gb/s technologies. Second, the MX-Series offers network

switching options specifically designed to accommodate the full bandwidth of the solution

with no oversubscription. With industry-leading latency rates of sub-600ns for the MX5108n

and Sub-500ns for the MX9116n, the MX-Series also processes network transactions faster.

For customers desiring the cost efficiency of traditional disks, this allows for up to 5 x

2.4TB SAS drives for a total of 12TB of raw capacity, 1 SSD for caching and then offers

the optional BOSS controller to provide space for the operating system and log files.

For customers desiring maximum capacity and performance, the system can be configured

for “All Flash” operation with raw capacities up to 23TB using 6 x 3.84TB SSD’s. The

optional BOSS controller can again be utilized maintain the operating system and log files

allowing all hot pluggable drives to be utilized for SDS.

Additional Expansion

For customers with even more demanding storage requirements, the optional MX5016s

storage system can be added. With support for up to 16 additional hot plug SAS drives,

this device can be used add drive slots to 1 server or to divide the drive slots between

other servers in the enclosure to increase the capacity of an SDS solution.

Note: an SDS solution can

survive the failure of multiple

disks but not the failure of all

the disks. For this reason, Dell

EMC Engineers designed the

MX5016s to support a

maximum of 16 drives and to

allow the addition of multiple

MX5016’s in a single

enclosure to avoid the risk of

creating a single point of

failure for the entire SDS pool.

This design dramatically

reduces the impact of a

storage sled failure. Each

MX5016s has redundant, hot

plug expanders and is

connected to redundant SAS

switches in the enclosure.

MX Optimizations for SDN

All MX switch options come enabled for SDN. Delivering on the promise of “Open Networking,” both the MX5108n and the

MX9116n ship pre-configured with Dell EMC Networking OS10 but include ONIE, enabling the option for third party SDN

solutions from Dell EMC Networking partners.

Conclusion

The Dell EMC MX-Series was designed specifically to help customers facilitate their move to a Software Defined Data

Center. From compute, to storage through to networking, the solution has been designed to work seamlessly and deliver

uncompromised performance, reliability and efficiency. Tying all of these elements together is the new Open Manage

Enterprise management framework which is built on the same API’s that Dell EMC provides to customers for custom

development. This open approach allows customers to integrate the MX-Series seamlessly within their own management

tools and workflows or, use the interface provided by Dell. Most importantly, this “open” approach allows customers to

avoid costly vendor lock-in.