Best Practices for Mixed Speed Devices within a 10 Gb EqualLogic Storage Area Network Using PowerConnect 8100 Series Switches A Dell EqualLogic Best Practices Technical White Paper Storage Infrastructure and Solutions Engineering Dell Product Group February 2013 This document has been archived and will no longer be maintained or updated. For more information go to the Storage Solutions Technical Documents page on Dell TechCenter or contact support.
© 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell. Dell, the DELL logo, PowerConnect™, EqualLogic™, PowerEdge™, and PowerVault™ are trademarks of Dell Inc. in the U.S. and worldwide. All trademarks and registered trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
Table of contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Feedback ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 Executive Summary ......................................................................................
Acknowledgements This whitepaper was produced by the PG Storage Infrastructure and Solutions of Dell Inc. The team that created this whitepaper: Ron Bellomio, Guy Westbrook, and Camille Daily Feedback We encourage readers of this publication to provide feedback on the quality and usefulness of this information by sending an email to SISfeedback@Dell.com. SISfeedback@Dell.
1 Introduction ™ ™ With the growth of 10 Gb Ethernet, many Dell EqualLogic customers are transitioning from pure 1 GbE to pure 10 GbE environments. To complete this transition, new switches, storage arrays, and host Network Interface Cards (NICs) are required. In some deployments it is not feasible to convert all components from 1 Gb to 10 Gb at the same time.
2 Product overview The 10 GbE switch used in the tests for this paper is the PowerConnect 8164 The 8100 Series switches are stackable Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches that extend the PowerConnect LAN switching product range. These switches include the following features: • 1U form factor, rack-mountable chassis design.
3 Test methodology The test cases used in this paper were designed to test the ability and performance of the transition from a purely 1 GbE environment to a purely 10 GbE environment. The same workloads were run in all four test configurations to ensure that the data could be compared directly without introducing additional variables beyond the transition from a 1 Gb infrastructure to a 10 Gb infrastructure.
4 Test setup and configuration This section describes the setup and configuration for each test configuration. There were four configurations which tested the transition from a pure 1 Gb environment to a pure 10 Gb environment. Note: In all tests and configurations, DCB was disabled because it is not within the scope of this paper. First test configuration: 1 Gb environment (baseline) Test configuration one was a pure 1 Gb environment. Hosts, arrays, and switches were all 1 Gb.
4.1 1 Gb environment (baseline) This section describes the configuration used for the pure 1 GbE environment illustrated in Figure 1.
4.2 1 Gb components with a 10 Gb switch infrastructure This section describes the configuration for the second test configuration consisting of 1 GbE hosts, 1 GbE arrays, and utilizing a 10 GbE switch as shown in Figure 2.
4.3 1 Gb and 10 Gb components with a 10 Gb switch infrastructure This section describes the configuration used for Test configuration 3 which includes 1 GbE and 10 GbE hosts and arrays utilizing a 10 GbE switch as illustrated in Figure 3.
4.4 10 Gb environment (baseline) This section will describes the configuration used for Test configuration 4 which uses a pure 10 GbE environment as illustrated in Figure 4.
5 Results and analysis Note: The results provided in this paper are intended for the purpose of comparing the specific configurations used in our lab environment. The results do not portray the maximum capabilities of any system, software, or storage. The graph in Figure 5 shows a performance comparison of a pure 1 Gb environment (test configuration 1 baseline) and a 1 Gb environment utilizing the PowerConnect 8164 10 Gb switch auto-negotiated down to 1 Gb speeds (test configuration 2).
The graph in Figure 6 shows the performance comparison of a pure 1 Gb environment (test configuration 1 - baseline) and a 1 Gb performance in a mixed speed environment with both 1 Gb and 10Gb devices connected to the same switch (test configuration 3). All the workloads previously defined are shown. Figure 6 illustrates running in a mixed speed environment with both 1 Gb and 10Gb devices connected to the same switch has very little effect on the 1 Gb performance of the SAN.
The Figure 7 graph illustrates the performance comparison of a pure 10 Gb environment (test configuration 4 - baseline) and a 10 Gb in a mixed speed environment with both 1 Gb devices and 10 Gb devices connected to the same switch (test configuration 3). All the workloads previously defined are shown. This graph shows that running in a mixed speed environment with both 1 Gb and 10 Gb devices connected to the same switch has a very minor effect (< 3%) on the 10 Gb performance of the SAN.
6 Best practice recommendations While transitioning from a pure 1 Gb infrastructure to a pure 10 Gb infrastructure, it may be necessary to have both 1 Gb and 10 Gb arrays in the same SAN infrastructure. For example, there are few applications that need the performance increase that comes with the addition of 10 Gb arrays. When running a mixed speed environment utilizing a common switch, the 1 Gb arrays and the 10 Gb arrays must be kept in separate pools.
No downtime strategy The no downtime strategy is used when data unavailability of any length is not an option. The array to be converted is first removed from the group (using the delete member operation), converted while out of the group, and then rejoined to the group. Since delete member moves all data off the array before removing it from the group, and maintains all volumes online and accessible while doing so, there is no downtime.
A Solution infrastructure details Switch Configuration Guides are also published to provide step-by-step instructions for configuring Ethernet switches for use with EqualLogic PS Series storage using Dell best practices. These SCGs are located on Dell Tech Center at http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/4250.switchconfiguration-guides-by-sis.aspx. Swiches Switch Model PowerConnect 7048R 7048R Firmware Firmware version: 4.2.1.
iSCSI initiator version 6.1.7601.17514 RX buffers 3000 TX Buffers 5000 Network Adapter (10G) Model Intel(R) Ethernet 10G 2P X540-t Driver Version 2.11.114.0 Use Data Center Bridging Disabled Profile Storage Server Jumbo Packet 9014 Bytes Flow Control RX/TX enabled iSCSI initiator version 6.1.7601.17514 RX buffers 4096 TX Buffers 16384 MPIO Config HITKit version 4.0.0.
Array (1G) 20 Raid Type RAID 10 Control module Model70-0400(TYPE 11) Boot ROM 3.6.
Array (10G) 21 Model PS6110XV Firmware 6.0.1 (R264419) Enable performance load balancing in pools disabled Raid Type RAID 10 Control module model70-0477 (TYPE 14) Boot ROM 3.9.
B VDbench parameters sd=A-a,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive1 sd=A-b,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive2 sd=A-c,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive3 sd=A-d,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive4 sd=A-e,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive5 sd=A-f,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive6 sd=A-g,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive7 sd=A-h,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive8 sd=A-i,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive9 sd=A-j,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive10 sd=A-k,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive11 sd=A-l,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive12 sd=A-m,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive13 sd=A-n,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive14 sd=A-o,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive15 sd=A-p,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive16 sd
sd=B-h,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive8,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-i,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive9,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-j,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive10,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-k,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive11,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-l,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive12,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-m,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive13,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-n,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive14,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-o,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive15,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m sd=B-p,lun=\\.\PhysicalDrive16,range=(0m,10m),hitarea=1m
wd=wd1,sd=A-*,seekpct=100,rdpct=67,xfersize=8k,iorate=9999999,priority=1 wd=wd2,sd=B-*,seekpct=0,rdpct=100,rhpct=100,whpct=100,xfersize=256k,iorate=9999999,priority=1 wd=wr1,sd=B-*,seekpct=0,rdpct=0,xfersize=256k,rhpct=100,whpct=100,iorate=9999999,priority=1 * Rand 8K I/O on 50% volumes wd=wm1,sd=C-*,seekpct=100,rdpct=67,xfersize=8k * Seq Read 256K on 25% volumes wd=wm2,sd=D-*,seekpct=0,rdpct=100,rhpct=100,whpct=100,xfersize=256k * Seq Write 256K on 25% volumes wd=wm3,sd=E-*,seekpct=0,rdpct=0,xfersize=25
Additional resources Support.dell.com is focused on meeting your needs with proven services and support. DellTechCenter.com is an IT Community where you can connect with Dell Customers and Dell employees for the purpose of sharing knowledge, best practices, and information about Dell products and your installations. Referenced or recommended Dell publications: • Dell EqualLogic Configuration Guide: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/2639.equallogic-configurationguide.
This white paper is for informational purposes only. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any kind.
