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Ask the Expert: All about VMAX performance best practices
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Ask The Expert: Connectrix FOS 7.3 – Fabric Vision Proactive Capabilities |
Welcome to this EMC Support Community Ask the Expert conversation.This ATE session focuses on VMAX best practices. Within the VMAX product there are many options to consider when allocating hosts to an array. Depending on workload profile, host setup etc. it is critical to get the right setup in order to optimize performance. It is also key to use tools like Unisphere to monitor that workload to ensure best performance. The key thing is to specifically ensure that the FA (front end) and Lun configuration are optimum.
Your host:
Kevin Gleeson is a Technical Account Manager at EMC.
He has been with EMC for the last 18 years. Kevin has spent 15 years supporting EMC Symmetrix product range at many levels. For the last 5 years he has worked in the Symmetrix Level 2 group specializing in performance. In 2012 he moved to the role Technical Account Manager supporting an EMC Elite Customer. Kevin was also recently named as a member of EMC’s Technical Leadership Academy.
This discussion begins on March 24 and concludes on April 11. Get ready by following this page to receive updates in your activity stream or through email.
RRR
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March 7th, 2014 10:00
Wow, this is a good one! Performance ATEs are fantastic! Will this one be extended to / finished at EMC World?
Mabro1
666 Posts
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March 24th, 2014 05:00
This event is now open for questions. We look forward to a lively and interactive discussion.
Ranjay
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March 24th, 2014 05:00
Hi,
for better space managment, what is the best way to get a space utilization report everyday for a VMAX storage?
Thanks.
cincystorage
467 Posts
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March 24th, 2014 12:00
Can you speck in generalities how specific settings / practices to achieving the most performance form a VMAX? obviously things like spreading your workload, etc, but any more details such as changing the PRC on the SSD pool if you'll never bind a lun to that pool?
cincystorage
467 Posts
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March 24th, 2014 12:00
Recently my organization has been on a dashboard kick. We're building a VMAX performance dashboard in vCops using the SMI-S provider hooks. Some of the statistics we ned to show are FA health including CPU and MB/s. The challenge i'm running into is knowing the max MB/s an FA/FA (They would like to see IO/s as well, but that isn't feasible). Not limited to FA MB/s, but other status as well.
Does such a document list which give guidelines as to what are acceptable numbers? I realize each environment is different, but information on how to get to those number for specific environments would be nice.
RRR
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March 24th, 2014 14:00
Is there a rule of thumb about the amount of hosts that should be attached to a single FA port? And how many ports would you advise to be used for a single host?
cincystorage
467 Posts
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March 26th, 2014 10:00
I remember when I first installed a Symmetrix 10 or 12 years ago we talked a lot about this - Fan/in Fan/Out ration. You don't hear as much about this anymore.
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 29th, 2014 04:00
The answer has to be it depends.
1. on expected workload for each host.
2. on expected growth.
3. it has to be noted that while there is 2 ports on an FA there is Single CPU to Manage workload between both.
From a best practice perspective you really need to start by using 4 port across 4 different FA CPU's .
If the workload is expected to be IO intensive, heavy thruput or most importantly respsonse tme critical it well worth considering 6 or 8 ports again spread on 6 or 8 different CPU's .
This will help avoid future issues relating to excessive utilization of CPU and or excessive queuing on the FA itself
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 29th, 2014 04:00
Fan in and Fan Out ratio is a good principal.
My recommendation would be to look at Utilization rates and queuing rates on the FA's using unisphere performance monitoring tools. Where possible add to the less utilized FA's and you should end up with a very balanced front end on the VMAX thus getting optimum IOPS and response times.
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 29th, 2014 04:00
My question is what tools are you currently using
the latest version of Unisphere can offer some comprehensive data and reports that can show the utilization rates.
it can even give a basic heat Map which give very quick snap shot.
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 29th, 2014 04:00
PRC on SSD pool should be 1%
10% is the recommendation on FC pool and this is where all data should be bound initlially
1% on SATA should be sufficent on the basis there is no app bound to it.
please send any other specific parameters and i will try to give you a best practice .
cincystorage
467 Posts
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March 30th, 2014 21:00
What are acceptable ranges for utilization rates and queueing rates on FAs? If I need to color code things (think vCops heat man) green to red.
merrist
482 Posts
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March 30th, 2014 22:00
Hi,
I want to ask : VMAX performance best practices about VDI
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 31st, 2014 02:00
Below 65% on FA CPU is optimum. This should manage queuing.
In relation to queuing it is best to avoid medium to high double digit counts on the higher queue ranges.
kgleeson
62 Posts
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March 31st, 2014 02:00
For VDI it is key to ensure that there is plenty front end processing available so spread onto as many CPU's as you can.
Ensure that Round Robin Settings on the host are set optimally to allow for best possible load balancing. setting round robin to 1 is a good idea.
Do you have specific questions around Disk tiers etc.?
Is the array a FAST VP array with SSDs ?