Top 5 IT Infrastructure Performance Issues

Our Analysis

• The data provided in this presentation was gathered from over 4,000 network engagements

• We compile the data from physical network components, virtual infrastructure, unified communications and Cloud IaaSenvironments

• We provide benchmarks using our data to help companies establish their own benchmark and identify issues to help in troubleshooting and planning for change

True Top 5 Performance issues

• Hidden Network Oversubscription

• Clear Network Overutilization

• VMware Storage Latency

• VMware Memory Oversubscription

• Critical Interface Packet Loss

Hidden Network Oversubscription

What is Network Oversubscription?

Switch

Ports

Backplane

4Gbps

1 Gbps

Are You Suffering from Network Oversubscription?

• 32% of Organizations have Oversubscribed Line Cards

• 130 – The average number of interfaces that drop packets due to the oversubscription (Per Organization!)

56%

15%

15%

14%

Total Oversubscribed Ports

WS-X4548-GB-RJ45VOversubscribed 8:1

WS-X4648-RJ45V+EOversubscribed 2:1

WS-X4548-GB-RJ45Oversubscribed 8:1

WS-X6148-GE-TXOversubscribed 8:1

Look for Known Offenders

985

500

373304

247 223 188

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

WS-X6748-GE-TX

WS-X6148A-GE-45AF

WS-X6348-RJ-45

WS-X6724-SFP

WS-X6148-GE-TX

WS-X6148A-GE-TX

WS-X6548-GE-TX

33 % of Cisco 6500

Ports are on

Oversubscribed Line

Cards

“It is important to note that the 6148A-GE and the 6548-GE are both engineered with 8:1 oversubscription ratios and, as such,

while suitable at the access layer, these linecards would not be recommended to deploy as uplinks or within the distribution and

core layers – Cisco QoS Design Guide (Telepresence) “http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Video/tpqoscampus.html

Network Overutilization

68 % of organizations suffer from Overutilization

Out of this 68% only an average of....

0.66% of the organizations interfaces are Overutilized

Of these interfaces only….

49% are LAN interfaces

Network Overutilization This bandwidth chart was calculating using a 30 second load intervals

It experienced 9,766,038 packets dropped due to overutilization in the ~11 day period

VMware Storage Latency

67 % of VMware deployments have severe storage latency

Average storage latency on these devices was 278ms.

278ms!!

How many people monitor their storage latency for servers?

VMware Memory Oversubscription

Memory oversubscription is exactly as it sounds….

you’ve provisioned and used more memory than you have.

The metrics you look at are -

• Average Swap Wait Time – delay that occurs with memory swap

• Read / Write Latency – Latency to disk

- Goal: 0ms

- Goal: <20ms

Critical Interface Packet LossQ: What is considered Critical interface packet loss?

A: Errors or discards on aggregation links including:

1) Infrastructure uplinks

2) Layer 3 interfaces

3) Server egress ports

4) Layer 2 forwarding 5+ hosts (ex. Unknown or unmanaged segments)

Types of packet loss Errors Discards

What is it?: CRC, malformed frame, collision Implicit discard of a packet

What can be the issue?: Layer1/layer2 issue

Clocking or duplex mismatch

Half duplex technology

Overutilization

Oversubscription

Queuing or policing mechanism

Misconfiguration

Cost to fix / time to fix Low / Low-moderate Moderate / High

Critical Interface Packet Loss

89.7% of organizations have resolvable packet loss on critical interfaces

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

CriticalUplinks with

Discards

CriticalUplinks with

Errors

RouterInterfaces

withDiscards

RouterInterfaceswith Errors

Server Linkswith

Discards

Server Linkswith Errors

SharedUplinks with

Discards

SharedUplinks with

Errors

42

10

38

27

12

3

68

19

Average Number of Interfaces with Pack Loss

Contact RISC Networks

(866) 808-1227

1 Rankin Ave, 2nd Floor

Asheville, NC 28801

info@riscnetworks.com