Esg Lab Avere Fxt_2011

8/4/2019 Esg Lab Avere Fxt_2011

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/esg-lab-avere-fxt2011 1/17

Lab ValidationReport

Avere FXT Series

Efficient Scale-out NAS

By Vinny Choinski

August 2011

© 2011, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.



Lab Validation: Avere FXT Series 2


Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Background ............................................................................................................................................................... 3

Avere FXT Series ....................................................................................................................................................... 4

ESG Lab Validation ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Getting Started ......................................................................................................................................................... 6

FXT Series Scalability................................................................................................................................................. 8

FXT Series Performance .......................................................................................................................................... 10

ESG Lab Validation Highlights ..................................................................................................................... 14

Issues to Consider ....................................................................................................................................... 14

The Bigger Truth ......................................................................................................................................... 15

Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 16

All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise

Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from

time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in

part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of the Enterprise

Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. Copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should

you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at (508) 482.0188.

ESG Lab Reports

The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about emerging technologies and products in the

storage, data management and information security industries. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the

evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight

into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing

improvement. ESG Lab's expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on

interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was

sponsored by Avere Systems.





Introduction

This report documents the results of ESG Lab hands-on testing of the Avere FXT Series NAS appliances. The Avere

FXT Series appliances are designed to provide efficient high performance data tiering and scale-out clustering to

any NAS solution by separating performance scaling from capacity scaling to deliver each more efficiently.

Background

NAS data continues to see fast-paced growth while management and efficiency problems continue to plague

storage administrators. Administrators are challenged with managing multiple NAS solutions with a growing

number of large file systems. According to ESG research, one-fifth of users are reporting NAS capacity growth of

more than 50% per year (up from only 13% who reported greater than 50% annual NAS growth in a 2008 ESG

storage survey), and 54% of organizations with NAS installations are indicating that their storage capacity

requirements are growing by at least 20% per year.1

Figure 1

As organizations look for ways to effectively control and

manage enormous NAS data growth, business managers are looking to their IT organizations to deliver smart,

efficient, and cost effective solutions. As shown in , improved business process, better return on

investment/speed of payback, and OPEX and CAPEX reduction rank among the top five considerations for justifying

IT investments over the next 12 to 18 months.2

Figure 1. Most Important Considerations for Justifying IT Investments

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2011.

1Source: ESG Research Report, Scale-out Storage Market Trends, December 2010.

2Source: ESG Research Report, 2011 IT Spending Intentions Survey , January 2011.

16%

19%

24%

35%

37%

39%

43%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Reduced time-to-market for our products or services

Improved regulatory compliance

Reduction in capital expenditures (i.e., purchases of

equipment and other fixed assets)

Improved security / risk management

Return on investment / speed of payback

Business process improvement

Reduction in operational expenditures (i.e., labor, utilities,

materials and other ongoing costs associated with

operating an application, system, or business process)

Which of the following considerations do you believe will be most important in

justifying IT investments to your organization’s business management team over the

next 12-18 months? (Percent of respondents, N=611, three responses accepted)

http://www.averesystems.com/



http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2010/12/scale-out-storage-market-trends/



http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2011/01/2011-it-spending-intentions-survey/










Avere FXT Series

The Avere FXT Series is a scale-out NAS platform that provides efficient performance and capacity scaling for NAS

environments. As shown in Figure 2, the FXT Series is deployed between the NAS filer(s) and its clients, acting as

high performance storage media for active data. Thus, storage capacity can be cost effectively scaled on the back-

end filers while performance scale is handled on the front end by the FXT Series. All back-end NAS filer storage can

be presented and managed centrally via the FXT Series, enabling simplified administration and namespace

management.

Figure 2. Avere FXT Series

The FXT hardware platform comes in a 2U form factor supporting both 1 GbE and 10 GbE networking. The nodes

can be clustered for high availability and are offered in the following configuration options:

• FXT 2750 – 512 GB SSD (SLC), 72 GB RAM, 2 GB NVRAM, 2 10GE & 6 1GE ports

• FXT 2550 – 3.6 TB HDD (SAS), 72 GB RAM, 2 GB NVRAM, 2 10GE & 6 1GE ports

• FXT 2300 – 1.2 TB HDD (SAS), 64 GB RAM, 1 GB NVRAM, 2 10GE & 2 1GE ports

The FXT Series separates NAS service functions from mass storage functions. It uses a tiered file system (TFS)

schema to dynamically place data on the most optimal storage media. Active data is moved to fast media on the

FXT Series, enabling dense, cost effective SATA storage to be used on the back end for more persistent data. The

cluster can be configured with an unlimited number of nodes for linear performance scale. The FXT Series providescomprehensive monitoring and global namespace management across all nodes.





ESG Lab Validation

ESG Lab performed hands-on evaluation and testing of the FXT Series at an Avere Systems facility in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. Testing was designed to demonstrate how the FXT Series efficiently provides high performance and

capacity scalability for scale-out NAS environments. Also of interest were ease of use and implementation.

The configuration used for ESG Lab testing is shown in Figure 3. A three-node Avere FXT 2750 cluster was

configured between a pair of NetApp FAS3240 filers and a pair of VMware ESXi hosts each with 24 virtual machines.An Arista DCS-7148S-R network switch was used for LAN connectivity between the host, the FXT Series, and the

NetApp filers. Each VMware ESXi host was configured with 12 VMs that accessed data through the FXT 2750 cluster

and 12 VMs with direct access to the filers. Across both ESXi hosts there were 24 VMs accessing data through the

FXT 2750 cluster and 24 VMs with direct access to the filers. Network VLANs were set up for each configuration.

Workloads were installed on each set of 24 VMs to compare performance with and without the FXT Series in the

data path.

Figure 3. Test Bed





Getting Started

Preparing the FXT Series for use requires performing the initial setup of the cluster from pre-racked nodes with

power and network connectivity already provided. The nodes were racked in the lab test bed with VLANs and NAS

storage pre-configured.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab began testing the FXT Series by powering up a node and connecting to the FXT Series setup page via a web

browser. The setup process was straightforward and easy to navigate. As shown in Figure 4, the device is configured

from a form template within the setup web page—it can be configured manually by filling in the form or by pointing

to a configuration file. ESG Lab conducted the manual process using the configuration template. The form required

standard network and naming information, with help fields available for most entries.

Figure 4. FXT Series Setup Page





Next, ESG Lab explored performance-monitoring capabilities by selecting the Dashboard tab from the FXT Series

GUI. The GUI allows multiple parameters to be set up and monitored. Figure 5 shows the Cluster Wide –

Ops/Second view of the configuration. ESG Lab selected client IOs/sec and MASS storage synchronous and

asynchronous IOs/sec to compare the performance seen on the client side with the load on the backend MASS or

NAS filer storage.

Figure 5. Performance Monitoring

Why This Matters

Installing and configuring traditional large-scale file systems can be extremely complex and time-consuming. ESG

research found that among organizations considering using scale-out NAS solutions, faster provisioning times and

ease of use ranked fourth and fifth among top five drivers for interest in scale-out NAS infrastructure.3

ESG Lab found that the FXT Series from Avere Systems could be non-disruptively deployed in an existing NAS

environment, enabling improved performance and scale. The solution was easily configured from a web-based

setup page in a matter of minutes. Ongoing administration proved intuitive and easy to navigate.










FXT Series Scalability

Scalability describes the process of non-disruptively adding nodes to a running cluster for performance scale and

configuring additional storage capacity on the back end of the solution by adding new exports or NAS filers.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab validated the FXT Series solution’s ability to deliver high performance while increasing backend capacity forscale-out NAS environments. As shown in the middle of Figure 6, adding cluster nodes to the solution allows

performance to scale linearly. The right side of Figure 6 depicts the ability to add capacity with central management

via the addition of a NAS filer.

Figure 6. FXT Scalability

As shown in Figure 7, ESG Lab used the FXT Series GUI to add a third node to an existing two-node cluster. Node

(vantage25) was selected from a list of available nodes. A simple click on the “Allow to join” tab launched the

process in the background.

Figure 7. Performance Scalability





Lastly, ESG Lab used the FXT cluster to build a single global namespace that spanned multiple back-end filers. As

shown in Figure 8, export (/vol/bryansim) on filer (grapnel) could be found at namespace path (/ESG/HR). Using the

Avere GUI, ESG Lab added an existing export (/vol/cust) from filer (northhill) to the same namespace (/ESG) at path

(/ESG/finance). This allowed directories from multiple back-end filers to be presented to a host under a common

mount point.

Figure 8. Capacity Scalability and Simplified Namespace Management

Why This Matters

Keeping pace with the runaway capacity demands of growing volumes of data while trying to maintain acceptable

performance levels can present major challenges to any It organization. ESG research indicates that 32% of those

considering scale-out solutions are looking for improved throughput while 28% see improved IO/sec as factors

driving their interest. Additionally, 33% of respondents considering scale-out NAS indicated that they were

interested in “ease of management.4

ESG Lab has confirmed that adding performance and storage capacity to an FXT Series solution is seamless and

easy. For performance, a third FXT node was non-disruptively added to a running two-node cluster. After the node

was added, the workload was automatically balanced between the three units. Capacity was simply added by

presenting a back-end NAS export through the FXT Series. This allowed clients to access exports on separate filers

through a single namespace presented by the FXT cluster and enabled simplified and centralized management of multiple backend NAS devices via a single FXT user interface.










FXT Series Performance

This section describes the ability of the FXT Series to efficiently deliver reliable performance to scale-out NAS

environments. Avere Systems achieves efficient NAS performance by separating performance scaling from capacity

scaling. Active data is automatically moved to the FXT Series hardware platform while less active data remains on

backend NAS storage. This schema aligns data based on activity and access pattern to the most appropriate storage

media.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab tested IO performance for the FXT Series using the Iometer workload generation tool. Iometer is an open-

source storage workload generation tool that is available from www.iometer.org. Iometer was configured to

generate a random write and a random read workload for two groups of VMs. The first group was directly

connected to a NAS filer pair, the second group with an FXT 2750 cluster configured between the VMs and the NAS.

As shown in Figure 9, the FXT outperformed the direct NAS configuration by 9.1 times for the random write

workload and by 22 times for the random read workload. A 240 GB data set was used in both the random write and

random read tests.

Figure 9. More IOs/sec with Avere FXT

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

Random Write Random Read

I O / s e c

Application IO

Direct NAS Avere FXT

http://www.iometer.org/








ESG Lab also tested throughput performance for the direct NAS configuration and the FXT 2750 cluster. An Iometer

sequential read workload was used with 24 GB, 120 GB and 240 GB datasets. As shown in Figure 10, the FXT 2750

cluster outperformed the direct NAS configuration by 1.2 times to 3.4 times as the dataset size increased.

Figure 10. Throughput vs. Dataset

ESG Lab validated the performance of typical software development tasks by auditing simulated patch and compile

process results created by the compilebench utility. As shown in Figure 11, the FXT 2750 cluster outperformed the

direct NAS configuration, completing the patch process 4.9 times faster and the compile process 3.2 times faster.

Figure 11. Improved Throughput with Avere FXT

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Patch Compile

M B / s e c

CompileBench Throughput Results

Direct NAS Avere FXT





Next ESG Lab audited Avere’s published SPECsfs results. As shown in Figure 12, the FXT Series was able to generate

1828 (ops/sec/disk) while still maintaining a good overall throughput of 131,595 (ops/sec). As detailed in Table 1, it

should be noted that the FXT configuration was the only configuration in the summary chart to leverage SATA disk

and the total number of disks was a fraction of the other configurations tested.

Figure 12. SPECsfs Results Summary

Table 1. SPECsfs Results Summary Detail

SPEC Avere FXT EMC VNXNetApp

FAS6240EMC Celerra

NetApp

FAS6080

EMC

Isilon

(ops/sec/disk) 1828 1098 662 446 357 331File systems 1 8 2 4 2 1

Throughput (ops/sec) 131,591 497,623 190,675 135,521 120,011 1,112,705

ORT 1.38 0.96 1.17 1.92 1.95 2.54

SSD 0 436 0 0 0 140

FC/SAS 48 21 288 304 336 3220

SATA 24 0 0 0 0 0

Total disks 72 457 288 304 336 3360

What the Numbers Mean

• On average, the FXT Series achieved a 6X reduction in disk, power, and space requirements.

• Avere demonstrated linear performance scaling with single-node results of 22k ops/sec, 2-node results of

44k, and 6-node results of 132k.

• There were no expensive SSD devices used in the FXT solution.

• The total number of drives for the FXT Series was a fraction of the number of disk used by the other

configurations in this SPECsfs summary.

• The FXT solution leveraged a commodity Supermicro server with a Linux OS and 24 SATA drives as the back-

end NAS filer. None of the other solution leveraged dense, inexpensive SATA drives.

• Avere could achieve similar results with a SATA-based backend NAS filer such as NetApp FAS 2000/3000

Series or EMC/Isilon X-Series.

• The second highest (ops/sec/disk) solution in this summary was configured 436 SSD drives.

0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

1,600

1,800

2,000

Avere FXT EMC VNX NetApp FAS6240 EMC Celerra NetApp FAS6080 EMC Isilon

SPECsfs Results Summary

SPECsfs (ops/sec/disk)





Finally, ESG Lab audited real world results from an end-user environment. The client environment compared the

performance of an Avere FXT 2700 two-node cluster to an enterprise-class direct NAS configuration with solid state

cache and 15k FC drives in an Oracle database environment. Typical daily business processes were run against both

configurations on a 1 GB and 10 GB network. As shown in Figure 13, an Oracle bulk update process was run with

one through eight clients. The FXT 2700 was able to process 2.8 times more updates at six clients than the direct

NAS configuration.

Figure 13. Oracle Bulk Update Performance

Why This Matters

Maintaining cost effective performance with efficient scalability is a both a priority and challenge for most scale-

out NAS environments. Recent ESG research indicates that improved scalability, improved performance, and lower

cost of infrastructure rank as the top three drivers for considering implementing scale-out NAS solutions.5

ESG Lab conducted performance testing simulating typical user and application activity and audited actual end-user

results to confirm performance improvements of up to 22X with the FXT Series, depending on the workload. ESG

Lab also audited the published SPECsfs results of the FXT Series and validated a 6X average reduction in disk,

power, and space requirements as compared to similar solutions.










The Bigger Truth

Though typically easy to deploy and provision, rapid growth in a NAS storage solution can quickly introduce

management and cost control nightmares. Fifty-four percent of respondents in a recent ESG survey indicated their

NAS data was growing at rate of 20% per year, essentially doubling NAS capacity every five years. Combine this with

the fact that many NAS solutions are purpose built for either performance or capacity to address specific

application challenges, and storage administrators can quickly find themselves managing multiple NAS devices from

different vendors each with unique management interfaces. Purpose-built solutions can drive up both OPEX and

CAPEX simply by the fact that they typically require multiple technologies and skill sets to address different

application requirements.

In recent validation testing at Avere Systems, ESG Lab explored the usability and performance attributes of the FXT

Series hardware platform. ESG Lab performed typical setup and management tasks and found the FXT series easy to

navigate and administer. It can be easily and non-disruptively deployed or removed from an existing and running

NAS environment. ESG Lab also confirmed the ability to seamlessly scale the test solution by adding a third FXT

2750 to a running two-node FXT cluster in a test environment. Performance results for the test environment were

validated and audited, as were real-world customer experiences.

ESG Lab confirmed that by separating NAS performance scaling from capacity scaling, Avere Systems has developed

an efficient and cost effective solution for scale-out NAS environments. With the FXT Series, active data isautomatically moved to high performance media while larger persistent data sets remain on dense, cost effective

SATA storage. This approach is effective for both enterprise class filers as well commodity NAS filer solutions as it

eliminates the need for large amounts of expensive SSD devices on a NAS appliance by smartly moving only the

active data to the high performance FXT platform. The FXT Series is also non-disruptive to back-end NAS processes

such as backup and restore. Existing backup/restore solutions can be leveraged, requiring no FXT Series specific

configuration changes. ESG Lab was impressed with the ability of the FXT Series to provide flexible cost effective

control of NAS sprawl, enable efficient performance and capacity scale, and centrally manage heterogeneous NAS

environments.





Appendix

Table 2. ESG Lab Avere FXT Test Bed

Avere FXT Appliance

(3) Avere FXT 2750 Appliances

2U Appliance

512 GB SSD

72 GB RAM

2 GB NVRAM

1/10GB Network Interfaces

Storage

(2) NetApp FASModel FAS3240

Data ONTAP 8.0.1

Network

(2) Arista Switch

1U Rack Mount Network switch

Model DCS-7148S-RSoftware Version 4.6.1

Software

VMware ESXi Version 4.1

Oracle Version 11.2.0.2

Iometer 2008.06.18

Compilebench Version 0.6



20 Asylum Street | Milford, MA 01757 | Tel:508.482.0188 Fax: 508.482.0218 | www.enterprisestrategygroup.com

Esg Lab Avere Fxt_2011

Documents

Transcript of Esg Lab Avere Fxt_2011