The document outlines Microsoft's Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) technology, aimed at enhancing server efficiency and productivity by enabling data transfer initiated at the application level, thus reducing network and CPU workload. ODX achieves this through intelligent data management across compatible storage arrays and requires no changes to existing software or scripts, ensuring compatibility with various applications and systems. It details the hardware configuration, functioning of ODX through tokens, and emphasizes the technology's benefits, including high performance and low resource consumption.

1. Windows
Offloaded
Data
Transfer
ODX
Steve
Olsson
Principal
Program
Manager
Lead
Windows
Core
OS,
Storage
and
File
Systems
Microsoft
Corporation

2. ODX Vision
Server
1
Server
2
Local
Area
Network
Storage
Network
Data
Center
1
Data
Center
2
2

3. Storage Technology behind ODX
Server
1
Server
2
Local
Area
SAS
SAS
Network
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
FC
FC
FCoE
FCoE
iSCSI
iSCSI
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
Storage
Network
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
SAS
Data
Center
1
Data
Center
2
3

4. Business Goals
§ Enable greater productivity with existing
capital hardware
§ Providing a more agile datacenter, more
capable of dealing with rapidly changing
workloads
§ Windows has the capability “baked in” so
no changes to the operational scripts or
software is required

5. ODX Goals
§ Technical Goals:
§ Achieve offloaded data transfer initiated from
application level
§ Reduce the network and CPU workload from the server
§ Utilize an advanced storage array’s bandwidth or
intelligent data management to move data between
processes or servers
§ Industry Goals:
§ Ensure all applications can leverage this capability with
VMs, physical machines and network connections
§ Complete application compatibility with no code change
§ Provide a standard framework across industry

6. Approach
§ Look at the problem from an application
centric point of view
§ Microsoft and its partners took a system
level approach to solve the problem
§ Constructed a model for ODX
implementation
§ Work with T10 Standard Committee to
adopt SCSI interface part of the solution
§ T10 SPC4 (SCSI Primary Command)
§ T10 SBC3 (SCSI Block Command)
6

7. ODX Hardware Concept
VM1-­‐2
VM1-­‐N
VM2-­‐1
VM1-­‐1
VM2-­‐2
VM2-­‐N
Hyper-­‐V
Host
Server
1
Hyper-­‐V
Host
Server
2
Local
Area
Network
Storage
Network
Storage
Array
Storage
Array
• 2xN
Virtual
Machines
hosted
by
two
Hyper-­‐V
servers
• One
ODX
capable
storage
array
• Connected
through
local
area
network
and
storage
network

8. How
does
Windows
Offloaded
Data
Transfer
work?
Copy
Offload
Application
Token
Server2
Server1
or
or
Hyper-­‐V
Hyper-­‐V
Client-­‐Server
VM1
Network
VM2
Offload
Return
Offload
Return
Read
Token
Write
Result
Data
Movement
Physical
Disk,
VHD
or
SMB
Shared
Disk
Physical
Disk,
VHD
or
SMB
Shared
Disk
Storage
Network
Storage
Array
Storage
Array

9. The Token
§ Token is a point-in-time representation of
the data up and down the storage stack
§ The token facilitates logical block
mapping
§ Application is not aware of the physical
layout within the storage array
§ Token is opaque, secured and not
guessable

10. Example
Scenario
Deploy
a
VM
with
30
GB
VHD
Image
Files
Hyper-­‐V
Host
Server
Offloaded
Copy
takes
~
2
min
~
0%
Network
Utilization
VM
~
0%
CPU
Usage
Hyper-­‐V
Host
Server
Traditional
Copy
needs
40+
min
30
~
99%
Network
Utilization
1
~
5%
CPU
Usage
VM
Note:
Corporate
Network
Speed
is
1
Gb/sec
10

11. Benefits
and
Implementation
§ High
performance
data
transfer
rate
§ Low
server
CPU
usage
and
network
bandwidth
consumption
§ Intelligent
data
movement
options
§ Virtual
machine
deployment
§ Massive
data
transfer
between
physical
and
virtual
systems
§ Host
controlled
data
movement
inside
tiered
storage
devices

12. Thanks to our Partners