CONTENTS
2NEW CHALLENGES

2DATA ARCHIVE WITHOUT COMPROMISE3OBJECT STORAGE FOR DATA ARCHIVE4

SSG-5018D8-AR12L AND OPENIOPower Efficiency at its Core
Extreme Storage Density
Robust Networking

5

OPENIO, AN OPEN SOURCE OBJECT
STORAGE SOLUTION

6

SUPERMICRO SSG-5018D8-AR12L AND
OPENIO COMBINED SOLUTION

7TEST RESULTS

WHITE PAPER

AN OBJECT STORAGE
SOLUTION FOR DATAARCHIVE USING
SUPERMICRO SSG-5018D8AR12L AND OPENIO SDS

11 CONCLUSIONSWhite Paper
October 2016
Rodolfo Campos
Sr. Product Marketing Specialist
Super Micro Computer, Inc.
980 Rock Avenue
San Jose, CA 95131 USA
www.supermicro.com

Intel Inside®. Powerful Data Center Outside.

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSNEW CHALLENGES~50%

Digital Storage
Annual Growth

Cold
Storage

Capacity
Flat IT Budget

2012

2022

Every minute - 2.5 million messages on Facebook are sent, nearly 430K tweets areposted, 67K photos on Instagram and over 5 million YouTube videos are uploaded.
These are a few examples of how the Big Data market is growing 9 times faster than
the traditional IT market. According to IDC reports, in 2012 the World created 4.4
zettabytes of digital data and is estimated to create 44 zettabytes of data by 2020.
These large volumes of digital data are being created, shared, and stored on thecloud. As a result, data storage demands are reaching new limits and are in needof new requirements. Thus, data storage, data movement, and data analytics
applications need a new storage platform to keep up with the greater capacity andscaling demands it brings.
Although data is being created at an unbelievable rate, not all data will befrequently accessed. It is estimated that 50% of digital data will be rarely accessed.
To address the exploding demand for warm (infrequently accessed) and cold (rarely
accessed), but still critical data, Supermicro is presenting a new class of storage
server solutions that offer a better approach - without comprising capacity nor
creating throughput bottlenecks.

DATA ARCHIVE WITHOUT COMPROMISEAs data stores grow into the petabytes and beyond, new storage architectures areneeded to handle the rapid scaling and need for high availability. Unstructured
data like pictures, music, and videos are being created and uploaded to the cloudat an exponential rate, and current infrastructures cannot keep up with this influxof data.
Object storage is the perfect solution. Unlike other storage technologies such as
file storage or block storage that structure and manage data in a hierarchal system,
object storage provides the end user with greater scalability, increased resiliency,superior manageability and an overall better ROI.

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

2

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSOBJECT STORAGE FOR DATA ARCHIVE
Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L
HPE Apollo 4510 Gen9

396W
140W
Average Power (Idle)

1275W

84%
Lower

208W
Average Power (Max Load)

$111K

62%
Lower

Cloud and web-scale companies quickly hit the limits of block and file storage. Lackof scalability and high cost become a major pain-point, so they turn to objectbased storage solutions to remove these limitations. Object storage solutions havebecome a popular option for both private and public cloud deployments becauseof its ability to scale without limitations. Unlike other storage architectures where
scaling out becomes complex and costly due to hierarchical approach, object
storage solutions can scale to petabytes of data, simply by adding nodes.
Traditional storage systems struggle to keep replicated files or blocks in-sync acrossseveral instances or nodes. This challenge is complex to overcome, leading to anincreased management needs, as well as degraded performance. Because of its
flat structure, object-storage solutions overcome this by allowing IT administrators
to replicate their data across multiple nodes and across multiple geographically
distributed datacenters.
Storing large amounts of data in a traditional storage system could be daunting
and expensive. By utilizing the scalability of object-based storage solutions, IT
admins are no longer handcuffed to deploying large monolithic storage systems
like NAS and SANs. This leads to a much lower CAPEX by deploying what you need,when you need it. Operating costs are also drastically lower, leading to an overall
better return on investment.
Compared to other traditional platforms built for cold storage and active archive
using object storage, e.g. HPE Apollo 4510, the Supermicro solution lowers theend-user total cost of ownership by an astonishing 62% through superior energy
efficiency and performance per watt advantages. This allows organizations tobuild out cold storage and active archive solutions as needed at a fraction of theconventional cost.
There are many advantages to an object-based storage architecture, but deploying
the right solution is key.

$42K
TCO Per Server Over 7 Years

Figure 1. Dramatically Reduced TCO with
Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

3

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDS

SSG-5018D8-AR12L AND OPENIOThe Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L brings massive storage density, highperformance networking, and power-efficient computing to a compact 1U form
factor. Because of this, the SSG-5018D8-AR12L is the ideal platform for object
storage data archival.
POWER EFFICIENCY AT ITS CORE

Figure 2. Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L

The Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L comes equipped with an Intel® Xeon®
processor D-1537, delivering high-performance computing with a fraction of thepower consumption. The SSG-5018D8-AR12L comes equipped with a powerful
8-core Xeon® processor D-1537, yet at 35W, a system loaded with twelve 3.5” HDDs
and 64GB of memory needs only 20W for standby, 140W at idle, and 207W underfull load. This makes the SSG-5018D8-AR12L one of the most power efficient servers
on the market, and a perfect platform for a multi-node object storage cluster.
Figure 1 on page 3 illustrates the difference in power consumption between
the Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and a HPE Apollo 4510 Gen9 server. By cutting
power consumption by 84%, companies could save upwards of $14,841 per 7 year
per server.
EXTREME STORAGE DENSITY

Figure 3. Back View of SSG-5018D8-AR12L

When it comes to data archive, storage density is key. The Supermicro SSG-5018D8AR12L supports up to twelve 3.5” SAS2/SATA3 hot-swappable drives, one M.2 NVMe
PCI-E 3.0 x4, and one PCI-E 3.0 x8 for added storage expandability. When equippedwith HGST He10 SATA HDDs, the SSG-5018D8-AR12L has a total capacity of 120
Terabytes per 1U. This allows for ultimate flexibility and scalability, allowing users to
expand their storage one node at a time.
ROBUST NETWORKING
Being able to store large amounts of data is very important, but allowing the data
to reach the storage is often overlooked. By having dual 10GbE SFP+ LAN ports
onboard, the SSG-5018D8-AR12L removes any bottlenecks created by slower
networking options – without having to purchase additional network interface
controllers.

Figure 4. Top View of SSG-5018D8-AR12L

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

4

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSOPENIO, AN OPEN SOURCE OBJECT STORAGE SOLUTIONOpenIO supports legacy and modern
applications with:•

File access methods, such as NFS, SMB,FTP or local FUSE mountpoint•

Object access APIs, such as Amazon
S3, OpenStack SwiftMultiple data protection mechanisms arealso available:•

Replication supporting multiple
copies, local or remote•

Erasure coding protection withconfigurable number of redundantpieces of data•

Geo-distribution, mirrored or stretch
mode between datacenters•

Self-healing to prevent silent
corruptions and access loss of older
data

OpenIO provides an enterprise-class object storage solution offering high capacity,
scalability and performance for high-demanding applications. It is the perfectchoice to build long-term data storage platforms with no compromise on data
access, data protection, TCO efficiency and overall performance.
OpenIO is based on open source software that anyone can download andcontribute to. Even though it is able to reach a massive scale at hundreds ofpetabytes, it is flexible enough to allow any business to build an object storage
platform, even with a few terabytes of capacity. Its unique design offers thesimplest storage scalability on the market with flexible and fine-grained
increments, without the burden of rebalancing data before the new capacity
becomes available.
OpenIO can scale close to the actual production needs, without planning andfinancing capacity growth months in advance. The benefit of adding capacity isimmediate, and also brings more performance to the system. On the long run,
OpenIO is designed to handle hardware heterogeneity and is able to distribute loadand capacity according to the performance of each hardware piece. In addition,
OpenIO offers a state-of-the-art data accessibility and data protection mechanisms.
Thanks to its loosely coupled architecture and the several data protection
mechanisms, OpenIO can guarantee zero downtime operation.
OpenIO also features a complete toolkit and an efficient web user interface tosimplify the daily life of the administrator, with near human-free automation
features.
All these characteristics make OpenIO the most production-friendly object storage
solution available today, to deal with the diversity of the many specific use casesthat are found in the IT world.

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

5WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDS

SUPERMICRO SSG-5018D8-AR12L AND OPENIOCOMBINED SOLUTION
The Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L is the perfect fit to build an OpenIO platform.
The networking capabilities enabled by the dual 10GBase-T Ethernet ports brings
the required throughput performance and resiliency for modern data platforms
with no compromise on data accessibility. The Xeon D processor is offering
hardware acceleration for erasure coding algorithms with the ISA-L libraries
developed by Intel in an optimized cost package. The 12 disks in a 1U form-factor
optimize the maximum number of drives per rack and the overall density of theplatform. It offers:

Supermicro's hardware has been
throughoutly tested in OpenIO’s lab, andhas been certified on OpenIO SDS 16.04.
It guarantees smooth operations and very
high efficiency on real life production
systems.

•

High density to cope with long term datacenter efficiency expectations•

Reduced failure domain on the long-term duration, less impactful on 12
drives (120TB with 10TB drives) than 68 drives (544TB from a 4U counterpart
server with 8TB drives)•

Fine-grained scalability, being of smaller capacity, adding a super micro node
allows to stay closer to actual needs, instead of adding 544TB at a time, noneed to pay hardware and software for empty space•

Low entry barrier, easier and cheaper to start with 1U storage nodes of 120TB
each than a 4U server of 544TB. Not all the platforms can afford startingabove 1PB of initial capacity with 3 nodes (OpenIO SDS recommends a
minimum of 3 nodes for deployment)

The M.2 connector available on the Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L, which
supports up to a 1TB NVMe SSD, is also very convenient to host metadata services if
superior performance is required. OpenIO is able to tier its metadata on the NVMe
media, with a two benefits:•

To decrease the overall latency of metadata handling•

To offload random read and writes operations from the SATA LFF drives
optimizing their throughput performance

Once combined, Supermicro and OpenIO build and run hyper-scalable dataarchiving system at the best price point on the market.

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

6

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSTEST RESULTS
SOLUTION CONFIGURATION
SystemSupermicro
SSG-5018D8-AR12L

Processor

Single Intel® Xeon®
processor D-1537
8 cores

Memory64GB ECC DDR4
12x HGST Ultrastar
He10 10TB SATA3
HDD

Storage

1x Toshiba XG3 256GB
NVMe SSD
1x SanDisk X300DC
960GB SATA3 SSD

Networking

Dual SFP+ 10 Gigabit
Ethernet

Power Supply

Redundant 400W
high-efficiency power
supplies

Software

OpenIO SDS

Operating
SystemCentOS 7

BenchmarkCosbench ver. 0.4.2

Figure 5. Test System Topology

Table 1. Solution Configuration

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

7

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDS
95% RESPONSE TIME

4

1.6

3

1.2

2

0.8

1

0.4

0

5

10

20

40

80

160

320

640

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(MILLION OPS / SEC)THROUGHPUT

0.0

1280

NUMBER OF WORKERS

350

16

300

14

250

12
10

200

8

150

6

100

4

50
0

2
5

10

20

40

80

160

320

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(THOUSAND OPS / SEC)

Figure 6. 128KB Objects, 100% Read Operations

0640

NUMBER OF WORKERS

Figure 7. 128KB Objects, 100% Write Operations
WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

513068,6505

370

21,1101080

169,330

10500

40,53020

70364,55020

720

69,88040

70779,68040

1140

113,02080

60

1,631,990

80

1700

168,060160

70

3,132,680

160

2360

227,480320

160

3,856,760

320

3130

274,090640

290

3,895,940

640

4270

298,300

1280

580

3,873,690---

Table 2. 128KB Objects, 100% Read Operations

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

Table 3. 128KB Objects, 100% Write Operations

8

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDS
95% RESPONSE TIME

1.0

10

0.8

8

0.6

6

0.4

4

0.2

2

0.0

5

10

20

40

80

160

320

640

0

1280

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(MILLION OPS / SEC)THROUGHPUT

NUMBER OF WORKERS

Figure 8. 1MB Objects, 100% Read Operations

16

200

11

150

6

100

1

50
0

5

10

20

40

80

160

320

-4

640

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(THOUSAND OPS / SEC)

250

NUMBER OF WORKERS

Figure 9. 1MB Objects, 100% Write Operations

WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

5160

54,9605

310

30,95010

220117,98010

470

59,52020

310

208,14020

740

102,900

40

400

332,100

40

1270

139,68080

520

528,59080

2060

166,490160

800

638,580

160

3410

188,540320

2330

676,660

320

4330

207,900

640

4900

730,290

640

6610

210,870

1280

9190

777,390---

Table 4. 1MB Objects, 100% Read Operations

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

Table 5. 1MB Objects, 100% Write Operations

9

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSTHROUGHPUT

95% RESPONSE TIME

6

1.4

5

1.2

4

1.0
0.8

3

0.6

2

0.4

1

0.2
0.0

5

10

20

40

80

160

320

640

1280

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(MILLION OPS / SEC)

1.6

0

NUMBER OF WORKERS

700

6

600

5

500

4

400

3

300

2

200

1

100
0

5

10

20

40

80

160

320

640

1280

RESPONSE TIME(SECONDS)

THROUGHPUT(THOUSAND OPS / SEC)

Figure 10. 128KB Objects, 80% Read + 20% Write Operations

0

NUMBER OF WORKERS

Figure 11. 1MB Objects, 80% + 20% Write Operations

WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

WORKERS

95%RT (MS)THROUGHPUT(OPS/SEC)

5290

48,3505

290

40,13010

380

112,53010

380

82,20020

540

223,69020

540

138,52040910

406,11040

910

207,19080

1510

672,89080

1510

291,150160

2090

994,840160

2090

380,730320

2860

1,222,020

320

2860

460,080640

3890

1,289,300

640

3890

512,700

1280

5240

1,348,690

1280

5240

593,600

Table 6. 128KB Objects, 80% Read + 20% Write Ops

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

Table 7. 1MB Objects, 80% Read + 20% Write Ops

10

WHITE PAPER
An Object Storage Solution For Data Archive
using Supermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L and
OpenIO SDSFOR MORE INFORMATIONCONCLUSIONSSupermicro SSG-5018D8-AR12L Datasheet
www.supermicro.com/products/
system/1U/5018/SSG-5018D8-AR12L.cfm

In order to keep up with today’s digital data explosion, Supermicro created a new
breed of server storage. The extremely dense and highly scalable storage solution
based on the SSG-5018D8-AR12L and OpenIO object storage software have
revolutionized the way cloud providers and datacenters store, share, and analyze
data – all the while lowering their overall CAPEX and OPEX, and providing the best
return on investment possible.

Supermicro SuperStorage Systems
www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/storage.cfm
OpenIO
www.openio.io
Intel® Xeon® Processor D Product Family
www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/
processors/xeon/xeon-processor-d-family.
html

Powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors

11About Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Supermicro® (NASDAQ: SMCI), the leading innovator in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology is a premier provider ofadvanced server Building Block Solutions® for Data Center, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Hadoop/Big Data, HPC and Embedded
Systems worldwide. Supermicro is committed to protecting the environment through its “We Keep IT Green®” initiative and provides
customers with the most energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly solutions available on the market.
www.supermicro.com
About OpenIO
OpenIO offers an open source storage software that allows organizations to converge application and storage on a single scale-out
platform, bringing flexibility and agility to large-scale storage infrastructures. The product is a pure Software Defined Storage solution.
Officially launched in June 2015 as a company, OpenIO has a long track record in object storage having started the development of
the product in 2006. At that date, only few pioneers existed and OpenIO is one of them. For the past 10 years the team has architected,delivered, and supported numerous hyper-scale storage platforms and hundreds of billions of objects, with remarkable stability and nodown time. The company has offices in San Francisco, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, and Montreal.
www.openio.io

The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.
No part of this document covered by copyright may be reproduced in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic, or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping, or storage in an electronic retrieval system — without prior written permission of the
copyright owner.
Supermicro, the Supermicro logo, Building Block Solutions, We Keep IT Green, SuperServer, TwinPro™, TwinPro²™, SuperDoctor are
trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Ultrabook, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Atom, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core,Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel vPro, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside,
Xeon, Xeon Phi, and Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.
© Copyright 2016 Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
Printed in USA

MKT-0006-09/2016-10-R9		

Please Recycle