Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Best Practices with Applications

23 January 2008

Steve Burr Solution Architect, Global Solution Services Hitachi Data Systems

2007 Hitachi Data Systems

Presentation Goal
Discuss best ways of using Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software with an emphasis on real applications
Microsoft Exchange 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2007 SQL Server 2005 Oracle 10g, Oracle 11g RAC

Effective use of over provisioning

Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning (HDP)

Host Servers only see Virtual Volumes Write Data Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Volume shows Virtual Volume which doesnt have actual storage capacity

Dynamic Provisioning Virtual Volumes (DP-VOLs)

Dynamic Provisioning Pools

LDEVs (Pool-VOLs)

LDEV LDEV LDEV LDEV LDEV LDEV LDEV LDEV

Actual storage capacity in Dynamic Provisioning pool is assigned when host writes data to new area of LUN

Disk Drives/Drive Groups

Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Three Potential Benefits

Thin provisioning plus Hitachi Virtualization, Tiered Storage, Volume Migration Easier management
Simpler planning (reactive strategic management) Avoid or defer tough decisions about LDEV size Control, change and optimize: capacity, performance, reliability , cost tier

Naturally balances performance

With large pools there are more spindles than static provisioning May scale performance by growing pool

Over provisioning capacity

Simplify capacity planning Reduce need for urgent change Reduce need for disk X on server Y has run out. Well have to re-allocate the whole estate.

Capacity Leveling: Example

An example Three Database Applications Initial estimates: 500GB

N V V V P

1500GB Used
N N N

1500GB Free

Actual use: 100GB, 200GB, 800GB

V ?

2000GB Used

1100GB Used 400GB Free

Performance Leveling: Example

Example Microsoft Exchange 2007 design:
5,000 Mailboxes 400 MB/mailbox (2TB) Workload = 1 IOPS/mailbox 2 Servers Design = 8*RAID-10(2+2) AG

Small database Low I/O High I/O Easy Problem l o area Po

Large database Easy Good but needs design

But
Find that some groups give hotspots so redesign

Then
Decide to roll out BlackBerrys New IOPS = 3 IOPS/mailbox But 2TB is unchanged?

Over Provisioning
Allocating more storage space to users than theyll initially need No over provisioning (rightsizing) No growth benefit but performance and management benefits still apply Mild over provisioning Giving headroom for expansion Aggressive over-provisioning Greatest benefits More than youd want to buy, Every LUN is 2TB Needs care and safeguards Aggressive but risk averse, over provisioning Over provision aggressively but Combine storage, application and OS techniques to remove risk Great benefits with safeguards Particularly good for early deployments, uncontrolled environments and test environments

How Dynamic Provisioning will perform with applications: Will depend on platform factors (particularly file system) application factors (particularly storage configuration) how it is managed

File system factor 1 Metadata

Metadata: management information Includes: times, names, directories, pointers to data, maps, label
inodes, MFT, FAT Where is it: start, end, multiplexed, how much touched? When created

Space is not wasted, just prematurely allocated Still have management benefits and performance benefits
Metadata Rounded to page size

File system metadata

HP-UX JFS (VxFs) HFS Windows 2003 Linux NTFS OCFS2 XFS Ext2, Ext3 Solaris UFS VxFS ZFS AIX JFS JFS2 VxFS
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Top only Write by 10MB Top only Top only Write by 2GB (2%) With Max AU Write every 128MB (30%) At 4K page Write by 52MB Top only Under examination Write every 64MB (65%) Top only Top only With Max AU

File system factor 2 reclaim policy

If it starts efficient, what happens when its used? May depend on how you use it. Where does next free block come from? Free space management:
Table, bitmap or linked list of blocks One or multiple lists, multiple levels
MRU most recently used

LRU least recently used

Examples
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Metadata and reclaim policies Examples of pool use

600 500 400 300 200 100 0
Used
Pre-allocated

600 500

Is this the only good one?

pre-allocate

400 300 200 100 0

MRU reclaim

UFS

ASM

Pool Used versus Space Used

600 500

Used

MRU

600 500

LRU reclaim
400 300 200 100 0
LRU
Used

NTFS

400 300 200 100 0

Leaky

OCFS2

Used

Allocated

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Is reclaim always an issue?

No many storage requirements are quite static Needs to be addressed: if application creates and recreates files and file system doesnt reclaim well Workarounds:
Dont over provision Use static provisioning Administration methods

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Controlling space
Dynamic Partition Expansion:

1.Create and map over-provisioned volume 2.But dont allocate all to partition 3.When top of partition is reached OS is forced to reclaim 4.If total space gets low 5.Use OS to expand partition 6.Can be scripted 7.Generally easier than hardware add, lun resize etc. 8.Recommended disk 51 > diskpart.scr guidelines echo select if you have no detailed echo select partition reclaim issues 9.Helps with metadata and 1 >> diskpart.scr echo extend size=600 >> diskpart.scr echo detail disk >> diskpart.scr diskpart /s diskpart.scr
ALTER DISKGROUP VS1DG RESIZE DISK DISKVS1 SIZE 738M;
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Application testing
Construct lab with: application, test tools and Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software Test: volume manager, file system then application Monitor allocated pool versus used space whilst performing typical actions:
Initial Creation and Configuration Addition, Append, Modify, Deletion Force Fragmentation Backup and manage

Analyze and produce guidelines

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Exchange 2003 and 2007 tests

Microsoft loadsim and loadgen Realistic, unlike JetStress 10 days: 4.8m transactions, 1.3m messages read, 1.25m delivered, 350K deleted, appointments, attachments, dlists Set zero e-mail retention policy

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Exchange tests
Exchange Data Use with Dynamic Provisioning
11400 11200 11000 10800 10600 10400 10200 9:36
After days of 14:24 testing. 19:12 Gap normal. No increase over time.

14:24

19:12

0:00

4:48
daily 0200 mdb space reclaim

9:36

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Exchange tests
Dont defragment mdb! Exchange Data Use with Dynamic Provisioning
35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 18/05 20/05 22/05 24/05 26/05 28/05 30/05 01/06

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Exchange tests

Exchange Log Use with Dynamic Provisioning

Partition limit

90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 18/05

Defragmentation did not help

20/05

22/05

24/05

26/05

28/05

30/05

01/06

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Online Backup with truncate using Hitachi Protection Manager with VSS

Exchange best practice

Exchange 2003 and 2007 similar Good for Mail Stores (.mdb)
Mailbox management safe

Storage Group Log files (.log)

Unlimited on NTFS, so either: dont over provision, use dynamic partition expansion or use static provisioning

Do not defragment
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SQL Server Tests

No equivalent to Loadsim; used simple sql scripts Create database, table, insert and drop rows: 7M records added/updated, 8M deleted, 3/4GB. Investigate initial allocation and growth Three data areas:
Database (.mdf) Online Log (.ldf) Full and Log backups (.bak .trn)

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SQL Server Tests

SQL Server Space Allocation Policy Perfect for Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Reduces risk
CREATE DATABASE trusql ON PRIMARY ( NAME = trusql1, FILENAME = 'S:\V\B906\trusql1.mdf', SIZE = 420MB, MAXSIZE = 42000, FILEGROWTH = 42) LOG ON ( NAME = trulog1, FILENAME = 'S:\V\B907\trulog1.ldf', SIZE = 42MB, MAXSIZE = 10000, FILEGROWTH = 42)

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SQL Server Tests

420MB +Initial FS overhead
800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0

SQL Server DATA (Large Initial Size)

MB

Insignificant over use SQL Server 500 does format space

1000 HDP WIN

Soon keeps in step. Alignment different.

1500

2000

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SQL Server Tests

SQL Server DATA (42MB INCREMENT)

1100 1000 900

MB

800 700 600 500 HDP WIN

Still no deviation Avg 95MB

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SQL Server Tests

SQL Server DATA
3000 2500 2000 MB 1500 1000 500 0 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 Records Added
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Remains parallel

HDP

WIN

MODEL

SQL Server Tests

SQL Server LOG
4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 Records Added HDP
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Required steady state.

MB

WIN

MODEL

SQL Server Best Practice

Database (.mdf)
Good, base size on planned initial use Increment base on days growth Could be as low as 42MB

Online logs (.ldf)

Good, base size on planned initial use Increment base on days growth Log file backups (.trn)
Unconstrained, either: dont over provision use dynamic partition expansion use static provisioning

None of this is significantly different from normal SQL Server Management

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Oracle Tests
Ported SQL Server scripts; added Oracle Physical Schemae Automatic Storage Management (ASM) ASM is both a volume manager and a specialized file system. Can dynamically add/remove/expand storage objects. ASM does not conflict with: Hitachi storage, virtualization or Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning. They complement. Some overlap which gives more options. Hitachi/Oracle ASM recommendations for layout OCFS2 Oracle Cluster File System version 2 Shared file system for RAC

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Tablespace configuration
CREATE TABLESPACE "VS1; DEFAULT: SIZE 100M AUTOEXTEND ON MAXSIZE UNLIMITED CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "VS1" DATAFILE '+VS1DG' SIZE 42M AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 42M MAXSIZE 1G EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO LOGGING DEFAULT NOCOMPRESS; CREATE TABLE TESTVS1 (COL1 number(10) NOT NULL, COL3 number(10) NOT NULL) TABLESPACE VS1" STORAGE (INITIAL 1M);

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ASM: Tablespaces
900 800 700 600
MB

500 400 300 200 100 0 DG Pool Table

Changed tablespace to compression on

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ASM: Tablespaces
Multiple Tables per TableSpace
500 450 400 350 300 MB 250 200 150 100 50 0 DG Pool Table DG Multiple TableSpaces

per DiskGroup and drop/re-create TableSpaces

500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 DG Pool Table DG

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ASM: Archive Redo Logs

3.0 2.5 2.0 GB 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 Pool Archive Redo

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Oracle without ASM: factors

Far too many choices:
Database version (20) Base OS (17+) OS version (8+) Volume Manager (0-2) File System (0-22) Oracle configuration parameters (30+) A A
VM raw Raw LV LV

A A
CFS

FS

VM FS ASM LV LV

VM

VM

DG

DP-Volumes

Switch, Cache, Virtualize, Dynamic Provision

Pools
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Oracle Cluster File System OFCS2

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0

GB

2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

Pool
Table
DG
Difference

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Oracle guidelines
External redundancy only Create tablespace
minimize initial allocation

Create table
minimize initial allocation

NEXT=growth for a period day (or week/month)

Ideally multiples or integer divisor of 42MB page.

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Replication products
ShadowImage and Volume Migrator today. Internal and external storage. Copy-On-Write, TrueCopy and Universal Replicator in development. Works well with Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning. Some rules, but theyre obvious. Useful configuration: HDP to HDP. Tested with Hitachi Protection Manager and it works well

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General recommendations
Avoid tools which write all the disk:
low level unix media format or check volume level copy tools (dd)

Dont software RAID-1 mirror or RAID-5 Use file level copy Defragmentation not recommended

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Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Tools

Raid Manager: raidvchkdsp g HDP v aou
Group HDP HDP HDP PairVol MDF LDF AUX Port# CL6-B-1 CL6-B-1 CL6-B-1 TID 18 18 18 LU Seq# LDEV# 35 10044 b906 36 10044 b907 37 10044 b908 Used(MB) LU_CAP(MB) U(%) T(%) PID 2814 93750 1 70 9 4032 93750 1 70 9 8442 93750 1 70 9

Hitachi Device Manager

Create, delete, increase Pools Create DP-VOLs, V-VOL Groups Device Details Alerts
Max size Pool 1% as seen used by OS.

Hitachi Tuning Manager

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Trending Trended alerts Reports Performance and capacity

Pool Allocated to Device

Pool 9

Pool Threshold

Performance with Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning

Generally all good news Both modeling and testing seems to show that there is little or no difference in back-end requirement. But can benefit from leveling Small reduction in peak front-end performance but is less often a bottleneck Your Hitachi Representative has modeling tools to assist

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Thank you
Call to action:
Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning is easy to understand and use. If you have a Universal Storage Platform V or Universal Storage Platform VM, evaluate it Have a go at quantifying the cost savings

More information:
Guidelines for the Use of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Software with the Microsoft Windows Operating System and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Microsoft Exchange 2007 Guidelines for the use of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning Software with Oracle Databases and Automatic Storage Management Oracle Database 10g Automatic Storage Management Best Practices with Hitachi Replication Software on the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform Family of Products, co-authored by Oracle and Hitachi Data Systems

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Upcoming WebTech Sessions:

We have several additional WebTechs planned this year

06 February: Virtualizing Storage to Gain Maximum Benefit from a VMware Environment 20 February: Replication Management 19 March: Hot Spot Management with Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager 23 April: Creating Tuning Manager Reports We will be adding additional sessions based upon participant requests.

Please go to www.hds.com/webtech next week for the a link to the recording, presentation, and Q & A in addition to registering for upcoming WebTechs.
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Questions/Discussion

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Thank You

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