Simplifying & Optimizing The SAN Environment Virtualization Performance Measurements

1. Simplifying & Optimizing The SAN EnvironmentVirtualization Performance Measurements Nick Tabellion Chief Technology Officer SimplifyingData Storage

2. Delivering on the SAN Promise • As you migrate from direct-attached storage, or expand your existing SAN environment, Softek SAN solutions can simplify and optimize the management and implementation of your SAN • Highest performance • Greatest flexibility • High-availability • Least cost • Least complexity • Least impact to your environment and operations Substantial ROI Lower TCO

3. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN How Softek Virtualization Works

4. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Centralizes Storage Management • Controls and monitors the virtualized storage pool under a consolidated, intuitive, graphical interface • Centralize mapping of virtual volumes, replication and business continuance

5. Softek Virtualization Virtualization Simplifies Provisioning to a Drag-and-Drop Multi- vendor Network StoragePool Hosts . . .

6. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Centralize Business Continuance and Disaster Recovery in One Tool • N+1 Availability • Alternate pathing • Mirroring • Point in Time Replication • Snapshot • Asynchronous on-site and off-site IP Mirroring • Linear scaling

7. 30% – 50% 300 – 600 GB 80% + 8,000 – 15,000 GB Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Dramatic Asset Utilization Improvements Direct-Attached Storage Virtualization Storage Pools • Disk Utilization* • GB Managed / Admin* Substantial ROI and Lower TCO derived from deploying Virtualization *Source: Gartner Dataquest

8. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Performance Benchmark Results • 104,000 I/Os per second • Many, frequent transactions • Small block size, 512 bytes • Example: database applications • 560 MB/sec Throughput Rate • Few, continuous streams of data • Large block size, 1MB • Example: streaming video • 208,000 I/O’s per second and 1.12 GB per second in minimum Softek configuration

9. Competitive Comparisons Softek Can Improve the Performance of Leading Hardware Based Competitors by 2x or More Softek Virtualization Can Extend the Life of Existing Hardware by Sitting Between It and the SAN Softek Virtualization Can Provide the Magnitude Greater Performance for Less on Alternative Hardware Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Sources: Ideas International Limited, Competitive Profiles Robert Frances Group Report referenced by the 451.com

10. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN 208,000 IOPS 1.12 GB/sec Scales Linearly Softek Delivers An Industry Leading 1TB SAN For $150K High availability, excludes switches, application servers, and HBAs.

11. Simplifying and Optimizing SAN Benefits of True Virtualization • Improves ROI and lowers TCO • Eliminates underlying complexities • Expands storage without disrupting applications • Eliminates hardware dependence • Offers scalability and high availability at the least cost • Centralized Disaster Recovery in one tool • Extends life of existing assets • Delivers the highestperformance

12. Performance Benchmark Summary Performance on Scale or Better than Competition Highly scalable Priced at a Fraction of the Cost

13. Softek Virtualization Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts (FUDs) • “You are in the data path” • EMC, IBM, HDS and every storage controller of merit recognizes the value of being in the data path • Provide multiple ways (N+1 architecture, Snapshot, Alternative Pathing, Replication/Migration, AIM) to ensure business continuance and disaster recovery • No single point of failure • Multiple white papers and technical briefs are available • Improve I/O and application throughput performance through advanced caching algorithms • Unprecedented performance with 208,000 IOPS and 1.12 GB/sec throughput rates for our minimum SAN configuration • Softek Virtualization can boost the performance of any storage subsystem in the network storage pool

14. Softek Virtualization Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts (FUDs) • “What is the real-life performance?” • Real-life performance depends on the customer’s application and environment • As with any testing, we maximized our system to attain the highest performance numbers possible • Our recently completed benchmark disproves any theory that an in-band virtualization solution negatively impacts performance, in fact, it can boost performance to unprecedented levels for systems such as EMC, HDS • Our competency center is designed for customer demonstrations, testing, and benchmarking • Fujitsu Softek encourages any customer to bring in their own application servers, storage subsystems, and business applications and test the performance in our center under real-life conditions • Softek Virtualization’s performance will continually increase as technology advancements are made in the network hardware such as HBAs, processors, etc. • Instead of replacing large, expensive storage subsystems like EMC or HDS (costs range from $250K to over $1M) in order to take advantage of the latest technology and performance, Softek Virtualization only requires a minimal asset investment (replacing the HBAs will cost $7K)

15. Softek Virtualization Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts (FUDs) • “Why a QLogic Card?” • QLogic makes a significant contribution to the performance benchmark • As QLogic (or another company) releases the next generation of HBAs and switches, Softek Virtualization will immediately be able to take advantage of the performance increases for minimal cost QLogic 2310 HBAs

16. Softek Virtualization Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts (FUDs) • “You use NT servers for storage management” • Actually, Softek Virtualization uses NT for the management console GUI interface platform • The technology to manage zoning, I/O, application throughput, mirroring, etc. is a custom application • NT is a proven commercial operating system, with advances being made everyday • First to market with all the latest, best and relatively inexpensive hardware • No vendor lock-in to a proprietary platform • Price/performance continuously advances • Wealth of qualified I/O, networking interfaces, and 3rd party software • Like all networks, customers must build in redundancy • Implement data, path, and platform replication through independent storage control nodes running asynchronous to each other with N+1 redundancy

17. Softek Virtualization Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts (FUDs) • “Why an Intel Chip?” • Intel is a great chip in the market • Many of the world-class storage providers, including Hitachi’s Lightning are running Intel chips in both the front-end (channel adapters) and back-end (device adapters) • Softek Virtualization will immediately be able to take advantage of the new advances in Intel technology and performance for a minimal cost

18. Softek SANView I Have A SAN - I Need to See My Assets in Order to Manage Them • SANView is designed for customers who need to visualize, monitor and manage Storage Area Network assets • SANView is a SAN management product that provides: • a topology view of the SAN • the most information for proactively monitoring and managing SAN performance, communication, and connectivity.

19. SAN Problems It is difficult to trouble shoot and pinpoint performance & connectivity problems Today’s SAN is Difficult To Manage

20. Solution to SAN Problems Real-time & Historical Performance Statistics Detailed port I/O performance statistics

21. Solution to SAN Problems Rapid Problem Resolution Beacon a port to assist in diagnosing problems Port blinks on screen and at the switch