BonFire High Performance
ESS and ZFS SAN Software
BonFire is an Enterprise-grade SAN software
system. Deployed on standard x86_64 server
hardware, BonFire creates a powerful SAN
platform that delivers performance, value, ease
of management, and flexibility.
BonFire installs
onto a minimal boot device and runs from system
RAM. Auto configuration backups keep your
configuration safe, whether you choose a USB
boot device, DOM, or small SSD to boot from.
Setup is fast. Setup and activation of a complete
BonFire base system typically requires less than
five minutes. BonFire auto senses your disks and
network interfaces. Fill in a single screen and hit enter for
a functioning SAN.
Choose your storage tier.
BonFire
supports both hard disk and SSD arrays. For hard disks, you get the scalability
of ZFS. For pure Flash arrays, you get the
unmatched speed and value of WildFire’s patented
Enterprise Storage Stack. ZFS for hard disks.
BonFire sets up all hard disks as a ZFS pool for
high data integrity. You choose the ZFS data protection level
and BonFire takes care of the rest. Enterprise SSDs can be used for ZFS log
and cache devices, or as direct storage media,
though both perform less well than ESS.
ESS for SSDs. WildFire’s ESS is used for pure SSD
arrays. ZFS is great for “bulk storage”, but if
you need pure speed, ESS delivers 10x the
bandwidth and 100x the IOPS of ZFS at a cost not
much more than hard disks.
Multi-system management.
BonFire web-based management is designed
to support multiple servers.
Whether you have two servers or hundreds,
a single web login gives you controlled access
to every server from a single screen. Adding a new server takes seconds. You can manage “any server” from “any
server”
Large scale administrative environments.
BonFire is designed to work for both small and
large users. You control everything from a web
browser. You see all volumes, interfaces, targets,
and system statuses from one integrated console. Administration is snappy and intuitive. If you see something, you can just click
on it to get more information, or you can
manipulate it.
Comprehensive hardware support.
BonFire is designed to
work with stock x86_64 hardware. BonFire supports SATA hard disks as well
as
SATA, SAS, or nVME SSDs. HBAs from MicroSemi and Broadcom are
supported. High speed networking from Intel,
Mellanox, Broadcom, and others can be used, as
can Fiber Channel boards from qLogic and Atto.
BonFire-managed all-flash arrays usually
operate at “wire speed” with performance only
limited by the network in use. The ability to use stock hardware
encourages the use of simple, low cost chassis.
Important Properties of
BonFire SAN Software
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Affordably priced
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Support for both HDDs and SSDs
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Supports ZFS, HA, Encryption
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Web console manages hundreds of SANs
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Rapid, single-page setup of new SANs
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Fastest SSD performance available
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Radically reduces the cost of SSD storage
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Supports commodity and custom hardware
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Data Protection. Hard disk arrays are protected by ZFS
replication. This can be mirroring (x1, or x2) or ZFS
“raid” (/z1, /z2, or /z3) depending on the level
of performance and data redundancy you need.
All Flash Arrays are protected with ESS and
RAID-5 or RAID-6 with optional hot-spares.
High Availability (HA) and replication.
Any logical volume can be replicated to a 2nd
BonFire node over an Ethernet connection. This can be an active/passive or
active/active configuration depending on your
application’s needs. Standard replicatoin
over TCP/IP is included. RDMA replication
is available as an additional cost option
Fast administrative performance.
BonFire lets you
monitor clusters of systems at a single glance.
BonFire has also been performance
optimized. Setup and modification procedures are
designed to be intuitive. The vast majority of
updates execute in less than a second. Delays exceeding one second are almost
always due to hardware latencies. Many SAN
solutions are dramatically slower than BonFire
and can consume a minute of time per
individual update.
BonFire with ESS radically reduces SSD storage costs.
WildFire’s Enterprise Storage Stack (ESS) remaps
clusters of random writes into long linear
writes. ESS linearization increases SSD random
write performance by as much as 80:1. With adequate networking, a
BonFire-managed 24 SSD array can achieve random
4KB write rates of 2,000,000 IOPS, and more than
10GB a second of linear updates.
Linearization also extends SSD useful life by as
much as 40:1 by getting rid of the immense data
amplification caused by random writes.
High speed linear writing systems let you
configure systems using parity RAID rather than
mirrored RAID, reducing the number of SSDs
needed by almost half. Similarly, as ESS-managed SSDs last far
longer, one can use either consumer SSDs or
read-intensive SSDs in lieu of standard
Data Center grade SSDs without reducing
expected media life.
These changes can reduce SSD costs by as
much as 75%.
Ask for our ESS wear and performance
white paper.
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