Maximizing Efficiency and Performance: Intel and Lightbits Labs Partnership

Maximizing Efficiency and Performance: Intel and Lightbits Labs Partnership

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Problem Statement in the Industry
3. Disaggregated Storage and Light Bits
4. Improving Resource Utilization
5. Scalability and Cost Efficiency
6. Performance Improvement
7. Light OS: An NVMe TCP-based Solution
8. Integration with Intel's Hardware Offerings
9. Optimizing with Optane and QLC
10. High Performance and Low Latency
11. Data Protection and Availability
12. Endurance and Flash Management
13. Leveraging Optane and QLC
14. Performance Gain with Ice Lake
15. Conclusion

Introduction

📝 In this article, we will explore the concept of disaggregated storage and its role in solving industry problems related to resource utilization, scalability, and performance improvement. We will specifically focus on Light Bits, a partner in Intel's disaggregated storage solution space. By utilizing an NVMe TCP-based solution called Light OS and optimizing it with Intel's hardware offerings, Light Bits aims to deliver high-performance and cost-efficient storage solutions.

The Problem Statement in the Industry

📝 The industry faces several challenges related to hardware scalability and infrastructure problems. Many customers struggle with effectively utilizing their compute and storage resources, leading to issues with scaling CPUs and storage. Additionally, there is a growing demand for efficient scaling without significant capital expenditure (capex) investment. Performance improvement is also a key concern, with customers seeking real-time solutions for latency and throughput optimization.

✅ Pros:

• Solves resource utilization challenges
• Supports efficient scaling without high capex investment
• Improves application performance

❌ Cons:

• No mention of distributed erasure coding or deduplication for data protection and resiliency
• Limited focus on the importance of client software compatibility

Disaggregated Storage and Light Bits

📝 Disaggregated storage offers a solution to the challenges Mentioned earlier. By separating compute and storage in a disaggregated model, organizations can effectively utilize both resources while ensuring high performance. Light Bits is a key player in the ecosystem, working closely with Intel to enable disaggregated architecture using NVMe over TCP. Light Bits leverages TCP network infrastructure and optimizes the software and hardware components for optimal performance.

✅ Pros:

• Enables improved resource utilization through disaggregated architecture
• Supports TCP network infrastructure for easy integration
• Provides optimized software and hardware components for performance

❌ Cons:

• Limited mention of specific features and capabilities of Light Bits' solution

Improving Resource Utilization

📝 One of the critical challenges customers face is effectively utilizing compute and storage resources. Light Bits' disaggregated storage solution addresses this challenge by ensuring improved resource utilization. By separating compute and storage and utilizing an NVMe Fabric layer, organizations can maximize their resource utilization and achieve better performance in a data center environment.

✅ Pros:

• Separates compute and storage for optimized resource utilization
• Utilizes NVMe fabric layer for improved performance

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific resource utilization metrics or benchmarks

Scalability and Cost Efficiency

📝 Another crucial aspect highlighted by customers is the need for scalable solutions without significant capex investment. Light Bits' disaggregated storage solution offers the advantage of scalability by enabling organizations to Scale compute and storage as needed. By using the NVMe fabric and Light OS, customers can achieve high scalability without incurring a substantial upfront investment. This allows for cost-efficient growth and sustains data center expansion in line with requirements.

✅ Pros:

• Enables cost-efficient scalability
• Supports dynamic scaling of compute and storage
• Reduces capex investment while sustaining growth

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific cost savings or comparison metrics

Performance Improvement

📝 Performance improvement is a key consideration for customers, especially when it comes to latency and throughput optimization. Light Bits' disaggregated storage solution addresses these concerns by providing a real-time solution. By leveraging the NVMe fabric and optimizing software and hardware components, Light Bits ensures that applications benefit from improved latency and throughput. The ability to solve application problems on a real-time basis enhances overall performance and delivers a superior user experience.

✅ Pros:

• Provides real-time solutions for latency and throughput optimization
• Enhances application performance
• Optimizes software and hardware components for better results

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific performance improvement metrics or benchmarks

Light OS: An NVMe TCP-based Solution

📝 Light OS serves as the backbone of Light Bits' storage solution. It is an NVMe TCP-based scale-out software-defined storage solution designed for performance and latency-demanding applications. Light OS focuses on delivering high performance while providing essential capabilities and integrations required for cloud environments. The architecture includes application servers running various workloads, a data center network based on Ethernet TCP, and a storage cluster consisting of x86 servers with NVMe SSDs and Ethernet NICs.

✅ Pros:

• NVMe TCP-based solution for improved performance
• Designed for latency-demanding applications
• Supports cloud environments and integrations

❌ Cons:

• Limited details on specific features and functionality of Light OS

Integration with Intel's Hardware Offerings

📝 Light Bits collaborates closely with Intel to optimize the Light OS solution for Intel's hardware offerings. This collaboration aims to deliver a high-performance and cost-efficient storage solution that leverages Intel's technology. The partnership focuses on optimizing Light OS for Intel Xeon third-generation Ice Lake processors and QLC (Quad-Level Cell) and Optane (3D XPoint) memory technologies. By utilizing Intel's hardware offerings, Light Bits enhances the performance and capacity of its storage solution.

✅ Pros:

• Optimization with Intel hardware for improved performance
• Collaboration with Intel to leverage advanced technologies
• Enhanced performance and capacity with Ice Lake, Optane, and QLC

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific optimizations or advantages gained from integration with Intel's hardware

Optimizing with Optane and QLC

📝 Light Bits leverages Intel's Optane and QLC technologies to further optimize its storage solution. Optane DCPMM (Data Center Persistent Memory Module) is utilized as a fast non-volatile journal device, ensuring high performance and low latency. QLC (Quad-Level Cell) memory serves as a cost-effective metadata store, enhancing overall system capacity. By using Optane and QLC in combination, Light Bits achieves the optimal balance of performance, cost-efficiency, and high capacity.

✅ Pros:

• Leveraging Optane and QLC for optimal performance
• High performance and low latency with Optane DCPMM
• Enhanced system capacity and cost efficiency with QLC

❌ Cons:

• Limited details on the specific optimization techniques used with Optane and QLC

High Performance and Low Latency

📝 Light Bits' storage solution prioritizes high performance and low latency. By leveraging advanced technologies like Optane and QLC, Light Bits offers improved bandwidth, IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), and consistent low latency. The integration with Intel's Ethernet adapters, specifically the 800 series, further enhances NVMe over TCP performance. These optimizations ensure that customers benefit from a high-performance storage solution that meets demanding requirements.

✅ Pros:

• Focus on high performance and low latency
• Enhanced bandwidth, IOPS, and low latency with advanced technologies
• Integration with Intel Ethernet adapters for improved performance

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific performance metrics or benchmarks

Data Protection and Availability

📝 Light Bits' storage solution prioritizes data protection and availability. It offers SSD failure protection with RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) on a per-rate group basis, ensuring continuous operation in case of failures. For full node protection, synchronous mirroring is implemented on a per-volume basis. This approach ensures high availability and data redundancy. Light OS also provides additional data services like thin provisioning, inline compression, and snapshot and clone capabilities, further enhancing data protection and data management.

✅ Pros:

• Provides data protection and high availability
• SSD failure protection with RAID and synchronous mirroring
• Additional data services for enhanced data management

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific data protection metrics or granular details on data services

Endurance and Flash Management

📝 Light Bits' storage solution focuses on endurance and efficient flash management. By leveraging log-structured flash management, Light Bits achieves endurance improvements of up to 20x compared to traditional solutions. The solution optimizes flash utilization and minimizes garbage collection by identifying hot and cold data. This approach ensures efficient use of SSDs while maintaining high performance. By implementing proprietary algorithms and flash management schemes, Light Bits reduces write amplification and extends the lifespan of the storage solution.

✅ Pros:

• Improved endurance compared to traditional solutions
• Optimized flash management for efficient utilization
• Proprietary algorithms for minimizing write amplification

❌ Cons:

• Limited details on the specific algorithms and flash management techniques used

Leveraging Optane and QLC

📝 Light Bits leverages Optane and QLC technologies in a unique and efficient manner. Optane DCPMM serves as a fast non-volatile journal device, optimizing write performance without compromising persistency. It provides high-speed access comparable to memory while being cost-efficient. QLC memory, on the other HAND, serves as a metadata store, leveraging the affordability and density of QLC technology. Together, Optane and QLC enable Light Bits to deliver high performance and cost-effective storage solutions.

✅ Pros:

• Optane DCPMM for fast non-volatile journal and high-speed access
• QLC memory for cost-effective metadata storage
• Combined advantages of performance and affordability

❌ Cons:

• Limited mention of specific applications and use cases for Optane and QLC

Performance Gain with Ice Lake

📝 Upgrading to Intel's Ice Lake processors can bring significant performance gains for Light Bits' storage solution. An example Scenario showcases a two petabyte cluster with a 4:1 data reduction ratio and mixed workloads. Ice Lake's improved performance allows organizations to achieve the same requirements with fewer nodes, resulting in cost savings. The Ice Lake processors, when combined with Optane and QLC technologies, deliver enhanced price-performance capacity with over 30% lower total cost of ownership (TCO), lower power consumption, and space requirements.

✅ Pros:

• Performance gains with Ice Lake processors
• Reduced hardware requirements for cost savings
• Lower TCO, power consumption, and space requirements

❌ Cons:

• No mention of specific performance improvement metrics or benchmarks

Conclusion

📝 The industry's challenges related to resource utilization, scalability, and performance improvement can be effectively addressed with Light Bits' disaggregated storage solution. By utilizing Light OS, leveraging Intel's hardware offerings, and optimizing with Optane and QLC technologies, Light Bits delivers a high-performance and cost-efficient storage solution. Through improved resource utilization, scalability, and performance, organizations can achieve better results in their data center environments.

Highlights

• Light Bits offers a disaggregated storage solution for improved resource utilization, scalability, and performance improvement.
• The solution separates compute and storage, utilizes an NVMe fabric layer, and optimizes with Intel's hardware offerings.
• Light OS, an NVMe TCP-based solution, serves as the backbone of Light Bits' storage offering.
• Optane and QLC technologies are leveraged to enhance performance, cost efficiency, and system capacity.
• Ice Lake processors, combined with Optane and QLC, bring significant performance gains and cost savings.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Does Light Bits' solution require client software?

A: No, Light Bits' solution does not require client software. The solution is designed to be compatible with various Linux distributions and kernels, making it plug-and-play with existing environments.

Q: Does the storage solution support distributed erasure coding or data deduplication?

A: As of now, Light Bits' solution does not support distributed erasure coding or data deduplication. However, these features are on the roadmap for future development.

Q: How does Light Bits ensure data protection and availability?

A: Light Bits' solution provides SSD failure protection with RAID on a per-rate group basis. Additionally, synchronous mirroring is implemented on a per-volume basis to ensure full node protection. This approach ensures high availability and data redundancy.

Q: What optimizations are in place for flash management and endurance?

A: Light Bits employs log-structured flash management, which improves endurance by up to 20 times compared to traditional solutions. The solution also incorporates proprietary algorithms to minimize write amplification and optimize flash utilization.

Q: Can Light Bits' solution leverage both Optane and QLC technologies simultaneously?

A: Yes, Light Bits' solution leverages both Optane and QLC technologies for different purposes. Optane serves as a fast non-volatile journal device, while QLC is used as a cost-effective metadata store, enabling high performance and efficient storage configuration.