Test Validation
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.
TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
Enablingyoutomakethebesttechnologydecisions
Author: Russ Fellows
August 2016
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.1
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
ThisPageLeftIntentionallyBlank.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.2
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
TableofContents.....................................................................................................3
ExecutiveSummary......................................................................................................4EvaluationSummary..................................................................................................................4
EvaluationOverview.....................................................................................................6StorageConsiderationsinVirtualEnvironments.......................................................................6
TintriTestConfigurations..........................................................................................................6
QuantitativeTesting........................................................................................................................6
QualitativeTesting...........................................................................................................................7
TintriQuantitativeTestResults.....................................................................................7
VirtualDesktopTesting.............................................................................................................7
TintriVDIPerformance....................................................................................................................8
TintriVDIManagement...................................................................................................................9
VirtualServerTesting..............................................................................................................11
TintriVirtualServerPerformance..................................................................................................11
TintriUsabilityTesting.................................................................................................12UsabilityCriteria......................................................................................................................12
UsabilityResults......................................................................................................................13
TintriVM-awareAll-FlashStorage...........................................................................................16
EvaluationSummary....................................................................................................17
IssuesandConcerns................................................................................................................17
FinalObservations...................................................................................................................18
HardwareTestEnvironment...................................................................................................19
SoftwareTestEnvironment.....................................................................................................19
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.3
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.4
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Executive Summary Virtualizationtechnologies, includinghypervisorsandcontainers,arenowthedefaultmethodusedtodeliver IT infrastructure in both enterprise and private cloud environments. While virtualizationprovides a technical foundation for these environments, it is imperative that the infrastructure alsodeliverstheoperationalbenefitsnecessaryforbusinessestorunsmoothly.Therearemanyaspectstoefficiency,includingperformanceandeconomicmeasures,alongwithoperationalelements.
One challenge has beenmanaging resourceswithin a virtual infrastructure,whilemaintaining insightintotheapplication.Storageinparticularhasbeenanissue,withstorageusinglogicalvolumesthatdonotmap to virtualmachines or their applications. IT administrators need visibility into resources inorder to optimize application performance while minimizing consumption. Without visibility intoutilizationonaVM level, applicationmanagementbreaksdown. This canhave significant impactonapplicationperformanceandefficiency,andtheeconomicsofthedatacenter.
In this paper,we examine the performance and economic benefits of a storage systemdesigned forvirtualserverandcloudenvironments.Traditionalstoragemanagementisfocusedonmanagingstorageresource capacity and allocating those resources to multiple hosts. Performance, analytics andoptimizationofindividualvirtualmachinesorvirtualizedapplicationsaretypicallyoutsidetherealmofstoragemanagement,particularlyincloudandheavilyvirtualizedenvironments.
ThisevaluationofTintriStoragefocusesontwoareas:1)virtualapplicationperformanceand2)overallinfrastructure efficiency and ease of use. Storage in virtual environments is one of the criticalcomponents that determines the application economics and performance, and has implications formanagementefficiency
Evaluation Summary EvaluatorGroup assessed performance andmanageability of a Tintri all-flash VMstore appliance in aVMwareenvironmentrunningbothvirtualserverapplicationsandvirtualdesktop(VDI)workloads.Thetestingfocusedonquantitativedata,suchasperformanceandmetricsrelatedtousability. Additionaltesting evaluated qualitative factors, such as the relative ease of use or efficiency of the product intargetenvironmentsalongwithusabilitymetrics.
EvaluatorGroupcomments:Theprice/performanceresultsTintriachievedforbothVDIandVMworkloadshighlightstheeconomicbenefitsanall-flashTintrisystemcanprovide.Additionally,thestorageefficiency,duetoTintri’sdatareduction,surpassedanysystemtestedtodate,providingfurthereconomicvalue.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.5
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
PerformancetestingoftheTintriall-flashsystemproducedthefollowingresults:
• TheTintriVMstoreT5060systemwasabletosupport3,000VDIusers,runningaVDIbenchmark:o TheTintrisystemwascertifiedat3,000IOmark-VDIOfficeuserso TheTintrisystemwasabletobootall3,000VDIVM’sin1,004seconds(16m:44s)o ThepriceperIOmark-VDIuserwas$75/user1usingalistpriceof$225,000
• TheTintriVMstoreT5060systemwasabletosupport480serverapplications:o TheTintrisystemwascertifiedat480IOmark-VM’so ThepriceperIOmark-VMwas$468/VM2usingalistpriceof$225,000
AnalyzingqualitativeandeconomicsofTintriall-flashyieldedthefollowingresults:
• StorageefficiencywasthehighestofanysystemtestedusingIOmark-VDIandIOmark-VMo SpacesavingsforVDIworkloadswas60:1(2xcompress,10xdedupe,3xthinprovisioning)o Space savings for VM workloads was artificially limited to 3x (2x compress, 1.5 thin
provisioningperIOmark-VMtestingguidelines)
• Applicationinsightandperformancemetricso Tintri enabled tracking performance and capacitymetrics on a per-VMand virtual disk
basis,unlikecompetingblockstoragewhichdoesnotprovidethesedetails
• ManagementofTintricomparedtoblockstoragesystemso StorageManagementwassignificantlyreduced,requiringnovolumemanagement
§ EliminatedstorageprovisioningfornewVMsfromanaverageof5minutesper50virtualmachinestozerousingTintri(Note:5-minuteaveragebasedonEvaluatorGroupexperience)
§ For480VMs,thetimespentonvolumemanagementistypically50minuteswhenusingtraditionalblockstoragesystemsvs.zerominuteswithTintri
o TrackingspaceconsumptiononTintriwassignificantlybetterthancompetingsystems§ Tintri dynamically updated space consumption, thus reducing the potential of
runningoutofstoragecapacity,particularlywhenusingthinprovisioninganddatareduction
1IOmark.orgTintriIOmark-VDIReportwww.iomark.org/results2IOmark.orgTintriIOmark-VMReportwww.iomark.org/results
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.6
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Evaluation Overview EvaluatorGrouputilizedtwodifferentvirtualizedapplicationworkloadsused inenterpriseandprivateclouddeployments, virtual desktopVMs (VDI) and virtual application servers. TheseworkloadsweregeneratedutilizingthestandardIOmark-VDIandIOmark-VMbenchmarks.
EvaluatorGroupcomments:Applicationbenchmarkswereusedtoprovidereal-worldperformanceandprice/performanceresults.Unlikeartificialworkloads,thecertifiedIOmarkresultsprovidemeasurableapplicationperformanceandprice/performancedatathatiscriticalforITorganizationschoosingstoragefortheirenvironments.
Storage Considerations in Virtual Environments Virtual workloads place high demands on the storage infrastructure, primarily in terms of theperformance requirements. Additionally, managing applications can be challenging in virtualenvironments, due to the lack of direct visibility into the causes of performance problems. Storagesystems for virtual application environments need to meet the management and performancerequirements:
• Predictablehigh-performance,ideallyusingallflashtoeliminatelatencyspikesofHDDmedia• Capacityefficiencythroughuseofin-linedatareductiontechnologiesincludingthin-provisioning,
datacompressionanddeduplication
• Integration with the hypervisors to facilitate management of the virtual infrastructure by ahypervisoradminorITgeneralist,withoutrequiringdedicatedstorageadmins
• Qualitatively, a low management overhead to minimize the amount of time spent managingstorageratherthanmanagingapplications
Tintri Test Configurations TestingTintriperformanceutilizedstandardbenchmarks,designed tomeasureperformance invirtualenvironments,usingapplication-focusedtesting.
Quantitative Testing
The performance evaluation consisted of running a VDI application workload (IOmark-VDI) andseparately running a virtual server application workload (IOmark-VM). The storage system wasoptimized to establish the maximum level while running a particular workload. The maximumperformanceofaconfigurationwasdeterminedbyaddingmoreworkloadsuntilthestorageresponsetime’s thresholds rose above IOmark’s required maximum values. The details of IOmark-VDI andIOmark-VMaredocumentedinAppendixBalongwithfurtherdetailsintheIOmarkcertifiedtestreportspublishedontheIOmark.orgwebsite.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.7
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Qualitative Testing
The experiential testing occurred during configuration, setup and management of the Tintri systemrequired during normal operations, and during configuration of performance and other testing.Qualitative assessments and statements are based upon Evaluator Group’s experience using otherstoragesystemsandourexperienceconfiguringsystemsthathavebeentestedintheEvaluatorGrouplabs.
Tintri Quantitative Test Results It is critical to evaluate a system based upon the applications thatwill be used in production. Eachapplication has its own I/O profile, and performance on one type of application is not indicative ofperformanceofanotherapplication.Inadditiontothedifferencesinworkloads,thecapacityutilizationalongwith the provisioning of storage forworkloads can differ greatly. We evaluated the twomostcommon application types used in virtual environments, virtual desktops (aka. VDI) aswell as virtualserverworkloads.
Virtual Desktop Testing VDIisauniqueusecaseandisdifferentthanotherapplicationtypes,withthefollowingcharacteristics:
• Performanceisoftenacriticalfactorinend-useracceptanceofVDIo ManyearlydeploymentsusingHDDorhybridsystemsfailed,duetopoorperformanceo Very high random I/O generated on storage, often higher than other workloads of a
similarcapacity
• CapacityandmanagementimplicationsbaseduponVDItypeo Choiceofpersistentornon-persistent(aka.LinkedClone)desktoptypeso Significantcapacityimplicationdifferencesbetweenthesemodels
§ Persistentdesktopstypicallyprovisionedat30GB/desktop,withapproximately16GBinuse.
• Opportunityfordatareduction,reducingusebelow16GB§ Non-persistentdesktopswerenottested,buthavesimilardatareductionrates
o Significantmanagementdifferencesbetweenpersistentandnon-persistent§ Non-persistent desktops enable VM admins to rapidly provision and refresh
desktopsbacktoaninitialstate§ PersistentdesktopsenableVDIuserstocustomizedesktopandmakeupdatesthat
aremaintained
§ Patchmanagement is handleddifferently,withnon-persistentdesktopsofferingadvantagesandtimesavingsforITadmins,butwithlesscontrolbyusers
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.8
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Tintri VDI Performance
• ComparisonsbelowarebaseduponpublishedIOmark-VDIresultsatalistpriceof$225,000• Tintriperformanceof3,000VDIusers,priceperVDIuserwas$75/user
Figure1:ComparisonofVDIPerformance(IOmark-VDI-FullyProvisionedVDIUsers)
Note:TheIBMandHDSsystemsperformancereferencedinFigures1and2aretakenfromtheircertifiedIOmarkresults,availableonwww.iomark.org.
-
500.00
1,000.00
1,500.00
2,000.00
2,500.00
3,000.00
3,500.00
HDS IBM Tintri
NumberofVDIUsers
HDS
IBM
Tintri
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.9
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Figure2:ComparisonVDIPrice-Performance(IOmark-VDI-LowerisBetter)
Tintri VDI Management
ManagementinVDIenvironmentswasmeasuredinthefollowingmanner:
• AmountoftimetoclonevirtualdesktopVMsusingTintri’sCloningmethods• ThetestedperformanceexceededTintri’sperformanceclaim
o EvaluatorGroupcloned30VMsin1minuteand44seconds(3.46seconds/VM)o Tintriclaimstheabilitytoclone1,000VMsin1hourand37minutes(5.82seconds/VM)
• AbilitytorefreshaclonedVMfrombaseimageusingTintri’s“Refresh”capabilityo EvaluatorGroupverifiedtheabilitytoupdateaclonewithupdatestothebaseimageo Note:EvaluatorGroupdidnotmeasurethetimerequiredtorefreshVM’s
• CapacityutilizationofvirtualdesktopVMso PersistentdesktopsclonedusingTintricloningresultedinnearly60:1totaldatareduction
§ (60:1istheproductof2:1compression,10:1deduplication,3:1thinprovisioning)o Capacityoflessthan1GB/VMwasmeasuredafterrunningVDIworkloadsfor24hours
$-
$50.00
$100.00
$150.00
$200.00
$250.00
$300.00
HDS IBM Tintri
$/VDI
HDS
IBM
Tintri
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.10
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
InFigure3theTintridashboardshowscapacityusefor32VDIdesktops,with60:1datareduction.
Figure3:TintriT5060CapacityUtilizationfor32VDIUsers
EvaluatorGroupcomments:Themeasureddatareductionratesof60:1exceedthebestresultsEvaluatorGrouphasseentodatebyanyvendorforVDI.TheabilitytoprovidepersistentVDIdesktops,whileusinglesscapacitythannon-persistentdesktops,isasignificantdifferentiator.Thehighdatareductioncoupledwithcertifiedperformanceof3,000usersprovidescompellingeconomicadvantagesfortheTintriT5060systeminVDIenvironments.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.11
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Virtual Server Testing Theterm“virtualserver”isgeneric,givinglittleinsightintotheapplicationsrunning.EvaluatorGroup’sperformance testingof virtual serversutilized IOmark-VM,which recreates the standardVMmark2.5application server workload. As described in the appendix, the IOmark-VMworkload includes threedatabase applications, an Exchange Email server, an Olio database application and a DVD storagedatabase.TheseapplicationsaredatabasedrivenandcreateaveryheavyrandomI/Oontheunderlyingstorage.
• CharacteristicsofI/Oforvirtualserver(IOmark-VM)workloadso Veryhigh,randomI/Orateso Differentblocksizesandreadvs.writeratiosforeachindividualworkloado Setof8virtualserverapplicationsmustberuntogether,correlatingto1VMmarktile
• Datareductioncanbeafactorforvirtualserverworkloadso Theprimaryopportunityfordatareductioniscompressionofdata,typically2:1
§ Datacompressionchosenwas2:1(2xcompressibledata)o Datadeduplicationisaminorfactor,duetodifferencesbetweenvirtualapplicationsand
virtualserverconfigurations§ Datadeduplicationratechosenwas1:1(nodatadeduplication)
Tintri Virtual Server Performance
Asnotedpreviously,theperformanceandprice/performanceasmeasuredbyIOmark-VMwere:o TheTintriT5060systemwascertifiedat480IOmark-VMso The price per IOmark-VM was $468, using a list price of $225,000 for the system as
configured
EvaluatorGroupcomments:ByreportingcertifiedbenchmarkresultsforbothVDIandvirtualserverworkloads,TintriisprovidingproofpointsbehindtheirclaimsofnumberofVDIandvirtualserversthattheirsystemscansupport.Vendorsoftenmakeperformanceclaims,usinginternalmetrics,whichdonotprovideverifiableorcomparabledatapoints.WiththeseresultsTintrihasestablishedtheircredentialsfortheperformanceandeconomicvalueofTintriall-flashsystemsinenterpriseandprivatecloudenvironments.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.12
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Tintri Usability Testing Usability Criteria Themany qualitative factors involvedwith using a system are often just as important as the price /performance attributes. However, these features are often harder to directly compare, due to thedifficultyinaccuratelycapturingthesesubjectiveaspectsofaproduct.Therefore,theanalysisofTintriinthisareaismorecomparativeandsubjective,ratherthanhavingspecificdata.
EvaluatorGroupcomments:TheeaseofuseandmanagementefficiencyfortheTintrisystemwasverygood.Incomparisontoothersystemstested,Tintrirequiredlessinitialsetuptimeandfewersteps.Afterinitialsetup,theTintrisystemrequiredsignificantlylessadministrationtimethanblocksystemstested,sincenovolumemanagementwasneeded.Additionally,QoSsettingscanbeappliedonapervirtualmachineorapplicationbasis,whichistheappropriatemanagementlevel,ratherthanmanagingavolume.
EvaluatorGrouplookedspecificallyatseveralareasofusingasystem,includingthefollowing:
• Integrationwiththehypervisor,asmeasuredbythesystem’s:o Abilitytoascertaincapacitydataonaper-VMandper-virtual-disk(vmdk)basiso Abilitytoascertainperformancedataonaper-VMandper-virtual-disk(vmdk)basiso AbilitytocreatesnapshotsandclonesofVMswithinthehypervisormanagemento AbilitytocreatesnapshotsandclonesofVMsusingthestoragemanager,ensuringthat
actionsareregisteredwiththehypervisormanager• Manageabilityofstoragesystem
o Numberofstepsandtimerequiredtoinitializesystemo Numberofstepsandtimerequiredtoprovisionstorageforapplicationso Systemsettingsandothermanagementrequirements
Note: Tintri refers to their systems as “VAS” for VM-aware Storage. Tintri VMstore All-Flash T5000series is a virtual machine specific storage system supporting only virtual machine hypervisorenvironments,doingsowithNFSandSMBattachedstorage.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.13
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Usability Results Shown below in Figure 4 is an overview of a Tintri system’s performance from within the VMwarevCenter application plugin. Additional management details on a per-VM basis are also available,includingbothperformanceandcapacityutilization.
Figure4:TintriVMwarevCenterplugin-PerformanceView
EvaluatorGroupcomments:TheabilitytoviewTintristorageperformancedetailsfromwithinvCenterisaproductivitybenefitforhypervisoradministrators,whoprefertoutilizevCenterastheirprimarymanagementtool.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.14
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Shownbelow inFigure5 is the first levelofdrill-downdetailsavailableonaper-VMbasis, showingasummaryofperformanceandcapacityforselectedvirtualmachines.Additionaldetailsareavailablebyviewingindividualvirtualmachines.
Figure5:Tintriplugin-TopdetailsofVMPerformanceandCapacity(PlugininVMwarevCenter)
EvaluatorGroupcomments:TherearemultipleTintrimetricsviewablefromwithinvCenterasshowninFigure5,includingperVMandpervmdkperformanceandcapacitydatapoints.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.15
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
ShownbelowaretheTintriClonedialogboxesfromwithinvCenterandTintrinatively,providingthesameexperienceandcapabilitiesregardlessofthemanagementtoolused.
Figure6:TintriClonedialog(UsingplugininVMwarevCenter)
Figure7:TintriClonedialog(UsingTintriGlobalCenter)
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.16
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Tintri VM-aware All-Flash Storage TintriVMstoreAll-FlashT5000seriesisavirtualmachinespecificstoragesystemsupportingonlyvirtualmachinehypervisorenvironments,doingsowithNFSandSMBattachedstorage.WiththeuseofnativeNAS protocols Tintri has the ability to manage virtualized objects on a granular level, since thevirtualized resources are simply files. They have optimized and customized their system design andgraphical user interface (GUI) to operate as an extension of VMware vCenter andMicrosoft SystemsCenterVirtualMachineManagerusingTintriGlobalCentersoftware. ThefollowingarethehighlightsfromEvaluatorGroupProductAnalysiscoverage:
• VM-awareStorageo SupportforNFSv3,VVolsandSMB3simultaneouslyo Networkattachwith4-6@10GbEports,supportingVLANandLACPo Dualcontroller,active-standbyHAstorage
• Characteristicso Performance
§ PerformanceIsolationcaneliminate“noisy-neighbors”usingTintriautomatedQoS
§ QualityofServicemanagementattheVMlevel,downtoindividualvdiskso Manageability
§ StoragePolicyBasedManagement(SPBM)availableusingTintriGlobalCenterandalsoavailablewithVMwareVVol(optional)
§ Real-timestorageanalytics,providesinsightonaper-VMandper-vdiskbasis§ Abilitytoeffectchangesinreal-timetocorrectissuesfoundwithstorageanalytics§ Multi-hypervisorsupport,VMware,Hyper-V,RHEV,XenServerandOpenStack
o Scalability§ VMscale-out,poolsofstoragemanagedusingTintriGlobalCenterAdvanced§ Threeall-flashsystemsfrom6-92TBraw,or17-308TBeffectivecapacity§ In-linedatareduction,includingthinprovisioning,deduplicationandcompression
o VMlevelmanagement§ Abilitytocreatesnapshots,clonesandreplicationattheVMandvdisklevel§ Hypervisorpluginsfacilitatesinglepane-of-glassmanagementforVMadmins
o Capacitymanagement§ In-linedatareduction,includingdeduplication,compressionandthin-provisioning§ Zeroblockoptimization,eliminates“zero”dataacrossallVMs§ DynamiccapacityupdatestoVMwarevCenter,reflectscurrentlogicalcapacity
limitsofTintriVMstoreappliancesforaccuratecapacitymonitoring
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.17
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Evaluation Summary Efficiency in virtual application environments requires equipment that provides goodprice/performance and integrates with the infrastructure to increase operational efficiency. Theproven performance of Tintri for both VDI and server VM workloads are validation of the strongeconomicsoftheTintrisystemtested.
Theabilitytoanalyzecapacityandperformanceonaper-virtual-machinebasisprovidesoperationalefficiencies and is a differentiating factor for Tintri. This is due in part to the fact Tintri storagesystemscanprovideresolutiononaper-virtual-objectbasis,ratherthanatavolumeorLUNlevel,asistypicalwithblockstoragesystems.Additionally,Tintriaddstoolsandmonitoringcapabilitiesthatgobeyondthoseofcompetingstoragesystems.
Storage capacity efficiency is another aspect that directly impacts the economics of the overallsolution. All-flash storage systems have become key part of most solutions designed to achievepredictablehigh-performanceacrossmultiplevirtualapplications.However,duetothecostofNANDflash media, it is imperative that the capacity is utilized efficiently, leveraging data reductiontechnologies when possible to decrease the amount of capacity required. For this reason, storagecapacityefficiency,orasystem’sabilitytominimizephysicalcapacityconsumedforagivenamountofdatastored,isanotheraspectthatdirectlyimpactstheeconomicsoftheoverallsolution.
Tintri’sdatareductiontechnologiesprovedtobemoreefficientthananysystemEvaluatorGrouphastested to date. For virtualized server workloads, the data reduction rates achieved by Tintri wereidenticaltothedatareductionpotentialofthedatabeingstored.Usingserverapplicationdatawith2 to 1 compressibility yielded data reduction rates of 2 to 1. For persistent VDI workloads, Tintriachieveddatareductionrates60timesthatofsystemswithoutdatareduction.TheseratesarehigherthanVMwareandCitrixclaimsfortheirlinkedclonesornon-persistentdesktops.Thisisasignificantoutcome, enabling IT administrators to chose the type of VDI deployment based onmanageabilityrather thanconsidering thespaceefficiencyadvantagenon-persistentdesktops typicallyhaveusingotherstoragesystems.
These certifiedbenchmarks reportedbyTintri forbothVDIandVMworkloadsprovideamethodofcomparing Tintri’s price/performance to other systems, using a standard benchmark designed forvirtualdesktopandvirtualserverapplications.
Issues and Concerns Duringtesting,noproblemswereencountered. Inordertomaximizeperformance,EvaluatorGroupdiscussedconfigurationoptionswithTintri’ssalesengineers.Thisisacommonpracticeanddidnotgobeyond recommendations or consultations a typical customer would experience. Tintri’srecommendationsdidhelptoimproveperformanceduetotheuniquetestenvironmentofEvaluator
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.18
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Grouptestinfrastructure.Therewerenoreliabilityorsystemunavailabilityeventsoverthecourseofmultipleweeksoftesting.
Final Observations Performanceisoneimportantconsiderationwhendetermininginfrastructurecomponents.However,the more important factor is a system’s price for a given level of performance, particularly forworkloads that scale out. In today’s highly virtual datacenters, workloads are scaled out acrossmultiplephysicalserversandstoragesystems,withnooneapplicationconsuminganentireserverorstoragesystem. ITarchitectshavefounditfarmoreeconomicaltousethisscale-outmodelforthemajorityofapplications, leavingonlya fewapplicationstorunonphysicalsystems. Withscale-outworkloads,theprice/performanceofasystemismoreimportantthanthetoplineperformance.
Beyond the economics of price/performance, are the storage capacity considerations, along withmanageability. Typically, IT administrators assume that capacity utilization is constant acrossdifferentstoragesystems,withonesystemprovidingnearlythesamelevelsofefficiencyasanother.However, this isnot true,particularly forsomespecialworkloadssuchasVDI thatcanachieveveryhighefficiencieswhendatareductionisappliedataper-virtual-disklevel.
Althoughmanystoragevendorshaveplug-insforhypervisors,thedegreeofintegrationprovidedbyTintri enabled seamless management from either the VMware vCenter console, or Tintri’s webmanagementinterface.Allneededfeatures,includingsnapshotsandcloning,alongwithperformanceand capacity tracking, were available via either interface. Together, these features reduce themanagementoverheadandallowITadministratorstofocusontheVMsandapplicationsratherthantheunderlyingstorageinfrastructure.
Finally, Tintri’s ability to manage objects at a native virtual machine and disk level provide muchbettercapacityoptimizationthanalternativesystems.ThisenablesITarchitectstochoosedeploymentoptionsthatalignbetterwiththeirusersneeds,ratherthanbeingforcedtochooseoptionsbasedonlimitations of their storage infrastructure. Tintri’s ability tomanage the QoS settings of individualapplicationsisanimportantconsiderationforhighlyconsolidatedenvironmentstypifiedinvirtualandcloudinfrastructures.
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.19
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
Appendix A – System Test Environment
Hardware Test Environment
System Configuration
PhysicalServersUsedforTesting• 2@x86Serversused
o 2xIntelE5-2600v3CPU’s([email protected]/hyper-threading)o Systemsutilized192GBDRAMo Dual,10GbEnetworkconnectivitytostorage
StorageSystemTested• TintriVMstoreT5060all-flasharray
o 12TBofrawcapacity,with6TBofusablecapacity§ Effectivecapacityof35TB
o Dualcontroller,active-passivefailovero Dual,10GbEnetworkconnectivity,withLACPconfigured
Software Test Environment HypervisorTheVMwareESXi,hypervisorwasutilizedonallnodesusedfortesting:
• VMwareESXi,6.0U2o DedicatedSSDbootdeviceusedforESXi,notpartofworkloadtestingo ApplicationVM’sandallvirtualdisksresidedontheTintriT5060
ApplicationEnvironmentTheIOmark-VDIandIOmark-VMapplicationworkloadswereusedtogeneratetheworkloadfortestedconfigurations.SeeIOmarkcertificationreportsatwww.iomark.orgfordetails
TestValidation–TintriStoragePerformanceinVirtualEnvironments
RussFellows
p.20
of20
©2016EvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Reproductionofthispublicationinanyformwithoutpriorwrittenpermissionisprohibited.
About Evaluator Group EvaluatorGroupInc.isdedicatedtohelpingITprofessionalsandvendorscreateandimplementstrategiesthatmakethemostofthevalueoftheirstorageanddigitalinformation.EvaluatorGroupservicesdeliverin-depth,unbiasedanalysisonstoragearchitectures,infrastructuresandmanagementforITprofessionals.Since1997EvaluatorGrouphasprovidedservicesforthousandsofendusersandvendorprofessionalsthroughproductandmarketevaluations,competitiveanalysisandeducation.www.evaluatorgroup.comFollowusonTwitter@evaluator_group
Copyright 2016 Evaluator Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orstoredinadatabaseorretrievalsystemforanypurposewithouttheexpresswrittenconsentofEvaluatorGroupInc.Theinformationcontainedinthisdocumentissubjecttochangewithoutnotice.EvaluatorGroupassumesnoresponsibilityforerrorsoromissions.EvaluatorGroupmakesnoexpressedorimpliedwarrantiesinthisdocumentrelatingtotheuseoroperationoftheproductsdescribedherein.InnoeventshallEvaluatorGroupbeliableforanyindirect,special,inconsequentialorincidentaldamagesarisingoutoforassociatedwithanyaspectofthispublication,evenifadvisedofthepossibilityofsuchdamages.TheEvaluatorSeriesisatrademarkofEvaluatorGroup,Inc.Allothertrademarksarethepropertyoftheirrespectivecompanies.
ThisdocumentwasdevelopedwithTintrifunding.Althoughthedocumentmayutilizepubliclyavailablematerialfromvariousvendors,includingIntelandothers,itdoesnotnecessarilyreflectthepositionsofsuchvendorsontheissuesaddressedinthisdocument.
Table of ContentsExecutive SummaryEvaluation OverviewTintri Quantitative Test ResultsVirtual Desktop TestingVirtual Server Testing
Tintri Usability TestingTintri VM-aware All-Flash StorageEvaluation SummaryAppendix A – System Test Environment