How to Speed up Database Applications with a Purpose-Built SSD Storage Solution

Transcription

1 How to Speed up Database Applications with a Purpose-Built SSD Storage Solution SAN Accessible Storage Array Speeds Applications by up to 25x Introduction Whether deployed in manufacturing, finance, web engines, education or military uses, when databases run slowly everyone knows it. The slowness in response times affects countless customers and everyone in the organization, from the president to the shop floor. Alternatives There are a number of time honored ways to speed up database performance. These include adding more memory in the server, local disk emulator boards, using 15k rpm disk drives, using more disk spindles than necessary, short stroking that uses only the outer disk tracks, using a local SSD and more. Each of these solutions has their place generally in a small, localized database application. More sophisticated solutions include database tuning which is often ad hoc, always optimizing yesterday s load and very expensive. In actuality, what most IT administrators want is a powerful, large capacity, SAN capable, reliable, high performance Solid State Disk (SSD) based solution that is optimized for speed, reliability and long life with no tuning needed. FlashDisk Database Accelerator Now there is a way to get a centralized, SAN capable enterprise solution for your most important and performance critical applications with a plug and play solution called FlashDisk Database Accelerator (DBA). This new product leverages many of the technologies developed over many decades and combine them into a unit designed specifically to speed databases without constant tuning. The performance chart below showcases the performance of FlashDisk DBA compared to our own flagship VX-2300 RAID Disk Array. These benchmarks use 4KB blocks, the size typically utilized in actual database applications. The high performance VX-2300 with 24 high-speed 15k rpm disks delivers 3,000 IOPS or just 125 IOPS per disk. On database critical random writes, FlashDisk DBA delivers 36.6 times the performance per disk drive. Thus, it would take a VX with 440 high-speed hard disk drives (HDDs) to deliver the same random performance as FlashDisk DBA with just 12 SSDs. Sustained I/O with databasesized 4KB Blocks FlashDisk VX with (24) 15k rpm disks FlashDisk DBA with (12) 400 GB SSDs Relative System Performance Relative Drive Performance Random Reads 8,000 73,000 IOPS 9.1x 18.2x Random Writes 3,000 55,000 IOPS 18.3x 36.6x

2 Sequential Reads 129, ,000 IOPS 1.7x 3.4x Sequential Writes 35, ,000 IOPS 3.8x 7.6x Relative Cost It is important to examine the cost to meet a database performance goal using either HDDs or SSDs. Clearly, using hundreds of HDDs will be more expensive than a smaller number of SSDs even though the cost per SSD is higher. Here is a summary of the relative costs: Cost Performance Measure FlashDisk VX with (24) 15k rpm disks FlashDisk DBA with (12) 400 GB SSDs SSD vs. HDD Relative Cost Savings $/IO $13.33 $ % Comments FlashDisk DBA delivers IOPS at a fraction the cost of an HDD system $/IO/TB $2.70 $ % FlashDisk DBA looks even better for speed and capacity combined Note: Data based on capacity, performance and cost as of August 1, 2012 Thus despite being higher priced than standard FlashDisk VX-2300 disk systems, FlashDisk DBA delivers the same I/O performance for 86.3% lower investment. Inversely it delivers 7.3x the IOPS per dollar. Purpose Built Design By purpose built we mean that speeding databases was the ultimate design criteria. In a traditional RAID system, the disks are always slower than the RAID controller. However, SSD disks are faster than most RAID controllers, making typical RAID controllers the new bottleneck a watershed event in the history of non-volatile data storage. Even our 11 th generation FlashDisk controller, with industry leading RAID performance, was no match for the SSD speeds. So we designed the 12 th generation controller to keep up with the SSDs. The controller is not the full story we looked holistically at the FlashDisk DBA as a fully integrated solution to increase database performance, reliability and long life. FlashDisk DBA offers 4.8 TB with 12 high speed SSDs featuring SLC technology.

3 Here are the major design parameters that make this product so perfectly suited for enterprise databases: Speed The new 12 th generation controller is designed on an exceptionally high performance processor coupled with large cache memory and field proven reliability. The kernel was stripped of non-essential functions to optimize for speed. Since FlashDisk DBA has no rotating parts and the SSDs contain embedded error correction and block replacement, database applications can run in RAID 1 or RAID 10 for speed and redundancy. This avoids the heavy I/O burden of RAID 5 and RAID 6 parity, further speeding database and extending SSD product life to five years or more. RAID 1 and 10 also enables multiple simultaneous reads from redundant devices to accelerate reading even further. SAN Accessible Reading and writing data at high speed requires high speed interfaces and FlashDisk DBA accordingly includes eight 8 Gb Fibre Channel ports for the ultimate in throughput. Multiple ports can be assigned to a single server or up to eight servers can be directly connected to FlashDisk DBA without a Fibre Channel switch to create a SAN-In-A-Box. Alternately, it can be connected to a Fibre Chanel switch for SAN access to more than eight servers. FlashDisk DBA works in all popular virtualization and cluster environments. Critical databases have high performance, high accessibility and high availability goals that cannot be served with many of the local solutions previously mentioned. A centralized external storage device like FlashDisk DBA provides the SAN access, virtualization and cluster support while delivering the performance, reliability and long life needed for key applications. FlashDisk DBA includes dual controllers with four Fibre Channel 8 Gb ports each plus dual fans and power supplies. Reliable FlashDisk DBA is designed for reliability. For starters, of course, SSDs have no rotating parts and thus are not subject to the mechanical wear and tear of standard disk drives. The

4 SSDs used in FlashDisk DBA take reliability a step further by using only more reliable Single Level Cell technology (SLC) rather than Multi-Level Cell (MLC) technology which offers higher capacity but lower speed and reliability. The SSDs also implement a wear leveling algorithm that distributes the workload across all available blocks. This is critical in database applications where hot spots and directories tend to write the same data repetitively. Automated block replacement within the SSDs themselves replace any bad blocks that may develop transparently to the controller, host and database application. Fault Tolerant Hardware FlashDisk DBA is designed with all redundant hot swap components for reliability and ease of service including controllers, SSDs and power supplies. For the ultimate in reliability, one SSD can be reserved as a hot spare drive that would automatically take over for a failed SSD and be rebuilt with correct data. Path failover is also available using two high-speed, low latency 8 Gb Fibre Channel ports per server with our FlashPath multi-path (MPIO) implementation.

5 Clustering Support FlashDisk DBA supports Oracle RAC, VMware cluster, Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability and other cluster environments. With eight Fibre channel ports or a Fibre Channel switch, multiple servers can see the same storage for individual server or clustered server access. For multi-server environments, built-in LUN masking protects storage volumes so they can be accessed only by authorized servers and processes. Long Life The SSDs used in FlashDisk DBA are designed to perform 30 complete writes per day for five years an incomparable spec in today's market. This is a result of exceptional design and manufacturing of the SLC technology coupled with on-drive intelligence to perform the wear leveling and bad block replacement among other innovative technologies. For higher write loads than 30 complete writes per day, the life of the product can be extended by under provisioning the storage leaving some space free and spreading the write load over more storage space. Capacity Currently, the SLC-based SSDs offer 400 GB capacity and 12 SSD are contained in a 2U rackmount enclosure with a total capacity of 4.8 TB. This single shelf is often sufficient for all but the largest databases. FlashDisk DBA has the ability to add expansion shelves, however maximum speed is reach with a single shelf. So adding shelves scales capacity only. To scale both capacity and performance, just use multiple FlashDisk DBAs. Ease of Management The ability to easily manage this critical data is key to the usefulness of database storage. One initial advantage of the FlashDisk DBA for users is that eliminates the myriad of spindles so common to database administrators. To get performance, database software had to spread files across hundreds of disks. FlashDisk DBA puts all of this into one 2U shelf, eliminating confusion of where data resides. FlashDisk DBA is managed by FlashDisk Global Manager which manages multiple standard FlashDisk and FlashDisk DBA systems over a network browser. This field-proven, easy-touse GUI empowers the system administrators to identify the status of any and all components remotely. All FlashDisks in an organization are managed from a single pane of glass or alternately with a command-line-interface. Serviceability FlashDisk DBA is designed with self-service in mind as all components are hot swappable. The drives in mirror-mode are all hot-swappable as well with indicator lights that make for easy identification of specific components. All of these hot-swap components are selfserviceable by the client with on-site personnel. To further improve on the serviceability there is an embedded 24x7 automated call-home feature which that sends an to a list of designated recipients which can include an

6 alter to the 24x7 call center at Winchester Systems. When received, the notice automatically creates a service ticket and assigns a technical representative to the issue. Database Benchmarks Imagine running queries and reports at 2X, 5X, 10X or even 25X the current speed. Now imagine that it is accomplished with a holistically designed product that offers plug-and-play simplicity for you, the IT administrator, while harnessing all the powerful capabilities delivered in the underlying technology. Below are a few sample real-world measured benchmarks: Database Function 15k Disks FlashDisk DBA Speed Multiple Time Reduction Simple Query 3 min 34 sec 16 sec % Short Report 8 min 3 sec 1 min 35 sec % Long Report 2 hr 53 min 23 min % Return on Investment The result is more customers served, more revenue, higher internal productivity, better inventory planning and more. It is easy to see how FlashDisk DBA can pay for itself in a few months and then repay for itself many times over, year after year. Conclusion FlashDisk DBA is ideal for those database driven applications where speed, reliability and long life are crucial to success. It is a high performance external storage solution that also provides SAN accessibility, virtualization and cluster support needed in enterprise environments.