1© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Best Practices for VMware Environments David Robertson vSpecialist Itzik Reich vSpecialist

2© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX FA Flag Settings for vSphere SPC-2 SCSI 3 (Optional) No effect on ESX anymore. Unique WWN (UWN) Common Serial Number (C) OS2007 (Optional) Screenshot from within VirtualCenter using the VSI4

3© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Connectivity Considerations with VMAX VMware ESX Servers should have multiple physical HBA VMware Servers should be connected to multiple directors –Directors 7 and 8 in single engine configurations –Connections to different directors in different engines in multiple engine configuration Connect each HBA to a minimum of two ports on different directors –Not a requirement but strongly recommended –I/O intensive workload will benefit –Servicing of the array is less impacting

4© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Connectivity Considerations with VMAX− Cont. HBA1HBA2 HBA1HBA2 VMware vSphere Servers Minimum Configuration Ideal Configuration

5© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Connectivity Considerations with VMAX− Cont. HBA1HBA2 HBA1HBA2 VMware vSphere Servers

6© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Path Management with VMAX PowerPath/VE is strongly recommended for vSphere environment –PowerPath/VE is optimized for multi-controller storage (i.e. VMAX) NMP policy is available with vSphere –Use Round Robin policy for Symmetrix arrays esxcli nmp satp setdefaultpsp -P VMW_PSP_RR -s VMW_SATP_SYMM –We recommend setting the Round Robin IOPS parameter to 1 (default is 1000) –Use Fixed Policy for Gatekeepers

7© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Using the VSI to configure Multipathing policy

8© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX FA Configuration for SPC-2 Turned on per Fibre Channel port or per initiator Do not activate in a live system if not previously set Default from 5773 (DMX-4)

9© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Performance and Storage Layout – vSphere with VMAX Use Virtual Provisioning –Always provides optimal balance in VMware environments –FAST VP Physical Disk Size and Protection –Depends on the IO characteristics of the workload LUN Layout –Avoid using same set of disks for applications with different I/O characteristics Configuration for I/O intensive application data –Follow best practices recommendations for a physical server

10© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Partition Alignment (VMFS and Guest OS) Intel-based systems are misaligned due to metadata written by the BIOS to handle LBA to CHS translation –Partition Misalignment affects VMFS and Guest OS partitions Host-based Partition Utilities can be used to Align Partitions: –For Linux and VMFS Alignment use fdisk Offset partition to 64 KB boundary Aligned VMFS partitions are now automatically created by vSphere Client –For Windows Operating Systems (2003 in particular) use the diskpart utility Create partition aligned on 64 KB boundary Use diskpar for versions of pre-Windows 2003 System at SP1 –Earlier versions of diskpart will show partitions as aligned, even if they are not For Metavolumes (MetaLUNs) only the base device needs to be aligned

11© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Effects of Partition Misalignment Symmetrix VMAX uses 64K track size In an Aligned System, the 64 KB write would be serviced by a single drive File-system misalignment affects performance in two ways: –Misalignment causes disk crossings: I/O broken across two drives –Misalignment causes stripe crossings: I/O broken across stripe elements Even if disk operations are buffered by cache, there is performance impact

12© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Virtual Provisioning in VMware vSphere Environments vSphere provides native thin provisioning –Either one can be used –Both features can be used simultaneously but doing so increases risk VMAX Virtual Provisioning simplifies drive and DA workload distribution –Provides additional benefits besides optimizing storage use –Ensure enough paths and TDEVs to support the workload VMAX Virtual Provisioning provides additional benefits –Zero Reclaim and Rebalancing

13© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Virtual Provisioning for vSphere– Performance Considerations RAID protection of data devices –Balance between performance versus resiliency Fully allocate Virtually Provisioned devices if –Applications sensitive to latency –The risk of oversubscription is too high Optimum performance when IOs are aligned –VMFS is aligned on 64 KB boundary (use vCenter) –Virtual disks should be aligned Including boot volumes (Linux, pre-win2k8/windows7)

14© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Virtual Provisioning for vSphere– Performance Considerations – Cont. Striped versus Concatenated thin metavolumes –Depends on type of workload Small block versus large block Random versus sequential Reads versus writes –Influenced by presence or absence of SRDF –Concatenated thin metavolumes can be grown Frequently exploited feature in VMware environments Striped metas can be grown as of 5875 and SE 7.2 Most VMware environments have small block random read workload

15© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Zero Space Reclamation Reclaims thin pool storage by deallocating unnecessary track groups –Scans each track group and discards those containing all zeros –Deallocated tracks are presented as all zeros by Symmetrix to host Primary use is post migration from “thick” to “thin” –Migration performed using TimeFinder/Clone or Open Replicator for Symmetrix Reclamation should be run prior to configuring any replication relationships –Thin devices in active TimeFinder or SRDF relationships will be skipped Thin Pool

16© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Zero Space Reclamation – Cont. Very useful tool in VMware environments –Relevant if customer upgraded to vSphere VMware Thin Zeroedthick (VMware Thick)Eagerzeroedthick

17© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMAX Virtual Provisioning Automated Pool Rebalancing Rebalances allocated tracks across data devices contained within thin pool Levels out imbalances caused by thin pool expansion –Or unbinding thin devices from the thin pool Scheduled process that runs at given intervals –User defines imbalance as a percentage utilization difference within the pool (user configurable 1% to 50%) In VMware environments, storage requirements can increase rapidly –Mass VM deployment (VDI, testing environments, etc…) Virtual environments are very dynamic –Adding datastores, removing datastores Automated Pool Rebalancing maintains performance and gives best TCO Thin Pool

18© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMware vSphere and FAST VP FAST VP operates at the sub-LUN level Analyzes/moves data in groups of 10 extents (1 extent = 768k) –Great value in vSphere environments –RDMs, dedicated datastores Considerations are the same as that for physical servers Configure a single standard size of device on all tiers –Same size TDEV’s recommended For optimal system performance use Optimizer in concert with FAST VP –Optimizer will balance load within a tier Utilize EMC Virtual Storage Integrator to identify the Storage Type

19© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC FAST in Action EMC Storage with an active ESX Cluster VMware All Fibre Channel Disk Drives Disk Resources are ~80% Busy

20© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC FAST in Action Add Flash Drives and Apply FAST Policy 68% Less Disk I/O Contention 2.5X Faster Disk Response Time VMware Tiered Storage 4% Flash Drives 96% FC Drives

21© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) Available on VMAX with Enginuity 5875 Block Zero  SCSI write – many blocks from host to array Without API  SCSI Write Same command – one block from host to array and repeatedly written With API  Reduce host I/O traffic  Higher throughput for guest applications Benefits WithoutWith

22© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) Available on VMAX with Enginuity 5875 Full Copy  SCSI Read – data from array to host  SCSI Write – data from host to array Without API  SCSI Extended Copy – data moved within the array With API  Reduces time to migrate  Reduces time to deploy Benefits Without With

23© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) Available on VMAX with Enginuity 5875 Hardware Assisted Locking  Reserves the complete LUN  Requires several SCSI commands Without API  Works at a block level – no LUN lock  SCSI Compare Swap command With API  Reduces SCSI reservation issues  Allows more changes to metadata Benefits WithoutWith vmdk1 vmdk2 vmdk1 vmdk2

24© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Thank You! EMC Symmetrix VMAX Enginuity 5875: FAST VP, VAAI–Making The Best Array even Better: vmax-enginuity-5875-fast-vp-vaai-making-the-best-array-even-better/ vmax-enginuity-5875-fast-vp-vaai-making-the-best-array-even-better/ SRM Automated Failback Using EMC Symmetrix VMAX: symmetrix-vmax/ symmetrix-vmax/ Increase Scalability for Virtual Desktops with EMC Symmetrix FAST VP and VMware VAAI: papers/h8062-scalability-vmax-vaai-wp.pdfhttp:// papers/h8062-scalability-vmax-vaai-wp.pdf April 28-EMC Live Webcast: VNX Best Practices for VMware Environments: _raf_lp?reg_src=PA_Vmwarehttp://info.emc.com/mk/get/DBM _raf_lp?reg_src=PA_Vmware Tuning NMP IOPS Parameter for Symmetrix Devices: symmetrix-wp.pdf symmetrix-wp.pdf Using EMC Symmetrix Storage in VMware vSphere Environments: esx-svr-w-symmetrix-wp-ldv.pdf esx-svr-w-symmetrix-wp-ldv.pdf White Paper: Using VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration with EMC Symmetrix VMAX: papers/h8115-vmware-vstorage-vmax-wp.pdfhttp:// papers/h8115-vmware-vstorage-vmax-wp.pdf

25© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. VMware Site Recovery Manager Failover/ Failback DEMO

26© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Storage Pool Management feature for VSI DEMO