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Cloud Manager 3.7
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Enabling Flash Cache on Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Contributors netapp-bcammett
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Some Cloud Volumes ONTAP configurations in AWS and Azure include local NVMe storage, which Cloud Volumes ONTAP uses as Flash Cache for better performance.

What's Flash Cache?

Flash Cache speeds access to data through real-time intelligent caching of recently read user data and NetApp metadata. It is effective for random read-intensive workloads, including databases, email, and file services.

Limitations

  • Compression must be disabled on all volumes to take advantage of the Flash Cache performance improvements.

  • Cache rewarming after a reboot is not supported with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.

Enabling Flash Cache on Cloud Volumes ONTAP in AWS

Flash Cache is supported with Cloud Volumes ONTAP Premium and BYOL in AWS.

Steps

  1. Select one of the following EC2 instance types with a new or existing Cloud Volumes ONTAP Premium or BYOL system:

    • c5d.4xlarge

    • c5d.9xlarge

    • r5d.2xlarge

  2. Disable compression on all volumes to take advantage of the Flash Cache performance improvements.

    Choose no storage efficiency when creating a volume from Cloud Manager, or create a volume and then disable data compression by using the CLI.

Enabling Flash Cache on Cloud Volumes ONTAP in Azure

Flash Cache is supported with Cloud Volumes ONTAP BYOL on single node systems.

Steps

  1. Select the Standard_L8s_v2 VM type with a single node Cloud Volumes ONTAP BYOL system in Azure.

  2. Disable compression on all volumes to take advantage of the Flash Cache performance improvements.

    Choose no storage efficiency when creating a volume from Cloud Manager, or create a volume and then disable data compression by using the CLI.