QLE10000 Series Adapter Provides Application Benefits Through I/O Caching QLogic Caching Technology Delivers Scalable Performance to Enterprise Applications Key Findings The QLogic 10000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter enhances application performance by optimizing random read-intensive workloads running in clustered, shared resource environments. The QLE10000 Series technology integrates Fibre Channel storage network connections, an SSD interface, and embedded processing. The technology delivers scalable performance to enterprise applications and reduces the performance gap between these applications and their storage subsystems. QLogic s caching technology in the QLE10000 Series Fibre Channel Adapter delivers: Large application acceleration with modest cache configurations: In a single-server configuration, the adapter delivers 7.75 the performance over 0 percent cache Performance that scales directly with the server infrastructure: In a multiserver (four or more) configuration, the adapter delivers up to 22 the performance over 0 percent cache Remotely located cache performance difference of less than 10 percent compared to cache residing locally
Executive Summary The growing disparity between the performance of CPU-based and disk-based storage continues to grow. Applications that are Web 2.0, mission-critical, I/O intensive, virtualized, and clustered continue to put an additional burden on processors and slower storage, which lowers overall application performance. These increased performance demands on the enterprise data center require application performance improvements using innovative solutions that can scale across the enterprise infrastructure. The QLogic 10000 Series Adapter technology delivers a unique solution optimized to address the growing performance gap between what the processor can compute and what the storage I/O subsystem can deliver. With a simple adapter deployment model, the seamless approach combines enterprise SAN connectivity with shared serverbased I/O caching. The QLE10000 Series Adapter provides dramatic and scalable performance improvements to the widest range of enterprise applications. This white paper provides an overview of the application performance capability of the QLE10000 Series Adapter. Using Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Benchmark E (TPC-E) an online transaction processing (OLTP) workload the benchmarks provide real-world, I/O-intensive transactions that simulate activities found in complex database application environments. The QLE10000 meets the application performance challenge and accelerates performance across the entire enterprise. Problem and Resolution Increased server performance, higher virtual machine (VM) density, advances in network bandwidth, and more demanding business application workloads create a critical I/O performance imbalance between servers, networks, and storage subsystems. Storage I/O is the primary performance bottleneck for most virtualized and data-intensive applications. As application workloads and VM densities increase, so does the pressure on these potential hotspots and the time required to access critical application information. Slower storage response times result in lower application performance, lost productivity, more frequent service disruptions, reduced customer satisfaction, and, ultimately, a loss of competitive advantage. A new class of server-side storage acceleration is the latest innovation in the market addressing this performance disparity. The idea is simple: fast, reliable, solid-state Flash memory connected to the server brings faster data access to the server s CPU. Flash memory, in the form of SSD media, is highly available in the market and promises to perform much faster than any rotational disk under typical small, highly random, I/O enterprise workloads. The QLE10000 Series Fibre Channel Adapter from QLogic shows increased transaction throughput from 7 to 22 times with OLTP database workloads, while reducing application latency (as measured with TPC-E benchmarks). The 10000 Series Adapter is a PCIe-based I/O device that provides integrated storage network (Fibre Channel) connectivity, I/O caching technology, integrated SSD, and the embedded processing required to make SSD management and caching tasks transparent to the host server. The QLogic solution delivers the application performance acceleration benefits of server-based cache without the limitations of solutions that require separate, server-based storage management software and operating system (OS) filter drivers. The key benefits identified in this paper are the improvements by the QLogic 10000 Series Adapter on the overall OLTP performance in transactions per second (TPS). These improvements provide real-world objective performance data to enterprise users. The primary objectives are to optimize performance, maximize transactions, and increase the value of the existing infrastructure, thereby reducing the costs of server, management, and overall infrastructure. Benchmarking with TPC-E TPC-E is an OLTP workload providing a mixture of read-only and updateintensive transactions that simulate the activities found in complex OLTP application environments. The benchmark exercises a wide range of system components associated with such environments, which are characterized by these attributes: Simultaneous execution of multiple transaction types that span a breadth of complexity Moderate system and application execution time A balanced mixture of disk I/O and processor usage SSG-WP13002 SN0430935-00 Rev. A 02/13 2
Single-Server QLE10000 Delivers 7.75 Performance The single-server test setup shown in Figure 1 was configured with an Intel Xeon Server connected to an HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) storage array, through the QLogic QLE10000 Adapter and the QLogic 5800V/5802V Fibre Channel Switch. Benchmark Factory for Databases TPC-E runs were executed with SSD cache levels varying in size from 0 to 100 percent of the actual SQL database size. Multiserver (4) QLE10000 Delivers 22 Performance The four-server test setup shown in Figure 3 was configured with four Intel Xeon Servers connected to an HP EVA storage array through four QLogic QLE10000 Adapters and a QLogic 5800V/5802V Fibre Channel Switch. Benchmark Factory TPC-E runs were executed in parallel with SSD cache levels varying in size from 0 to 100 percent of the SQL database size. The simultaneous runs emulate a clustered application scenario, where numerous servers are running I/O traffic to a single array. Figure 1. Single Server TPC-E Test Setup Figure 2 shows how performance improvements are directly related to caching the application data closer to the server processor. The range indicated by 1A shows a significant application performance available with small configurations: 3 TPS at just 20 percent cache size. The range indicated by 1B shows a large application acceleration available with modest cache configurations: 7.75 TPS at 30 percent cache size. Figure 3. Multiple Server TPC-E Test Setup Figure 2: Single Server TPC-E TPS SSG-WP13002 SN0430935-00 Rev. A 02/13 3
Figure 4 shows that in a four-server configuration, there is clearly a very large aggregated TPS acceleration that is achieved with relatively modest cache sizing. The range indicated by 2A shows a significant application performance increase with small configurations: 3.5 TPS at just 20 percent cache sized. The range indicated by 2B shows that a large application acceleration performance is available with modest cache configurations and multiple servers: 22 TPS at 30 percent cache size. As shown in Figure 6, the performance benchmark measured 0 percent cache against 30 percent local caching, and the test repeated with the operation of caching at 30 percent in the remote configuration. No significant difference was perceived between local cache access and remote cache access. Figure 6: Local Versus Remote Cache Efficiency Figure 4: Four Server TPC-E TPS Local Cache Versus Remote Cache Efficiency of QLE10000 Remote Access Figure 5 identifies the configuration testing the latency difference of local versus remote cache (where a LUN cache is located in a QLE10000 Adapter residing on another server). Test conclusions showed a nine percent performance impact of slightly increased latency between local versus remote TPC performance. Figure 5: Local Versus Remote Test Configuration Test Hardware and Software Table 1 lists the hardware and Table 2 lists the software used for Benchmark Factory for Databases TPC-E testing. Host Server Table 1. Hardware Used for Exchange TPC-E Benchmark Testing Host Bus Adapter Hardware Quantity of Host Bus Adapters per Host Fabric Switch Storage Array HP EVA 6300 Drive Speed Description Dual 6-core Intel Xeon CPU E5-2640 at 2.50GHz, 24 logical processors, 32GB RAM QLogic QLE10000 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter 1 QLogic 5800V/5802V 8Gbps Fibre Channel Switch 10K Quantity of Drives on Array 24 LUN Size 100GB 7 RAID Type RAID 5 SSG-WP13002 SN0430935-00 Rev. A 02/13 4
Table 2. Software Used for Exchange TPC-E Benchmark Testing Software Operating System I/O Load Generation Tool Benchmark Test Database Type Database Size Database LUN Size Log LUN Size Summary and Conclusion Description Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Benchmark Factory for Databases version 6.8 TPC-E Microsoft SQL Server 200GB 1,000GB 500GB The QLogic 10000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter provides best-inclass features and an unprecedented level of high performance, superior scalability, and enhanced reliability. The unique caching solution of the QLE10000 Series Adapter increases the server performance needed to meet the escalating requirements of enterprise-class users. Performance-hungry, response-time-sensitive applications demand increased transactions and decreased response times. By locating application data closer to the server CPU with the QLE10000 Series Adapter, the server delivers lower latency for improved response times, as well as higher throughput to feed those hungry servers. The QLogic QLE10000 Series Fibre Channel Adapter bridges the transactionbased I/O performance gap and meets application performance challenges by delivering scalable performance to enterprise applications. With the introduction of the QLE10000 Series Adapter, QLogic continues to be the industry leader in delivering high-performance I/O solutions to the data center and in solving enterprise customer requirements. Key performance findings using the QLE10000 Series Adapter with database applications: Performance gains are available to non-clustered applications up to 7.75 performance in a single-server configuration. Large performance gains are available for clustered applications up to 22 performance in a four-server configuration. The QLE10000 Series Adapter enables system performance to scale with server infrastructure. Storage performance scales with server compute and memory capacity. The QLE10000 Series Adapter provides efficient, remote access support less than 10 percent decrease between local configurations and remote configurations. Today s virtualized and distributed workloads across the data center demand faster I/O access. Existing solutions do not address the added dimension of multiple servers acting together to run complex businesscritical applications, such as data warehousing, customer relationship management (CRM), OLTP, enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-mail servers, Web servers, reporting, analytics, financial trading applications, and cluster applications: Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and IBM DB2 purescale. Increased server performance, higher VM density, advances in network bandwidth, and more demanding business application workloads create a critical I/O performance imbalance between servers, networks, and storage subsystems servicing these environments. SSG-WP13002 SN0430935-00 Rev. A 02/13 5
Disclaimer Reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the validity and accuracy of these performance tests. QLogic Corporation is not liable for any error in this published white paper or the results thereof. Variation in results may be a result of change in configuration or in the environment. QLogic specifically disclaims any warranty, expressed or implied, relating to the test results and their accuracy, analysis, completeness or quality. Follow us: Share: Corporate Headquarters QLogic Corporation 26650 Aliso Viejo Parkway Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949-389-6000 www.qlogic.com International Offices UK Ireland Germany France India Japan China Hong Kong Singapore Taiwan 2013 QLogic Corporation. Specifications are subject to change without notice. All rights reserved worldwide. QLogic and the QLogic logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. Benchmark Factory is a registered trademark of Quest Software, Inc. HP is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. IBM, DB2, and purescale are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Xeon is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information supplied by QLogic Corporation is believed to be accurate and reliable. QLogic Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure. QLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or specifications. SSG-WP13002 SN0430935-00 Rev. A 02/13 6