2009/06/08
TheRegister: Storage body devises energy benchmark for wee arrays
by Chris Mellor
The Storage Performance Council has produced a storage energy benchmark, which will allow users to compare the energy consumption of storage arrays against a recognised standard.
It is the SPC-1C/E, where the E stands for energy. This is an extension of the existing SPC-1C benchmark, based in turn on SPC-1. IBM and Seagate results are available on the SPC website. The benchmark only includes small storage devices with up to 48 drives - disk or solid state (SSD) - in an enclosure or enclosures up to 4U deep overall and some kind of HBA or controller head.
A future SPC-2C/E benchmark will cover larger storage configurations. This will use one of the three existing SPC-2C workloads in its performance phase: large file processing, large database query, or video on demand.
The SPC notes that energy consumption measurements are taken during both idle and active states of the SPC-1C/Ebenchmark execution. Multiple idle modes are allowed and the benchmark highlights anticipated energy use in environments that impose zero (idle), light, moderate, or heavy workload demands upon the benchmark storage configuration.
The active (performance) state consists of SPC-1C-equivalent performance test runs, and SPC-1C/E energy use results cannot be reported without these test run results. A more comprehensive description of the SPC-1C./E benchmark can be seen here.
Benchmark results are reported in some detail and enable average annual energy consumption and cost figures to be presented. The SPC may introduce an end-user tool to enable the results to be made relative to a customer's local conditions. This could involve allowing the customer to input their data in the hours-per-day value in the benchmark calculation and using local energy costings, for example.
Seagate announced SPC-1C/E results for a 24-drive array, configured with around 7TB of storage, using Savvio 10K.3 2.5-inch hard drives. It reported an Annual Energy Use of 1,765.41 kWh and a projected Annual Energy Cost of $211.85 at $0.12/kWh, with a rating of 8,013.39 SPC-1C IOPS.
IBM produced SPC-1C/E figures for its System Storage EXP12S product. This is a 2U system configured with eight 69GB SSDs in the benchmark. The Annual Energy Use was 1,425.41 kWh and the projected Annual Energy Cost was $171.05.
Interpreting these results is not simple. There are composite metrics for nominal power, IOPS, and IOPS/Watt, which are calculated from hours per day of heavy and moderate use and idleness. These are further modified by low, medium, and high daily usage. The picture is a complicated one and it seems unlikely that the storage industry will be able to devise a storage energy figure as simple (relatively) to interpret as a car's fuel consumption.
Knowing the energy use and energy cost is relatively useless without knowing the work the array has achieved and how much storage capacity is involved.
In the IBM case, the SPC-1C result was 45,000.20 SPC-1C IOPS from a near 560GB array. The benchmark executive summary report does not present an energy use per SVP-1C IOPS number.
If it did then the IBM result would be 0.0317 kWh per SPC-1C IOPS. The Seagate one would be 2.170 kWh per SPC-1C IOPS from a 7TB array. This shows that the SSDs were far more energy-efficient than the Savvio hard drives, but were based on a much smaller storage capacity pool.
EMC has not supported SPC benchmarking, so we shouldn't expect EMC SPC-1C/E numbers to become available. ®
CNet: The cloud conversation is changing
by James Urquhart
I was privileged to be a part of the Enterprise Cloud Summit that took place at the beginning of Interop in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. The program was excellent, with an all-star list of cloud experts and a surprisingly large number of attendees who were new to cloud computing and trying to get a sense of what it was all about.
What was different from prior cloud-related conferences, however, at least for me, were the types of questions this inquisitive audience was asking. Almost nobody asked around defining cloud computing, but many took advantage of the show to ask panelists and speakers to describe how they could put the cloud to use in their own businesses.
The cloud conversation is moving from "what is it?" to "how would I use it for my business or institution?"
I find this very exciting-and, quite frankly, very refreshing. The amount of energy spent on presenting and defending terminology and taxonomy has become a huge time-sink for those trying to advance the cloud discussion. It's not that I mind walking people through the differences between cloud computing and virtualization, but I'd rather focus my efforts on business cases and customer success stories (or even failures).
It's not that the industry has arrived at a common cloud definition-though the NIST definition has some legs, and I'm a huge fan of Chris Hoff's terminology map (pictured here). Rather, the market seems to have come to the conclusion that cloud computing has a lot in common with obscenity-you may not be able to define it, but you'll know it when you see it.
Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of this shift is the fact that we should start seeing some real business cases, use cases, and best-practice discussions appear in the cloud-computing discussion.
Best Buy running on Google App Engine; stories about impressive gains by the venerable New York Times and Animoto when they used Amazon Web Services; and Eli Lilly's tale of redefining research projects: all these serve as examples of cloud's value in the right contexts. We know from these examples that "batch jobs" are great cloud fodder (such as grid computing and image processing), as are applications with unpredictable scale.
We need to see more such examples publicized, however. Where are the financials with their complex models and data mining? Biotech with its constant data processing demand? Manufacturing with its "just in time" supply chain management?
Perhaps the examples will continue to be more of the same, but that's OK to me. Then we know where cloud's strengths and weaknesses are, and we can move the conversation forward from there.
InfoWorld: JavaFX squares off against AJAX
by Paul Krill
In a mock debate focused on the rich Internet application development realm, AJAX was pitted against Sun Microsystems' JavaFX Friday, with proponents for both technologies pointing up their entrant's high points and the low points of their rival.
A session at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco had the co-founders of the Ajaxian Web site for AJAX technologies squaring off, with Ben Galbraith playing the part of the JavaFX advocate and Dion Almaer serving as AJAX's proponent. Both serve as co-directors of developer tools at Mozilla. While Galbraith and Almaer are obviously geared toward AJAX, Galbraith said he also has experience consulting on Java.
"JavaFX is built on top of an incredibly mature runtime that gives you amazing performance," as well great features, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Galbraith said, giving a humorous nod to Oracle's plans to buy Java founder Sun Microsystems.
Almaer focused on AJAX being synonymous with the Web. "It's all Web stuff that's going on," he said.
The two went back and forth, measuring factors such as graphics performance, language capabilities, and tools.
"Today's JavaScript runtimes are just pitiful," Galbraith said, and the Web is slow, he added. Java also has a more sophisticated API, he argued. But Almaer countered, "We have a very simple API. I consider that a feature."
Almaer also advocated the performance of the Google Chrome browser, prompting Galbraith to ask how many people actually use Chrome.
In the graphics space, JavaFX and Java outpace AJAX "by a huge margin," Galibraith said. Almaer promoted the Canvas graphical technology for browsers. Google's new O3D technology also boosts 3D rendering on browsers, said Almaer.
Video, Galbraith said, is "an area [where] I'm pleased to say JavaFX is also leading the way." But citing YouTube as a successful Web video venture, Almaer said rich video already is possible now on the Web through mediums such as Flash. In addition, HTML 5 also supports video and is backed by Mozilla, he said.
Almaer asked why JavaFX needed its own language, (JavaFX Script), rather than using something already available, such as Groovy. "You have to invent yet another language," Almaer said.
JavaScript far outpaces JavaFX when it comes to available components, he said. "In our world of JavaScript, you've of course got millions of components," said Almaer.
Galbraith pointed out there have been issues with CSS, which is used with JavaScript. He did this by showing a coffee cup, with a box showing the words "CSS is awesome," with the word, awesome, over-running the lines of the box.
