Re: Fastt600 Support
From: John Jolet (john.jolet_at_FXFN.COM)
Date: 06/17/04
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- In reply to: jeff barratt-mccartney: "Re: Fastt600 Support"
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Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 09:02:48 -0500 To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
perhaps i should clarify my remark about it being a windows- aimed
product. When we began purchasing fastt units last year (we have two
500s, a 200 and a 700, so you can see we are QUITE satisfied with the
product for our needs), the only information available did not mention
aix at all. The aix drivers seemed to have come out shortly before we
bought our first unit. While knowledge at ibm support on the product is
excellent, and callback times truly extraordinary, aix-specific
knowledge is lacking in the support infrastructure, compared to other
ibm hardware I've gotten support on. And lastly, the aix drivers are
always lagging feature-wise behind the windows and linux drivers. If it
were a product aimed PRIMARILY at aix, the driver set would not lag, and
os-level knowledge in the support infrastructure would be more
complete. You are correct, it's not a shark replacement, but at least
in our environment, it's sure looking like an emc replacement :)
jeff barratt-mccartney wrote:
>the fastt is NOT by any means a windows aimed product. It is certainly aimed
>at those with less intense storage needs than is provided by ESS/etc.
>
>the FAStT product is very easy to manage and fills a niche in the AIX world.
>RDAC is pretty straightforward, and when planned properly works as expected.
>I have installed and managed a lot of these things
>200/500/600/600turbo/700/900 if you size it right and plan ahead you can't
>beat the bang for the buck.
>
>biggest issues I have encountered:
>-misunderstanding of FAStT partitions. yes you need one per host if you
>intend to use outside a cluster. some models have a limited number of
>partitions that you can PURCHASE.
>-misunderstanding of RDAC. this is an active/passive device. -do not expect
>multiple path access for a single LUN.
>-600 ONLY negotiates at 2GB. Will not work in 1GB fabrics.600Turbo
>auto-negotiates
>-Attempts to make any FAStT fit as a shark replacement needs to be
>investigated fully. "fast, cheap, or reliable. you choose any two".
>-assumptions that snapshot/volume copy(remote replication) perform the same
>as they do on the shark (PPRC/Flash copy).They are different animals
>-FAStT does not perform like an ESS (900 performs nearly comparably in some
>environments). Do not expect it to.
>-SATA. If you want cheap..see the quote above "fast/cheap/reliable"
>-do your research. It is not a complicated product, like any product, there
>are caveats. know the caveats, and you will not be disappointed.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU]On Behalf Of
>John Jolet
>Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 10:18 AM
>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>Subject: Re: Fastt600 Support
>
>
>I usually call hardware support for ALL fastt issues. However, since
>the whole fastt line is really a windows aimed product....
>I've noticed that as long as your question solely involves the fastt
>itself, they're great. but try to define the interaction with aix and
>lvm and it gets MUCH hazier.
>Did you try calling hardware support, instead of software support?
>
>Yard, John wrote:
>
>
>
>>I had occasion to call Software Support ( AIX ) for another fastt issue
>>and
>>they are totally horrible - the worst experience I have ever had
>>with any vendor's support in many years.
>>
>>JYard
>>UCLA
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>John Jolet
>>Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 11:59 AM
>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>Subject: Re: Fastt600 Performance
>>
>>I still think there's something else going on here, since I'm seeing
>>MUCH higher throughput on essentially the same test on a 500, which a
>>1gig backplane. the part about using the r devices is legitimate, if
>>only to compare your tests to mine, which DID dd from the r device to
>>/dev/null. If you have hardware support on the fastt, you can call ibm,
>>the support group for that product is very knowledgable, though they
>>sometimes have limited aix knowledge...they have done a good job of
>>accepting ownership of problem resolution for me. for aix 5.1,
>>upgrading to devices.fcp.disk.array.rte.5.1.0.59 fixed some throughput
>>problems i was having.
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU]On Behalf Of
>>Yard, John
>>Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 12:48 PM
>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>Subject: Fastt600 Performance
>>
>>
>>All very true, but the point is the relative performance
>>of the fastt600 is poor compared with the 2104 using the
>>same benchmark; also multi disk arrays barely
>>have higher thruput than single disks. Changing the benchmark
>>does not change the issue. Typical db blocksizes are 4-8-16k,
>>not 64k 256k or 1m,
>>
>>Thx,
>>
>>JYard
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>James Jackson
>>Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 8:17 AM
>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>Subject: Re: Fastt600 Performance
>>
>>4096 (4k) is a pretty small block size for sequential I/O. Have you
>>tried dd's with larger block sizes; e.g., 32k, 64k, 256k, etc.,? You
>>can use "k" as a 1024 multiplier in the dd block size spec, i.e.,
>>bs=4096 is the same as bs=4k, and bs=65536 is the same as bs=64k. John
>>Jolet had suggested using a 1 meg block size, which you can specify as
>>bs=1048576 or bs=1024k. You might also want to try running concurrent
>>dd's to simulate a workload.
>>
>>It looks like you're trying to perform reads from the logical volume
>>"/dev/worktest5". You should specify the raw device (/dev/rworktest5)
>>in the input file spec; i.e., if=/dev/rworktest5, if you're trying to
>>simulate read operations on database objects built using raw devices.
>>
>>Depending on your workload, you may want to benchmark your I/O with JFS
>>filesystems, though operations with raw LV's will typically give you a
>>good indicator of subsystem bandwidth.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>James Jackson
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>Yard, John
>>Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 7:43 PM
>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>Subject: Fastt600 Performance
>>
>>
>>I created a similar configuration of 2 7 disk arrays each on
>>a different controller. The segment size is 32k and the stripe
>>size is 32K. fget_config -v -A is
>>
>>[urrept:/] # fget_config -v -A
>>
>>---dar0---
>>
>>User array name = ''
>>dac0 ACTIVE dac1 ACTIVE
>>dac1-hdisk3 1
>>dac0-hdisk4 2
>>
>>my test gave me ~25m/second :
>>
>>urrept:/usr/local/bin] # timex dd if=/dev/worktest5 of=/dev/null bs=4096
>>
>>and iostat :
>>
>>Disks: % tm_act Kbps tps Kb_read Kb_wrtn
>>hdisk1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0
>>hdisk0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0
>>hdisk2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0
>>cd0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0
>>dac0 0.0 12847.9 3213.0 12880 0
>>dac1 0.0 12863.8 3216.0 12896 0
>>hdisk3 52.9 12863.8 3216.0 12896 0
>>hdisk4 47.9 12847.9 3213.0 12880 0
>>
>>This seems pretty poor in that I get almost the same thruput for
>>a singe disk or a raid 1 with 2 disks.
>>
>>My fc adapter defs say 1M thruput :
>>
>> Change / Show Characteristics of a FC
>>Adapter
>>
>>Type or select values in entry fields.
>>Press Enter AFTER making all desired changes.
>>
>> [Entry Fields]
>> FC Adapter fcs0
>> Description FC Adapter
>> Status Available
>> Location 14-08
>> Maximum number of COMMANDS to queue to the adapter [200]
>>+#
>> Maximum Transfer Size [0x100000]
>>+
>> Preferred AL_PA [0x1]
>>+
>> Apply change to DATABASE only no
>>+
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Is the above correct ?
>>
>>Jyard
>>UCLA
>>
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>John Jolet
>>Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 1:31 PM
>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>Subject: Re: Fastt600 Performance
>>
>>i'm getting 150M/sec with 4 10-disk raid 5s. I think there's something
>>else going on here. Make sure you have the latest rev of the fc
>>filesets...we had a severe performance problem go away when we upgraded
>>those. Plus make sure your array controllers are at the latest firmware
>>levels and that all your drives are at the same rev, as close as
>>possible. You should be able to get 300M/sec. I got that with the same
>>test on my 700. That was 8 hdisks raid5 with 5 disks in each raid.
>>also make sure half are owned by one controller and half by the other,
>>if it's all going through one controller (fastt controller, not ha),
>>performance will suck.
>>
>>What is the out put of fget_config -v -A?
>>
>>Yard, John wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>It ran a test using a procedure similar to that below.
>>>I created two raid5 arrays, one with 4 physical disks,
>>>one array with three. This appeared as 2 hdisks on the system.
>>>I created a logical volume across these two hdisks.
>>>the PP size for the volume group was 32meg. I ran
>>>tests , first using cplv to copy data to the new
>>>logical volume ( write data ), then running
>>>dd if=/dev/lvname of=/dev/null for read data.
>>>
>>>I get ~ 20M/sec read or write. My 2104s get the same or better.
>>>
>>>I also tried creating a striped lv over the raid arrays,
>>>as above, with little change. The fastt600 is 2G fiber attached
>>>, so I think I should be getting much better performance.
>>>
>>>I think if I create my raid arrays 4 disks each my results will
>>>be better, but not by much.
>>>
>>>Any suggestions very much appreciated,
>>>
>>>John Yard
>>>UCLA
>>>jyard@ais.ucla.edu
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>>John Jolet
>>>Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:11 AM
>>>To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>>Subject: Re: Fastt600 Performance
>>>
>>>We found significant speed differences depending on how we had the lvs
>>>arranged on the 500/700. We're using it for oracle, so we set up 4
>>>arrays, two on each controller and balance the raw lv creation between
>>>the two controllers. We can get over 150 mb/sec on the 500, twice that
>>>(of course) on the 700 (has a 2 gig backplane). How are your arrays
>>>configured on the 600? You could fake load balancing by creating one
>>>logical disk on each controller, adding both resulting hdisks to a vg
>>>and creating lvs "striped" across the two hdisks....
>>>
>>>Yard, John wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Software support recommended against load balancing,
>>>>
>>>>saying it would cause 'thrashing' of LUNs from one controller to
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>another.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>We are upgrading to 5.1 - not 5.2 for app reasons - in the near
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>future.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Will there be some resolution on 5.1 ?
>>>>
>>>>Currently we are getting much better performance out of 10K rpm
>>>>
>>>>2104s than on the 15K rpm fastt600, even though the fastt600
>>>>
>>>>was significantly more expensive,
>>>>
>>>>Jyard
>>>>
>>>>UCLA
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>-
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>*From:* IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU] *On
>>>>Behalf Of *jeff barratt-mccartney
>>>>*Sent:* Wednesday, May 12, 2004 5:08 PM
>>>>*To:* aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>>>*Subject:* Re: Fastt600 Performance
>>>>
>>>>did you try chdev -l dar0 -a loadbalancing=yes
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> *From:* IBM AIX Discussion List [mailto:aix-l@Princeton.EDU]*On
>>>> Behalf Of *Yard, John
>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 12, 2004 4:30 PM
>>>> *To:* aix-l@Princeton.EDU
>>>> *Subject:* Fastt600 Performance
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>-
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have a new fastt600 direct attached to 2 h80's
>>>>
>>>> ( aix 4.3.3.). The fast Best Practices Guide
>>>>
>>>> talks about balancing LUNs across controllers,
>>>>
>>>> but when I did this with a raid device, creating
>>>>
>>>> a logical volume across 2 raid devices, tests
>>>>
>>>> showed the system reading not from both raid devices
>>>>
>>>> at the same time, but in round robin fashion.
>>>>
>>>> Thruput was not terrible, but was not exceptional
>>>>
>>>> either.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone have any experience or suggestions
>>>>
>>>> tuning the fastt600, or other fast devices ?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> John Yard
>>>>
>>>> UCLA
>>>>
>>>> John Yard
>>>>
>>>> UCLA Administrative Information Systems
>>>>
>>>> Distributed Platforms
>>>>
>>>> Unix/Win2000 Admin/Sybase/Oracle/SqlSrvr/Networking
>>>>
>>>> 310-825-1725
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
- Previous message: Kumar, Praveen (cahoot): "Re: FTP Problem"
- In reply to: jeff barratt-mccartney: "Re: Fastt600 Support"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
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