Toshiba KumoScale NVMeoF Solution for Kubernetes
At OCP Summit 2018 we saw the Toshiba KumoScale NVMeoF solution in action. Toshiba utilized KumoScale to expose a number of its SSDs to a storage server, and did so with a twist. KumoScale managed the NVMeoF solution but Toshiba paired with Portworx to provide storage for a Kunernetes cluster.
In the world of servers, containerization has become a pillar of modern IT in only a few short years. Kubernetes, based on a Google platform contribution, essentially won the container wars in 2017. With stateless containers, one of the key design considerations is how to provide high speed, low latency storage to containers and the orchestration tools.
Paired with Portworx, the Toshiba KumoScale solution provides Kubernetes hosts with a high-speed interface to flash. We were told that ideally, the network fabric is 100GbE or faster which is common for cloud players.
The Toshiba KumoScale solution also has an analytics framework and telemetry database to monitor the system and provide utilization and wear data.
In terms of 4K performance, the Toshiba KumoScale claims greater than 16GB/s read and 23GB/s mixed (50/50) at between 4M-6M IOPS. Latency is between 8-13 microseconds. As networks progress from 100GbE to 400GbE speeds, NVMeoF will become an increasingly exciting tool for IT infrastructure teams to use. Seeing this performance trend and opportunity, Toshiba KumoScale and tools such as Portworx can help solve real-world problems such as providing high-speed storage to Kubernetes clusters.
