convergence Archives

February 2, 2015November 3, 2024

VMware announces vSphere V6 and associated virtualization technologies

server storage I/O trends

VMware has announced version 6 (V6) of its software defined data center (SDDC) server virtualization hypervisor called vSphere aka ESXi. In addition to a new version of its software defined server hypervisor along with companion software defined management and convergence tools.

VMware

VMware vSphere Refresh

As a refresh for those whose world does not revolve around VMware, vSphere and software defined data centers (believe it or not there are some who exist ;), ESXi is the hypervisor that virtualizes underlying physical machines (PM’s) known as hosts.

The path to software defined data center convergence

Guest operating systems (or other hypervisors using nesting) run as virtual machines (VM’s) on top of the vSphere hypervisor host (e.g. ESXi software). Various VMware management tools (or third-party) are used for managing the virtualized data center from initial configuration, configuration, conversion from physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to virtual (V2V) along with data protection, performance, capacity planning across servers, storage and networks.

virtual machines

VMware vSphere is flexible and can adapt to different sized environments from small office home office (SOHO) or small SMB, to large SMB, SME, enterprise or cloud service provider. There are a free version of ESXi along with paid versions that include support and added management tool features. Besides the ESXi vSphere hypervisor, other commonly deployed modules include the vCenter administration along with Infrastructure Controller services platform among others. In addition, there are optional solution bundles to add support for virtual networking, cloud (public and private), data protection (backup/restore, replication, HA, BC, DR), big data among other capabilities.

What is new with vSphere V6

VMware has streamlined the installation, configuration and deployment of vSphere along with associated tools which for smaller environments makes things simply easier. For the larger environments, having to do less means being able to do more in the same amount of time which results in cost savings. In addition to easier to use, deploy and configure, VMware has extended the scaling capabilities of vSphere in terms of scaling-out (larger clusters), scaling-up (more and larger servers), as well as scaling-down (smaller environments and ease of use).

cloud virtual software defined servers

Compute: Expanded support for new hardware, guest operating systems and general scalability in terms of physical, and virtual resources. For example increasing the number of virtual CPU (vCPUs), number of cluster nodes among other speeds and feeds enhancements.

Storage: This is an area where several enhancements were made including updates for Storage I/O controls (Storage QoS and performance optimizations) with per VM reservations, NFS v4.1 with Kerberos client, Virtual SAN (VSAN) improvements (new back-end underlying file system) as well as new Virtual Volumes (vVOLs) for Storage Policy Based Management.
Availability: Improvements for vMotion (ability to live move virtual machines between physical servers (vmware hosts) including long distance fault-tolerance. Other improvements include faster replication, vMotion across vCenter servers, and long distance vMotion (up to 100ms round trip time latency).
Network: Network I/O Control (NIOC) provides per VM and dat (VM and data repository) bandwidth reservations for quality of service (QoS) performance optimization.
Management: Improvements for multi-site, virtual data centers, content-library (storage and versioning of files and objects including ISOs and OVFs (Open Virtualization Format files) that can be on a VMFS (VMware File System) dat or NFS volume, policy-based management and web-client performance enhancements.

What is vVOL?

The quick synopsis of VMware vVOL’s overview:

Higher level of abstraction of storage vs. traditional SCSI LUN’s or NAS NFS mount points
Tighter level of integration and awareness between VMware hypervisors and storage systems
Simplified management for storage and virtualization administrators
Removing complexity to support increased scaling
Enable automation and service managed storage aka software defined storage management

How data storage access and managed via VMware today (read more here)

vVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise vVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.

vVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.

Keep in mind that what makes up a VMware virtual machine are the VMK, VMDK and some other files (shown in the figure below), and if enough information is known about where those blocks of data are or can be found, they can be worked upon. Also keep in mind that at least near-term, block is the lowest common denominator that all file systems and object repositories get built-up.

How VMware data storage accessed and managed with vVOLs (read more here)

Here is the thing, while vVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.

What is happening inside the storage system that will be presented back to ESXi will be different than a normal SCSI LUN contents and only understood by VMware hypervisor. ESXi will still tell the storage system what it wants to do including moving blocks of data. The storage system however will have more insight and awareness into the context of what those blocks of data mean. This is how the storage systems will be able to more closely integrate snapshots, replication, cloning and other functions by having awareness into which data to move, as opposed to moving or working with an entire LUN where a VMDK may live.

Keep in mind that the storage system will still function as it normally would, just think of vVOL as another or new personality and access mechanism used for VMware to communicate and manage storage. Watch for vVOL storage provider support from the who’s who of existing and startup storage system providers including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and many others. Read more about Storage I/O fundamentals here and vVOLs here and here.

What this announcement means

Depending on your experiences, you might use revolutionary to describe some of the VMware vSphere V6 features and functionalities. Otoh, if you have some Dejavu moments looking pragmatically at what VMware is delivering with V6 of vSphere executing on their vision, evolutionary might be more applicable. I will leave it up to you do decide if you are having a Dejavu moment and what that might pertain to, or if this is all new and revolutionary, or something more along the lines of technolutionary.

VMware continues to execute delivering on the Virtual Data Center aka Software Defined Data Center paradigm by increasing functionality, as well as enhancing existing capabilities with performance along with resiliency improvements. These abilities enable the aggregation of compute, storage, networking, management and policies for enabling a global virtual data center while supporting existing along with new emerging applications.

Where to learn more

If you were not part of the beta to gain early hands-on experience with VMware vSphere V6 and associated technologies, download a copy to check it out as part of making your upgrade or migration plans.

Check out the various VMware resources including communities links here
VMware vSphere Hypervisor getting started and general vSphere information (including download)
VMware vSphere data sheet, compatibility guide along with speeds and feeds (size and other limits)

VMware Blogs and VMware vExpert page

Various fellow VMware vExpert blogs including among many others vsphere-land, scott lowe, virtuallyghetto and yellow-bricks among many others found at the vpad here.

StorageIO Out and About Update – VMworld 2014 (with Video)
VMware vVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Storage I/O overview and vVOL, details Part I and Part II)
How many IOPs can a HDD or SSD do in a VMware environment (Part I and Part II)
VMware VSAN overview and primer, DIY converged software defined storage on a budget

Wrap up and summary

Overall VMware vSphere V6 has a great set of features that support both ease of management for small environments as well as the scaling needs of larger organizations.

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

February 1, 2015March 7, 2022

Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties

Server Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties or dummies ;)

server storage I/O trends

This is the first of a series of posts and links to resources on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking (view more and follow-up posts here).

The best I/O is the I/O that you do not have to do, the second best is the one with the least impact as well as low overhead.

Drew Robb (@robbdrew) has a Data Storage Benchmarking Guide article over at Enterprise Storage Forum that provides a good framework and summary quick guide to server storage I/O benchmarking.

Via Drew:

Data storage benchmarking can be quite esoteric in that vast complexity awaits anyone attempting to get to the heart of a particular benchmark.

Case in point: The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed the Emerald benchmark to measure power consumption. This invaluable benchmark has a vast amount of supporting literature. That so much could be written about one benchmark test tells you just how technical a subject this is. And in SNIA’s defense, it is creating a Quick Reference Guide for Emerald (coming soon).

But rather than getting into the nitty-gritty nuances of the tests, the purpose of this article is to provide a high-level overview of a few basic storage benchmarks, what value they might have and where you can find out more.

Read more here including some of my comments, tips and recommendations.

Drew’s provides a good summary and overview in his article which is a great opener for this first post in a series on server storage I/O benchmarking and related resources.

You can think of this series (along with Drew’s article) as server storage I/O benchmarking fundamentals (e.g. 101) for smarties (e.g. non-dummies ;) ).

Note that even if you are not a server, storage or I/O expert, you can still be considered a smarty vs. a dummy if you found the need or interest to read as well as learn more about benchmarking, metrics that matter, tools, technology and related topics.

Server and Storage I/O benchmarking 101

There are different reasons for benchmarking, such as, you might be asked or want to know how many IOPs per disk, Solid State Device (SSD), device or storage system such as for a 15K RPM (revolutions per minute) 146GB SAS Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Sure you can go to a manufactures website and look at the speeds and feeds (technical performance numbers) however are those metrics applicable to your environments applications or workload?

You might get higher IOPs with smaller IO size on sequential reads vs. random writes which will also depend on what the HDD is attached to. For example are you going to attach the HDD to a storage system or appliance with RAID and caching? Are you going to attach the HDD to a PCIe RAID card or will it be part of a server or storage system. Or are you simply going to put the HDD into a server or workstation and use as a drive without any RAID or performance acceleration.

What this all means is understanding what it is that you want to benchmark test to learn what the system, solution, service or specific device can do under different workload conditions.

Some benchmark and related topics include

What are you trying to benchmark
Why do you need to benchmark something
What are some server storage I/O benchmark tools
What is the best benchmark tool
What to benchmark, how to use tools
What are the metrics that matter
What is benchmark context why does it matter
What are marketing hero benchmark results
What to do with your benchmark results

server storage I/O benchmark step test
Example of a step test results with various workers and workload

What do the various metrics mean (can we get a side of context with them metrics?)
Why look at server CPU if doing storage and I/O networking tests
Where and how to profile your application workloads
What about physical vs. virtual vs. cloud and software defined benchmarking
How to benchmark block DAS or SAN, file NAS, object, cloud, databases and other things
Avoiding common benchmark mistakes
Tips, recommendations, things to watch out for
What to do next

server storage I/O trends

Where to learn more

The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.

Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)

Wrap up and summary

We have just scratched the surface when it comes to benchmarking cloud, virtual and physical server storage I/O and networking hardware, software along with associated tools, techniques and technologies. However hopefully this and the links for more reading mentioned above give a basis for connecting the dots of what you already know or enable learning more about workloads, synthetic generation and real-world workloads, benchmarks and associated topics. Needless to say there are many more things that we will cover in future posts (e.g. keep an eye on and bookmark the server storage I/O benchmark tools and resources page here).

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

February 1, 2015January 23, 2019

Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I)

server storage I/O trends

This is part-one of a two-part post pertaining Microsoft Diskspd.that is also part of a broader series focused on server storage I/O benchmarking, performance, capacity planning, tools and related technologies. You can view part-two of this post here, along with companion links here.

Background

Many people use Iometer for creating synthetic (artificial) workloads to support benchmarking for testing, validation and other activities. While Iometer with its GUI is relatively easy to use and available across many operating system (OS) environments, the tool also has its limits. One of the bigger limits for Iometer is that it has become dated with little to no new development for a long time, while other tools including some new ones continue to evolve in functionality, along with extensibility. Some of these tools have optional GUI for easy of use or configuration, while others simple have extensive scripting and command parameter capabilities. Many tools are supported across different OS including physical, virtual and cloud, while others such as Microsoft Diskspd are OS specific.

Instead of focusing on Iometer and other tools as well as benchmarking techniques (we cover those elsewhere), lets focus on Microsoft Diskspd.

What is Microsoft Diskspd?

Microsoft Diskspd is a synthetic workload generation (e.g. benchmark) tool that runs on various Windows systems as an alternative to Iometer, vdbench, iozone, iorate, fio, sqlio among other tools. Diskspd is a command line tool which means it can easily be scripted to do reads and writes of various I/O size including random as well as sequential activity. Server and storage I/O can be buffered file system as well non-buffered across different types of storage and interfaces. Various performance and CPU usage information is provided to gauge the impact on a system when doing a given number of IOP’s, amount of bandwidth along with response time latency.

What can Diskspd do?

Microsoft Diskspd creates synthetic benchmark workload activity with ability to define various options to simulate different application characteristics. This includes specifying read and writes, random, sequential, IO size along with number of threads to simulate concurrent activity. Diskspd can be used for testing or validating server and storage I/O systems along with associated software, tools and components. In addition to being able to specify different workloads, Diskspd can also be told which processors to use (e.g. CPU affinity), buffering or non-buffered IO among other things.

What type of storage does Diskspd work with?

Physical and virtual storage including hard disk drive (HDD), solid state devices (SSD), solid state hybrid drives (SSHD) in various systems or solutions. Storage can be physical as well as partitions or file systems. As with any workload tool when doing writes, exercise caution to prevent accidental deletion or destruction of your data.

What information does Diskspd produce?

Diskspd provides output in text as well as XML formats. See an example of Diskspd output further down in this post.

Where to get Diskspd?

You can download your free copy of Diskspd from the Microsoft site here.

The download and installation are quick and easy, just remember to select the proper version for your Windows system and type of processor.

Another tip is to remember to set path environment variables point to where you put the Diskspd image.

Also stating what should be obvious, don’t forget that if you are going to be doing any benchmark or workload generation activity on a system where the potential for a data to be over-written or deleted, make sure you have a good backup and tested restore before you begin, if something goes wrong.

New to server storage I/O benchmarking or tools?

If you are not familiar with server storage I/O performance benchmarking or using various workload generation tools (e.g. benchmark tools), Drew Robb (@robbdrew) has a Data Storage Benchmarking Guide article over at Enterprise Storage Forum that provides a good framework and summary quick guide to server storage I/O benchmarking.

Via Drew:

Data storage benchmarking can be quite esoteric in that vast complexity awaits anyone attempting to get to the heart of a particular benchmark.

Read more here including some of my comments, tips and recommendations.

In addition to Drew’s benchmarking quick reference guide, along with the server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page (Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.

How do you use Diskspd?

Tip: When you run Microsoft Diskspd it will create a file or data set on the device or volume being tested that it will do its I/O to, make sure that you have enough disk space for what will be tested (e.g. if you are going to test 1TB you need to have more than 1TB of disk space free for use). Another tip is to speed up the initializing (e.g. when Diskspd creates the file that I/Os will be done to) run as administrator.

Tip: In case you forgot, a couple of other useful Microsoft tools (besides Perfmon) for working with and displaying server storage I/O devices including disks (HDD and SSDs) are the commands "wmic diskdrive list [brief]" and "diskpart". With diskpart exercise caution as it can get you in trouble just as fast as it can get you out of trouble.

You can view the Diskspd commands after installing the tool and from a Windows command prompt type:

C:\Users\Username> Diskspd

The above command will display Diskspd help and information about the commands as follows.

Usage: diskspd [options] target1 [ target2 [ target3 …] ]

version 2.0.12 (2014/09/17)
Available targets:

       file_path

       #
       :
Available options:

-?	display usage information
-a#[,#[…]]	advanced CPU affinity – affinitize threads to CPUs provided after -a in a round-robin manner within current KGroup (CPU count starts with 0); the same CPU can be listed more than once and the number of CPUs can be different than the number of files or threads (cannot be used with -n)
-ag	group affinity – affinitize threads in a round-robin manner across KGroups
-b[K\|M\|G]	block size in bytes/KB/MB/GB [default=64K]
-B[K\|M\|G\|b]	base file offset in bytes/KB/MB/GB/blocks [default=0] (offset from the beginning of the file)
-c[K\|M\|G\|b]	create files of the given size. Size can be stated in bytes/KB/MB/GB/blocks
-C	cool down time – duration of the test after measurements finished [default=0s].
-D	Print IOPS standard deviations. The deviations are calculated for samples of duration . is given in milliseconds and the default value is 1000.
-d	duration (in seconds) to run test [default=10s]
-f[K\|M\|G\|b]	file size – this parameter can be used to use only the part of the file/disk/partition for example to test only the first sectors of disk
-fr	open file with the FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS hint
-fs	open file with the FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN hint
-F	total number of threads (cannot be used with -t)
-g	throughput per thread is throttled to given bytes per millisecond note that this can not be specified when using completion routines
-h	disable both software and hardware caching
-i	number of IOs (burst size) before thinking. must be specified with -j
-j	time to think in ms before issuing a burst of IOs (burst size). must be specified with -i
-I	Set IO priority to . Available values are: 1-very low, 2-low, 3-normal (default)
-l	Use large pages for IO buffers
-L	measure latency statistics
-n	disable affinity (cannot be used with -a)
-o	number of overlapped I/O requests per file per thread (1=synchronous I/O, unless more than 1 thread is specified with -F) [default=2]
-p	start async (overlapped) I/O operations with the same offset (makes sense only with -o2 or grater)
-P	enable printing a progress dot after each completed I/O operations (counted separately by each thread) [default count=65536]
-r[K\|M\|G\|b]	random I/O aligned to bytes (doesn’t make sense with -s). can be stated in bytes/KB/MB/GB/blocks [default access=sequential, default alignment=block size]
-R	output format. Default is text.
-s[K\|M\|G\|b]	stride size (offset between starting positions of subsequent I/O operations)
-S	disable OS caching
-t	number of threads per file (cannot be used with -F)
-T[K\|M\|G\|b]	stride between I/O operations performed on the same file by different threads [default=0] (starting offset = base file offset + (thread number * ) it makes sense only with -t or -F
-v	verbose mode
-w	percentage of write requests (-w and -w0 are equivalent). absence of this switch indicates 100% reads IMPORTANT: Your data will be destroyed without a warning
-W	warm up time – duration of the test before measurements start [default=5s].
-x	use completion routines instead of I/O Completion Ports
-X	use an XML file for configuring the workload. Cannot be used with other parameters.
-z	set random seed [default=0 if parameter not provided, GetTickCount() if value not provided]

	Write buffers command options. By default, the write buffers are filled with a repeating pattern (0, 1, 2, …, 255, 0, 1, …)
-Z	zero buffers used for write tests
-Z[K\|M\|G\|b]	use a global buffer filled with random data as a source for write operations.
-Z[K\|M\|G\|b],	use a global buffer filled with data from as a source for write operations. If is smaller than , its content will be repeated multiple times in the buffer. By default, the write buffers are filled with a repeating pattern (0, 1, 2, …, 255, 0, 1, …)

	Synchronization command options
-ys	signals event before starting the actual run (no warmup) (creates a notification event if does not exist)
-yf	signals event after the actual run finishes (no cooldown) (creates a notification event if does not exist)
-yr	waits on event before starting the run (including warmup) (creates a notification event if does not exist)
-yp	allows to stop the run when event is set; it also binds CTRL+C to this event (creates a notification event if does not exist)
-ye	sets event and quits

Event Tracing command options
-ep	use paged memory for NT Kernel Logger (by default it uses non-paged memory)
-eq	use perf timer
-es	use system timer (default)
-ec	use cycle count
-ePROCESS	process start & end
-eTHREAD	thread start & end
-eIMAGE_LOAD	image load
-eDISK_IO	physical disk IO
-eMEMORY_PAGE_FAULTS	all page faults
-eMEMORY_HARD_FAULTS	hard faults only
-eNETWORK	TCP/IP, UDP/IP send & receive
-eREGISTRY	registry calls

Examples:

Create 8192KB file and run read test on it for 1 second:

diskspd -c8192K -d1 testfile.dat

Set block size to 4KB, create 2 threads per file, 32 overlapped (outstanding)
I/O operations per thread, disable all caching mechanisms and run block-aligned random
access read test lasting 10 seconds:

diskspd -b4K -t2 -r -o32 -d10 -h testfile.dat

Create two 1GB files, set block size to 4KB, create 2 threads per file, affinitize threads
to CPUs 0 and 1 (each file will have threads affinitized to both CPUs) and run read test
lasting 10 seconds:

diskspd -c1G -b4K -t2 -d10 -a0,1 testfile1.dat testfile2.dat

Where to learn more

The following are related links to read more about servver (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.
resource page

Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.

Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)

I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?

Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)

Wrap up and summary, for now…

This wraps up part-one of this two-part post taking a look at Microsoft Diskspd benchmark and workload generation tool. In part-two (here) of this post series we take a closer look including a test drive using Microsoft Diskspd.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)

twitter @storageio

February 1, 2015November 3, 2024

Microsoft Diskspd (Part II): Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools

server storage I/O trends

This is part-two of a two-part post pertaining Microsoft Diskspd.that is also part of a broader series focused on server storage I/O benchmarking, performance, capacity planning, tools and related technologies. You can view part-one of this post here, along with companion links here.

Microsoft Diskspd StorageIO lab test drive

Server and StorageIO lab

Talking about tools and technologies is one thing, installing as well as trying them is the next step for gaining experience so how about some quick hands-on time with Microsoft Diskspd (download your copy here).

The following commands all specify an I/O size of 8Kbytes doing I/O to a 45GByte file called diskspd.dat located on the F: drive. Note that a 45GByte file is on the small size for general performance testing, however it was used for simplicity in this example. Ideally a larger target storage area (file, partition, device) would be used, otoh, if your application uses a small storage device or volume, then tune accordingly.

In this test, the F: drive is an iSCSI RAID protected volume, however you could use other storage interfaces supported by Windows including other block DAS or SAN (e.g. SATA, SAS, USB, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, etc) as well as NAS. Also common to the following commands is using 16 threads and 32 outstanding I/Os to simulate concurrent activity of many users, or application processing threads.

Another common parameter used in the following was -r for random, 7200 seconds (e.g. two hour) test duration time, display latency ( -L ) disable hardware and software cache ( -h), forcing cpu affinity (-a0,1,2,3). Since the test ran on a server with four cores I wanted to see if I could use those for helping to keep the threads and storage busy. What varies in the commands below is the percentage of reads vs. writes, as well as the results output file. Some of the workload below also had the -S option specified to disable OS I/O buffering (to view how buffering helps when enabled or disabled). Depending on the goal, or type of test, validation, or workload being run, I would choose to set some of these parameters differently.

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write000.txt

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write050.txt

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write100.txt

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_test_write000.txt

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write050.txt

diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write100.txt

The following is the output from the above workload command.
Microsoft Diskspd sample output

Note that as with any benchmark, workload test or simulation your results will vary. In the above the server, storage and I/O system were not tuned as the focus was on working with the tool, determining its capabilities. Thus do not focus on the performance results per say, rather what you can do with Diskspd as a tool to try different things. Btw, fwiw, in the above example in addition to using an iSCSI target, the Windows 2012 R2 server was a guest on a VMware ESXi 5.5 system.

Where to learn more

The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.

Comments and wrap-up

What I like about Diskspd (Pros)

Reporting including CPU usage (you can’t do server and storage I/O without CPU) along with IOP’s (activity), bandwidth (throughout or amount of data being moved), per thread and total results along with optional reporting. While a GUI would be nice particular for beginners, I’m used to setting up scripts for different workloads so having an extensive options for setting up different workloads is welcome. Being associated with a specific OS (e.g. Windows) the CPU affinity and buffer management controls will be handy for some projects.

Diskspd has the flexibility to use different storage interfaces and types of storage including files or partitions should be taken for granted, however with some tools don’t take things for granted. I like the flexibility to easily specify various IO sizes including large 1MByte, 10MByte, 20MByte, 100MByte and 500MByte to simulate application workloads that do large sequential (or random) activity. I tried some IO sizes (e.g. specified by -b parameter larger than 500MB however, I received various errors including "Could not allocate a buffer bytes for target" which means that Diskspd can do IO sizes smaller than that. While not able to do IO sizes larger than 500MB, this is actually impressive. Several other tools I have used or with have IO size limits down around 10MByte which makes it difficult for creating workloads that do large IOP’s (note this is the IOP size, not the number of IOP’s).

Oh, something else that should be obvious however will state it, Diskspd is free unlike some industry de-facto standard tools or workload generators that need a fee to get and use.

Where Diskspd could be improved (Cons)

For some users a GUI or configuration wizard would make the tool easier to get started with, on the other hand (oth), I tend to use the command capabilities of tools. Would also be nice to specify ranges as part of a single command such as stepping through an IO size range (e.g. 4K, 8K, 16K, 1MB, 10MB) as well as read write percentages along with varying random sequential mixes. Granted this can easily be done by having a series of commands, however I have become spoiled by using other tools such as vdbench.

Summary

Overall I like Diskspd and have added it to my Server Storage I/O workload and benchmark tool-box

Keep in mind that the best benchmark or workload generation technology tool will be your own application(s) configured to run as close as possible to production activity levels.

However when that is not possible, the an alternative is to use tools that have the flexibility to be configured as close as possible to your application(s) workload characteristics. This means that the focus should not be as much on the tool, as opposed to how flexible is a tool to work for you, granted the tool needs to be robust.

Having said that, Microsoft Diskspd is a good and extensible tool for benchmarking, simulation, validation and comparisons, however it will only be as good as the parameters and configuration you set it up to use.

Check out Microsoft Diskspd and add it to your benchmark and server storage I/O tool-box like I have done.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

January 31, 2015March 7, 2022

Green and Virtual IT Data Center Primer

Green and Virtual Data Center Primer

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

Green IT is about enabling efficient, effective and productive information services delivery. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

There are many aspects to "Green" Information Technology including servers, storage, networks and associated management tools and techniques. The reasons and focus of "Green IT" including "Green Data Storage ", "Green Computing" and related focus areas are varied to discuss diverse needs, issues and requirements including among others:

Power, Cooling, Floor-space, Environmental (PCFE) related issues or constraints
Reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other green house gases (GHGs)
Business growth and economic sustain in an environmental friendly manner
Proper disposal or recycling of environmental harmful retired technology components
Reduction or better efficiency of electrical power consumption used for IT equipment
Cost avoidance or savings from lower energy fees and cooling costs
Support data center and application consolidation to cut cost and management
Enable growth and enhancements to application service level objectives
Maximize the usage of available power and cooling resources available in your region
Compliance with local or federal government mandates and regulations
Economic sustain and ability to support business growth and service improvements
General environmental awareness and stewardship to save and protect the earth

While much of the IT industry focuses on CO2 emissions footprints, data management software and electrical power consumption, cooling and ventilation of IT data centers is an area of focus associated with "Green IT" as well as a means to discuss more effective use of electrical energy that can yield rapid results for many environments. Large tier-1 vendors including HP and IBM among others who have an IT and data center wide focus have services designed to do quick assessments as well as detailed analysis and re-organization of IT data center physical facilities to improve air flow and power consumption for more effective cooling of IT technologies including servers, storage, networks and other equipment.

Similar to your own residence, basic steps to improve your cooling effectiveness can lead to use of less energy to cut your budget impact, or, enable you to do more with what you already have with your cooling capacity to support growth, acquisitions and or consolidation initiatives. Vendors are also looking at means and alternatives for cooling IT equipment ranging from computer assisted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software analysis of data center cooling and ventilation to refrigerated cooling racks some leveraging water or inert liquid cooling.

Various metrics exists and others are evolving for measuring, estimating, reporting, analyzing and discussing IT Data Center infrastructure resource topics including servers, storage, networks, facilities and associated software management tools from a power, cooling and green environmental standpoint. The importance of metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture.

Consequently your view and needs or interests around "Green" IT may be from an electrical power conservation perspective to maximize your power consumption or to adapt to a given power footprint or ceiling. Your focus around "Green" Data Centers and Green Storage may be from a carbon savings standpoint or proper disposition of old and retired IT equipment or from a data center cooling standpoint. Another area of focus may be that you are looking to cut your data footprint to align with your power, cooling and green footprint while enhancing application and data service delivery to your customers.

Where to learn more

The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

January 31, 2015November 26, 2023

Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible

Green and Virtual Data Center

A Green and Virtual IT Data Center (e.g. an information factory) means an environment comprising:

Habitat for technology or physical infrastructure (e.g. physical data center, yours, co-lo, managed service or cloud)
Power, cooling, communication networks, HVAC, smoke and fire suppression, physical security
IT data information infrastructure (e.g. hardware, software, valueware, cloud, virtual, physical, servers, storage, network)
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) along with IT Service Management (ITSM) software defined management tools
Tools for monitoring, resource tracking and usage, reporting, diagnostics, provisioning and resource orchestration
Portals and service catalogs for automated, user initiated and assisted operation or access to IT resources
Processes, procedures, best-practices, work-flows and templates (including data protection with HA, BC, BR, DR, backup/restore, logical and physical security)
Metrics that matter for management insight and awareness
People and skill sets among other items

Green and Virtual Data Center Resources

Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient, productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies.

Publisher: CRC Press – Taylor & Francis Group
By Greg P. Schulz of StorageIO www.storageio.com
ISBN-10: 1439851739 and ISBN-13: 978-1439851739
Hardcover * 370 pages * Over 100 illustrations figures and tables

Read more here and order your copy here. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz.

Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and Sustainable

Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product.

The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

Where to learn more

Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA E nergy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

Watch for more links and resources to be added soon.

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

January 31, 2015November 26, 2023

Green and Virtual Data Center Links

Updated 10/25/2017

Green and Virtual IT Data Center Links

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE).

To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

Enabling Effective Produtive Efficient Economical Flexible Scalable Resilient Information Infrastrctures

Various IT industry vendors and other links

Via StorageIOblog – Happy Earth Day 2016 Eliminating Digital and Data e-Waste

Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA E nergy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient , productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies. Read more here and order your copyhere. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz.

White papers, analyst reports and perspectives

Business benefits of data footprint reduction (archiving, compression, de-dupe)
Data center I/O and performance issues – Server I/O and storage capacity gap
Analysis of EPA Report to Congress (Law 109-431)
The Many Faces of MAID Storage Technology
Achieving Energy Efficiency with FLASH based SSD
MAID 2.0: Energy Savings without Performance Compromises

Articles, Tips, Blogs, Webcasts and Podcasts

AP – SNIA Green Emerald Program and measurements
AP – Southern California heat wave strains electrical system
Ars Technica – EPA: Power usage in data centers could double by 2011
Ars Technica – Meet the climate savers: Major tech firms launch war on energy-inefficient PCs – Article
Askageek.com – Buying an environmental friendly laptop – November 2008
Baseline – Examining Energy Consumption in the Data Center
Baseline – Burts Bees: What IT Means When You Go Green
Bizcovering – Green architecture for the masses
Broadstuff – Are Green 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Incompatible?
Business Week – CEO Guide to Technology
Business Week – Computers’ elusive eco factor
Business Week – Clean Energy – Its Getting Affordable
Byte & Switch – Keeping it Green This Summer – Don’t be "Green washed"
Byte & Switch – IBM Sees Green in Energy Certificates
Byte & Switch – Users Search for power solutions
Byte & Switch – DoE issues Green Storage Warning
CBR – The Green Light for Green IT
CBR – Big boxes make greener data centers
CFO – Power Scourge
Channel Insider – A 12 Step Program to Dispose of IT Equipment
China.org.cn – China publishes Energy paper
CIO – Green Storage Means Money Saved on Power
CIO – Data center designers share secrets for going green
CIO – Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America
CIO Insight – Clever Marketing or the Real Thing?
Cleantechnica – Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste – June 2008
Climatebiz – Carbon Calculators Yield Spectrum of Results: Study
CNET News – Linux coders tackle power efficiency
CNET News – Research: Old data centers can be nearly as ‘green’ as new ones
CNET News – Congress, Greenpeace move on e-wast
CNN Money – A Green Collar Recession
CNN Money – IBM creates alliance with industry leaders supporting new data center standards
Communication News – Utility bills key to greener IT
Computerweekly – Business case for green storage
Computerweekly – Optimising data centre operations
Computerweekly – Green still good for IT, if it saves money
Computerweekly – Meeting the Demands for storage
Computerworld – Wells Fargo Free Data Center Cooling System
Computerworld – Seven ways to get green and save money
Computerworld – Build your data center here: The most energy-efficient locations
Computerworld – EPA: U.S. needs more power plants to support data centers
Computerworld – GreenIT: A marketing ploy or new technology?
Computerworld – Gartner Criticizes Green Grid
Computerworld – IT Skills no longer sufficient for data center execs.
Computerworld – Meet MAID 2.0 and Intelligent Power Management
Computerworld – Feds to offer energy ratings on servers and storage
Computerworld – Greenpeace still hunting for truly green electronics
Computerworld – How to benchmark data center energy costs
ComputerworldUK – Datacenters at risk from poor governance
ComputerworldUK – Top IT Leaders Back Green Survey
ComputerworldMH – Lean and Green
CTR – Strategies for enhancing energy efficiency
CTR – Economies of Scale – Green Data Warehouse Appliances
Datacenterknowledge – Microsoft to build Illinois datacenter
Data Center Strategies – Storage The Next Hot Topic
Earthtimes – Fujitsu installs hydrogen fuel cell power
eChannelline – IBM Goes Green(er)
Ecoearth.info – California Moves To Speed Solar, Wind Power Grid Connections
Ecogeek – Solar power company figures they can power 90% of America
Economist – Cool IT
Electronic Design – How many watts in that Gigabyte
eMazzanti – Desktop virtualization movement creeping into customer sites
ens-Newswire – Western Governors Ask Obama for National Green Energy Plan
Environmental Leader – Best Place to Build an Energy Efficient Data Center
Environmental Leader – New Guide Helps Advertisers Avoid Greenwash Complaints
Enterprise Storage Forum – Power Struggles Take Center Stage at SNW
Enterprise Storage Forum – Pace Yourself for Storage Power & Cooling Needs
Enterprise Storage Forum – Storage Power and Cooling Issues Heat Up – StorageIO Article
Enterprise Storage Forum – Score Savings With A Storage Power Play
Enterprise Storage Forum – I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work I Go
Enterprise Storage Forum – Not Just a Flash in the Pan – Various SSD options
Enterprise Storage Forum – Closing the Green Gap – Article August 2008
EPA Report to Congress and Public Law 109-431 – Reports & links
eWeek – Saving Green by being Green
eWeek – ‘No Cooling Necessary’ Data Centers Coming?
eWeek – How the ‘Down’ Macroeconomy Will Impact the Data Storage Sector
ExpressComputer – In defense of Green IT
ExpressComputer – What data center crisis
Forbes – How to Build a Quick Charging Battery
GCN – Sun launches eco data center
GreenerComputing – New Code of Conduct to Establish Best Practices in Green Data Centers
GreenerComputing – Silicon valley’s green detente
GreenerComputing – Majority of companies plan to green their data centers
GreenerComputing – Citigroup to spend $232M on Green Data Center
GreenerComputing – Chicago and Quincy, WA Top Green Data Center Locations
GreenerComputing – Using airside economizers to chill data center cooling bills
GreenerComputing – Making the most of asset disposal
GreenerComputing – Greenpeace vendor rankings
GreenerComputing – Four Steps to Improving Data Center Efficiency without Capital Expenditures
GreenerComputing – Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center
Green-PC – Strategic Steps Down the Green Path
Greeniewatch – BBC news chiefs attack plans for climate change campaign
Greeniewatch – Warmest year predictions and data that has not yet been measured
GoverenmentExecutive – Public Private Sectors Differ on "Green" Efforts
HPC Wire – How hot is your code
Industry Standard – Why green data centers mean partner opportunities
InformationWeek – It could be 15 years before we know what is really green
InformationWeek – Beyond Server Consolidaiton
InformationWeek – Green IT Beyond Virtualization: The Case For Consolidation
InfoWorld – Sun celebrates green datacenter innovations
InfoWorld – Tech’s own datacenters are their green showrooms
InfoWorld – 2007: The Year in Green
InfoWorld – Green Grid Announces Tech Forum in Feb 2008
InfoWorld – SPEC seeds future green-server benchmarks
InfoWorld – Climate Savers green catalog proves un-ripe
InfoWorld – Forester: Eco-minded activity up among IT pros
InfoWorld – Green ventures in Silicon Valley, Mass reaped most VC cash in ’07
InfoWorld – Congress misses chance to see green-energy growth
InfoWorld – Unisys pushes green envelope with datacenter expansion
InfoWorld – No easy green strategy for storage
Internet News – Storage Technologies for a Slowing Economy
Internet News – Economy will Force IT to Transform
ITManagement – Green Computing, Green Revenue
itnews – Data centre chiefs dismiss green hype
itnews – Australian Green IT regulations could arrive this year
IT Pro – SNIA Green storage metrics released
ITtoolbox – MAID discussion
Linux Power – Saving power with Linux on Intel platforms
MSNBC – Microsoft to build data center in Ireland
National Post – Green technology at the L.A. Auto Show
Network World – Turning the datacenter green
Network World – Color Interop Green
Network World – Green not helpful word for setting environmental policies
NewScientistEnvironment – Computer servers as bad for climate as SUVs
Newser – Texas commission approves nation’s largest wind power project
New Yorker – Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science
NY Times – What the Green Bubble Will Leave Behind
PRNewswire – Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers to debate climate change
Processor – More than just monitoring
Processor – The new data center: What’s hot in Data Center physical infrastructure:
Processor – Liquid Cooling in the Data Center
Processor – Curbing IT Power Usage
Processor – Services To The Rescue – Services Available For Today’s Data Centers
Processor – Green Initiatives: Hire A Consultant?
Processor – Energy-Saving Initiatives
Processor – The EPA’s Low Carbon Campaig
Processor – Data Center Power Planning
SAN Jose Mercury – Making Data Centers Green
SDA-Asia – Green IT still a priority despite Credit Crunch
SearchCIO – EPA report gives data centers little guidance
SearchCIO – Green IT Strategies Could Lead to hefty ROIs
SearchCIO – Green IT In the Data Center: Plenty of Talk, not much Walk
SearchCIO – Green IT Overpitched by Vendors, CIOs beware
SearchDataCenter – Study ranks cheapest places to build a data center
SearchDataCenter – Green technology still ranks low for data center planners
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center: Energy Effiecnty Computing in the 21st Century
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center Advice: Is LEED Feasible
SearchDataCenter – Green Data Centers Tackle LEED Certification
SearchDataCenter – PG&E invests in data center effieicny
SearchDataCenter – A solar powered datacenter
SearchSMBStorage – Improve your storage energy efficiency
SearchSMBStorage – SMB capacity planning: Focusing on energy conservation
SearchSMBStorage – Data footprint reduction for SMBs
SearchSMBStorage – MAID & other energy-saving storage technologies for SMBs
SearchStorage – How to increase your storage energy efficiency
SearchStorage – Is storage now top energy hog in the data center
SearchStorage – Storage eZine: Turning Storage Green
SearchStorage – The Green Storage Gap
SearchStorageChannel – Green Data Storage Projects
Silicon.com – The greening of IT: Cooling costs
SNIA – SNIA Green Storage Overview
SNIA – Green Storage
SNW – Beyond Green-wash
SNW Spring 2008 Beyond Green-wash
State.org – Why Texas Has Its Own Power Grid
StorageDecisions – Different Shades of Green
Storage Magazine – Storage still lacks energy metrics
StorageIOblog – Posts pertaining to Green, power, cooling, floor-space, EHS (PCFE)
Storage Search – Various postings, news and topics pertaining to Green IT
Technology Times – Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches
TechTarget – Data center power efficiency
TechTarget – Tip for determining power consumption
Techworld – Inside a green data center
Techworld – Box reduction – Low hanging green datacenter fruit
Techworld – Datacentere used to heat swimming pool
Theinquirer – Spansion and Virident flash server farms
Theinquirer – Storage firms worry about energy efficiency How green is the valley
TheRegister – Data Centre Efficiency, the good, the bad and the way to hot
TheRegister – Server makers snub whalesong for serious windmill abuse
TheRegister – Green data center threat level: Not Green
The Standard – Growing cynicism around going Green
ThoughtPut – Energy Central
Thoughtput – Power, Cooling, Green Storage and related industry trends
Wallstreet Journal – Utilities Amp Up Push To Slash Energy Use
Wallstreet Journal – The IT in Green Investing
Wallstreet Journal – Tech’s Energy Consumption on the Rise
Washingtonpost – Texas approves major new wind power project
WhatPC – Green IT: It doesnt have to cost the earth
WHIRnews – SingTel building green data center
Wind-watch.org – Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency
WyomingNews – Overcoming Greens Stereotype
Yahoo – Washington Senate Unviel Green Job Plan
ZDnet – Will supercomputer speeds hit a plateau?
Are data centers causing climate change

News and Press Releases

Business Wire – The Green and Virtual Data Center
Enterprise Storage Forum – Intel and HGST (Hitachi) partner on FLASH SSD
PCworld – Intel and HP describe Green Strategy
DoE – To Invest Approximately $1.3 Billion to Commercialize CCS Technology
Yahoo – Shell Opens Los Angeles’ First Combined Hydrogen and Gasoline Station
DuPont – DuPont Projects Save Enough Energy to Power 25,000 Homes
Gartner – Users Are Becoming Increasingly Confused About the Issues and Solutions Surrounding Green IT

Websites and Tools

Various power, cooling, emmisions and device configuration tools and calculators
Solar Action Alliance web site
SNIA Emerald program
Carbon Disclosure Project
The Chicago Climate Exchange
Climate Savers
Data Center Decisions
Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA)
EMC – Digital Life Calculator
Energy Star
Energy Star Data Center Initiatives
Greenpeace – Technology ranking website also here
GlobalActionPlan
KyotoPlanet
LBNL High Tech Data centers
Millicomputing
RoHS & WEE News
Storage Performance Council (SPC)
SNIA Green Technical Working Group
SPEC
Transaction Processing Council (TPC)
The Green Grid
The Raised Floor
Terra Pass Carbon Offset Credits – Website with CO2 calculators
Energy Information Administration – EIA (US and International Electrical Information)
U.S. Department of Energy and related information
U.S. DOE Energy Efficient Industrial Programs
U.S. EPA server and storage energy topics
Zerofootprint – Various "Green" and environmental related links and calculators

Vendor Centric and Marketing Website Links and tools

Vendors and organizations have different types of calculators some with focus on power, cooling, floor space, carbon offsets or emissions,

ROI, TCO and other IT data center infrastructure resource management. Following is an evolving list and by no means definitive even for a particular vendors as

different manufactures may have multiple different calculators for different product lines or areas of focus.

Brocade – Green website
Cisco – Green and Environmental websites here, here and here
Dell – Green website
EMC – EMC Energy, Power and Cooling Related Website
HDS – How to be green – HDS Positioning White Paper
HP – HP Green Website
IBM – Green Data Center – IBM Positioning White Paper
IBM – Green Data Center for Education – IBM Positioning White Paper
Intel – What is an Efficient Data Center and how do I measure it?
LSI – Green site and white paper
NetApp – Press Release and related information
Sun – Various articles and links
Symantec – Global 2000 Struggle to Adopt "Green" Data Centers – Announcement of Survey results
ACTON
Adinfa
APC
Australian Conservation Foundation
Avocent
BBC
Brocade
Carbon Credit Calculator UK
Carbon Footprint Site
Carbon Planet
Carbonify
CarbonZero
Cassatt
CO2 Stats Site
Copan
Dell
DirectGov UK Acton
Diesel Service & Supply Power Calculator & Converter
Eaton Powerware
Ecobusinesslinks
Ecoscale
EMC Power Calculator
EMC Web Power Calculator
EMC Digital Life Calculator
EPA Power Profiler
EPA Related Tools
EPEAT
Google UK Green Footprint
Green Grid Calculator
HP and more here
HVAC Calculator
IBM
Logicalis
Kohler Power (Business and Residential)
Micron
MSN Carbon Footprint Calculator
National Wildlife Foundation
NEF UK
NetApp
Rackwise
Platespin
Safecom
Sterling Planet
Sun and more here and here and here
Tandberg
TechRepublic
TerraPass Carbon Offset Credits
Thomas Kreen AG
Toronto Hydro Calculator
80 Plus Calculator
VMware
42u Green Grid PUE DCiE calculator
42u energy calculator

Green and Virtual Tools

What’s your power, cooling, floor space, energy, environmental or green story?

What’s your power, cooling, floor space, energy, environmental or green story? Do you have questions or want to learn more about

energy issues pertaining to IT data center and data infrastructure topics? Do you have a solution or technology or a success story that you would like to share

with us pertaining to data storage and server I/O energy optimization strategies? Do you need assistance in developing, validating or reviewing your strategy

or story? Contact us at: info@storageio.com or 651-275-1563 to learn more about green data storage and server I/O or to

schedule a briefing to tell us about your energy efficiency and effectiveness story pertaining to IT data centers and data infrastructures.

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be

in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site. Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and

website however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the

URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Green and Virtual Metrics

Chapter 5 "Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources" in the book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC Press) takes a look at the importance of being able to measure and monitor to enable effective management and utilization of IT resources across servers, storage, I/O networks, software, hardware and facilities.

There are many different points of interest for collecting metrics in an IT data center for servers, storage, networking and facilities along with various points of interest or perspectives. Data center personal have varied interest from a facilities to a resource (server, storage, networking) usage and effectiveness perspective for normal use as well as planning purposes or comparison when evaluating new technology. Vendors have different uses for metrics during R&D, Q/A testing and marketing or sales campaigns as well as on-going service and support. Industry trade groups including 80 Plus, SNIA and the green grid along with government groups including the EPA Energy Star are working to define and establish applicable metrics pertinent for Green and Virtual data centers.

Acronym	Description	Comment
DCiE	Data center Efficiency = (IT equipment / Total facility power) * 100	Shows a ratio of how well a data center is consuming power
DCPE	Data center Performance Efficiency = Effective IT workload / total facility power	Shows how effective data center is consuming power to produce a given level of service or work such as energy per transaction or energy per business function performed
PUE	Power usage effectiveness = Total facility power / IT equipment power	Inverse of DCE
Kilowatts (kw)	Watts / 1,000	One thousand watts
Annual kWh	kWh x 24 x 365	kWh used in on year
Megawatts (mw)	kW / 1,000	One thousand kW
BTU/hour	watts x 3.413	Heat generated in an hour from using energy in British Thermal Units. 12,000 BTU/hour can equate to 1 Ton of cooling.
kWh	1,000 watt hours	The number of watts used in one hour
Watts	Amps x Volts (e.g. 12 amps * 12 volts = 144 watts)	Unit of electrical energy power
Watts	BTU/hour x 0.293	Convert BTU/hr to watts
Volts	Watts / Amps (e.g. 144 watts / 12 amps = 12 volts)	The amount of force on electrons
Amps	Watts / Volts (e.g. 144 watts / 12 volts = 12 amps)	The flow rate of electricity
Volt-Amperes (VA)	Volts x Amps	Sometimes power expressed in Volt-Ampres
kVA	Volts x Amp / 1000	Number of kilovolt-ampres
kW	kVA x power-factor	Power factor is the efficiency of a piece of equipments use of power
kVA	kW / power-factor	Killovolt-Ampres
U	1U = 1.75”	EIA metric describing height of equipment in racks.
Activity / Watt	Amount of work accomplished per unit of energy consumed. This could be IOPS, Transactions or Bandwidth per watt.	Indicator how much work and how efficient energy is being used to accomplish useful work. This metric applies to active workloads or actively used and frequently accessed storage and data. Examples would be IOPS per watt, Bandwidth per watt, Transactions per watt, Users or streams per watt. Activity per watt should also be used in conjunction with another metric such as how much capacity is supported per watt and total watts consumed for a representative picture.
IOPS / Watt	Number of I/O operations (or transactions) / energy (watts)	Indicator of how effectively energy is being used to perform a given amount of work. The work could be I/Os, transactions, throughput or other indicator of application activity. For example SPC-1 / Watt, SPEC / Watt, TPC / Watt, transaction / watt, IOP / Watt.
Bandwidth / Watt	GBPS or TBPS or PBPS / Watt Amount of data transferred or moved per second and energy used. Often confused with Capacity per watt	This indicates how much data is moved or accessed per second or time interval per unit of energy consumed. This is often confused with capacity per watt given that both bandwidth and capacity reference GByte, TByte, PByte.
Capacity / Watt	GB or TB or PB (storage capacity space / watt	Indicator of how much capacity (space) or bandwidth supported in a given configuration or footprint per watt of energy. For inactive data or off-line and archive data, capacity per watt can be an effective measurement gauge however for active workloads and applications activity per watt also needs to be looked at to get a representative indicator of how energy is being used
Mhz / Watt	Processor performance / energy (watts)	Indicator of how effectively energy is being used by a CPU or processor.
Carbon Credit	Carbon offset credit	Offset credits that can be bought and sold to offset your CO2 emissions
CO2 Emission	Average 1.341 lbs per kWh of electricity generated	The amount of average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from generating an average kWh of electricity

Various power, cooling, floor space and green storage or IT related metrics

Metrics include Data center Efficiency (DCiE) via the greengrid which is the indicator ratio of a IT data center energy efficiency defined as IT equipment (servers, disk and tape storage, networking switches, routers, printers, etc) / Total facility power x 100 (for percentage). For example, if the sum of all IT equipment energy usage resulted in 1,500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month yet the total facility power including UPS, energy switching, power conversation and filtering, cooling and associated infrastructure costs as well as IT equipment resulting in 3,500 kWh, the DCiE would be (1,500 / 3,500) x 100 = 43%. DCiE can be used as a ratio for example to show in the above scenario that IT equipment accounts for about 43% of energy consumed by the data center with in this scenario 57% of electrical energy being consumed by cooling, conversion and conditioning or lighting.

Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is the indicator ratio of total energy being consumed by the data center to energy being used to operate IT equipment. PUE is defined as total facility power / IT equipment energy consumption. Using the above scenario PUE = 2.333 (3,500 / 1,500) which means that a server requiring 100 watts of power would actually require (2.333 * 100) 233.3 watts of energy that includes both direct power and cooling costs. Similarly a storage system that required 1,500 kWh of energy to power would require (1,500*2.333) 3,499.5 kWh of electrical power including cooling.

Another metric that has the potential to have meaning is Data center Performance Efficiency (DCPE) that takes into consideration how much useful and effective work is performed by the IT equipment and data center per energy consumed. DCPE is defined as useful work / total facility power with an example being some number of transactions processed using servers, networks and storage divided by energy for the data center to power and cool the equipment. An relatively easy and straightforward implementation of DCPE is an IOPs per watt measurement that looks at how many IOPs can be performed (regardless of size or type such as reads or writes) per unit of energy in this case watts.

DCPE = Useful work / Total facility power, for example IOPS per watt of energy used

DCiE = IT equipment energy / Total facility power = 1 / PUE

PUE = Total facility energy / IT equipment energy

IOPS per Watt = Number of IOPs (or bandwidth) / energy used by the storage system

The importance of these numbers and metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture. Learn more in Chapter 5 "Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources" in the book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) and in the book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC).

Disclaimer and notes

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site. Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

What this all means

The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

January 6, 2015November 3, 2024

Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – First impressions

Storage I/O trends

Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – First impressions

This is the first of a two-part (part II here) series of my experiences (and impressions) using an Intel NUC ( a 4th generation model) for various things about cloud, virtual, physical and software defined server storage I/O networking.

The NUC has been around new for a few years and continues to evolve and recently I bought my first one (e.g. a 4th generation model) to join some other servers that I have. My reason for getting a NUC is to use it as a simple low-power platform to run different software on including bare-metal OS, hypervisors, cloud, virtual and software defined server storage and networking applications on that might otherwise be on an old laptop or mini-tower.

Intel® NUC with Intel® Core™ i5 Processor and 2.5-Inch Drive Support (NUC5i5RYH) via Intel.com

Introducing Intel Next Unit Computing aka NUC

For those not familiar, NUC is a series of products from Intel called Next Unit Computing that offer an alternative to traditional mini-desktop or even laptop and notebooks. There are several different NUC models available including the newer 5th generation models (click here to see various models and generations). The NUCs are simple, small units of computing with an Intel processor and room for your choice of memory, persistent storage (e.g. Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or flash Solid State Device (SSD), networking, video, audio and other peripheral device attachment.

software (not supplied) is defined by what you choose to use such as a Windows or *nix operating system, VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM or Xen hypervisor, or some other applications. The base NUC package includes front and rear-side ports for attaching various devices. In terms of functionality, think of a laptop without a keyboard or video screen, or in terms of a small head-less (e.g. no monitor) mini-tower desktop workstation PC.

Which NUC to buy?

If you need to be the first with anything new, then jump direct to the recently released 5th generation models.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a bargain, there are some good deals on 4th generation or older. likewise depending on your processor speed and features needed along with available budget, those criteria and others will direct you to a specific NUC model.

I went with a 4th generation NUC realizing that the newer models were just around the corner as I figured could always get another (e.g. create a NUC cluster) newer model when needed. In addition I also wanted a model that had enough performance to last a few years of use and the flexibility to be reconfigured as needed. My choice was a model D54250WYK priced around $352 USD via Amazon (prices may vary by different venues).

Whats included with a NUC?

My first NUC is a model D54250WYK (e.g. BOXD54250WYKH1 ) that you can view the specific speeds and feeds here at the Intel site along with ordering info here at Amazon (or your other preferred venue).

View and compare other NUC models at the Intel NUC site here.

The following images show the front-side two USB 3.0 ports along with head-phone (or speaker) and microphone jacks. Looking at the rear-side of the NUC there are a couple of air vents, power connector port (external power supply), mini-display and HDMI video port, GbE LAN, and two USB 3.0 ports.

NUC front view Rear ports of NUC
Left is front view of my NUC model 54250 and Right is back or rear view of NUC

NUC Model	BOXD54250WYKH1 (speeds/feeds vary by specific model)
Form factor	1.95" tall
Processor	Intel Core i5-4250U with active heat sink fan
Memory	Two SO-DIMM DDR3L (e.g. laptop) memory, up to 16GB (e.g. 2x8GB)
Display	One mini DisplayPort with audio One mini HDMI port with audio
Audio	Intel HD Audio, 8 channel (7.1) digital audio via HDMI and DisplayPort, also headphone jack
LAN	Intel Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) (I218)
Peripheral and storage	Two USB 3.0 (e.g. blue) front side Two USB 3.0 rear side Two USB 2.0 (internal) One SATA port (internal 2.5 inch drive bay) Consumer infrared sensor (front panel)
Expansion	One full-length mini PCI Express slot with mSATA support One half-length mini PCI Express slot
Included in the box	Laptop style 19V 65W power adapter (brick) and cord, VESA mounting bracket (e.g. for mounting on rear of video monitor), integration (installation) guide, wireless antennae (integrated into chassis), Intel Core i5 logo
Warranty	3-year limited

Processor Speeds and Feeds

There are various Intel Core i3 and i5 processors available depending on specific NUC model, such as my 54250WYK has a two core (1.3Ghz each) 4th generation i5-4250U (click here to see Intel speeds and feeds) which includes Intel Visual BIOS, Turbo Boost, Rapid Start and virtualization support among other features.

Note that features vary by processor type, along with other software, firmware or BIOS updates. While the 1.3Ghz two core (e.g. max 2.6Ghz) is not as robust as faster quad (or more) cores running at 3.0Ghz (or faster), for most applications including as a first virtual lab or storage sand box among other uses, it will be fast enough or comparable to a lower-mid range laptop capabilities.

What this all means

In general I like the NUC so much that I bought one (model 54250) and would consider adding another in the future for somethings, however also see the need to continue using my other compute servers for different workloads.

This wraps up part I of this two-part series and what this means is that I like the idea of a Intel NUC I bought one. Continue reading in part-two here where I cover the options that I added to my NUC, initial configuration, deployment, use and additional impressions.

Ok, nuff said for now, check out part-two here.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

January 6, 2015November 3, 2024

Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – Second impressions

Storage I/O trends

Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – Second impressions

This is the second of a two-part series about my first and second impressions of the Intel NUC (Next Unit Computing). In the first post (here) I give an overview and my first impressions while in this post lets look at options added to my NUC model 54250, first deployment use and more impressions.

Intel® NUC with Intel® Core™ i5 Processor and 2.5-Inch Drive Support (NUC5i5RYH) via Intel.com

What you will want to add to a NUC

Since the NUC is a basic brick with a processor mounted on its mother board, you will need to add memory, some type of persistent storage device (mSATA, SATA or USB based) and optionally a WiFi card.

One of the nice things about the NUC is that in many ways it is the equivalent functionality of a laptop or mini-tower without the extra overhead (cost, components, packaging) enabling you to customize as needed for your specific requirements. For example there is no keyboard, mouse, video screen, WiFi, Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or flash Solid State Device (SSD) included with an operating system pre-installed. There is no least memory required enabling you to decide how much to configure while using compatible laptop style memory. Video and monitors attach via HDMI or mini-port including VGA devices via an adapter cable. Keyboard and mouse if needed are handled via USB ports.

Here is what I added to my NUC model 5420.

1	Crucial 16GB Kit (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800) SODIMM 204-Pin Notebook Memory
1	Intel Network 7260 WiFi Wireless-AC 7260 H/T Dual Band 2×2 AC+Bluetooth HMC. Here is link to Intel site for various drivers.
1	500GB Samsung Electronics 840 EVO mSATA 0.85-Inch Solid State Drive
1	SATA HDD, SSD or HHDD/SSHD (I used one of my existing drives)

Note that you will also need to supply some type of Keyboard Video Mouse (KVM), in my case I used a HDMI to VGA adapter cable to attach the NUC via HDMI (for video) and USB (keyboard and mouse) to my Startech KVM switch.

Following images show on the left Intel WiFi card installed and on the right, a Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 500GB flash SSD installed above the WiFi card. Also notice on the far right of the images the two DDR3 "notebook" class DRAM DIMM slots.

NUC WiFi card
Left: Intel WiFi card installed and Right Samsung EVO mSATA SSD card (sits above WiFi card)

Note that the NUC (as do many laptops) accepts 9mm or smaller thin 7mm height HDDs and SSDs in its SATA drive bay. I mention this because some of the higher-capacity 2TB 2.5" SFF drives are taller than 9m as shown in the above image and do not fit in the NUC internal SATA drive bay. While many devices and systems support 2.5" drive slots for HDD, SSD or HHDD/SSHDs, pay attention to the height and avoid surprises when something does not fit like it was assumed to.

2.5 HDD and SSDs
Low-profile and tall-profile 2.5" SFF HDDs

Additional drives and devices can be attached using external USB 3.0 ports including HDDs, SSDs or even USB to GbE adapters if needed. You will need to supply your own operating system, hypervisor, storage, networking or other software, such as Windows, *nix, VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, OpenStack or any of the various ZFS based (among others) storage appliances.

Unpacking and physical NUC installation

Initial setup and physical configuration of the NUC is pretty quick with the only tool needed being a Philips screw driver.

NUC and components ready for installation
Intel NUC 5420 and components ready for installation

With all the components including the NUC itself laid out for a quick inventory including recording serial numbers (see image above), the next step is to open up the NUC by removing four Philip screws from the bottom. Once the screws are removed and bottom plate removed, the SATA drive bay opens up to reach the slots of memory, mSATA SSD and WiFi card (see images below). Once the memory, mSATA and WiFi cards are installed, the SATA drive bay coverage those components and it is time to install a 2.5" standard height HDD or SSD. For my first deployment I installed temporarily installed on of my older HHDDs a 750GB Seagate Momentus XT that will be replaced by something newer soon.

NUC internal HDD/SSD slot NUC internal HDD installed
View of NUC with bottom cover removed, Left empty SATA drive bay, Right HDD installed

After the components are installed, it is time to replace the bottom cover plate of the NUC securing in place with the four screws previously removed. Next up is attaching any external devices via USB and other ports including KVM and LAN network connection. Once the hardware is ready, its time to power up the NUC and checkout the Visual BIOS (or UEFI) as shown below.

Intel NUC Visual BIOS Intel NUC Visual BIOS display
NUC VisualBIOS screen shot examples

At this point unless you have already installed an operating system, hypervisor or other software on a HDD, SSD or USB device, it is time to install your prefered software.

Windows 7

First up was Windows 7 as I already had an image built on the HHDD that required some drivers to be added. specifically, a visit to the Intel resources site (See NUC resources and links section later in this post) was made to get a LAN GbE, WiFi and USB drivers. Once those were installed the on-board GbE LAN port worked good as did the WiFi. Another driver that needed to be download was for a USB-GbE adapter to add another LAN connection. Also a couple of reboots were required for other Windows drivers and configuration changes to take place to correct some transient problems including KVM hangs which eventually cleared themselves up.

Windows 2012 R2

Following Windows 7, next up was a clean install of Windows 2012 R2 which also required some drivers and configuration changes. One of the challenges is that Windows 2012 R2 is not officially supported on the NUC with its GbE LAN and WiFi cards. However after doing some searches and reading a few posts including this and this, a solution was found and Windows 2012 R2 and its networking are working good.

Ubuntu and Clonezilla

Next up was a quick install of Ubuntu 14.04 which went pretty smooth, as well as using Clonezilla to do some drive maintenance, move images and partitions among other things.

VMware ESXi 5.5U2

My first attempt at installing a standard VMware ESXi 5.5U2 image ran into problems due to the GbE LAN port not being seen. The solution is to use a different build, or custom ISO that includes the applicable GbE LAN driver (e.g. net-e1000e-2.3.2.x86_64.vib) and some useful information at Florian Grehl site (@virten) and over at Andreas Peetz site (@VFrontDe) including SATA controller driver for xahci. Once the GbE driver was added (same driver that addresses other Intel NIC I217/I218 based systems) along with updating the SATA driver, VMware worked fine.

Needless to say there are many other things I plan on doing with the NUC both as a standalone bare-metal system as well as a virtual platform as I get more time and projects allow.

What about building your NUC alternative?

In addition to the NUC models available via Intel and its partners and accessorizing as needed, there are also special customized and ruggedized NUC versions similar to what you would expect to find with laptop, notebooks, and other PC based systems.

MSI Probox rear view
Left MSI ProBox rear-view Right MSI ProBox front view

If you are looking to do more than what Intel and its partners offer, then there are some other options such as to increase the number of external ports among other capabilities. One option which I recently added to my collection of systems is an DIY (Do It Yourself) MSI ProBox (VESA mountable) such as this one here.

MSI Probox internal view
Internal view MSI ProBox (no memory, processor or disks)

With the MSI ProBox, they are essentially a motherboard with an empty single cpu socket (e.g. LGA 1150 up to 65W) for supporting various processors, two empty DDR3 DIMM slots, 2 empty 2.5" SATA ports among other capabilities. Enclosures such as the MSI ProBox give you flexibility creating something more robust beyond a basic NUC yet smaller than a traditional server depending on your specific needs.

Looking for other small form factor modular and ruggedized server options as an alternative to a NUC, than check out those from Xi3, Advantech, Cadian Networks, and Logic Supply among many others.

Storage I/O trends

First NUC impressions

Overall I like the NUC and see many uses for it from consumer, home including entertainment and media systems, video security surveillance as well as a small server or workstation device. In addition, I can see a NUC being used for smaller environments as desktop workstations or as a lower-power, lower performance system including as a small virtualization host for SOHO, small SMB and ROBO environments. Another usage is for home virtual lab as well as gaming among other scenarios including simple software defined storage proof of concepts. For example, how about creating a small cluster of NUCs to run VMware VSAN, or Datacore, EMC ScaleIO, Starwind, Microsoft SOFS or Hyper-V as well as any of the many ZFS based NAS storage software applications.

Pro’s – Features and benefits

Small, low-power, self-contained with flexibility to choose my memory, WiFi, storage (HDD or SSD) without the extra cost of those items or software being included.

Con’s – Caveats or what to look out for

Would be nice to have another GbE LAN port however I addressed that by adding a USB 3.0 to GbE cable, likewise would be nice if the 2.5" SATA drive bay supported tall height form-factor devices such as the 2TB devices. The work around for adding larger capacity and physically larger storage devices is to use the USB 3.0 ports. The biggest warning is if you are going to venture outside of the official supported operating system and application software realm be ready to load some drivers, possibly patch and hack some install scripts and then plug and pray it all works. So far I have not run into any major show stoppers that were not addressed with some time spent searching (google will be your friend), then loading the drivers or making configuration changes.

Additional NUC resources and links

Various Intel products support search page
Intel NUC support and download links
Intel NUC model 54250 page, product brief page (and PDF version), and support with download links
Intel NUC home theater solutions guide (PDF)
Intel HCL for NUC page and Intel Core i5-4250U processor speeds and feeds
VMware on NUC tips
VMware ESXi driver for LAN net-e1000e-2.3.2.x86_64
VMware ESXi SATA xahci driver
Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – First impressions
Server Storage I/O Cables Connectors Chargers & other Geek Gifts (Part I and Part II)
Software defined storage on a budget with Lenovo TS140

Storage I/O trends

What this all means

Intel NUC provides a good option for many situations that might otherwise need a larger mini-tower desktop workstations or similar systems both for home, consumer and small office needs. NUC can also be used for specialized pre-configured application specific situations that need low-power, basic system functionality and expansion options in a small physical footprint. In addition NUC can also be a good option for adding to an existing physical and virtual LAB or as a basis for starting a new one.

So far I have found many uses for NUC which free up other systems to do other tasks while enabling some older devices to finally be retired. On the other hand like most any technology, while the NUC is flexible, its low power and performance are not enough to support other applications. However the NUC gives me flexibility to leverage the applicable unit of compute (e.g. server, workstation, etc.) that is applicable to a given task or put another way, use the right technology tool for the task at hand.

For now I only need a single NUC to be a companion to my other HP, Dell and Lenovo servers as well as MSI ProBox, however maybe there will be a small NUC cluster, grid or ring configured down the road.

What say you, do you have a NUC if so, how is it being used and tips, tricks or hints to share with others?

Ok, nuff said for now.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

December 17, 2014November 3, 2024

DIY converged server software defined storage on a budget using Lenovo TS140

Attention DIY Converged Server Storage Bargain Shoppers

Software defined storage on a budget with Lenovo TS140

server storage I/O trends

Recently I put together a two-part series of some server storage I/O items to get a geek for a gift (read part I here and part II here) that also contain items that can be used for accessorizing servers such as the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140.

Image via Lenovo.com

Likewise I have done reviews of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the past which included me liking them and buying some (read the reviews here and here), along with a review of the larger TD340 here.

Why is this of interest

Do you need or want to do a Do It Yourself (DIY) build of a small server compute cluster, or a software defined storage cluster (e.g. scale-out), or perhaps a converged storage for VMware VSAN, Microsoft SOFS or something else?

Do you need a new server, second or third server, or expand a cluster, create a lab or similar and want the ability to tailor your system without shopping or a motherboard, enclosure, power supply and so forth?

Are you a virtualization or software defined person looking to create a small VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) needing three or more servers to build a proof of concept or personal lab system?

Then the TS140 could be a fit for you.

Image via StorageIOlabs, click to see review

Why the Lenovo TS140 now?

Recently I have seen a lot of site traffic on my site with people viewing my reviews of the Lenovo TS140 of which I have a few. In addition have got questions from people via comments section as well as elsewhere about the TS140 and while shopping at Amazon.com for some other things, noticed that there were some good value deals on different TS140 models.

I tend to buy the TS140 models that are bare bones having power supply, enclosure, CD/DVD, USB ports, power supply and fan, processor and minimal amount of DRAM memory. For processors mine have the Intel E3-1225 v3 which are quad-core and that have various virtualization assist features (e.g. good for VMware and other hypervisors).

What I saw on Amazon the other day (also elsewhere) were some Intel i3-4130 dual core based systems (these do not have all the virtualization features, just the basics) in a bare configuration (e.g. no Hard Disk Drive (HDD), 4GB DRAM, processor, mother board, power supply and fan, LAN port and USB with a price of around $220 USD (your price may vary depending on timing, venue, prime or other membership and other factors). Not bad for a system that you can tailor to your needs. However what also caught my eye were the TS140 models that have the Intel E3-1225 v3 (e.g. quad core, 3.2Ghz) processor matching the others I have with a price of around $330 USD including shipping (your price will vary depending on venue and other factors).

What are some things to be aware of?

Some caveats of this solution approach include:

There are probably other similar types of servers, either by price, performance, or similar
Compare apples to apples, e.g. same or better processor, memory, OS, PCIe speed and type of slots, LAN ports
Not as robust of a solution as those you can find costing tens of thousands of dollars (or more)
A DIY system which means you select the other hardware pieces and handle the service and support of them
Hardware platform approach where you choose and supply your software of choice
For entry-level environments who have floor-space or rack-space to accommodate towers vs. rack-space or other alternatives
Software agnostic Based on basically an empty server chassis (with power supplies, motherboard, power supplies, PCIe slots and other things)
Possible candidate for smaller SMB (Small Medium Business), ROBO (Remote Office Branch Office), SOHO (Small Office Home Office) or labs that are looking for DIY
A starting place and stimulus for thinking about doing different things

What could you do with this building block (e.g. server)

Create a single or multi-server based system for

Virtual Server Infrastructure (VSI) including KVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Xen among others
Object storage
Software Defined Storage including Datacore, Microsoft SOFS, Openstack, Starwind, VMware VSAN, various XFS and ZFS among others
Private or hybrid cloud including using Openstack among other software tools
Create a hadoop big data analytics cluster or grid
Establish a video or media server, use for gaming or a backup (data protection) server
Update or expand your lab and test environment
General purpose SMB, ROBO or SOHO single or clustered server

What you need to know

Like some other servers in this class, you need to pay attention to what it is that you are ordering, check out the various reviews, comments and questions as well as verify the make, model along with configuration. For example what is included and what is not included, warranty, return policy among other things. In the case of some of the TS140 models, they do not have a HDD, OS, keyboard, monitor, mouse along with different types of processors and memory. Not all the processors are the same, pay attention, visit the Intel Ark site to look up a specific processor configuration to see if it fits your needs as well as visit the hardware compatibility list (HCL) for the software that you are planning to use. Note that these should be best practices regardless of make, model, type or vendor for server, storage, I/O networking hardware and software.

What you will need

This list assumes that you have obtained a model without a HDD, keyboard, video, mouse or operating system (OS) installed

Update your BIOS if applicable, check the Lenovo site
Enable virtualization and other advanced features via your BIOS
Software such as an Operating System (OS), hypervisor or other distribution (load via USB or CD/DVD if present)
SSD, SSHD/HHDD, HDD or USB flash drive for installing OS or other software
Keyboard, video, mouse (or a KVM switch)

What you might want to add (have it your way)

Keyboard, video mouse or a KVM switch (See gifts for a geek here)
Additional memory
Graphics card, GPU or PCIe riser
Additional SSD, SSHD/HHDD or HDD for storage
Extra storage I/O and networking ports

Extra networking ports

You can easily add some GbE (or faster ports) including use the PCIe x1 slot, or use one of the other slots for a quad port GbE (or faster), not to mention get some InfiniBand single or dual port cards such as the Mellanox Connectx II or Connect III that support QDR and can run in IBA or 10GbE modes. If you only have two or three servers in a cluster, grid, ring configuration you can run point to point topologies using InfiniBand (and some other network interfaces) without using a switch, however you decide if you need or want switched or non-switched (I have a switch). Note that with VMware (and perhaps other hypervisors or OS) you may need to update the drives for the Realtek GbE LAN on Motherboard port (see links below).

Extra storage ports

For extra storage space capacity (and performance) you can easily add PCIe G2 or G3 HBAs (SAS, SATA, FC, FCoE, CNA, UTA, IBA for SRP, etc) or RAID cards among others. Depending on your choice of cards, you can then attach to more internal storage, external storage or some combination with different adapters, cables, interposers and connectivity options. For example I have used TS140s with PCIe Gen 3 12Gbs SAS HBAs attached to 12Gbs SAS SSDs (and HDDs) with the ability to drive performance to see what those devices are capable of doing.

TS140 Hardware Defined My Way

As an example of how a TS140 can be configured, using one of the base E3-1224 v3 models with 4GB RAM, no HDD (e.g around $330 USD, your price will vary), add a 4TB Seagate HDD (or two or three) for around $140 USD each (your price will vary), add a 480GB SATA SSD for around $340 USD (your price will vary) with those attached to the internal SATA ports. To bump up network performance, how about a Mellanox Connectx II dual port QDR IBA/10GbE card for around $140 USD (your price will vary), plus around $65 USD for QSFP cable (you your price will vary), and some extra memory (use what you have or shop around) and you have a platform ready to go for around or under $1,000 USD. Add some more internal or external disks, bump up the memory, put in some extra network adapters and your price will go up a bit, however think about what you can have for a robust not so little system. For you VMware vgeeks, think about the proof of concept VSAN that you can put together, granted you will have to do some DIY items.

Some TS140 resources

Lenovo TS140 resources include

TS140 StorageIOlab review (here and here)
TS140 Lenovo ordering website
TS140 Data and Spec Sheet (PDF here)
Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 Manual (PDF here) and (PDF here)
Intel E3-1200 v3 processors capabilities (Web page here)
Enabling Virtualization Technology (VT) in TS140 BIOS (Press F1) (Read here)
Enabling Intel NIC (82579LM) GbE with VMware (Link to user forum and a blog site here)

Image via Lenovo.com

What this all means

Like many servers in its category (price, capabilities, abilities, packaging) you can do a lot of different things with them, as well as hardware define with accessories, or use your own software. Depending on how you end how hardware defining the TS140 with extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, adapters or other accessories and software your cost will vary. However you can also put together a pretty robust system without breaking your budget while meeting different needs.

Is this for everybody? Nope

Is this for more than a lab, experimental, hobbyist, gamer? Sure, with some caveats Is this apples to apples comparison vs. some other solutions including VSANs? Nope, not even close, maybe apples to oranges.

Do I like the TS140? Yup, starting with a review I did about a year ago, I liked it so much I bought one, then another, then some more.

Are these the only servers I have, use or like? Nope, I also have systems from HP and Dell as well as test drive and review others

Why do I like the TS140? It’s a value for some things which means that while affordable (not to be confused with cheap) it has features, salability and ability to be both hardware defined for what I want or need to use them as, along with software define them to be different things. Key for me is the PCIe Gen 3 support with multiple slots (and types of slots), reasonable amount of memory, internal housing for 3.5" and 2.5" drives that can attach to on-board SATA ports, media device (CD/DVD) if needed, or remove to use for more HDDs and SSDs. In other words, it’s a platform that instead of shopping for the motherboard, an enclosure, power supply, processor and related things I get the basics, then configure, and reconfigure as needed.

Another reason I like the TS140 is that I get to have the server basically my way, in that I do not have to order it with a smallest number of HDDs, or that it comes with an OS, more memory than needed or other things that I may or may not be able to use. Granted I need to supply the extra memory, HDDs, SSDs, PCIe adapters and network ports along with software, however for me that’s not too much of an issue.

What don’t I like about the TS140? You can read more about my thoughts on the TS140 in my review here, or its bigger sibling the TD340 here, however I would like to see more memory slots for scaling up. Granted for what these cost, it’s just as easy to scale-out and after all, that’s what a lot of software defined storage prefers these days (e.g. scale-out).

The TS140 is a good platform for many things, granted not for everything, that’s why like storage, networking and other technologies there are different server options for various needs. Exercise caution when doing apples to oranges comparison on price alone, compare what you are getting in terms of processor type (and its functionality), expandable memory, PCIe speed, type and number of slots, LAN connectivity and other features to meet your needs or requirements. Also keep in mind that some systems might be more expensive that include a keyboard, HDD with an OS installed that if you can use those components, then they have value and should be factored into your cost, benefit, return on investment.

And yes, I just added a few more TS140s that join other recent additions to the server storageIO lab resources…

Anybody want to guess what I will be playing with among other things during the up coming holiday season?

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

November 24, 2014November 26, 2023

November 2014 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

November 2014

Hello and welcome to this November Server and StorageIO update newsletter. Enjoy this edition of the Server and StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcasts along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

Cheers gs

Industry Trends and Perspectives

Storage trends

A few weeks ago I attended AWS re:invent 2014 in Las Vegas for a few days. For those of you who have not yet attended this event, I recommend adding it to your agenda. If you have interest in compute servers, networking, storage, development tools or management of cloud (public, private, hybrid), virtualization and related topic themes, you should check out AWS re:invent. For those who need a AWS primer or refresher visit here.

AWS made several announcements at re:invent including many around development tools, compute and data storage services. One of those to keep an eye on is cloud based Aurora relational database service that complement existing RDS tools. Aurora is positioned as an alternative to traditional SQL based transactional databases commonly found in enterprise environments (e.g. SQL Server, IBM DB2/UDB, Oracle among others). I will put some additional notes and perspectives together in a StorageIOblog post along with some video from AWS soon.

Commentary In The News

StorageIO news

Following are some StorageIO industry trends perspectives comments that have appeared in various venues. Cloud conversations continue to be popular including concerns about privacy, security and availability.

Over at Processor: Comments on Datacenters, Decide Whether To Build Or Not To Build, and controlling storage costs via insight and action. EdTechMagazine: has some comments on IaaS and Is Lean IT Here to Stay, while at CyberTrend perspectives on Better Servers for Better Business.

Across the pond over at the UK based Computerweekly comments on AWS launching Aurora cloud-based relational database engine, and hybrid cloud storage. Some comments on Overland Storage RAINcloud can be found at SearchStorage, while SearchDatabackup has some comments on Symantec break-up makeing sense for storage.

For those of you who speak Dutch, here is an interview (via it-infra.nl) I did when Holland earlier this year about storage and your business.

View other industry trends comments here

Tips and Articles

View recent as well as past tips and articles here

StorageIOblog posts

Recent StorageIOblog posts include:

View other recent as well as past blog posts here

In This Issue

Industry Trends Perspectives

Commentary in the news

Tips and Articles

StorageIOblog posts

Events & Activities

November 11-13, 2014
AWS re:Invent Las Vegas

View other recent and upcoming events here

Webinars

December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
Server & Storage I/O Performance

December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
Server & Storage I/O Decision Making

December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making

December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
Data Protection Modernization

November 13 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Software Defined Storage

November 11 10AM PT
Google+ Hangout Dell BackupU

November 11 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Software Defined Data Centers

Videos and Podcasts

Video: Click to view VMworld 2014 update

StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

From StorageIO Labs

Research, Reviews and Reports

Lenovo ThinkServer TD340
Earlier this year I did a review of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the StorageIO Labs (see the review here), in fact I ended up buying a TS140 after the review, and a few months back picked up yet another one. This StorageIOlab review looks at the Lenovo ThinkServer TD340 Tower Server which besides having a larger model number than the TS140, it also has a lot more capabilities (server compute, memory, I/O slots and internal hot-swap storage bays. Read more about the TD340 here.

Resources and Links

Check out these useful links and pages:
storageio.com/links
objectstoragecenter.com
storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
storageio.com/ssd
storageio.com/ssd

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

November 4, 2014November 26, 2023

Part II: Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

This is the second post of a two part series, read the first post here.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test drive some Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s as a follow-up to some earlier activity trying their Enterprise TurboBoost Drives. Disclosure: Seagate has been a StorageIO client and was also the sponsor of this white paper and associated proof-points mentioned in this post.

The Server Storage I/O Blender Effect Bottleneck

The earlier proof-points focused on SSD as a target or storage device. In the following proof-points, the Seagate Enterprise 1200 SSD is used as a shared read cache (write-through). Using a write-through cache enables a given amount of SSD to give a performance benefit to other local and networked storage devices.

traditional server storage I/O
Non-virtualized servers with dedicated storage and I/O paths.

Aggregation causes aggravation with I/O bottlenecks because of consolidation using server virtualization. The following figure shows non-virtualized servers with their own dedicated physical machine (PM) and I/O resources. When various servers are virtualized and hosted by a common host (physical machine), their various workloads compete for I/O and other resources. In addition to competing for I/O performance resources, these different servers also tend to have diverse workloads.

Virtual server storage I/O blender bottleneck (aggregation causes aggravation)

The figure above shows aggregation causing aggravation with the result being I/O bottlenecks as various applications performance needs converge and compete with each other. The aggregation and consolidation result is a blend of random, sequential, large, small, read and write characteristics. These different storage I/O characteristics are mixed up and need to be handled by the underlying I/O capabilities of the physical machine and hypervisor. As a result, a common deployment for SSD in addition to as a target device for storing data is as a cache to cut bottlenecks for traditional spinning HDD.

In the following figure a solution is shown introducing I/O caching with SSD to help mitigate or cut the effects of server consolation causing performance aggravations.

Creating a server storage I/O blender bottleneck

xxxxx
Addressing the VMware Server Storage I/O blender with cache

Addressing server storage I/O blender and other bottlenecks

For these proof-points, the goal was to create an I/O bottleneck resulting from multiple VMs in a virtual server environment performing application work. In this proof-point, multiple competing VMs including a SQL Server 2012 database and an Exchange server shared the same underlying storage I/O infrastructure including HDD’s The 6TB (Enterprise Capacity) HDD was configured as a VMware dat and allocated as virtual disks to the VMs. Workloads were then run concurrently to create an I/O bottleneck for both cached and non-cached results.

xxxxx
Server storage I/O with virtualization roof-point configuration topology

The following figure shows two sets of proof points, cached (top) and non-cached (bottom) with three workloads. The workloads consisted of concurrent Exchange and SQL Server 2012 (TPC-B and TPC-E) running on separate virtual machine (VM) all on the same physical machine host (SUT) with database transactions being driven by two separate servers. In these proof-points, the applications data were placed onto the 6TB SAS HDD to create a bottleneck, and a portion of the SSD used as a cache. Note that the Virtunet cache software allows you to use a part of a SSD device for cache with the balance used as a regular storage target should you want to do so.

If you have paid attention to the earlier proof-points, you might notice that some of the results below are not as good as those seen in the Exchange, TPC-B and TPC-E results about. The reason is simply that the earlier proof-points were run without competing workloads, and database along with log or journal files were placed on separate drives for performance. In the following proof-point as part of creating a server storage I/O blender bottleneck the Exchange, TPC-B as well as TPC-E workloads were all running concurrently with all data on the 6TB drive (something you normally would not want to do).

storage I/O blender solved
Solving the VMware Server Storage I/O blender with cache

The cache and non-cached mixed workloads shown above prove how an SSD based read-cache can help to reduce I/O bottlenecks. This is an example of addressing the aggravation caused by aggregation of different competing workloads that are consolidated with server virtualization.

For the workloads shown above, all data (database tables and logs) were placed on VMware virtual disks created from a dat using a single 7.2K 6TB 12Gbps SAS HDD (e.g. Seagate Enterprise Capacity).

The guest VM system disks which included paging, applications and other data files were virtual disks using a separate dat mapped to a single 7.2K 1TB HDD. Each workload ran for eight hours with the TPC-B and TPC-E having 50 simulated users. For the TPC-B and TPC-E workloads, two separate servers were used to drive the transaction requests to the SQL Server 2012 database.

For the cached tests, a Seagate Enterprise 1200 400GB 12Gbps SAS SSD was used as the backing store for the cache software (Virtunet Systems Virtucache) that was installed and configured on the VMware host.

During the cached tests, the physical HDD for the data files (e.g. 6TB HDD) and system volumes (1TB HDD) were read cache enabled. All caching was disabled for the non-cached workloads.

Note that this was only a read cache, which has the side benefit of off-loading those activities enabling the HDD to focus on writes, or read-ahead. Also note that the combined TPC-E, TPC-B and Exchange databases, logs and associated files represented over 600GB of data, there was also the combined space and thus cache impact of the two system volumes and their data. This simple workload and configuration is representative of how SSD caching can complement high-capacity HDD’s

Seagate 6TB 12Gbs SAS high-capacity HDD

While the star and focus of these series of proof-points is the Seagate 1200 Enterprise 12Gbs SAS SSD, the caching software (virtunet) and Enterprise TurboBoost drives also play key supporting and favorable roles. However the 6TB 12Gbs SAS high-capacity drive caught my attention from a couple of different perspectives. Certainly the space capacity was interesting along with a 12Gbs SAS interface well suited for near-line, high-capacity and dense tiered storage environments. However for a high-capacity drive its performance is what really caught my attention both in the standard exchange, TPC-B and TPC-E workloads, as well as when combined with SSD and cache software.

This opens the door for a great combination of leveraging some amount of high-performance flash-based SSD (or TurboBoost drives) combined with cache software and high-capacity drives such as the 6TB device (Seagate now has larger versions available). Something else to mention is that the 6TB HDD in addition to being available in either 12Gbs SAS, 6Gbs SAS or 6Gbs SATA also has enhanced durability with a Read Bit Error Rate of 10 ^15 (e.g. 1 second read error per 10^15 average attempts) and an AFR (annual failure rate) of 0.63% (See more speeds and feeds here). Hence if you are concerned about using large capacity HDD’s and them failing, make sure you go with those that have a high Read Bit Error Rate and a low AFR which are more common with enterprise class vs. lower cost commodity or workstation drives. Note that these high-capacity enterprise HDD’s are also available with Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) options.

Summary

Read more in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper compliments of Seagate 1200 12Gbs SAS SSD’s and visit the Seagate Enterprise 1200 12Gbs SAS SSD page here. Moving forward there is the notion that flash SSD will be everywhere. There is a difference between all data on flash SSD vs. having some amount of SSD involved in preserving, serving and protecting (storing) information.

Key themes to keep in mind include:

Aggregation can cause aggravation which SSD can alleviate
A relative small amount of flash SSD in the right place can go a long way
Fast flash storage needs fast server storage I/O access hardware and software
Locality of reference with data close to applications is a performance enabler
Flash SSD everywhere does not mean everything has to be SSD based
Having some amount of flash in different places is important for flash everywhere
Different applications have various performance characteristics
SSD as a storage device or persistent cache can speed up IOPs and bandwidth

Flash and SSD are in your future, this comes back to the questions of how much flash SSD do you need, along with where to put it, how to use it and when.

Ok, nuff said (for now).

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

October 28, 2014March 7, 2022

What does server storage I/O scaling mean to you?

Scaling means different things to various people depending on the context or what it is referring to.

For example, scaling can me having or doing more of something, or less as well as referring to how more, or less of something is implemented.

Scaling occurs in a couple of different dimensions and ways:

Application workload attributes – Performance, Availability, Capacity, Economics (PACE)
Stability without compromise or increased complexity
Dimension and direction – Scaling-up (vertical), scaling-out (horizontal), scaling-down

Scaling PACE – Performance Availability Capacity Economics

Often I hear people talk about scaling only in the context of space capacity. However there are aspects including performance, availability as well as scaling-up or scaling-out. Scaling from application workloads perspectives include four main group themes which are performance, availability, capacity and economics (as well as energy).

Performance – Transactions, IOP’s, bandwidth, response time, errors, quality of service
Availability – Accessibility, durability, reliability, HA, BC, DR, Backup/Restore, BR, data protection, security
Capacity – Space to store information or place for workload to run on a server, connectivity ports for networks
Economics – Capital and operating expenses, buy, rent, lease, subscription

Scaling with Stability

The latter of the above items should be thought of more in terms of a by-product, result or goal for implementing scaling. Scaling should not result in a compromise of some other attribute such as increasing performance and loss of capacity or increased complexity. Scaling with stability also means that as you scale in some direction, or across some attribute (e.g. PACE), there should not be a corresponding increase in complexity of management, or loss of performance and availability. To use a popular buzz-term scaling with stability means performance, availability, capacity, economics should scale linear with their capabilities or perhaps cost less.

Scaling directions: Scaling-up, scaling-down, scaling-out

server and storage i/o scale options

Some examples of scaling in different directions include:

Scaling-up (vertical scaling with bigger or faster)
Scaling-down (vertical scaling with less)
Scaling-out (horizontal scaling with more of what being scaled)
Scaling-up and out (combines vertical and horizontal)

Of course you can combine the above in various combinations such as the example of scaling up and out, as well as apply different names and nomenclature to see your needs or preferences. The following are a closer look at the above with some simple examples.

server and storage i/o scale up
Example of scaling up (vertically)

server and storage i/o scale down
Example of scaling-down (e.g. for smaller scenarios)

server and storage i/o scale out
Example of scaling-out (horizontally)

server and storage i/o scale out
Example of scaling-out and up(horizontally and vertical)

Summary and what this means

There are many aspects to scaling, as well as side-effects or impacts as a result of scaling.

Scaling can refer to different workload attributes as well as how to support those applications.

Regardless of what you view scaling as meaning, keep in mind the context of where and when it is used and that others might have another scale view of scale.

Ok, nuff said (for now)…

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

October 28, 2014March 7, 2022

Lenovo ThinkServer TD340 StorageIO lab Review

Storage I/O trends

Lenovo ThinkServer TD340 Server and StorageIO lab Review

Earlier this year I did a review of the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 in the StorageIO Labs (see the review here), in fact I ended up buying a TS140 after the review, and a few months back picked up another one. This StorageIOlab review looks at the Lenovo ThinkServer TD340 Tower Server which besides having a larger model number than the TS140, it also has a lot more capabilities (server compute, memory, I/O slots and internal hot-swap storage bays. Pricing varies depending on specific configuration options, however at the time of this post Lenovo was advertising a starting price of $1,509 USD for a specific configuration here. You will need to select different options to decide your specific cost.

The TD340 is one of the servers that Lenovo has had prior to its acquisition of IBM x86 server business that you can read about here. Note that the Lenovo acquisition of the IBM xSeries business group has begun as of early October 2014 and is expected to be completed across different countries in early 2015. Read more about the IBM xSeries business unit here, here and here.

The Lenovo TD340 Experience

Lets start with the overall experience which was very easy other than deciding what make and model to try. This includes going from first answering some questions to get the process moving, agreeing to keep the equipment safe, secure, insured as well as not damaging anything. Part of the process also involved answering some configuration related questions and shortly there after a large box from Lenovo arrived.

TD340 is ready for use
TD340 with Keyboard and Mouse (Monitor and keyboard not included)

One of the reasons I have a photo of the TD340 on a desk is that I initially put it in an office environment similar to what I did with the TS140 as Lenovo claimed it would be quiet enough to do so. I was not surprised and indeed the TD340 is quiet enough to be used where you would normally find a workstation or mini-tower. By being so quiet the TD340 is a good fit for environments that need a server that has to go into an office environment as opposed to a server or networking room.

Welcome to the TD340
Lenovo ThinkServer Setup

TD340 Setup
Lenovo TD340 as tested in BIOS setup, note the dual Intel Xeon E5-2420 v2 processors

TD340 as tested

TD340 Selfie of whats inside
TD340 "Selfie" with 4 x 8GB DDR3 DIMM (32GB) and PCIe slots (empty)

TD340 disk drive bays
TD340 internal drive hot-swap bays

Speeds and Feeds

The TD340 that I tested was a Machine type 7087 model 002RUX which included 4 x 16GB DIMMs and both processor sockets occupied.

You can view the Lenovo TD340 data sheet with more speeds and feeds here, however the following is a summary.

Operating systems support include various Windows Servers (2008-2012 R2), SUSE, RHEL, Citrix XenServer and VMware ESXi
Form factor is 5U tower with weight starting at 62 pounds depending on how configured
Processors include support for up to two (2) Intel E5-2400 v2 series
Memory includes 12 DDR3 DRAM DIMM slots (LV RDIMM and UDIMM) for up to 129GB.
Expansion slots vary depending on if a single or dual cpu socket. Single CPU socket installed has 1 x PCIe Gen3 FH/HL x8 mechanical, x4 electrical, 1 x PCIe Gen3
FH/HL x16 mechanical, x16 electrical and a single PCI 32bit/33 MHz FH/HL slot. With two CPU sockets installed extra PCIe slots are enabled. These include single x PCIe GEN3: FH/HL x8 mechanical, x4 electrical, single x PCIe GEN3: FH/HL x16 mechanical, x16 electrical, three x PCIe GEN3: FH/HL x8 mechanical, x8 electrical and a single PCI 5V 32-bit/33 MHz: FH/HL
Two 5.25” media bays for CD or DVDs or other devices
Integrated ThinkServer RAID (0/1/10/5) with optional RAID adapter models
Internal storage varies depending on model including up to eight (8) x 3.5” hot swap drives or 16 x 2.5” hot swap drives (HDD’s or SSDs).
Storage space capacity varies by the type and size of the drives being used.
Networking interfaces include two (2) x GbE
Power supply options include single 625 watt or 800 watt, or 1+1 redundant hot-swap 800 watt, five fixed fans.
Management tools include ThinkServer Management Module and diagnostics

What Did I do with the TD340

After initial check out in an office type environment, I moved the TD340 into the lab area where it joined other servers to be used for various things.

Some of those activities included using the Windows Server 2012 Essentials along with associated admin activities as well as installing VMware ESXi 5.5.

TD340 is ready for use
TD340 with Keyboard and Mouse (Monitor and keyboard not included)

What I liked

Unbelievably quiet which may not seem like a big deal, however if you are looking to deploy a server or system into a small office workspace, this becomes an important considerations. Otoh, if you are a power user and want a robust server that can be installed into a home media entertainment system, well, this might be a nice to have consideration ;). Speaking of IO slots, naturally I’m interested in Server Storage I/O so having multiple slots is a must have, along with the processor that is multi-core (pretty much standard these days) along with VT and EP for supporting VMware (these were disabled in the BIOS however that was an easy fix).

What I did not like

The only thing I did not like was that I ran into a compatibility issue trying to use a LSI 9300 series 12Gb SAS HBA which Lenovo is aware of, and perhaps has even addressed by now. What I ran into is that the adapters work however I was not able to get the full performance out of the adapters as compared to on other systems including my slower Lenovo TS140s.

Summary

Overall I give Lenovo and the TD340 an "B+" which would have been an "A" had I not gotten myself into a BIOS situation or been able to run the 12Gbps SAS PCIe Gen 3 cards at full speed. Likewise the Lenovo service and support also helped to improve on the experience. Otoh, if you are simply going to use the TD340 in a normal out of the box mode without customizing to add your own adapters or install your own operating system or Hypervisors (beyond those that are supplied as part of the install setup tool kit), you may have an "A" or "A+" experience with the TD340.

Would I recommend the TD340 to others? Yes for those who need this type and class of server for Windows, *nix, Hyper-V or VMware environments.

Would I buy a TD340 for myself? Maybe if that is the size and type of system I need, however I have my eye on something bigger. On the other hand for those who need a good value server for a SMB or ROBO environment with room to grow, the TD340 should be on your shopping list to compare with other solutions.

Disclosure: Thanks to the folks at Lenovo for sending and making the TD340 available for review and a hands on test experience including covering the cost of shipping both ways (the unit should now be back in your possession). Thus this is not a sponsored post as Lenovo is not paying for this (they did loan the server and covered two-way shipping), nor am I paying them, however I have bought some of their servers in the past for the StorageIOLab environment that are companions to some Dell and HP servers that I have also purchased.

Ok, nuff said

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

VMware announces vSphere V6 and associated virtualization technologies

VMware vSphere Refresh

What is new with vSphere V6

What is vVOL?

What this announcement means

Where to learn more

Wrap up and summary

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Server Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties or dummies ;)

Server and Storage I/O benchmarking 101

Where to learn more

Wrap up and summary

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Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I)

Background

What is Microsoft Diskspd?

What can Diskspd do?

What type of storage does Diskspd work with?

What information does Diskspd produce?

Where to get Diskspd?

New to server storage I/O benchmarking or tools?

How do you use Diskspd?

Where to learn more

Wrap up and summary, for now…

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Microsoft Diskspd (Part II): Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools

Microsoft Diskspd StorageIO lab test drive

Where to learn more

Comments and wrap-up

What I like about Diskspd (Pros)

Where Diskspd could be improved (Cons)

Summary

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Green and Virtual Data Center Primer

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

Where to learn more

What this all means

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Green and Virtual Data Center

Green and Virtual Data Center Resources

Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and Sustainable

Where to learn more

What this all means

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Green and Virtual IT Data Center Links

Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

Enabling Effective Produtive Efficient Economical Flexible Scalable Resilient Information Infrastrctures

White papers, analyst reports and perspectives

Vendor Centric and Marketing Website Links and tools

Green and Virtual Tools

What’s your power, cooling, floor space, energy, environmental or green story?

Green and Virtual Metrics

Disclaimer and notes

What this all means

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Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – First impressions

Introducing Intel Next Unit Computing aka NUC

Which NUC to buy?

Whats included with a NUC?

Processor Speeds and Feeds

What this all means

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Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – Second impressions

What you will want to add to a NUC

Unpacking and physical NUC installation

Windows 7

Windows 2012 R2

Ubuntu and Clonezilla

VMware ESXi 5.5U2

What about building your NUC alternative?

First NUC impressions

Pro’s – Features and benefits

Con’s – Caveats or what to look out for

Additional NUC resources and links

What this all means

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Attention DIY Converged Server Storage Bargain Shoppers

Software defined storage on a budget with Lenovo TS140

Why is this of interest

Why the Lenovo TS140 now?