We have nothing to hide - everything is fair in the HPE 3PAR Data Reduction Guarantee

It has been 10 years from the moment when the Central Bank of Russia began to demand from banks to disclose the effective loan rate . It was an important event that tempted the ardor of financial sector marketers and brought the meaning of their advertising to reality. Bank customers were surprised to find that they are overpaying one and a half to two times compared with the stated rates, and, armed with new knowledge, began to make a more informed choice.

And in the information technology of such a controlling body as the Central Bank, no, so chaos continues. One of the hottest topics is saving disk space when using flash memory. Yes, SSDs are no longer so expensive (especially after discounts), but in order to match the cost of storage with traditional disks, you have to take into account the capabilities of all data compression technologies. And here the imagination of marketing departments becomes violent. Judging by the remaining links on the forum , the efficiency of data compression technologies for one of the vendors was 933: 1 (albeit, in the next version of the operating system, new and improved, dropped to 4: 1 - but you can't stop the progress?). Infinity is not the limit . But the real life of enterprises using storage systems is different from animated films. We are not playing toys here!


')
It would be nice if all manufacturers used common metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of their data compression technologies. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Let's try to figure out, there are 3 important points.

• The technique of "wipe everything in a bunch . " It seems to me that to evaluate the effectiveness of compression, it is necessary to take into account only those technologies that, in reality, reduce the number of bits and bytes written by the storage system - if you use a universal approach, then compression and deduplication. Not everyone will agree with me. Those manufacturers, whose arrays do not support compression and / or deduplication, use tricks to look decent in marketing brochures and use the “put everything in a heap” technique. Savings when using thin provisioning ( which first appeared in the world in 3PAR arrays ) and snepshots, which occupy almost no disk space, are certainly achieved. But this does not apply to data compression. And it is too easy to manipulate the indicators - I made 1000 snepshots of one volume, I did not change the data, they do not take up space. He called it deduplication and achieved a saving of 933: 1 (why not 1000: 1? Ask the appropriate vendor). By analogy - create a volume with thin provisioning of 1TB in size and write onto it a single text file with a list of vendors-manufacturers of all-flash arrays. Calculate virtual savings :)
  
  How to deal: try to get data compression indicators from vendor without regard to thin provisioning and snapshots. If a manufacturer does not provide this information, go to another.
• The technique "... up to 10 times . " It reminds me of another advertising trick of the past: “use this tool, and you will get the result after a while!”. No one claimed that this time would come before the buyer spends all the money available in anticipation of the effect, so there is no formal fault. So the resourceful marketers of storage manufacturers write - “you can save up to 10 times.” Up to 10 times can be any number from 1 to 10. Of course, a miracle will really happen after some time with individual customers. But not the fact that you will be among them.
  
  How to deal: demand an accurate estimate of the compression / deduplication ratio that you actually get in your conditions. If the vendor refuses or offers to conduct a study of the storage system currently in use with the shutdown of your business applications, proceed to the next.
• The technique of "bait and hook." Some manufacturers advertise large compression ratios - 5: 1 and more, but do they guarantee the achievement of these figures? In many cases, no. You took the word and bought it. And then there is nowhere to go: if no result is achieved, no one compensates time, money and implementation work.
  
  How to deal: demand a guarantee of saving disk space in the contract. Provide for actions to be taken by the supplier if these conditions are not met. If the vendor refuses, call your Hewlett Packard Enterprise sales representative and discuss the HPE 3PAR Data Reduction Guarantee.

All honest

I am sure that HPE 3PAR Adaptive Data Reduction technology is the best of what is currently on the market in terms of saving flash drive capacity. You get excellent value for your cost of ownership, and besides, the less you overwrite an SSD, the longer it will work. In addition, everything must be honest with the guarantees, so the Data Reduction Guarantee:

1. does not take into account savings from snapshots and thin provisioning
2. It proposes to take into account the real average values ​​that are achieved when operating 3PAR in different load profiles.

Work load	Capacity saving ratio
VDI	2.5 - 6.0
Server virtualization	1.5 - 2.5
DBMS	2.0 - 3.5

If you purchased 3PAR and did not reach the stated numbers, then something was configured incorrectly. HPE will correct system deployment errors or provide additional capacity if the problem is not resolved.

The program has no secret conditions, prescribed in small print. The leaflet is publicly available on the HPE website . If the acquisition of the array is important for you in the near future - print it and contact your supplier.