1
Introduction

StarWind NVMe over
Fabrics (NVMe-oF)

The NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) technology is developing at rapid-fire pace. It completely revolutionizes the process of working with data storage, allowing to get higher levels of performance, reduced latency and parallelism of I/O operations in data transferring. But all these strengths are available only for Unix/Linux users. Previously, it was possible to unlock true NVMe drive performance and achieve smart hardware utilization efficiency only in Linux environments. Windows Server users couldn't reap the benefits of NVMe-oF technology to the full extent. To redress this imbalance, StarWind has added the NVMe-oF support to StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) to unleash the NVMe drive performance in a Windows Server environment so that SMBs, ROBOs & Edge can get the required number of IOPS for applications with minimum hardware footprint.

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2
Problem

Problem of the NVMe Performance in Hyper-V Environments

Even though the world is going crazy about NVMe, it is still challenging to present PCIe SSDs to the entire Hyper-V cluster effectively. Their latency shoots up, and applications are likely to access only half of flash performance when such disks are presented over the network. The problem is that Hyper-V VMs cannot talk effectively to PCIe SSDs. It is impossible to enjoy the NVMe drives’ performance if they are presented over iSCSI and FC. These protocols were designed to connect cold storage media disks, not flash! They have a single short command queue and entail significant I/O overhead when used to connect to NVMe drives.

When using traditional protocols in a Windows Server environment, you would need to buy more NVMe drives to get the desired number of I/O. Getting more hardware and wasting more money will lead to the same result – a lack of hardware utilization efficiency. This solution is completely budget-busting for SMBs, ROBOs, & Edge. On top of all of that, the single-queue iSCSI model creates an additional load on the server CPU. The speed of your applications cannot peak since server processor cycles are burdened with iSCSI and TCP/IP Stack processing.

SAS: Performance is bottlenecked by a single short command queue

All that being said, it seems obvious why your IOPS-hungry applications do not get the expected performance while talking to storage over the traditional protocols. Because of the protocols, adding flash to your setup usually grants you like 20% more IOPS than spindle drives can provide. But, obviously, it is nothing compared to the true PCIe SSD performance! NVMe drives need a whole other tech to be presented over network.

3
Solution

NVMe-oF Solution to Unlock the True NVMe Performance

StarWind NVMe-oF is the protocol that enables you to achieve peak NVMe performance in Windows Server environments. The single short command queue is replaced with 64 thousand queues, 64 thousand commands each. Such design enables NVMe devices connected over NVMe-oF to achieve consistent microsecond-scale latency and extract all the performance that flash can potentially provide without any I/O bottleneck.

With StarWind NVMe-oF, there is no need to buy additional NVMe drives to get the desired number of I/O. Do more with less hardware and for less money. A high level of parallelism in multicore processors reduces latency significantly, which allows unleashing the full potential of your existing NVMe drives.

NVMe-oF: Multiple long command queues. Network is not a bottleneck anymore

StarWind fixes the problem of server CPU overload. RDMA technology used in NVMe-oF provides data exchange in the main memory without CPU, cache, and OS involvement. Thanks to that, the efficiency of the data transmission speed between computers over the network is increased. It is a silver bullet for SMBs, ROBOs, and Edge because you save money at each location and take all the benefits for your applications.

4
Conclusion

Bring NVMe-oF from StarWind to Your Hyper-V Environment

When it comes to storage performance, NVMe drives are the true king of the hill. However, it is still challenging to get all PCIe SSD IOPS as traditional SCSI-derived protocols do not work that well for flash. With StarWind’s implementation of NVMe-oF, you can get all the performance that PCIe SSDs can provide. StarWind added NVMe-oF support to StarWind Virtual SAN so that, from now on, applications running on Hyper-V VMs can operate at full throttle on flash storage.

5
What The World Says About Us

StarWind included as Niche Player for the fourth consecutive time in 2021 Magic Quadrant™ for HCI Software



StarWind
Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software
reviewed April 5, 2021
Industry: Finance
Company size: 3b – 10b usd
01 / 10 Read more
reviewed Sep 13, 2021
Industry: Construction
Company size: <50m usd
02 / 10 Read more
reviewed June 12, 2021
Industry: Manufacturing
Company size: 50m - 250m usd
03 / 10 Read more
reviewed October 14, 2020
Industry: Education
Company size: <5,000 emp
04 / 10 Read more
reviewed March 16, 2021
Industry: Manufacturing
Company size: 3b - 10b usd
05 / 10 Read more
reviewed February 28, 2020
Industry: Finance
Company size: 1b - 3b usd
07 / 10 Read more
reviewed November 14, 2019
Industry: Finance
Company size: 1b - 3b usd
08 / 10 Read more
reviewed October 20, 2016
Industry: Manufacturing
Company size: 3b - 10b usd
09 / 10 Read more
reviewed September 1, 2021
Industry: Services
Company size: <50m usd
10 / 10 Read more
6
Success Stories

We are satisfied with StarWind. The support is really fantastic. Whenever any issue arises, the response is very prompt, and solution is immediate.

Srinivas Kouda, Company’s Representative

We were able to build 2-node storage clusters based on virtualization in 19 hypermarkets without any problems and with high cost-efficiency.

Vass Sandor, IT Infrastructure Leader

By being able to virtualize our environment with StarWind, we were able to retire some old hardware, get our services highly available, reduce power consumption and heat in our server closet.

David Gardner, Information Systems Manager

StarWind got us off the clustered environment, which was a big help. So, I could regain control of my storage and reclaim and redistribute the space we desperately needed.

Ryan Fulton, Company’s Representative

Price + Simplicity. StarWind vSAN offers great pricing and allows us to get work done without expensive custom hardware. It also makes getting back online quick and easy after an outage or hardware failure.

Aaron Hayes, IT Manager

We chose StarWind Mainly because of the cost compared to other vendors. Simplicity of setup was also a major factor and I like the fact that you don’t need a vendor certified engineer to perform the installation.

John Harris, Windows System Administrator,
Department of Physics, University of Oxford

Because of recommendations of older colleagues, with StarWind, we got a reliable storage with no additional hardware. There was a need to increase IT infrastructure performance and we saw StarWind as the most cost-effective solution.

Željko Medić, Director of IT Department

StarWind is the best storage product I have ever used! It satisfies and exceeds requirements.

Joe Gursky, Director of IT
7
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