Need
The key goals of enterprise IT data centers and cloud computing environments typically includes accelerating enterprise application performance, increasing the number of users supported by the storage system, and reducing the response time of the storage system. Performance testing using STEC ZeusRAM™ and ZeusIOPS® SSDs yielded the following performance and cost benefits:
Cost of Solution
- The cost-per-transaction is reduced by a factor of 4 in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
- The cost per user is reduced by a factor of 8 in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
Result
- Up to 5x improvement in transactions per second in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
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- Up to 2x improvement in application resonse time in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
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- Up to 15x the number of users with improved response time in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
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- Up to 5x performance improvement in workstation (Virtual Desktop Infrastructre - VDI) work loads using IOmeter, an industry standard tool
- Up to 8x performance improvement in Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database workloads using IOmeter, and industry standard tool
Highlights
The key goals of enterprise IT data centers and cloud computing environments typically includes accelerating enterprise application performance, increasing the number of users supported by the storage system, and reducing the response time of the storage system. Performance testing using STEC ZeusRAM™ and ZeusIOPS® SSDs yielded the following performance and cost benefits:
Up to 5x improvement in transactions per second in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
Up to 2x improvement in application resonse time in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
Up to 15x the number of users with improved response time in a Microsoft Exchange application environment
Up to 5x performance improvement in workstation (Virtual Desktop Infrastructre - VDI) work loads using IOmeter, an industry standard tool
Up to 8x performance improvement in Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database workloads using IOmeter, and industry standard tool
ZeusRAM™ SSD as Write Log
The overall performance of a storage system, either as network attached storage or as a unified storage appliance, depends on how quickly data is committed and accessed (referred to as I/O latency). The information about data that is written to a storage system is recorded for consistency checking (known as metadata) and is stored in a write log. The size of metadata is typically
very small even for a very large storage system (that) supports multiple petabytes (PBs) of data), and is usually no larger than multiple GBs. However, the integrity of metadata is paramount for the overall reliability of the storage system. Therefore, the write log used to store metadata has to be in a highly available, persistent device.
To ensure high availability, the write log should be accessible from multiple access points in a shared storage configuration and be able to maintain consistent data across multiple power outages. Hot, active data that requires fast access, as well as metadata, needs to be written to a low-latency, persistent storage device in order to acheive higher overall storage performcance.
The write log is primarily a logging device and requires low-latency write access and a wear-resistant design so it can be written 24x7x365 without it wearing out. An ideal write log device requires low-latency access of DRAM and persistence of flash. To capitalize on the advantages of both DRAM and flash, STEC's ZeusRAM™ SSD is constructed to perfectly fit the performance, reliability and availability profile of the write log device. ZeusRAM™ is a dual port SAS 6 Gigabytes per second (Gbps) SSD that provides wear-resistant, low- latency read and write accesses of DRAM while providing the persistence of flash with power backup capabilities in a standard drive form factor. The 8GB capacity of ZeusRAM™ SSDs are specifically designed to match the capacity requirements of the write
log device for ZFS, and includes a dual port 6 Gbps SAS interface that has the ability to be shared across multiple systems for high availability.
ZeusIOPS® SSD as Read Cache
Unlike the write log, which is a small capacity (independent of overall storage system capacity) low latency write access device, the read cache is a high random read IOPS and throughput device whose capacity varies based on the capacity of the overall storage system. The larger the read cache, the higher the performance is of the storage system. It is extremely important that the read cache device has consistent performance throughout the life of the storage system and has enterprise-class reliability and availability to ensure
support for a high number of users at a low cost per user. STEC’s ZeusIOPS® SSD is an industry-proven, enterprise-class 6 Gbps SAS SSD that provides consistent read and write performance, and enterprise reliability that eliminates field failures, which in turn, reduces the total cost of deployment and support of the storage system.
Using ZeusRAM™ SSD as write log (Zil) and ZeusIOPS® SSD as read cache (L2ARC) can improve overall storage system performance up to 5x while supporting 15x number of users when compared to an HDD-only deployment, thereby reducing the cost per user and cost per transaction of the overall storage system.
To highlight the performance benefits when using STEC ZeusRAM™ and ZeusIOPS® SSDs with NexentaStor-based storage system, two types of tests were conducted.
Data center managers and IT administrators are challenged by the growing performance demands on storage due to high IOPS applications and growing user bases. At the same time, tight budgets coupled with space, power and cooling constraints require modern day data centers to implement products that improve storage I/O capabilities in the most cost-effective manner. As hightlighted by the tests outlined in the paper, using STEC’s ZeusRAM™ SSD as the write log and ZeusIOPS® SSD as the read cache with NexentaStor and ZFS alleviates storage system performance bottlenecks by providing up to 5x better performance for such enterprise applications as database indexing and email exchanges. It also supported 15x more users and reduced the cost per user by a factor of 8 and the cost per transaction by factor of 4. Therefore, instead of adding 5 storage systems to support the increasing demands on the same storage system, data center managers and IT administrators can add STEC ZeusRAM™ and ZeusIOPS® SSDs to increase the performance of existing storage systems while reducing the total deployment cost by up to 50%.
