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dcragg
Contributor
Contributor

Performance with EVA4000 SAN

Hi,

Working with our EVA4000 SAN (with 16 x145GB disks + 8x 500GB) which has DL585s x4 and DL385s x4 running ESX 3.5 we are seeing currently 64mbps for reads and 55mbps for writes on the virtual we are using for our database server. Is this typical for other people out there?

Run began: Tue Aug 12 15:30:19 2008

Auto Mode

Using Minimum Record Size 64 KB

Using Maximum Record Size 512 KB

Using minimum file size of 1048576 kilobytes.

Using maximum file size of 5242880 kilobytes.

Command line used: /opt/iozone/bin/iozone -a -i 0 -i 1 -y 64 -q 512 -n 1G -g 5G

Output is in Kbytes/sec

Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.

Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.

Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.

File stride size set to 17 * record size.

KB reclen write rewrite read reread

1048576 64 119840 106420 44654 54505

1048576 128 105871 98496 44604 52392

1048576 256 109246 98330 46923 49939

1048576 512 108612 97433 45398 49688

2097152 64 79077 72022 46774 48420

2097152 128 77208 72996 49515 51446

2097152 256 79036 72971 46667 50004

2097152 512 80351 67250 47873 50124

4194304 64 68539 53477 43285 44356

4194304 128 67747 54020 47642 41784

4194304 256 67272 50594 34582 45051

4194304 512 67742 54265 43592 45637

Thanks,

dcragg.

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13 Replies
Trystam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

No it's not normal in fact it's far from normal.

Have your storage folks check if you have a damaged fiber or errors on the fc switch, at least for starters.

Do you have other machines connected to that same EVA4K ?

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP
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dcragg
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the reply.

We have 20 virtuals running across 4x585 G2's and 3x385 G2's all talking to the EVA4000. The rest are web and app servers mainly with a Reddot CMS thrown in (which has its DB virtual). I have attached the detailed stats from another test we ran.

Regards,

dcragg.

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Trystam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The values on the excel file dont really add up to the values you mention.

Suggest:

1) Find a non ESX machine with storage connection and run an I/Ometer or alike tool to get the throughtput of your storage to see if you get equal results.

2) Check the cabling, a "damaged" fiber is enough to get your I/O down the drain.

3) Check the FC Switch Ports for Sync Errors.

What version of ESX are you using and what policy are you using on the ESX boxes running disks on the E4K ... and by the way is the firmware on it supported ?

PS: Might continue to follow up on this in the morning in case i get to sleep in the chair Smiley Happy

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP
dcragg
Contributor
Contributor

My apologies. The spreadsheet is accurate. In my rush ...I had accidently typed kbps instead of mbps in the orginal question. I have edited it to read correctly and reflect the spreadsheet. I will run additional tests and request our hosting provider provides the additional information about ESX.

Thanks,

dcragg

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dcragg
Contributor
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Hi,

We ran the tests on another server and I have attached the results. I am being told that they are actually running ESX 3.0.1 so apologies for sticking this in the wrong topic area. Still chasing policies.

D.

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Trystam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

dcragg,

Your graphical data show up to 70000 KBps wich roughtly measured unless i made a mistake is 70MBps, so there has to be some sort of glitch on your system.

Are you running Linux OS's as Guest's ?

If so please try the following, copy any file onto one of the virtual disks then just make a dd if=/<path>/<file> of=/dev/null to give up a rough idea of the actual reading speed and then a dd if=/<path>/<file> of=/<path>/<file2>.

Did you check my other recomendations ?

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP
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oschistad
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm not familiar with iozone (I tend to use iometer), but if these numbers are for sequential IO, then yes 70MB/s is a very low number when measured from within a VM. Typically such a benchmark should be at or near the medium speed (~200MB/s for 2Gb fibre), at least on present-day CPUs. For random IO however, your bottleneck is usually the number of IO/s your disks are able to service, and the measured throughput in MB/s may even fall into single digits.

If the EVA also hosts data for non-vmware servers, there could potentially be a high load on the storage system itself and this might bottleneck your test.

dcragg
Contributor
Contributor

Yes. The guests are RHEL 4. I am still waiting on the Hosting provider to run the other checks you have suggested. I'll ask them to also run the dd tests.

Thanks.

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jhanekom
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

...also, it'd be great if you could specify whether the test results you're quoting in this thread are for the FC SCSI disk group or the FATA disk group?

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Trystam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Well, anyways if you think Physical you can also achieve some degree of improvement.

For instance if you create two vSCSI Controllers, and have you disks spread over the two and as you create the pv's and form the vg you give it a right order and use stripping you can get better results.

But strange enough the values that you described according to EMC arent really all that bad .... all in all i just find it a tad weird.

Get your results and i'll run those same tests at a EVA3K, EVA8K and at the CX3-80 i have at work to see if we can draw a line.

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP
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dcragg
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Hi,

Thanks for the help! I have passed through all of the really helpful suggestions to the Hosting provider. It may take some time for the provider to come back to me with info. They have suggested using RDM instead of VMFS however I understand from reading doc RDM is not suitable for databases. What specific policies would you like to see (eg Resource)?

Regards

D.

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Trystam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

dcragg,

Depending on what configuration you have .. cluster or non cluster you might find yourself compeled to choose one over the other.

Bear in mind that you can use both with Databases and i really see no reason to use RDM over Virtual Disks in most scenários unless of course the Database Guys are RDM weirdo's ;).

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP

Francisco Cardoso, Logica PT - VCP
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dcragg
Contributor
Contributor

Hi everyone,

I have got a collection of screen shots of the resoruce pools.

Regards,

David.

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