SoftIron - IT Press Tour June 2020

Transcript

1. IT Press Tour Rewriting the Enterprise Data Center Blueprint
2. Meet the Team
3. The Mariana Trench is Tougher than Silicon Valley SoftIron got its start building high-performance, low power, ultra dependable appliances for mission critical situations where lives were at stake. This high-pressure environment fostered a rigorous approach to design and manufacture, with a very specific outcome driving the process. We realized that we could apply the same ethos and change the face of enterprise data infrastructure. This was the start of “Task-specific” thinking.
4. The Battle Lines have been Drawn for the Next Few Years... • The customer relationship with Public Cloud(s) ◦ Utility vs. Strategic Partner • Shift to and ownership of Hybrid and the Edge • The true value of hardware vs. software • How do I protect my data ◦ Privacy & security ◦ Bad Actors/ nation states It’s a Battle for Control of, and Value Creation from, Data
5. We are Entering the Next Phase of Data Infrastructure • Data will be Precious, Processing will be Disposable • Infrastructure will disaggregate to live where it’s value is greatest • Cloud will finally shift to that of “just” another utility • The hype will be over for Hybrid and Edge with models fully defined • We’ll continue to own infrastructure BUT only when there’s a reason to • Software Defined and Open source will be key enablers • Security AND sovereignty will become both harder and never more important A Different Approach is Required.
6. Who is SoftIron?
8. The Situation
9. Data Center Infrastructure Must Evolve to Meet the Needs of the Increasingly Complex and Evolving Enterprise The Extreme of the Legacy, On-premise Solution A physical, on-site solution. The Extreme of Everything in the Cloud Virtually hosted through cloud computing. The Hybrid Solution Data “repatriated” to a hybrid data center. The goal to enhance efficiency, data security, lower egress costs, and improve agility.
10. Electrical/physical environment will likely not be optimized Efficiency? “Hybrid” and “Edge” Are Challenging Data Center Design Public cloud vendors are vying to own control of the “cloud native” on-prem infrastructure Data Security? Vendor Lock-in? Hybrid and Edge both push data to be closer to where the data will be used Performance? Scalability? Management? Density?
11. Industry Challenge: On-premises vs. The Cloud It is widely accepted that Hybrid Cloud is the optimal architecture, but how do you achieve an efficient, secure “Cloud-native” on-prem solution, while avoiding vendor lock-in? SoftIron Solution: A hybrid solution can be achieved without proprietary lock-in Industry Challenge: Proprietary vs. OSS The misconception that storage-specific OSS is not enterprise-ready. SoftIron Solution: OSS, coupled with task-specific hardware, can surpass proprietary limitations. Industry Challenges & SoftIron's Solution
12. Industry Challenge: Generic vs. Task-Specific Hyperscale style computing (software-defined) has led to the misconception that hardware doesn’t matter. SoftIron Solution Specialization fosters performance breakthroughs that are meaningful to customers Industry Challenge: Security The very foundation of data security is hardware provenance, yet many well-known IT brands use components and code from unverifiable sources. Opaque supply chains create shadows for bad actors to hide malware. SoftIron Solution Auditable provenance is the foundation stone of security. Industry Challenges & SoftIron's Solution (continued)
13. The Company, and how we’re addressing those challenges and meeting those needs.
16. Storage Ceph The Future of Storage Ceph is a unified, distributed storage system designed for excellent performance, reliability and scalability. Task Specific - Hardware Optimized for Open Source Networking SONiC Software for Open Networking in the Cloud SONiC is an open source network operating system based on Linux that runs on switches from multiple vendors and ASICs. Transcoding FFmpeg Open source software for audio and video processing A vast software suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams.
17. What Does “Task Specific” Really Mean? Eg. Ceph Storage • Direct attach 14x drives to each SOC - no multiplexing or wait states. • All SATA 3 - Ceph writes are optimised. • Optimized for reliability ◦ cool the drives, not the processor first ◦ vibration isolated drives • SSD/HDD storage mix optimised for Ceph value & performance ◦ Journalling • Unique toolless caddy design to hugely improve drive management/maintenance ◦ e.g. stops Ceph rebalancing when a caddy is removed
18. Task Specific Design Delivering Industry Redefining Performance • 1/5th of the cost in electricity • Power is heat = HVAC $ ◦ 1/5th of the cost • Total Power 1/10th of the cost • MTBF x 2 based on data from Seagate & HGST • Real Customer Test Results • SoftIron HyperDrive vs. Dell dual-socket Xeon E5 • Twice the performance in some cases per U and > x2 per $
19. What sets us apart from others trying to address the same issues
20. Enterprise Class Storage Needs Integrated Management • Eliminate the need for “command line warriors” • Hardware auto-discovery wizard • Rules to prevent bad setups and prompts • Quick physical location of the actual disc that needs attention • Easily add or remove machines to a cluster • Multiple admin “lockout” feature • ONLY possible with task specific hardware
21. On May 15, 2019, The White House Decreed a National Emergency on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain. On February 10, 2020, The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) unveiled a new National Counterintelligence Strategy for the US, addressing modern-day threats, including: “adversaries attempting to access national supply chains at multiple points by inserting malware into important information technology networks and communications systems.” If it’s Declared a National Emergency, it’s Probably a Thing.
22. The battle for data sovereignty starts with the hardware.
23. Secure Provenance on all IT Hardware is the Foundation Stone of Security. SoftIron is the only Manufacturer to Offer it. Most data centers don’t know if their appliances are secure because most manufacturers don’t know either. The global supply chain is so complex it has massive security gaps. The threat is literally a National Emergency. The solution is Secure Provenance. Hardware and software available for audit upon request. Any software we don’t author we vet from source code. Our supply chains are completely transparent.
24. SoftIron not only controls the entire design and build process, but manufactures and assembles all products in-house, from the ground up, including electronics subassemblies. The very foundation of data security is hardware provenance, yet many well-known IT brands use components and code from unverifiable sources. If your idea of a security check is looking at the logo on the box, you may need to dig a little deeper. No Other Manufacturer will go 100% Transparent for Secure Provenance.
25. Why should you believe us?
26. “Ceph has some amazing benefits. We felt it had great potential to go far beyond what we were doing in high-performance computing, but it was difficult to harness those capabilities without specially trained IT personnel. SoftIron’s HyperDrive appliance is enabling us to go much further with Ceph than we would have on our own. We now have a dynamic, centralized solution that is optimized for storage and is far more cost-effective than our previous legacy solution.” Jeffrey McDonald, Ph.D., Associate Director for Operations, MSI
27. “We were elated with the results of the trial,” said Pike. “It was clear that CephFS could provide the performance and flexibility we needed for our virtualized OpenHPC clusters.” The ability to deliver HPC resources on OpenStack means less wait time and more productivity for researchers. With HyperDrive Ceph clusters from SoftIron, adapting to the changing nature of research computing has never been easier. Lowell Pike Director of Research Computing Infrastructure at University of Kentucky
28. SoftIron has provided a petabyte-scale deployment of its US-designed and manufactured HyperDrive storage solution to support the tier two storage needs of the Stria system in Sandia’s Vanguard program. “SoftIron is able to deliver a fully supported Ceph solution with an ARM technology base, supporting the needs for the advanced application exploration activities on the Stria system. SoftIron’s HyperDrive was put through a rigorous analysis, which delivered the expected performance and efficiency for experimental workloads on the ARM-based Stria cluster.” Matthew Curry, Ph.D., Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. EXCLUSIVE & UNDER EMBARGO
29. Task Specific Design - Purpose-built for the data center We do not optimize a generic unit. We do not configure the cheapest components. We design and build properly, from scratch, for specific open source software. • Removes complexity and unlocks the full potential of open source • Leading to new industry benchmarks Industry Redefining Performance • Density • Performance • Deploy and manage open source infrastructure • Efficiency Data Security through Secure Provenance SoftIron not only controls the entire design and build process, but designs and manufactures and assembles all products in-house, from the ground up, including electronics subassemblies. Summary - What Separates us from Others
30. Thank You