Features

A FLASHY OUTLOOK

Published

9 years ago

June 14, 2015

admin

Updated : August 3, 2014 00:15 am,
By Editor

Flash continues to gain traction throughout the storage landscape as the technology removes several bottlenecks of I/O performance

Flash storage in the enterprise segment is gaining ground for very obvious reasons. Reduced costs of Flash memory are making it conceivable to have more data stored on Flash arrays. Several bottlenecks in traditional enterprise data center storage have caused an acceleration towards flash storage arrays as a general trend in data centers globally. Leading vendors including EMC, Hitachi, IBM and so on have added flash drives to their existing arrays.

With application performance and availability top priority for Businesses, Flash helps deliver reduced data processing times and faster application service uptime. Keeping more active content on SSD arrays helps retrieve and deliver that data much faster. This is more in the case of critical applications that need high IOPS (Input /Output Operations Per Second) storage performance. Virtualization and demands of cloud computing are further accentuating the need for Flash storage arrays in enterprise data centers.

According to Pure Storage, a vendor focused on enterprise storage Technologies, there are similar trends in all regions of its business including MEA and therefore a growing demand for Flash arrays. The company’s distributor in the region, Global Distribution FZE has already commenced Partner recruitment and enablement, both Technical and Sales.

Steven Rose VP EMEA Pure Storage says, “In the virtualized datacenter, it is now commonly I/O performance that limits server consolidation ratios, not CPU or memory. These bottlenecks can affect customer satisfaction and slow down business processes. Further, Virtualization has the effect of multiplexing multiple logical workloads across a single physical I/O path. The greater the consolidation achieved through virtualization, the more randomized the physical I/O requests become. And random I/O is the Achilles heel of the rotational disk drive, because seek and rotational latency dominate transfer times 20 to 1.”

While Virtualization randomizes I/O as a variety of IO workloads are run together against the storage stack, the legacy storage based on traditional HDDs is mostly designed for sequential I/O. When a multitude of applications and services are competing against the resources of a spinning disk storage array the response times gets higher and higher and the disk array struggles to keep up as result of bottlenecks caused by the disk contention.

Christian Putz, Vice President-EMEA Channel Sales at Violin Memory, a leading provider of all-flash storage arrays and appliances delivering application solutions for the enterprise says, “Flash technology allows to run random workloads without having backend contention, and specifically speaking, the Violin Memory Flash technology provides sustained, predictable and sub-milisecond latencies for any kind of random workload (even with a huge component of writes). With Violin Memory Flash technology running mixed workloads results in no I/O penalty and allows to fully virtualize business critical applications, sustain high performance for all virtualized databases and applications and fully adopt VDI deployments because of an increased VDIs/core ratio. Last but not least, Violin Memory Flash technology dramatically reduces the impact of overcommitting resources, which typically occurs in this space, and allows to even run more VMs per host with low latency storage.”

According to Steven, while the demand for IOPS is growing, the supply is actually shrinking because the I/O rate to a single hard drive has been roughly constant while the capacity of a hard drive doubles every 18 months or so. This means that their performance per GB is actually declining. Therefore Flash is poised to have a disruptive effect on the enterprise storage market by applying solid state storage to tier 1 applications in the data center.

He adds, “A solid state storage solution based on flash removes these bottlenecks because it has no seek time, no rotational latency, and is equally fast on random workloads as on sequential ones, he says. Flash can accelerate virtual server and desktop deployments while affording higher consolidation and greater efficiency. Flash can also accelerate SQL and NoSQL workloads without partitioning or changes to the application. With flash memory, any block of data can be fetched in nearly constant time. This means that applications can be designed to expect sub-millisecond latency no matter what the I/O stream (random or sequential) or data distribution. Also, Solid state storage uses 10x less power and space than rotational hard drives, allowing you to substantially expand capacity in place. Further, with all flash arrays, customers spend much less time planning and tuning their arrays to remove bottlenecks.”

Flash all the way

Vendors are delivering hybrid arrays that include Flash and hard drives as well as all flash arrays which contain multiple flash memory drives instead of hard disk drives. Industry experts suggest that deployments must take into account use case scenarios. For instance, typical application workloads will see a considerable improvement in performance as well as savings in power, cooling etc with marginal inclusion of flash technology. Therefore, the hybrid approach works out as a viable option to accelerate workload performance. However, there are also application scenarios that demand dramatic improvements in response-time performance (latency) or high IOPS which are well taken care of all Flash array options.

All-flash arrays have been designed from the ground up to work with flash media unlike traditional arrays that have been built to work with the relatively slower spinning hard drives.

Christian says, “All Flash is one of the fastest growing markets in IT infrastructure. Nowadays, real-time data access and operational efficiency are the new norms and IT forces are starting to drive a transformation of the datacenter pushed by the demands of Business Critical Applications, full Enterprise Virtualization adoption, Data analytics, etc. “

He adds, “As Flash storage is a proven and mature technology and we are seeing Tier 1 apps and virtualization driving adoption of flash arrays. VDI, Transactional databases, Data analytics, ERPs, and Cloud initiatives are being moved towards an All-Flash storage to make real-time data access and operational efficiency become a reality: a tremendous boost in performance with dramatically reduced response times allows not only guaranteeing the future business growth pace, but it also provides higher consolidation ratios, to be able to fully embrace business critical application virtualisation, to reduce over-provisioning, to reduce licensing costs by increasing compute node utilization, and an impressive datacenter footprint reduction.”

A great example of the impact of Flash instead of legacy hard disk drives is in a Virtual Desktop environment. According to Pure Storage, one of the biggest challenges VDI presents to storage is the variable and spikey nature of IO requirements throughout the day. Typical use is write-heavy (often 80/20), but boot storms and anti-virus scans introduce huge read spikes. Overnight maintenance tasks (patches, recomposes) introduce even more heavy write bursts. You need storage that keeps up with it all without sacrificing end-user experience the way a caching solution can. This is another great example of where flash really outpaces hard disk drive based hybrid arrays.

Steven elaborates, “Many VDI pilots go well– until it is time to scale-up the deployment and move into production. That’s where too often deployments hit the IO wall – exceeding the IO capabilities of traditional disk storage and requiring expensive additional storage purchases which blow the VDI ROI case. Pure Storage scales seamlessly from pilot of a few hundred to 1,000s of users, all with non-disruptive incremental capacity and resiliency expansion. If all the benefits of VDI (security, consolidation for managent, etc.) can meet or exceed the performance of local laptop performance, then more and more customers will consider to move to Virtual Desktop.”

Salil Dighe, the CEO at Meta Byte Technologies, a regional partner for FusionIO, that was recently acquired by SanDisk claims that the region has been slow and cautious in its adoption of Flash storage as they haven’t seen significant gains from traditional Flash storage options available from different vendors.

He says, “The Middle East region is a followers market. The other parts of the world have already tried to utilize flash storage arrays and have not seen much benefit in terms of performance increase or IOPS. For the investments vs performance the gains are minimal hence now they are turning towards what is known as Flash on PCIe. One such product is FusionIO which seems to turn heads and provides significant throughput in terms of IOPS. Today many of the customers prefer FusionIO due to its flexibility in supporting various scenarios be it increasing the IOPS on a standard tier1 server to server virtualization or to provide significantly high VDI and VM densities on the same servers.“

PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) based solid-state storage has better performance than server-based SATA, SAS or Fibre Channel (FC) solid-state drives because of the direct connections.

He adds, “If you are using a disk controller to write on hard drives whether flash or non-flash the bottle neck is still the controller. The difference can only be significant if you use Flash as a memory tier. FusionIO uses Flash memory in its best suited architecture that is flash on PCIe, meaning CPU has faster access to data. As a result the CPU is efficiently utilized and can process many more operations or support more connections.”

The transition in effect

The transition from to flash arrays is bound to accelerate. This would suit the growing virtualized environments as Flash helps customers eliminate bottlenecks of applications delivery in virtual environments. So will hard disk drives have a place in the data centres in the long term?

Responding to that question, Steven says, “In some areas such as deep archive, or areas where performance isn’t a requirement, then hard disks may be here to stay for some period of time. But with the pace of innovation and focus on the flash industry, its anyone’s guess as to how soon even large footprint slow hard disk drives might be replaced by SSD(solid state drives). Consider that in early 2014 the standard Enterprise All flash array SSD was 512GB and by the beginning of 2015 this could be 2TB per SSD and you can see why we could be rid of hard disk drives much faster than most Enterprises anticipate. Therefore we recommend highly that all customers when making their storage refresh plans consider the benefits of an All-flash approach to storage.”

Combining the speed of flash SSDs with the capacity of HDDs has enabled faster access to hot data, while keeping cold data that is not critically needed on high-capacity HDDs. The Flash manufacturers are emphatic that the trend is bound to accelerate.

“We clearly see flash memory as the Tier-1 storage for the enterprise datacenter, as it needs to be offer the highest sustained performance with the lowest possible latency while keeping the lowest cost per I/O. And this is actually starting to be a reality for Violin Memory customers. Traditional hard disk based storage will be still the preferred solution for reference data as it needs to be capacity optimised and needs to offer the lowest possible cost per GB (at the expense of inducing a high cost per I/O),” says Christian.

According to him, the cost benefits of Traditional disk based storage needs to be relooked as traditional disk storage offers the best possible cost per GB but the worst $/Transaction ratio compared to Flash. So price and cost is still a concern when all the variables are not properly set into the equation.

He adds, “Nevertheless, Flash storage is evolving very fast and the fact is that Violin Memory´s technology is even exceeding Moore´s law: flash density and performance is doubling every ~16 months.

Violin Memory´s unique intellectual property is leading the market by continuously developing the next generation of flash technology. This will guarantee continuing the same pace of doubling or even quadrupling the capacity and performance, and when combined with additional data efficiency mechanisms like compression and de-duplication this results in many PBs of Flash with dozens of millions of IOPS per Rack with a lower CAPEX/GB than performance disk. “

According to Dighe, Cost is definitely a big concern and a bottleneck. In order to take advantage of Flash in the most limited budgets, enterprises must look at different architectures and not go by legacy storage providers. They should consider hybrid storage which allows enterprises to take benefit of both Flash as well as HDD’s and can outperform any standard flash enabled enterprise storage in a single appliance.

He says, “Definitely we see customers replacing hard disk and standard enterprise storage with flash technology provided they are able to deliver high performance in a small hardware infrastructure footprint. For example, FusionIO has proved recently that they can achieve 1.1 Billion IOPS using 8 standard tier one servers with one FusionIO drives in each server leading to a quantum leap in terms performance and acceleration, which has never seen before.”

Pure Storage claims that a number of customers that have completely eliminated their legacy hybrid hard disk drive-based arrays in exchange for All Flash Arrays.

“We continue to engage with the thought leaders in many of our Enterprise customers that are seeking advice in terms of planning to eliminate hard disk from their data centres because of the many benefits of All flash storage arrays. Thanks to data reduction techniques such as compression and deduplication implemented by Pure Storage, flash has already become the preferred choice of business critical applications, and that trend is increasing. Nearly 50% of all flash storage for Pure Storage is made up of database applications because of the ability to get data reduction 3-10X. “

So there it is. Flash enabled datacenters are likely to be one of the major shifts on the IT Infrastructural roadmap.

Features

HOW FSI INCUMBENTS CAN STAY RELEVANT THROUGH THE GCC’S PAYMENTS EVOLUTION

Published

1 week ago

June 28, 2024

Integrator Web-Editor

By Luka Celic, Head of Payments Architecture – MENA, Endava

Banks and payment services providers (PSPs) have been the region’s engines of economic growth for as long as anyone can remember. It is therefore jarring to imagine that this dominance is now under threat. After all, venerable banks and credit card companies have elegantly embraced the Internet, mobile banking, and the cloud to deliver self service banking to millions of customers. But consumers, especially digital natives, have never been known for congratulating an industry for a job well done. Instead, with each convenience, their expectations only grow. The siege reality of the pandemic accelerated a shift in consumer behaviour, and Middle East banks and PSPs now face challenges on three fronts.

The first is FinTechs. from Saudi Arabia’s BNPL (buy now, pay later) pioneer Tamara and Qatar’s unbanked oriented platform cwallet, to online financial services, Klarna, tech startups have been able to tap into rapidly changing consumer markets. New companies find it easier to pivot. And like speed boats racing against aircraft carriers, they weaved effortlessly to fulfil a range of desires amid high smartphone connectivity rates and a range of other favourable market conditions. By one estimate from 2022, BNPL alone accounted for US$1.5 billion (or 4%) of the Middle East and Africa’s online retail market.

The second threat is open banking, which comes in many forms, but one example is the instant-payments platforms being introduced by central banks such as those in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. To get a sense of how this could play out, we need only look to Europe, where players who once relied on payments through card schemes are now pivoting towards open banking enabled payments. Closer to home, Al Ansari Exchange recently announced its customers can now transfer money and settle bills via the recipient’s mobile number, enabled by the UAE’s Aani IPP.

And finally, comes big tech. To augment its e-wallet service, Apple has signed up to an open banking service in the UK. The open banking framework which banks enabled through their investments is being exploited by a Big Tech firm that has access to 34% of UK smartphone users. Unsurprisingly, this sparked a fierce antitrust complaint by UK’s banks. Other big names will surely follow as they continue to craft ways of offering the digital experiences that garnered them user loyalty in the first place.

THE BALANCE

Apple Wallet is aimed at blending payment methods, loyalty cards, and other services into a single experience. But such moves have raised regulators’ eyebrows regarding a lack of interoperability and the preservation of competitive markets. Hence, Apple’s open banking foray — a gesture to calm the nerves of a finance market that fears having to compete with a company armed with countless millions of user transactions from which to draw insights. The massive user bases of tech giants will give any FSI CEO goosebumps. How does a traditional bank lure an Apple user? Open banking initiatives open the door to greater competition and innovation, both of which are good for consumers. But the only way to ensure both is by building an ecosystem that balances innovation with regulatory oversight.

FROM INCUMBENT TO INNOVATOR

Yes, smaller businesses have freedom of movement that larger incumbents do not. But that does not mean that there are no paths for banks and PSPs. There are, in fact, several strategies that larger FSI companies can employ to capitalise on the open banking revolution.

The first of these is collaborating to create ecosystems that provide users with frictionless experiences. Established FSIs already have access to a wealth of information about their customers and must now consider how to integrate data sources to create highly streamlined and frictionless workflows. A customer applying for a loan could then see their details auto populated, and credit history already accounted — all without the hassle of lengthy phone calls, application forms, or submission requests. In an age when instant is everything, it’s easy to see why the former approach could foster loyalty, while the latter would only serve to drive customers towards more capable competitors.

Card companies and issuer banks could also work with acquirers to smooth out the rough landscape that has arisen from the advent of digital payments. Acquirers traditionally acted on behalf of the merchants that accepted payment methods to recoup funds from the PSP through the issuing bank. This system has served the industry well, but with more payment methods emerging, acquirers have branched out into mobile wallets, QR codes, and gateway services. Gradually the relevance of established players has dwindled as their lack of representation at the critical checkpoint has diminished their significance. Incumbents must work to turn back the tide by recognising that acceptance and acceptance ownership are becoming increasingly important for maintaining market relevance.

Another strategy is diversification. Veteran FSIs may feel like they’ve lost ground to nimble start-ups and Neo Banks, but history shows value in patience — established FSI players now benefit from the investments of early innovators, and double down on payments innovations which have already shown the most promise. Moreover, if they diversify their portfolios through acquisitions, innovations, and partnerships, they can secure their future. Mastercard presents an excellent example with their US$200m investment into MTM payments. This single move has given the company access to MTM’s 290 million strong subscriber base, allowing these customers to become familiar with Mastercard products before getting entrenched with mobile wallet alternatives.

WHO’S ON TOP?

If we look at the rise of BNPL services, we see an origin story with — at least — major supporting roles for large card providers. But open banking has sidelined them in just a few years. BlackBerry was a stock market darling just five years before it sought a buyer. Traditional FSI players must innovate; they must collaborate with emerging disruptors; they must diversify. They can survive and thrive if they do these things — after all, they already have much of the infrastructure, and experience required for success. Middle East banks and PSPs have the existing user bases, so they have the scale to get out in front in the era of open banking. All they lack is the kind of compelling use cases that will entice the banking public. PSPs and their issuers could offer embedded payments, for example. The right services at the right time will be warmly received by consumers, no matter the scale of the offering institution, so there is every reason to believe that incumbents will come out on top against FinTech and Big Tech.

Features

SEC paves way to approve spot ethereum ETFs

Published

2 weeks ago

June 27, 2024

Integrator Web-Editor

By Simon Peters, Crypto Analyst at eToro

Ethereum spot ETFs took a significant step forward to being available to US investors last week with approval of the 19b-4 applications, allowing US exchanges (namely Cboe BZX, NYSE Arca and Nasdaq) to list and trade ethereum spot ETFs.

On the back of this, ethereum has been one of the best performing cryptoassets this week, gaining 19%.

According to a recent survey by eToro with retail investors in the UAE, over 74% respondents agreed that the prospect of an ethereum ETF will significantly influence their decision to increase, decrease or maintain their current ethereum allocation.
Focus now turns to the S-1 registration statements from the ETF issuers, as these still need to be approved by the SEC before the ethereum spot ETFs can actually launch and investors can buy them.

As to when the S-1s will be approved we have to wait and see. It could be weeks or months unfortunately.

Nevertheless, with the 19b-4s out of the way, it could be an opportunity now for savvy crypto investors to buy ethereum in anticipation of the S-1s being approved, frontrunning the ETFs going live and the billions of dollars potentially flowing into these.

We’ve seen what happened when the bitcoin spot ETFs went live, with the bitcoin price going to a new all-time high in the months after. Could the same happen with ethereum? The all-time high for ethereum is $4870, set back in 2021. We’re currently at $3650, about 35% away.

We’re also going into a macroeconomic climate with potentially looser financial conditions, i.e. interest rate cuts and a slowdown of quantitative tightening, conditions where risk assets such as crypto tend to perform well price-wise.

Features

Harnessing AI and big data to transform Middle East’s retail industry landscape

Published

2 weeks ago

June 25, 2024

Integrator Web-Editor

By Saeed Alajou, Senior Sales Director, Enterprise Business

With the increasing dominance of technological advancements in the current era, the global retail industry is witnessing a massive shift in its operations. As the industry embraces a varied range of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics, it is redefining customer expectations and the conventional concepts of business operations. According to recent studies, The global artificial intelligence (AI) in retail market size is projected to grow from $9.36 billion in 2024 to $85.07 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 31.8% from 2024 to 2032. This transformative wave is compelling companies to harness the potential of these cutting-edge technologies to maintain their competitive edge.

One of the most evident trends in this era is the convergence of eCommerce, AI and data analytics, which is driving the evolution of the retail landscape worldwide. In the current omnichannel retail landscape, consumers expect consistency and continuity across various touchpoints, pushing industry players to integrate conversational AI. This integration ensures a seamless experience; for example, customers can begin a conversation with a chatbot while browsing online and effortlessly continue it via a mobile app when they visit a physical store.

However, the potential of the omnichannel approach and conversational AI platforms is not limited to supporting customers. They also provide retailers with valuable insights into customer behaviour across different channels. Conversational AI platforms can generate a vast amount of data from customer interactions, offering retailers valuable insights into consumer preferences, trends, and pain points. By analysing this data, retailers can uncover patterns, identify emerging trends, and optimise their product offerings and marketing strategies accordingly.

Furthermore, AI-driven analytics enable retailers to gauge customer sentiment, allowing them to address issues and enhance satisfaction proactively. These data-driven insights empower retailers to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve. Reflecting the vast potential of AI, the retail sector in the Middle East is rapidly adopting this technology, becoming a leading industry in AI investment. Reports indicate that AI spending in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) reached USD 3 billion and is expected to grow to USD 6.4 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7 per cent.

The innovation of chatbots and virtual assistants has accelerated the integration of AI technologies in retail, revolutionising customer interactions by adding a human-like touch to digital engagements. These tools enhance the purchasing journey, making it more intuitive and responsive, providing customised and real-time recommendations based on consumer sentiment. However, retailers need to manage expectations of scalability and ensure AI complements rather than replaces human interactions.

Furthermore, integrating big data into retail operations helps understand customer behaviour and preferences. Retailers can leverage vast amounts of data to gain insights into customer needs and tailor their offerings accordingly. By analysing customer-generated data, businesses can conduct predictive analysis to anticipate trends and make informed decisions, keeping them ahead of the curve in offering products and services that resonate with their target audience.

When it comes to the impact of AI integration in the retail sector, one key segment where it is significantly visible is the supply chain. By integrating big data analytics, retailers are achieving more efficiency in their supply chain operations. Predictive analytics powered by AI aids in forecasting demand, optimising inventory levels, reducing waste, and ensuring products are available when and where customers need them. This enhances operational efficiency and customer satisfaction by minimising stockouts and delays.

AI integration supports a customer-centric approach in retail, and it positions technology as a key facilitator in meeting customer demand. Advanced technologies can identify and replicate demographic needs and pinpoint where investment is required to add value. The integration of various AI tools including price-matching technologies, pay-per-click advertising optimisation, and predictive analytics, aids the retailers in focusing on perfecting the customer journey, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable experience from the start to finish.

Although AI is widely embraced across the industry regardless of company size, delivering the best customer service requires empowering employees with the right tools and knowledge. When employees are equipped with AI-driven insights, they can provide more personalised and efficient service, enhancing the overall customer experience. This empowerment also promotes a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the organization.

Additionally, data integration and integrity are crucial for the effectiveness of AI and big data. Retailers must implement systems that can integrate data from various sources, ensuring that all information is accurate, consistent, and up to date. This collaborative approach allows retailers to offer a unified brand experience across all channels while maintaining data boundaries and complying with privacy regulations.

This widespread adoption of AI technologies in the industry underscores the importance of establishing a robust and adaptable regulatory framework. Given the growing concerns about data privacy and ethical use, retailers must ensure responsible and secure handling of customer data. Stagnant regulations can lead to compliance issues and erode customer trust, and this necessitates current and customer-aligned regulations to maintain a trustworthy data environment.

Another challenge in AI integration is utilising AI and big data to experiment with new ideas and strategies. In retail, embracing calculated risks is crucial for innovation and growth, viewing risks as learning opportunities. Being responsive to evolving customer needs allows retailers to navigate uncertainties and capitalise on opportunities for success.

With AI projected to contribute up to USD 320 billion to the Middle East’s economy by 2030, the region is increasing its investment in technology. This emphasises the need for a holistic approach in retail, integrating AI, big data, and a customer-centric mindset to thrive in the market. The industry players can maintain their competitive edge by focusing on efficiency in supply chain operations, understanding consumer behaviour, and empowering employees.