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#83 – Introduction to NetApp MAX Data

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On this week’s podcast, recorded live at NetApp Insight 2018, Chris talks to Greg Knieriemen and Rob McDonald about the introduction of Memory Accelerated Data, commonly called MAX Data.  The MAX Data solution is a software product that implements a local file system on a server using local persistent memory such as Intel Optane.  Of course, this is what DAS (Direct Attached Storage) used to offer 20 years ago and this is definitely not what MAX Data provides.  Protection against loss within a server is achieved with a feature called MAX Recovery that synchronously replicates data to another backup server.  Data is also tiered to NetApp AFF storage as an additional level of protection.

The question is how the technology could be used.  The most obvious benefit is to speed up existing applications, however, performance improvements could also result in reducing licensing costs (e.g. enterprise databases) and more efficient use of server hardware (see episode #82 on storage predictions and SCM).  Greg neatly sidesteps the question of using MAX Data and NetApp AI, but this seems like probably the most obvious use case.

For more details on MAX Data, check out the landing page that Rob recommends.  Rob also references a blog post that talks a bit further about database acceleration.  You can find that here.  We talked to Greg about his move to NetApp in episode #78.  You can find that here.

Elapsed Time: 00:25:03

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 – Intros
  • 00:01:40 – What is MAX Data?
  • 00:03:30 – What persistent memory does MAX Data use?
  • 00:06:16 – Application transparency, appearing as a local file system
  • 00:07:10 – How is MAX Data not DAS?
  • 00:10:00 – MAX Data is a real tier of storage
  • 00:13:40 – MAX Data integrated with existing shared AFF systems
  • 00:15:30 – Where else could the software be used?  Cloud? AI?
  • 00:18:30 – Applications don’t need to be rewritten to use MAX Data
  • 00:22:10 – Greg ducks the question of using MAX Data with NetApp AI
  • 00:24:10 – Wrap Up

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