XOSAN with 10GB link on XenServer
A quick post regarding new hardware that just came for our lab: 10GB network cards to benchmark (again) hyperconverged XenServer storage with XOSAN.
At the same time, a new release of XO is planned next week! Stay tuned!
Hardware
We selected compatible NICs (cf Citrix XenServer HCL): Intel X540-AT2.
The switch is a Netgear XS708E-100NES.
New benchmarks
On the existing hardware, on 3 hosts and the possibility to lost 1 (using 66% of cumulative disk space on each host), with only one Samsung 750 EVO SSD per host, here is the new results in Erasure Code 1:
| XOSAN 1GBit | XOSAN 10GBits | diff | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequential reads | 172 MB/s | 242 MB/s | +40% |
| 4K reads | 24 MB/s | 24 MB/s | draw |
| Sequential writes | 72 MB/s | 231 MB/s | +220% |
| 4k writes | 13 MB/s | 13 MB/s | draw |
As you can see, a 10GB network can improve a lot XOSAN performances for sequential data (especially writes). Note there is maybe room for improvement, there is a lot of things to tune to find the right settings. Also, small blocks aren't affected by the network performances.
What's next?
We are continuing to work on having a turnkey solution to deploy XOSAN. We are making significant progress, we hope to deliver our beta around FOSDEM event (a bit before or after).
Our new 10GB network infrastructure will be also used to benchmark backup speed with XenServer and Xen Orchestra!