HPE Nimble Storage Products & Technology Overview:
Struggling to find the perfect combination of flash storage and predictive analytics?
HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays combine a flash-efficient architecture with HPE InfoSight predictive analytics to achieve fast, reliable access to data and 99.9999% guaranteed availability. [1] Radically simple to deploy and use, the arrays are cloud-ready, providing data mobility to the cloud through HPE Cloud Volumes. Your storage investment made today will support you well into the future, thanks to our technology and business-model innovations. HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays include all-inclusive licensing, easy upgrades, and flexible payment options – while also being future-proofed for new technologies, such as NVMe and SCM.
Predictive Analytics
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HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays automatically predict and resolve 86% of problems before you even know there is an issue.
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Transforms the support experience through cloud-based predictive analytics and Level 3-only support.
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Holistic view across the infrastructure stack to resolve problems beyond just storage.
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Simplifies planning with prescriptive forecasts into capacity, performance, and bandwidth requirements.
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Makes infrastructure smarter and more reliable by learning from the installed base.
- Radical Simplicity
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HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays are simple to deploy use, and manage.
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This product is cloud-ready and deploys flash on-premises or in the cloud with common data services and mobility between all-flash, adaptive flash, and HPE Cloud Volumes
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HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays are future-proofed for NVMe and SCM. The offering comes with a satisfaction guarantee, all-inclusive software licensing, flat support pricing, replacing all the hardware for upgrades, and an option to receive a free faster controller upgrade after three years.
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Radically easy to integrate with many ecosystems and has a de
- Absolute Resiliency
- Fast and reliable
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HPE Nimble Storage All Flash Arrays are scale-to-fit. They scale-up performance
and capacity independently and non-disruptively; and scale out to four arrays
managed as one for increased flexibility.
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Up to 5X or more data reduction from variable block inline deduplication and
compression.
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Backup and disaster recovery (DR) from all-flash to adaptive flash arrays at onethird
the cost.
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Data reduction, snapshots, and Triple+ Parity RAID with no performance impact.
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Sub-millisecond response time for performance-sensitive enterprise workloads
HPE Nimble Storage AF-Series Arrays
AF1000 and AF3000
The AF1000 and AF3000 are the perfect entry points for all IT organizations that require speed and economy for performance-sensitive workloads.
AF5000 and AF7000
The AF5000 and AF7000 offer high performance and attractive economics for performancesensitive workloads that need the best blend of price/performance/scalability.
AF9000
The AF9000 is designed for consolidating multiple large-scale performance-sensitive applications with aggressive performance and high scalability demands.
Nimble All Flash arrays support iSCSI and FC storage protocols.
HPE Nimble Storage Technology: All Flash
Key Benefits
Sheer Performance
and Scalability
- Scale-up capacity and performance non-disruptively in an array
- Scale-out with up to four arrays managed as one
- Up to 8PB+ and 1.2 million IOPS at sub-ms latency
33-66% Lower TCO
- Requires 10-30X less memory
- Cost and performance optimized for 3D-NAND
- 5X or more data reduction from deduplication and compression
- Backup, DR, and archival at one third of the cost
Absolute Resiliency
- Non-stop availability measured at 99.9999%
- Triple+ parity RAID
- Integrated data protection
- Application granular encryption and secure data shredding
Features and Benefits:
Absolute Performance to Power the Flash Data Center
Screaming Storage Performance
Sustain 1.2M+ IOPS with consistent sub-ms response time and never worry about performance again.
Scale-to-Fit
Scale-up seamlessly to grow the performance and capacity of an array. Scale-out non-disruptively to over 8PB in a cluster that's managed as one.
Application Optimized
Integrated and certified with industry-leading applications to streamline deployment and simplify management. No need for manual application performance tuning.
Quality of Service
Auto QoS prevents noisy neighbor issues. QoS Limits allow you to set explicit IOPS and/or bandwidth limits.
Cloud Ready
Nimble arrays are Cloud Ready, giving you the flexibility to create a multicloud environment. Easily migrate data between on-premise flash arrays and the public cloud with Nimble Cloud Volumes.
Breaking the limits of All-Flash scalability
33% to 66% Lower TCO
20% More Capacity
Delivers 20% more usable flash capacity through a highly efficient logging filesystem that is combined with advanced flash endurance management.
Designed for 3D-NAND
Advanced Flash Endurance Management extends flash lifespan and requires less overhead, driving down cost and data center footprint.
Exceptional Data Reduction
With Nimble, less is more. Buy up to 80% less storage for the same amount of data. That's the miracle of Nimble variable-block deduplication and compression.
Backup at One-Third the Cost
Place primary workloads on All-Flash, and use Adaptive Flash arrays for backup, DR, Dev/Test and archival at a third of the cost of All Flash.
InfoSight Predictive Analytics
InfoSight eliminates the stress of dealing with infrastructure. It uses cloud-based predictive analytics and machine learning to anticipate and prevent problems before your business is impacted. No need to worry about infrastructure anymore – InfoSight takes care of it for you.
Timeless Storage
Nimble arrays come with a satisfaction guarantee, all-inclusive software licensing, flat support pricing, no forklift upgrades, and an option to receive a free faster controller upgrade after three years.
All Flash arrays are future-proofed for newer technologies.
Dramatic Data Center Footprint and TCO Reduction
Data Protection at One Third the Cost
Using flash for backup, DR and archival can sometimes be cost-prohibitive. That's why Nimble also allows its cost-optimized Adaptive Flash arrays to be used for backup, DR, Dev/Test and archival at a third of the cost of All Flash. And since both primary and secondary arrays share common data services, you'll get identical functionality and user experience.
Absolute Resiliency
Six 9s' Measured Availability
Non-stop availability delivers 99.9999% measured availability through predictive analytics and ‘no single point of failure’ hardware and software design.
Triple+ Parity RAID
Tolerate 3 simultaneous drive failures plus additional protection from intra-drive parity and integrated sparing. This takes RAID protection to a level never seen before in All Flash arrays.
SmartSecure Encryption
Application-granular, FIPS-certified encryption and secure data shredding provides end-to-end security for data at rest and on-the-wire when replicated offsite.
Effortless Management
Storage is pre-configured and optimized for applications out-of-the-box. Tasks such as selecting RAID-level, media layout, aggregations and reserves are not required. Initial setup and configuration can be completed within two hours.
CASL Architecture:
HPE Nimble Storage solutions are built on its patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) architecture. CASL leverages the unique properties of flash and disk to deliver high performance and capacity – all within a dramatically small footprint.CASL and InfoSight form the foundation of the Adaptive Flash platform, which allows for the dynamic and intelligent deployment of storage resources to meet the growing demands of business-critical applications.
CASL and InfoSight form the foundation of the Adaptive Flash platform, which allows for the dynamic and intelligent deployment of storage resources to meet the growing demands of business-critical applications.
Watch CASL Architecture Deep Dive
Storage architect Devin Hamilton provides an in-depth look at Nimble’s core architecture. (74:45)
Key Innovations from CASL
- Flexible Flash Scaling
Flexibly scale flash to satisfy the changing performance demands of today's business-critical applications.
- Adaptive Flash Service Levels
Tailor the amount of flash allocated to workloads on a per-volume basis. Assign one of three flash service levels (All Flash, Auto Flash and No Flash) to accommodate latency-sensitive critical applications to capacity-optimized applications, for management efficiency and optimal TCO.
- Dynamic Flash-Based Read Caching
CASL caches "hot" active data onto SSD in real time—without the need to set complex policies. This way it can instantly respond to read requests—as much as 10X faster than traditional bolt-on or tiered approach to flash.
- Write-Optimized Data Layout:
CASL collects or coalesces random writes, compresses them, and writes them sequentially to disks. This results in write operations that are as much as 100x faster than traditional disk-based storage.
- Inline Compression
CASL compresses data as it is written to the array with no performance impact. It takes advantage of efficient variable block compression and multicore processors. A recent measurement of our installed base shows average compression rates from 30 to 75 percent for a variety of workloads.
- Scale-to-Fit Flexibility
CASL allows for the non-disruptive and independent scaling of performance and capacity. This is accomplished by either upgrading the storage controller (compute) for higher throughput, moving to larger flash SSD (cache) to accommodate more active data, or by adding storage shelves to boost capacity. This flexible scaling eliminates the need for disruptive forklift upgrades.
- Scale Out
Scale capacity and performance beyond the physical limitations of a single array by seamlessly clustering any combination of HPE Nimble Storage hybrid arrays. Eliminate capacity silos and performance hotspots, and easily manage all hardware resources across the cluster as a single storage entity.
- Snapshots and Integrated Data Protection
CASL can take thousands of point-in-time instant snapshots of volumes by creating a copy of the volumes’ indices. Any updates to existing data or new data written to a volume are redirected to free space (optimized by CASL’s unique data layout). This means there is no performance impact due to snapshots and snapshots take little incremental space as only changes are maintained. This also simplifies restoring snapshots, as no data needs to be copied.
- Efficient Replication
HPE Nimble Storage efficiently replicates data to another array by transferring compressed, block-level changes only. These remote copies can be made active if the primary array becomes unavailable. This makes deploying disaster data recovery easy and affordable – especially over a WAN to a remote array where bandwidth is limited.
- Zero-Copy Clones
HPE Nimble Storage arrays can create snapshot-based read/writeable clones of existing volumes instantly. These clones benefit from fast read and write performance, making them ideal for demanding applications such as VDI or test/development.
Scalable Storage Capacity and Performance
Scale-to-Fit
With HPE Nimble Storage's Adaptive Flash platform, it is easy to accommodate application growth by scaling performance, capacity, or both—efficiently and non-disruptively. While the CASL architecture enables seamless, independent scaling, InfoSight's powerful deep-data analytics deliver precise guidance on the optimal scaling approach to fit the requiremets of critical applications.
With the Adaptive Flash platform, organizations can:
- Flexibly scale flash to accomodate a wide variety of application working sets
- Scale up performance by upgrading compute for greater throughput and IOPS
- Scale capacity by adding additional HDDs or expansion shelves
- Scale capacity and performance together by clustering any combination of HPE Nimble Storage arrays
Scale Out
HPE Nimble Storage's Adaptive Flash platform features a scale-out architecture that makes it easy to scale capacity and performance beyond the physical limitations of a single array. Any combination of HPE Nimble Storage CS-Series arrays can be seamlessly configured into a storage cluster that accomodates growing business-critical workloads and supports new ones, without complicating storage management by creating additional silos or breaking the budget with forklift upgrades. HPE Nimble Storage's innovative approach to scale-out storage dramatically simplifies configuration, upgrades, and management.
With HPE Nimble Storage scale-out you get:
- Single-console management of all storage hardware resources as a single entity
- Dynamic load balancing to eliminate performance hot spots
- Multi-array data striping, enabling any application to fully leverage the collective hardware resources of the scale-out group
- Seamless reconfiguration and hardware refreshes, without downtime
- Flexible configuration of any combination of HPE Nimble Storage arrays, maximizing storage ROI
Specifications:
| All Flash Array Specifications |
| Raw Capacity (TB/TiB)2 |
6-46 / 5-42 |
6-92 / 5-83 |
11-184 / 10-167 |
11-323 / 10-293 |
23-553 / 20-503 |
2,212 / 2,012 |
| Usable Capacity (TB/TiB)2 |
4-33 / 3-30 |
4-67 / 3-61 |
8-136 / 7-123 |
8-238 / 7-217 |
17-409 / 15-372 |
1,636 / 1,488 |
| Effective Capacity (TB/TiB)2,3 |
20-165 / 15-150 |
20-335 / 15-305 |
40-680 / 35-615 |
40-1,190 / 35-1,085 |
85-2,045 / 75-1,860 |
8,180 / 7,440 |
| Max # of Expansion Shelves |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
8 |
| RAID Level |
Triple+ Parity |
Triple+ Parity |
Triple+ Parity |
Triple+ Parity |
Triple+ Parity |
Triple+ Parity |
| Max IOPS (100% Read) |
40,000 |
60,000 |
140,000 |
270,000 |
350,000 |
1,400,000 |
| Max IOPS (70% Read / 30% Write) |
35,000 |
50,000 |
120,000 |
230,000 |
300,000 |
1,200,000 |
| Onboard iSCSI/Mgmt 1Gb/10Gb ports per array4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
16 |
| Optional iSCSI 1Gb ports per array6 |
4 or 8 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
96 |
| Optional iSCSI 10Gb ports per array6 |
4 or 8 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
96 |
| Optional FC 8Gb/16Gb ports per array |
4 or 8 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 |
96 |
| Max Power Requirement |
550W / 0.61kVA |
600W / 0.667kVA |
700W / 0.778kVA |
800W / 0.889kVA |
900W /1kVA |
3600W / 4kVA |
| Thermal (BTU) |
1,802 |
1,965 |
2,293 |
2,620 |
2,948 |
11,792 |
| SSD Expansion Shelves5 |
| Raw Capacity (TB/TiB)2 |
6-184 / 5-167 |
| Usable Capacity (TB/TiB)2 |
4-137 / 4-124 |
| Effective Capacity (TB/TiB)2,3 |
20-685 / 19-620 |
| Power Requirement |
325W / 0.36kVA |
| Physical and Environmental Specifications |
| Dimensions |
7”H x 17.5”W x 26.5”D
17.8 cm x 44.5 cm x 67.3 cm
4 Rack Units |
| Weight |
80 lbs / 36 kg |
| Weight (All-Flash Shelf) |
70 lbs / 32 kg |
| Operating Temperature |
10 - 35° C (50 - 95° F) |
| Non-Operating Temperature |
0° C - 40° C (32° F - 104° F) |
| Operating Humidity |
8 - 90% |
| Non-operating Humidity |
5 - 95% |
Notes:
- Scale-out configuration consists of 4x AF9000 arrays, each with two all flash shelves.
- Raw, usable and effective capacities are shown in TB (1012 bytes) and TiB (240 bytes). Usable and effective capacities exclude space used for parity, spares, and system overhead.
- Effective capacity is the capacity of the base array and maximum number of expansion shelves. Assumes data reduction of five to one from deduplication and compression.
- Onboard ports are 10GbaseT. Optional ports are: 1GbaseT, 10GbaseT or 10GbE SFP+
- Each shelf consists of up to 48 SSDs. SSDs can be 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB or 3.84TB raw capacity.
* Learn More:
Video: HPE Nimble Storage Overview Whiteboard
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Services:
HPE Pointnext
HPE Pointnext leverages our breadth and depth of technical expertise and innovation to help to accelerate digital transformation. A comprehensive portfolio that includes—Advisory, Professional, and Operational Services is designed to help you evolve and grow today and into the future.
Operational Services
- HPE Flexible Capacity is a new consumption model to manage on-demand capacity, combining the agility and economics of public cloud with the security and performance of on-premises IT.
- HPE Datacenter Care offers a tailored operational support solution built on core deliverables. It includes hardware and software support, a team of experts to help personalize deliverables and share best practices, as well as optional building blocks to address specific IT and business needs.
- HPE Proactive Care is an integrated set of hardware and software support including an enhanced call experience with start to finish case management helping resolve incidents quickly and keeping IT reliable and stable.
- HPE Foundation Care helps when there is a hardware or software problem offering several response levels dependent on IT and business requirements.
Advisory Services
Advisory Services includes design, strategy, road map, and other services to help enable the digital transformation journey, tuned to IT and business needs. Advisory Services helps customers on their journey to Hybrid IT, Big Data, and the Intelligent Edge.
Professional Services
Professional Services helps integrate the new solution with project management, installation and startup, relocation services, and more. We help mitigate risk to the business so there is no interruption when new technology is being integrated in the existing IT environment.
