See all blog posts

Samsung Discusses the Z-SSD Low-latency Drive with ScyllaDB at ScyllaDB Summit 2017

SSD’s are continuing to revolutionize the datacenter with low latencies and exceptional performance. Arash Rezaei from Samsung Semiconductor sat down with me for a quick interview on his upcoming talk at ScyllaDB Summit 2017. From the interview, you will learn more about Arash and his upcoming talk that shows how ScyllaDB users can benefit from Samsung Z-SSD drives.

Please tell us about yourself and what you do at Samsung?

I am a Senior Performance Architect at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. My work has been primarily on performance evaluation and tuning of data center applications with a focus on storage.

Why did you pursue a career as a Performance Architect?

I have always been fascinated by high-performance computing. Building and fine-tuning high-performance systems are critical undertakings for many data centers, cloud computing, and distributed systems. They involve numerous challenges and require an in-depth understanding of the software stack. I chose this field because the work is very interesting.

What will you be talking about at ScyllaDB Summit 2017?

I will be giving a talk about performance characterization and tuning of ScyllaDB on Samsung NVMe SSDs.

What is performance characterization?

Performance characterization is about understanding how software stacks and their workloads utilize system resources including CPU, memory, storage, and network. A deep dive characterization can help in correctly identifying the bottlenecks and allows for fine-tuning of systems. As a result, performance characterization plays an important role in effectively utilizing all key system resources.

What type of audience will be interested in your talk?

Anyone who cares about improving the performance of their servers such as engineers, managers, and solution architects.

Can you please tell me more about your talk?

We will characterize the performance of ScyllaDB on Samsung high-performance NVMe SSDs and show how Z-SSD ─ the Samsung ultra-low-latency NVMe drive ─ can significantly shrink the performance gap between in-memory and in-storage with ScyllaDB. We will further evaluate the throughput-vs-latency profile of ScyllaDB with NVMe devices and present end-to-end latencies (from the client’s viewpoint) as well as the latencies of the software/hardware stack. We will show that a Z-SSD-backed ScyllaDB cluster can provide competitive performance to an in-memory deployment while sharply reducing costs.

How are organizations using Z-SSD now in their infrastructure?

Z-SSD is a new NAND flash-based product recently introduced by Samsung that delivers ultra-low latency, among a number of attributes. It is expected to be used in a wide range of applications including high capacity caching, NoSQL databases, and real-time analytics.

How will Z-SSD drives help improve cloud computing infrastructures?

Z-SSD enables a new tier of storage with the highest throughput and lowest latency of any flash storage on the market today. This gives enterprise architects a compelling reason to consider Z-SSD when optimizing current and future workloads. The SZ985 combines extreme performance, durability, low latency, and high capacity into a single solution. It is a ready-to-install storage device suitable for most data centers today.

Where can we learn more information about your talk?

We will be publishing a white paper soon, stay tuned.

Thank you very much, Arash. We cannot wait to see your talk in person and learn more.

ScyllaDB Summit is taking place in San Francisco, CA on October 24-25. Check out the current agenda on our web site to learn about the rest of the talks—including technical talks from the ScyllaDB team, the ScyllaDB road map, and a hands-on workshop where you’ll learn how to get the most out of your ScyllaDB cluster.