Moving to NAND flash can increase workload performance by an average of 7.2X, with some workloads going beyond 10X, according to a survey of 777 Fusion-io customers, writes Consultant and Wikibon Analyst Ralph Finos in  “How Much Business Performance Can Flash Technology Deliver”. This huge performance jump can help organizations achieve Rapid Response-time Company (RARC) status and in at least some cases save money. While the base data came from a Fusion-io survey of its customers, Finos writes that the results should be generalizable to cover most vendors of similar flash products.

Wikibon used data from 384 survey responses with sufficient workload or usage data and a performance improvement rating in the final analysis. The performance improvements varied fairly widely according to the complexity and scale of the workload, but all workloads showed significant speed enhancements. Analytics, queries and reports showed the most dramatic improvements at about 9X, with some reporting more than 10X. Database performance improvements averaged 7.5X. More complex workloads including VDI, applications, and OLTP showed less but still major performance improvements of about 6X.

The most common reason users gave for moving to flash was to address business challenges, with the most common of those being the need to capture and access actionable data more quickly and provide consistent response times for users. Other reasons included providing more reliable products and services, increasing employe productivity and meeting SLAs. However, some users, especially those in government and education, listed cost-avoidance related reasons including consolidating infrastructure, upgrading and leveraging a SAN. This is a measure of how far flash has come in a few years from the days when it was a very high priced solution only for exotic needs such as currency trading.

Finos concludes that users struggling with nearly any kind of performance challenge, as well as ITOs trying to achieve RARC status, should consider moving from disk to flash.

As with all Wikibon research, Ralph’s entire report is available without charge on the Wikibon Web site. IT professionals are invited to register for membership in the Wikibon community. This allows them to comment on research, publish their own tips, questions, Professional Alerts and white papers, and participate in Wikibon events and research initiatives.