vFrank

Essense of virtualization

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vFranks Home Lab running Intel NUC

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I had been considering for some time what home lab hardware to get. Luckily there are plenty of home labs blog post in the community that gives you inspiration. For a home lab everybody wants unlimited CPU, RAM and Storage resources. But because it is a home lab (it runs in your home) you have to consider space, power usage, noise, price. Once you factor in these four constraints you will be on the road to finding the lab that fits you.

I wanted my home lab to run 24/7 – so power usage and noise were two important factors for me. I also would love to be able to run the home lab headless (no monitor) but still be able to connect through IP to the screen.

After considering my options I ended up with the following configuration:

  • Intel NUC5i5MYHE with i5-5300U processor and Intel VPRO/AMT technology
  • 16 GB DDR3L Kingston Memory
  • Kingston E50 240GB SSD
  • 32GB Sandisk Cruzer fit USB Key

I already had a two disks Synology DS211+ NAS running at home. So that is used as a NFS datastore for the virtual machines. The Cruzer fit usb key is used for ESXi installation and the Kingston E50 240GB SSD is used with PernixData as a read & write acceleration in front of the Synology.

With PernixData doing its magic my Synology NAS is perfect for what it does, storing the virtual machine. Just look at the screenshot below. NAS experienced 148 ms of latency but the VM experienced 0,71 ms. That is the power of decoupling performance from capacity.

Screenshot 2015-04-24 10.13.12

 

 

If you are looking at a home lab the NUC can be a good choice. But you have to be able to live with only 16GB of RAM pr. NUC and a Dual-Core processor. Luckily with VMware I can always scale out and add more NUCS to the vSphere cluster when I am in lack of resources.

Right now this is what the home lab looks like.

Screenshot 2015-04-24 10.18.00

 

PernixData FVP 2.5 GA and ready for download

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PernixData FVP 2.5 was announced earlier this week. Your favorite acceleration software just got even better.

  • DFTM-Z – With Distributed Fault Tolerant Memory (DFTM), FVP is the only storage acceleration software that lets users cluster server RAM, providing the fastest acceleration with complete fault tolerance. DFTM-Z augments this capability with adaptive memory compression to enable the performance of RAM to be delivered at the price of flash.
  • Intelligent I/O Profiling – Provide virtualized applications with guaranteed excellent and predictable performance by identifying I/O profiles that are not good candidates for server-side acceleration and automatically bypassing them.
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) – Increase visibility to the FVP environment by granting appropriate access to authorized individuals.
  • Remote Network reads on NFS – After a vMotion the accelerated data is still available for reads over the network.

You can download the software from the support portal at http://support.pernixdata.com (requires login)

If you don’t have a login and want to try PernixData FVP in your lab/demo/production environment request a free trial at http://info.pernixdata.com/trialreg

 

Running PernixData FVP in Monitor Mode

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Back in March Frank Denneman wrote the following article about running PernixData FVP in Monitor Mode. I suggest that you read it before you read this post.

The great thing about monitor mode is that without the use of Flash or RAM for acceleration you will get a clear picture of how your storage array is performing. With the information gathered from this exercise you will know what to do next. Monitor mode will either let you choose to continue the POC with PernixData and start accelerating virtual machines. Or you may learn that your storage array got the performance you need. No matter the outcome you as administrator will know more about your environment and have learned about the IOPS profiles from your virtual machines.

I often get the question “What graph should I look at in monitor mode?” 

A good place to start is the Summary graph on a Cluster level. This will show you information for all virtual machines latency running in that cluster. To start you should only add the two counters

– Datastore Read
– Datastore Write

Screenshot 2015-01-05 17.10.56

By looking at this graph you will get a quick summary of Read & Write latency the virtual machines are experiencing in your environment. At one data point in this graph we see a Read Latency at 105 ms. and Write latency of 30 ms.

When you see this there is no doubt that PernixData FVP will be able to help your virtual machines getting predictable low latency performance.

The next step is to try to accelerate your virtual machines. PernixData can use SSD, PCI-E flash or RAM for acceleration. When you choose you have two factors to think about

1. Performance of the acceleration media
2. Capacity

You want a good SSD/PCI-E flash device that gives you predictable low latency for read and write IOPS but you also want a drive with the right capacity. If the capacity is low you will not get the hit-ratio you are looking for. Capacity is a huge advantage for SSD/PCI-E over RAM. RAM is faster – but I would not sacrifice that capacity from a good performing SSD over RAM with lower capacity.

If we move on and start to accelerate with RAM/SSD/PCI-E you can then use the graphs again to show the difference.

This picture shows the Datastore Write Latency and Write latency. Write equals VM Observed Write. So that latency is what the VM is experiencing. At the data point highlighted we have a datastore latency of 30 ms. but the VM is experiencing 1.39 ms because of local flash acceleration!

Screenshot 2015-01-05 17.10.20

 

The next picture focuses on Read latency. The counters selected are Datastore Read & Read. The highlighted data point shows datastor latency at 105 ms but the VM is experiencing 5 ms because of local acceleration.

Screenshot 2015-01-05 17.10.03

 

Monitor Mode is a strong tool to use during a PernixData FVP POC. It is not necessary to use it though. If you have flash/RAM available from the get-go you can still use the graphs to show what is going on. The graphs are right inside the vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client.

Once customers get FVP in their environment they don’t use the vCenter Performance graphs for storage performance anymore. They go straight to PernixData and uses them instead.

If you are interested in figuring out what storage Read & Write latency you are experiencing today. Then go and request a free trial version of PernixData FVP software here

 

VMUG.DK Konference i Bella Center d. 20 November

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Så er der næsten gået et år siden sidste år hvor VMUG Danmark afholdte deres første konference i Bella Center. Det var sådan en success at den kommer tilbage igen i år. Det kommer til at foregå torsdag d. 20 November

Det er gratis at registere sig og det kan du gøre her: http://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=5239

Jeg har kigget på listen over talere og det ser rigtig godt ud! Vi kan blandt andet glæde os til at gense

– Duncan Epping fra VMware der taler om hvad VMware kommer med i fremtiden af produkter (manden bag www.yellow-bricks.com)

– Cormac Hogan fra VMware der taler om VSAN.

– Kamau Wanguhu fra VMware der taler om NSX

Vil man også høre om andre ting kan man høre det sidste nye fra bla. Veeam og PernixData.

– Preben Berg taler om Veeam og automatisering af backup med vCO og REST API’et.

– Frank Denneman taler om PernixData og virtualiseringen af Flash og RAM for at skabe lavere io latency og flere iops foran et eksisterende disk system.

Jeg håber at se en masse af jer derude den dag. Se den fulde agenda her: http://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=5244

 

vmug

PernixData FVP 2.0 Now Available

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It is here! PernixData FVP 2.0. During the last couple of months I have been getting experience with this in my lab and at selected customers. In 2.0 we are introducing 4 new groundbreaking capabilities.

Distributed Fault Tolerant Memory (DFTM):

Now we support the use of RAM for read and write acceleration. We still support the use of flash of course. We are just giving extra options for acceleration. From my experience in my lab RAM is INSANELY fast. It did not matter what kind of IO I threw at it. It just consistently performed with extremely low latency. Just imagine reading and writing data from RAM with 0,08 millisecond!

NFS support

This one does not require a lot of explanation. Now we support NFS datastores. It is implemented in the same transparent fashion as block storage. So absolutely no changes is made to the VM or NFS datastore.

User defined fault domains

With the use of RAM we also see the need to define your fault domains. If you are using RAM for Write acceleration you would probably like to have a copy of the Writes on a second host placed in a another RACK/Blades chassis/Datacenter. With fault domains you can now define your physical boundaries and make sure exactly where the writes are replicated to. This of course also works with flash.

Adaptive Network Compression

When we send the Writes over the PernixData network (default is vMotion but any vmkernel will work, you decide) we have seen in 1Gb environments that it can be a problem. In FVP 2.0 we will take a look at the data to be sent, and if it makes sense we will compress before we send it over the wire. This brings down the latency of WB +1/+2 policy in a 1Gb environment.

You can read the full press release here:

http://www.pernixdata.com/press-release/pernixdata-introduces-new-enterprise-subscription-and-vdi-editions-fvp-software

 

 

PernixData Nordic Roadshow with Frank Denneman

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If you are from Scandinavia this post is for you, please read on

I am happy to announce the PernixData together with Arrow ECS will be having morning seminars in Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki. The topic is using flash in the datacenter and where should it belong.  We have been so lucky to have Frank Denneman visit the Nordic’s and share his insightful perspective

The schedule for the week:

September 15th: Copenhagen – sign up
September 16th: Oslo – sign up
September 17th: Stockholm – sign up
September 18th: Helsinki – sign up

What is the seminar about

Using storage arrays for both performance and capacity is regarded as a natural design by many. This is easy, but almost always introduces issues with storage performance, regardless of the environment size.

Flash storage is seen as savior to storage I/O bottlenecks, but implementing flash can be confusing. Should it go in your SAN? Servers? Both? Furthermore what key features (e.g. write acceleration, clustering, etc.) are required to turn flash into an effective tool for accelerating storage performance across an entire data center?

Join us for this talk where Frank will highlight:

  • Pros and cons of various flash deployment methodologies
  • Best practices for using flash to accelerate storage performance
  •  How to measure results and ROI

We look forward to seeing you there!

VeeamON 2014 Conference

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It is almost unbelievable. I remember 7 years ago when I was using Veeam FastSCP to transfer files to/from my ESX servers and Vizioncore vRanger was the program to use for Backups in a virtual environment. Now 7 years later no one talks about vRanger and Veeam is almost the de-facto standard for backups in a virtual environment. Veeam has more than 100.000 customers world wide and now they are moving to the next level by having their own backup and availability conference VeeamON in Las Vegas.

This is a huge accomplishment and it all came by having a great product, that simply worked and did what it should in a great but simple manner.

If you want to know what is going on the virtual world when it comes to availability you should spend your days at the Cosmopolitan in  Las vegas October 6th till October 8th.

If you are a current Veeam customer and want to improve the way you leverage their product click the picture below and sign-up! I highly recommend it.

 

Screenshot 2014-07-25 14.57.29 (1)

 

 

Netgear R7000 – Insane wireless performance

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I have been running a WRT320N wireless router for the past few years. It has been rock solid and had no problem handling my 60/60mbit internet connection when using wired clients. The router was not so great at the wireless speed though. I have been running custom DD-WRT firmware on the router, because I like all of the customizations and possibilities it gives.

I decided it was time for look for a new router with good wifi. I live in an apartment complex so the air is crowded with accesspoints running in the 2.4ghz range. When checking the 5ghz range I did not find any other wireless networks. I eventually came out with the following requirements:

– Dual Band router. It should do 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ at the same time.

– Support all wireless generations B/G/A/N/AC

– Work stable with DD-WRT firmware

– Gigabit Switch

After a little research I quickly discovered the Netgear R7000. It was the number one router on smallnetbuilder.com in the AC1900 category. I moved on to the DD-WRT firmware and people stated it was stable with the “kong” builds. By looking at the specs and the forum this seemed like the perfect fit. I decided to give it a go and bought it right away.

When the router arrived the first thing I did was to flash it with DD-WRT Kong Build 24200. It was extremely simple, done through the web interface.

I configured the wireless networks and created:

– One 2.4 ghz network in “mixed mode”

– One 5 ghz network in “N/AC” mode

I then decided to test the wireless speed on both with speedtest.net. On the 5ghz network I instantly pulled 60mbit down and up! Hurrah! Finally the internet was my limitation and not the wireless network. I tried connecting to the 2.4ghz and I did not see the same performance. As I mentioned my neighbourhood is extremely crowded with wireless network and this hurts performance.

I then tried to copy some files from my local synology nas to my laptop and I experienced 20MB/sec! On my old router I used to see 4MB/sec on a very good day.

All in all, if you are looking for great wireless performance and something highly customizable but stable, then look no further than to the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and flash it with DD-WRT

Screenshot 2014-06-14 00.46.39