HP LeftHand SAN Solutions Support Document - Application Notes - Virtualization SAN - Performance

The iSCSI SAN configurations included a dedicated group of three storage

nodes comprised of:

• Single management group with a single cluster including all

storage modules

• Storage modules were configured in either RAID 5 with volumes

further protected by SAN/iQ Network RAID Level-2

(2-way Replication).

• iSCSI sessions were load balanced across the clusters using SAN/iQ

iSCSI Load Balancing

The LeftHand Networks SAN is designed to work on your existing Ethernet

infrastructure. Segmenting the storage network from your corporate network

is recommended, and boosts overall performance of the solution. For

performance testing, the SAN network was isolated to a single broadcast

domain (subnet) and had dedicated NICs for the storage traffic. A single 24

port Gigabit switch was used for all tests.

All disk volumes were configured using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator

Version 2.0.4. Volumes were mounted using the Windows Logical Disk

Manager and formatted with NTFS using the default allocation unit size.

Maximum Performance Metrics (Cache Hit Performance)

The maximum performance metrics data is used to show maximum

performance limits of the SAN in an optimal scenario. While these numbers

are often used as a basis of comparison between different storage vendors,

they aren't representative of the workload typically found in production

environments. The type of workload run against the SAN can dramatically

affect performance numbers. The maximum performance metrics should be

used for comparison against other SAN vendors rather than as a guideline for

your specific needs. When sizing for your specific environment, LeftHand

Networks advises using a benchmark that closely resembles your own

data requirements.

Real-World Application Benchmarks

All of the following benchmarks were designed to help characterize the actual

performance users can expect in similar production environments. Each

benchmark measures different storage characteristics. Standard SQL server