performances ssd-eva oracle

8/4/2019 Performances SSD-EVA Oracle

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HP StorageWorks EVA Disk Array forOracle Using Solid State DrivesTechnical brief

Table of contents

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................... 2Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2Technology overview ........................................................................................................................... 2

Solid state drive technology ............................................................................................................... 2HP StorageWorks EVA Disk Array ..................................................................................................... 4

SSD on the HP StorageWorks EVA Disk Array ........................................................................................ 5 Performance stagnation .................................................................................................................... 5SSD performance boost in EVA .......................................................................................................... 5Sizing for capacity and performance .................................................................................................. 7SSD power savings .......................................................................................................................... 7

Oracle performance with SSD ............................................................................................................... 8Oracle and SSD fast response times ................................................................................................... 8 Examples with SSD........................................................................................................................... 8

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 12For more information .......................................................................................................................... 13


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Executive summary

In todays business environment, Oracle customers rely on the most efficient, highest performing, andmost reliable storage solutions available. They need to accelerate business growth while keepingcosts under control. Businesses today are concerned about the costs of data center powerconsumption. All of these attributes are important for mission critical software business applicationslike Oracle. Solid state drives (SSDs) on HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) can providea significant performance boost for Oracle applications compared to hard disk drives (HDDs), while

addressing other important attributes as well.

Introduction

The EVA provides high performance, high capacity, and high availability virtual array storagesolutions for mid-range and enterprise customers. These solutions reduce IT costs and complexity,while saving time, space, and costs. They are supported by a powerfully simple managementsoftware suite making it easy for users to achieve highest levels of productivity.

The EVA disk array is ideal for business critical enterprise-wide deployment and mission-criticalapplications in small to large data centers running key business applications, such as Oracle. Proper

distribution of Oracle storage components on the EVA provides sufficient disk storage capacity andreliable data security with a high level of I/O performance.

Designed for data centers that need improved storage utilization and scalability, the EVA meetsapplication demands for consistent high transaction I/O and provides easy capacity expansion,instantaneous replication, and simplified administration using Command View EVA software.

This technical brief provides an overview of the performance improvement available to an Oraclesystem when SSDs are added to an HP StorageWorks EVA disk array.

Technology overview

Solid state drive technologyThe explosion of NAND flash memory in consumer products has transitioned into enterprise highvolume storage. An SSD is a data storage device composed of solid state or flash memory similar to aUSB flash drive, but with a much more sophisticated controller. USB flash drives use multi-level cells(MLC) while enterprise SSDs use single-level cells (SLC). MLCs have the advantages of higher densityand lower cost per bit. SLCs, on the other hand, provide faster write performance, 10 times moredurability, consume less power, and operate at a higher temperature range (industrial versuscommercial operating temperature range) than MLCs. Compared to HDDs, enterprise SSDs offersignificant performance improvement and lower energy consumption.

An SSD has no moving parts that wear out and limit performance as in an HDD. However SSD cellscan only be written a finite number of times before they can no longer be used. To compensate for

that flash memory characteristic, enterprise SSDs utilize cell over-provisioning, error correction, wearleveling algorithms, and block management routines to increase the drives usage.


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SSDs are tougher and more shock resistant than HDDs because there are no moving parts. One of thereasons SSDs perform better than HDDs is because there is no data retrieval performance penaltyincurred by rotational latency and seek time. Similar to an HDD, SSDs can be accessed and writtenrandomly. Although per gigabyte (GB) of capacity an SSD is more expensive than an HDD, itprovides higher speed and lower power usage than an HDD. Additionally, SSDs provide betterrandom I/O speed without the need for short stroking, thus allowing full capacity utilization withlower power usage. As shown in Figure 1, idle SSDs consume 40 percent less power than idle HDDsand when busy, SSDs consume 37 percent less power than HDDs.

Figure 1: Power consumption comparison between HDD and SSD

The attributes of an SSD make it an attractive option for high-end, business critical applications suchas Oracle that require extremely high performance. Improvements in HDD performance over the yearshave not kept pace with increased Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) demand. Due tomoving and spinning parts, there is a limit to the response time an HDD can provide. This is whereSSDs handily outperform HDDs because they use solid state memory instead of spinning disks forstoring data. Although SSDs cost more per GB than HDDs, SSDs can be utilized as a premiumperformance tier in well-designed, balanced storage deployments. In this comprehensive tiered deviceenvironment, SSDs co-exist with HDDs. For further details, please refer to theSolid State Disks for HP

StorageWorks Arrays White paper.

Idle Busy

HDD SSD

37%Less

Power consumption

40%Less
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdfhttp://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdfhttp://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdfhttp://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdfhttp://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdfhttp://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdf


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HP StorageWorks EVA Disk Array

There are three different models of EVA disk arrays. At the high end is the HP StorageWorks6400/8400 Enterprise Virtual Array, with the HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array at theentry level.

The EVA6400/8400 is ideal for business critical enterprise customers who need highly availablestorage and want to make efficient use of valuable IT staff, resources, and budget. TheEVA6400/8400 automatically improves performance by placing data across more disk drives than a

conventional array. The ease of management provided by HP StorageWorks Command ViewSoftware results in less time spent on maintenance and administrative intervention. Higher capacityutilization provides improved performance and manageable storage in a more consolidated footprint.The EVA6400/8400 allows the storage infrastructure to be virtualized and seamlessly provisionedwhen scaling up applications. Add virtual servers and EVAs to dynamically build a completevirtualized IT environment.

Figure 2: HP StorageWorks EVA4400/6400/8400

The smallest of the three models, the EVA4400, offers an easily deployed enterprise class virtualstorage array for midsized customers at an affordable price.


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Table 1 compares the features of the three EVA models.

Table 1: HP StorageWorks EVA features list

Features HP StorageWorks 8400Enterprise Virtual Array

HP StorageWorks 6400Enterprise Virtual Array

HP StorageWorks 4400Enterprise Virtual Array

Number of drives 324 216 96

Storage capacity(including expansion)

324 TB maximum, dependingon drive capacity, including

expansion

216 TB maximum,depending on drive capacity

96 TB maximum,depending on drive

capacity

Drives per enclosure 12 12 12

Cache 14 GB22 GBDepending on model

8 GB 4 GB

Type and number ofcontrollers

Two HSV450 Two HSV400 Two HSV300

Type and number ofenclosures

M6412Supports up to 27 enclosures

M6412Supports up to 18enclosures

M6412Supports up to 8enclosures

SSD on the HP StorageWorks EVA Disk Array

SSDs have the same form factor as EVA HDDs and are installed into an EVA disk array like any otherdrive. Additionally there are no functional limitations on drive placement.

Performance stagnation

Over the past several years, server processors have steadily improved performance, while storageperformance has remained relatively stagnant or even lost ground when comparing IOs per GB.

While HDD disks increased in capacity, their performance density has not increased, but steadilydecreased. To maintain performance for a given I/O workload, often the same number of spindles

must still be used. This performance density can be illustrated by tracking the results of an 8 KB block60/40 random read/write mix for different generations of HDDs. Several years ago one of thepopular disk drives was the 18 GB 10,000 RPM unit capable of about 140 IOPS or a performancedensity of around 8 IOPS per GB. The newer 450 GB 15,000 RPM unit is capable of 180 IOPS persecond with a performance density of around 0.4 IOPS per GB, a substantial decrease from thesmaller capacity HDD. SSD devices greatly improve performance density in addition to providing asignificant performance increase with fewer devices.

SSD performance boost in EVA

Adding SSD devices to the EVA 6400/8400 Array as a disk group of eight devices can provide a16-fold increase in performance of 8 KB block 60/40 mixed read/write workload over the

performance of a disk group of eight 15K RPM HDD units with response times well below those of thedisk devices.

When SSDs and HDDs were installed into the EVA in a RAID 5 configuration using eight drives each,SSDs provided a 34 times improvement in IOPS for random reads, nine times improvement forrandom writes, a 25 times reduction in read response time, and an eight times reduction in writeresponse time compared to HDDs.


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Figure 3: IOPS performance improvement between an HDD and SSD in a RAID configuration

Figure 4: Response time reduction of SSD over HDD

8 KB random reads 8 KB random writes

15K RPM FC HDD Enterprise SSD

34x

9x

RAID 5 performance comparison

8 KB random reads 8 KB random writes

15K RPM FC HDD Enterprise SSD

8x

Response time reduction

25x


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Sizing for capacity and performance

When sizing an EVA for an application, two important considerations are capacity and performance.While disk capacity sizing may be obvious, sizing based on performance can be easily overlooked,especially with the gains in disk capacity over the years. Sizing the database for performance andpurchasing additional spindles with the additional power utilization costs is not uncommonsizingthe database for performance is critical. For example, a two terabyte database can be constructedusing two hundred 18 GB 15K RPM disks that could handle 10,000 IOPS. However, if we were toconstruct the two terabyte database with eight of the newer 450 GB disks, the performance would beone-ninth that of the 18 GB disk solution. To maintain the same performance would require the samenumber of disks whether or not the capacity was needed; sizing the database for performance whileconsidering spindle count when using HDD devices is critical.

With SSD devices, sizing the array based on capacity is easier. SSD devices allow the customer torealize the full performance benefits of the EVA with fewer devices than if HDD disks were used. SSDsreverse the trend toward lower performance densities by providing about a 10-fold improvement overthe performance density available in the older 18GB 10K RPM HDDs.

SSD power savings

For a database to run efficiently, dont overlook power utilization. With increasing demands to

reduce power consumption and increase hardware efficiency, its hard to beat the power benefits ofSSDs. The HP EVA Array with SSDs provides the solution architect with new power options. Forexample, given a constrained power budget, the power saving obtained with SSD devices opens thedoor for additional storage or servers to be added without exceeding the power budget. Thisadditional hardware can then enable additional performance and/or capacity growth. Figure 5below shows the performance benefit when comparing SSDs with HDDs.

Figure 5: Power consumption (in watts) for HDD vs. 8 SSD depending on number of HDD being replaced

8 SSD devices 216 HDD devices

Power consumption (watts) persimilar workload

HDD

SSD

42X


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For a heavy small block random Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) type workload, SSD devicescan provide 42 times power efficiency over HDDs in the HP EVA Array (8 SSDs in a RAID 5 DiskGroup; 216 HDDs in RAID 1 Disk Group).

Oracle performance with SSD

Oracle and SSD fast response times

There are situations in which the Oracle database requires fast response times. To obtain a well-tunedOracle environment it is important to tune the database and server environment as well as the storagesystem. Merely adding SSDs will not provide the benefit expected. Assuming the Oracle server isproperly sized for optimal performance, the HP EVA array with SSDs can provide exceptionally fastresponse times for the same IOPS as HDD devices. With SSDs, the HP EVA Array can provideresponse times that are just not possible with HDD devices. Its true that HDD devices can be shortstroked, limiting the head movement on the disk platter, but this will not provide the boost in responsetimes and throughput available from SSD devices in the EVA array. The EVA can provide responsetimes up to 25 times faster with SSD devices than with HDD devices. This can be important for OracleIndexes and OLTP-type of workload in which small block random read workloads need the fastestresponse times possible.

Examples with SSD

When tuning the storage environment for best Oracle performance, its important to remember thatthere is no silver bullet. SSDs by themselves will not solve all the storage problems, let aloneperformance problems; however, in a properly configured Oracle environment with HP EVA arraysSSDs can provide a significant benefit. While it would be nice to merely place the entire Oracledatabase on HP EVA array Vdisks composed of SSDs, this may not be very wise. However,structuring the environment to include both HDD and SSD devices will often provide the best tradeoffbetween usage patterns and acceptable performance. Because SSDs are more expensive than HDDs,using SSDs for the whole Oracle database rather than a strategic placement of the data can be acostly proposition. However, placing the entire database on SSDs is not always necessary. There are

Oracle database components for which SSDs might not provide a compelling advantage, such as forOracle Redo and Archive logs in which workloads and usage patterns are better suited to mechanicaspindle devices. Figure 6 shows an example of such a structured environment with logs placed onHDDs and the remaining database placed on solid state devices.


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Figure 6: Structured storage environment

With the structured environment shown above, only the components that most benefit from highrandom I/O performance are placed on the SSDs. An additional point to consider is that whilespindled devices can have greatly varying seek times, this is not the case for SSDs. Unlike HDDs,SSDs have no performance penalty associated with seeking for data at extreme ends of the disk.Therefore, placing all Oracle user data (less the logs) on SSD devices for random I/O workloads willnot be adversely affected by such accesses. As hot spots move around depending on the changing

workload, the Oracle database will benefit by being on SSD without needing constantmonitoring/tuning for hot spot migration to SSDs.

Merely placing SSDs in the Oracle storage environment will not necessarily solve all the storagebottlenecks. Careful consideration of the I/O workload patterns will be necessary. Additionally, itmight be necessary to resize the storage environment to handle other newly-exposed performanceissues that were not present previously. For example, Table 2 below shows data from an OLTP-like60/40 read/write small block random access workload with the INDEX on HDDs in the upper tableand on SSDs in the lower table; remaining user data files are on HDD devices in both cases.

All HDDs are used in a RAID 1 configuration. For the smaller user load, the average transactionalresponse time is 9 millisecond (ms) with the INDEX on SSDs and 15 ms with the INDEX on HDD. Thetotal time, 9 ms or 15 ms, includes both the INDEX lookup time plus the data read or write operation.

In the lower user load case, the Oracle database clearly benefits by the fast response time of theINDEX being on SSD. This benefit holds for increasing workloads up to a point when other storagebottlenecks begin to be clearly exposed as can be seen at the 50 user load. In this case the bottleneckis the HDD devices, since the HP EVA array is able to handle the higher workload. Several solutionsto help this environment exist: 1) move the remaining non-log data from HDDs to SSDs, 2) if the hotspots are stable enough, move them from the HDDs to the SSDs, 3) increase the HDD spindle count toaccommodate the increased workload and maintain the benefit of the SSDs.


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Table 2: Tuning needed to reduce response times at higher user loads

INDEX on HDD in this table

Userload Executions TPS BPS Rows Bytes Average Time

6 331210 394.30 1577.19 331210 1324840 0.015

12 568606 676.93 2707.70 568606 2274424 0.017

25 902127 1073.96 4295.85 902127 3608508 0.023

50 1238725 1474.70 5898.78 1238725 4954900 0.033

INDEX on SSD in this table

Userload Executions TPS BPS Rows Bytes Average Time

6 511918 609.43 2437.71 511918 2047672 0.009

12 785200 934.83 3739.32 785200 3140800 0.012

25 1114234 1326.40 5305.59 1114234 4456936 0.018

50 1380205 1643.08 6572.34 1380205 5520820 0.030

Continuing from the previous Oracle example and the benefit of tuning the environment, with dataspread over about 70 HDD spindles and the INDEX on SSDs, a TPS of 1326 can be achieved with aresponse time of 9 ms. With this configuration, not only will response times be improved, but therewill also be space available on the SSDs for hot spot migration if desired.

Table 3 and Table 4 below show a portion of two Oracle AWR reports for a heavily-loaded system.The workload and environments are similar with user data files and control files (except logs andINDEX) residing on a single EVA disk group; logs are on their own EVA disk group; the index is on

either a 9 disk HDD disk group, or an 8 device SDD disk group. All HDD LUNs are configured asRAID 1 and SSD LUNS are configured as RAID 5. The goal of the test was to investigate the benefitsof using SSDs for the INDEX as well as show that additional work is needed to tune the storageenvironment to fully benefit from the SSDs. Looking at the HDD_INDEX_TBS the average response timeof the INDEX is about 11 ms; however, with the INDEX moved to the SSD_INDEX_TBS the averageresponse time is less than 1 msright where we want it. Next, the environment should be tuned toreduce the average response time of the other tablespaces. This can be performed by either addingdisks to the disk group containing the other user data, thereby spreading the user load acrossadditional spindles, or moving the hot data to SSD too.


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Table 3: Oracle AWR ReportTable IO Stats INDEX on HDD

Tablespace I/O Stats [ordered by I/Os (Reads + Writes) desc]

Tablespace Reads Av Reads/s Av Rd (ms) Av Blks/Rd Writes Av Writes/s Buffer Waits Av Buf (ms)

DATA_DG 2,023,828 568 18.36 1.00 1,981,414 556 2,280 10.70

HDD_INDEX_TBS 1,920,844 539 10.97 1.00 7 0 0 0.00

SYSAUX 6,342 2 20.57 1.01 7,778 2 0 0.00

UNDOTBS1 494 0 15.24 1.00 9,142 3 283 0.11

SYSTEM 556 0 23.27 1.00 95 0 150 29.07

TEMP3 42 0 0.00 15.00 43 0 0 0.00

SSD_INDEX_TBS 7 0 7.14 1.00 7 0 0 0.00

UNDOTBS2 7 0 130.00 1.00 7 0 0 0.00

USERS 7 0 91.43 1.00 7 0 0 0.00

Table 4: Oracle AWR ReportTable I/O Stats INDEX on SSD

Tablespace I/O Stats [ordered by I/Os (Reads + Writes) desc]

Tablespace Reads Av Reads/s Av Rd (ms) Av Blks/Rd Writes Av Writes/s Buffer Waits Av Buf (ms)

DATA_DG 17,249 11 19.59 1.00 165,271 102 25 10.80

SSD_INDEX_TBS 16,868 10 0.63 1.00 1 0 0 0.00

SYSAUX 3,517 2 6.47 1.00 3,580 2 0 0.00

UNDOTBS1 1 0 90.00 1.00 999 1 4 0.00

SYSTEM 8 0 18.75 1.00 23 0 88 6.59HDD_INDEX_TBS 1 0 90.00 1.00 1 0 0 0.00

UNDOTBS2 1 0 90.00 1.00 1 0 0 0.00

USERS 1 0 90.00 1.00 1 0 0 0.00


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Figure 7 below shows the kind of performance benefit that can be achieved for the Oracle databaseI/O response time by moving the INDEX from HP EVA array hard disk storage to solid state storagedevices.

Figure 7: Response time improvement for Index on SSD vs. HDD (smaller numbers are better)

Conclusion

Customers demand the highest efficiency and performance in their Oracle environment while keepingcosts under control. HP provides a wide selection of reliable storage solutions that addresses such

requirements. Solid State Drives in the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array provide one suchkey solution. The EVA offers high performance, high capacity, and high availability to mid-range andenterprise customers. The EVA provides the high transaction I/O of mission-critical applications suchas Oracle while providing easy capacity expansion, instantaneous replication, and simpleadministration using the Command View EVA software. Combining the reliable performance of theEVA with SSDs provides a significant performance boost for the Oracle database.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Response Time

HDD

SSD


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Copyright 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein issubject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in theexpress warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should beconstrued as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errorsor omissions contained herein.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates

4AA0-2123ENW, Created March 2010

For more information

Data Storage from HP

http://www.hp.com/go/storage

HP Storage with Oracle

http://www.hp.com/storage/oracle

HP StorageWorks EVA disk array

http://www.hp.com/go/eva

Solid State Disks for HP StorageWorks Arrays white paper

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA2-4509ENW.pdf

HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA4400) Performance white paper

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-8473ENW.pdf





HP StorageWorks 4400/6400/8400 Enterprise Virtual Array configuration best practiceswhite paper


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