Replaced PernixData for vGPU based VDI
First of all - PernixData was a good host side caching software. Unfortunately for their customers, after they were acquired by Nutanix, Nutanix end-of-lifed their software. Our software, called VirtuCache, directly competes with PernixData FVP.
PernixData’s FVP vs. Virtunet – Both VMware Kernel Write Caching Software
More similar than different
Both us and PernixData differentiate from rest of the host side caching vendors in similar ways - that we are kernel mode software; both of us cache writes in addition to reads; have data protection strategies in place to prevent against data loss in case of multiple simultaneous hardware failure; do not require networking or storage to be reconfigured; and do not require agents per VM or VM per host.
This article is the first in a series of two articles that compares our software versus PernixData FVP. The second article compares (with screenshots) GUI and configuration steps for PernixData FVP and us.
Below is how we compare on important criteria.
Improving the performance of Dell Compellent SAN for VMware VMs
VirtuCache is software that improves the performance of Dell Compellent appliances without requiring you to upgrade the appliance or the SAN network. The performance improvement you will get from your Compellent appliance will rival an upgrade to an all-flash array.
Compellent appliances were the workhorses of the enterprise storage market a few years ago. They were cost effective at high capacities. The only drawback was that they are slower since they are primarily hard drive based, and when connected to VMware they exhibit all the 'IO blender' symptoms resulting in high VM level storage latencies.
Reducing Write Latencies in CEPH Storage
CEPH is a popular open source storage software. However its write latencies are high. VirtuCache caches CEPH volumes to in-host SSDs and by doing so reduces VM level latencies considerably.
Improving VDI Performance at Fairbanks Sewer and Water
Fairbanks Sewer and Water (FSW) wanted to improve the performance of their server VMs (especially their server VMs running SCADA) and Horizon View virtual desktop VMs. Their virtual desktop VMs were exhibiting all the classic symptoms of storage related issues – cursor freezes, long boot times, long VM provisioning times, jittery audio/video.
Improving the performance of Equallogic SAN for VMware VMs
VirtuCache is software that improves the performance of Equallogic appliances without requiring you to upgrade the appliance or the SAN network. The performance improvement you will get from your Equallogic appliance will rival an upgrade to an all-flash array.
Equallogic appliances were the workhorses of the enterprise storage market a few years ago. They were cost effective at high capacities. The only drawback was that they are slower since they are primarily hard drive based, and when connected to VMware they exhibit all the 'IO blender' symptoms resulting in high VM level storage latencies.
Reducing Build Times for DevOps
ServiceNow's Itapp Dev/Ops team wanted to improve storage performance from their existing HP 3PAR storage appliance and iSCSI storage network without requiring a hardware refresh.
VirtuCache Deployment: Virtucache was installed on 3 ESXi hosts caching to 1.6TB PM1725 PCIE flash cards. In our tests the PM1725 SSD did 250MBps at 1ms VM level latencies.
VirtuCache was configured to cache both reads and writes for all VMs (Write-Back caching). Writes were replicated to another SSD on another host (caching policy of 'Write Back One Replica'). All caching and replication related operations in VirtuCache are automatic. Write replication is done to prevent data loss in case of host failure. If a host were to fail, then VirtuCache immediately syncs the SAN from backup copy of writes that are on another host.
Benefits: Using VirtuCache, ServiceNow was successfully able to reduce code compile times to a third of what they were experiencing before.
A Counter Intuitive Approach to Solve the High Capacity, Low Latency Requirements for Video Storage
By not using dedupe, compression, or RAID, using slow HDDs in centralized storage, and moving SSDs to compute hosts, we arrived at low price per capacity and performance for video storage.
Here are unique requirements of video storage, some are obvious and others not so much, that inspired us to put together a different architecture than the conventional storage OEM design.
Reducing latencies in vGPU assisted VDI
VirtuCache is installed in VMware vSphere kernel. It then automatically caches frequently and recently used data from any backend storage to any high speed media (RAM/SSD) in the VMware host. By bringing large amounts of 'hot' data closer to the VMware host GPU and CPU, VirtuCache improves the performance of all applications running within VMs including GPU assisted operations.
PetaByte Scale Enterprise Grade Server SAN Storage for The Creation Museum
Creation Museum in Kentucky, USA is a museum about Bible history and creationism. Their storage needs were typical of a museum, requiring large amounts of storage for digital multimedia content related to the various exhibits at the museum.
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