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EMC VMAX 400K SPC-2 Proven Performance Silverton Consulting, Inc. StorInt™ Briefing

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Introduction In this paper, we analyze all-‐flash EMC® VMAX® 400K storage system performance using an industry-‐standard, Storage Performance Council (SPC) benchmark. A number of SPC and Silverton Consulting, Inc. (SCI) benchmark metrics confirm the superior throughput performance of EMC VMAX3™ storage. Such benchmark-‐proven, bandwidth-‐intensive IO performance offers a significant advantage for customers with data warehousing, data analytics or batch-‐intensive environments that process a lot of sequential data that generates high-‐throughput input/output (IO) activity. Below, we discuss the advanced storage functionality of the EMC VMAX3, along with key details about EMC VMAX3 storage system performance.

EMC VMAX 100K, 200K and 400K storage systems EMC VMAX was specifically designed for high-‐performance, mission-‐critical enterprise workloads. As EMC’s third-‐generation VMAX system, VMAX3 includes a number of enhancements over the previous-‐generation hardware. These enhancements improve flash storage performance, expand IO bandwidth and provide a platform for deeper data services. The VMAX3 system was specifically designed to enable more multi-‐core execution of any and all data IO and other storage functionality requested by attached hosts. With an eight-‐engine VMAX 400K, all 384 processing cores can actively service IO and provide storage functionality in order to address extreme customer demands. The EMC VMAX3 currently comes in three hardware solutions: the VMAX 100K, 200K and 400K, with up to four or eight VMAX3 engines. A VMAX3 engine contains two storage directors with redundant interfaces to the new Dynamic Virtual Matrix dual InfiniBand® inter-‐cluster fabric. Each VMAX3 director also offers global memory (up to 2TB/engine), front-‐end ports and backend storage interfaces that together offer direct host access to the array’s backend storage and globally cached data. The backend of the VMAX3 is connected via redundant 6Gb/sec serial-‐attached SCSI (SAS) interfaces and can use small form factor (2.5”) and large form factor (3.5”) disks or solid-‐state drives (SSDs). For the VMAX 400K, the system can access up to 5,760 disk or SSD drives, constituting up to 4PB of usable storage, with a maximum of 720 drives per system bay. System bays can be located up to 25 meters from the first system bay, and the VMAX3 storage systems support independent, third-‐party system bay racking. This agility allows IT managers to easily deploy VMAX arrays in space constrained or congested data centers.



Advanced VMAX3 HYPERMAX OS software functionality Implemented as a foundation for the new VMAX3 hardware, the HYPERMAX OS leverages the scalable VMAX3 hardware to expand data services. One example of the new data services is VMAX’s new embedded Network Attached Storage (eNAS) functionality, which runs as virtual machines under HYPERMAX in order to offer file services. VMAX3 eNAS provides file services using file data movers and control stations that are distributed across all VMAX3 engines in an array. This distribution allows customers to use VMAX3 storage systems for all of their file service needs, as well as support other mission-‐critical block storage applications. Additional HYPERMAX OS advanced services include the following:

• One-‐click, service level objective (SLO) provisioning for both file and block storage. With a single click, customers can easily provision new block or file storage at any defined SLO available within the system.

• Virtual or thin provisioning for block storage, which only draws down backend storage space when written by the host. With HYPERMAX virtual provisioning, customers can shrink and expand thin pools of storage as workloads demand, spreading any unused capacity over other virtually provisioned pools of storage.

• Data at rest encryption (D@RE) for both file and block storage to increase security for customer data on backend storage devices. With D@RE, VMAX3 data is protected and secured from unauthorized access.

• TimeFinder® SnapVX for block storage to create an on-‐array, rapid point-‐in-‐time copy of customer data. VMAX3 SnapVX reduces the time and storage consumption impacts of snapshot data copies and can produce up to 16 million snapshots per array.

• EMC ProtectPoint for faster storage backup and recovery to enable direct data transfers to EMC Data Domain from VMAX3 storage. EMC ProtectPoint eliminates the media server bottleneck and dramatically reduces the host data transfers needed to perform storage backups and data recovery.

• Host IO limits for block storage to constrain host IO performance to defined service levels across accessible storage units. Administrators can restrict host input/output operations per second (IOPS) or throughput on a per-‐application basis.

• Enhanced Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) for block and file storage disaster recovery featuring state-‐of-‐the-‐art, remote mirroring of customer data. Enhanced SRDF offers two-‐, three-‐ and four-‐way remote replication to support customer disaster recovery requirements. VMAX3 and HYPERMAX OS also include hardware compression and increased multi-‐threading to reduce operational costs and increase replication throughput. All of the redundant VMAX3 hardware and advanced SRDF capabilities enable customers to configure VMAX storage to supply 24x7xforever, 99.9999% (6-‐9’s) availability for their data.



HYPERMAX OS offers Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST®) for hybrid (disk and SSD) storage configurations. With FAST, VMAX storage will access hot (higher performance-‐intensive) data from SSD devices and cold (lower performance-‐intensive) data from disk storage, producing the best IO performance for data that needs it the most. HYPERMAX OS also supports XtremCache™, which can take advantage of server-‐based flash storage (SSDs or PCIe flash cards) to cache frequently accessed data at the host, dramatically reducing IO activity to the storage system for highly referenced data.

Storage Performance Council The SPC provides block-‐oriented IO performance benchmarks for storage system vendors and data center customers. To be published on the SPC website, a benchmark submission has to be independently audited by an SPC representative and has to be approved by all SPC working group members.1 SPC offers two suites of block IO benchmarks:

• SPC-‐1 is a benchmark designed to exercise a storage system operating under an online transaction processing (OLTP) IO workload. SPC-‐1 data transfers are relatively small and somewhat random; as a result, they are difficult to cache. The SPC offers several versions beyond the base SPC-‐1 benchmark. The SPC-‐1/E is an SPC-‐1 benchmark where energy consumption measurements are taken at various times during the testing. The SPC-‐1/C benchmark executes the OLTP IO workload against storage system components like disk drives, SSDs or JBODs (“just a bunch of disks”). Finally, the SPC-‐1C/E benchmark is the SPC-‐1 workload executed against a storage component (drive, SSD or JBOD) while measuring the energy use of components.

• SPC-‐2 is a benchmark designed to simulate a storage system operating under a bandwidth-‐ or throughput-‐intensive IO workload. The SPC-‐2 benchmark uses three different workloads to stress storage system throughput. Versions of the base SPC-‐2 benchmark include SPC-‐2/E and SPC-‐2C/E, which are similar to those discussed above for SPC-‐1.

All SPC benchmarks have a number of stages, including performance sustainability, which tests the system at given levels of its IO performance to verify that the storage array can attain the desired performance for a protracted interval of time. For all SPC benchmarks, vendors are required to specify in detail the configuration and street pricing for the system under test.

1 All SPC benchmark results and other information from http://www.storageperformance.org/home/ are current as of 29 July 2015.



As discussed previously, the SPC-‐2 benchmark uses three distinct workloads executed separately to assess system throughput performance. The three SPC-‐2 workloads are as follows:

• Large file processing (LFP) – This activity simulates the data processing done on large files, with 256KB to 1MB data transfers representing sequential processing of one or more large files.

• Large database query (LDQ) – This activity simulates a data warehouse of data mining IO activity done on large databases, with 64KB and 1MB data transfers representing scans or joins of large relational database tables.

• Video on demand (VOD) – This activity simulates media server IO done on large video files, providing ingesting and reading-‐out of those files to consumers.

SPC reports on a number of detailed SPC-‐2 metrics for each of the three workloads, such as total data rates for the different activities, number of streams and data rates per stream. However, SPC summarizes the throughput performance of the system under test using just two metrics: SPC-‐2 MBPS™ [mega-‐bytes (transferred) per second] and SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance ($/MBPS). The MBPS metric is derived by averaging the maximum MBPS achieved for each of the three workloads. The SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance metric is then calculated using the MBPS and vendor-‐provided system street price.

SPC-‐2 VMAX 400K storage configuration The SPC-‐2 EMC VMAX 400K system was configured as an all-‐flash system, with 8 VMAX3 512GB engines and 32 200GB SSDs per engine, for a total of 4TB global memory and 264 SSDs (256 + 8 spares). The VMAX3 storage was directly connected to the host system with 128 8Gb FC (Fibre Channel) links. The VMAX 400K system under test had an Application Storage Unit (ASU) capacity of 20.1 TB and used mirrored-‐RAID storage protection. List price for the EMC VMAX3 storage system was $4.9M, but the system was available for $1.9M after discount. As is customary, SPC used vendor-‐supplied discounted pricing in its SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance calculation. Many classes of storage systems have undergone SPC-‐2 benchmark testing over the years. In order to achieve a fair comparison for our performance analysis below, we have selected only SPC-‐2 submissions that represent current enterprise competition for EMC VMAX3 storage systems. As a result, this enterprise comparison group includes HP XP7 (OEMed version of HDS G1000), Fujitsu ETERNUS DX8700 S2, IBM DS8870, HDS VSP and IBM XIV Gen3 storage systems.



SPC-‐2 VMAX 400K performance results Figure 1 shows the SPC-‐2 MBPS metric for the enterprise comparison group.

Figure 1 SPC-‐2 MBPS results for the enterprise comparison group

As discussed above, MBPS is the average maximum MBPS of the LFP, LDQ and VOD workloads. The EMC VMAX 400K came in first place, with an SPC-‐2 MBPS of 55,644, or more than 55.6 GB/sec. The nearest competitor, the HP XP7, had an SPC-‐2 MBPS score that was ~12.6GB/sec. slower, i.e., the VMAX3 was 29.4% faster than the HP XP7. Figure 2 provides a more detailed look at how the systems in the enterprise comparison group performed on each of the three workloads.



Figure 2 SPC-‐2 LDQ, LFP and VOD results for the enterprise comparison group

As Figure 2 shows, the EMC VMAX 400K came in first place in each workload. Its best performing workload was LDQ, where it achieved more than 66.7GB/sec. Its second best performing workload was LFP with ~53.1GB/sec, and its least high performing workload was VOD with ~47.2GB/sec (~1.6GB/sec faster than the HP XP7). Systems often optimize for different SPC-‐2 workloads. We believe the differences in how systems perform on each workload can provide some insight into which workloads vendors focus on. For example, unlike the VMAX 400K, the HP XP7 system’s VOD performance did better than its LFP performance. Although VOD is useful for media servers, it doesn't often represent as significant a portion of mission-‐critical, enterprise data center IO activity as LFP activity. Figure 3 shows the SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance metric, or $/MBPS, for the enterprise comparison group.



Figure 3 SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance for the enterprise comparison group

In Figure 3, the VMAX 400K came in second place behind the HP XP7 system in Price-‐Performance. The VMAX storage array was ~$4/MBPS behind the HP XP7 system. The other systems on this chart were ~$45/MBPS to ~115/MBPS behind the VMAX. All-‐flash storage systems like the EMC VMAX 400K typically do exceptionally well on Price-‐Performance because of their ability to generate high performance with relatively less flash storage and at less cost. Most of the other systems in the enterprise comparison group had to use a lot of disk drives to perform well, which increased system cost. Figure 4 shows SCI’s current Enterprise-‐Class Storage Throughput ChampionsChart™. SCI publishes a number of these ChampionsCharts and includes them in its NAS and Storage Area Network (SAN) Storage Buying Guides. The chart in Figure 4 shows an SCI-‐derived plot of all (active and inactive, old and new) SPC-‐2 enterprise systems (storage costing more than $1M). This plot uses two dimensions: relative MBPS performance and relative responsiveness. The responsiveness metric plotted in Figure 4 is based on information in the SPC-‐2 full disclosure report.2 2 All SPC-‐2 active and inactive reports from http://www.storageperformance.org/home/ are current as of 29 July 2015.



SCI’s Throughput ChampionsChart uses proprietary calculations to place storage systems in one of four quadrants: Champions had superior relative MBPS performance and superior relative responsiveness, Sprinters had superior relative responsiveness but poor relative MBPS performance, Marathoners had superior relative MBPS performance but poor relative responsiveness and Slowpokes had both poor relative MBPS and poor relative responsiveness.

Figure 4 SCI Enterprise-‐Class Storage Throughput ChampionsChart for the Third Quarter of 2015

Each quarter, SCI names one system as its Champion of Champions™. SCI drew upon the data shown in Figure 4 to name the EMC VMAX 400K our Champion of Champions in Throughput for the third quarter of 2015. The EMC VMAX 400K beat out all of the competition by a wide margin for its superior relative MBPS performance and its excellent responsiveness.

Applications that can benefit from high VMAX 400K performance Many application environments can benefit from the outstanding throughput performance of flash-‐based EMC VMAX 400K. Enterprise data warehousing or data mining activities often generate large relational database queries similar in



performance to the SPC-‐2 LDQ workload. An all-‐flash EMC VMAX 400K delivers the best SPC-‐2 LDQ performance available. These application environments can also take advantage of the high availability and advanced functionality offered by the VMAX3 hardware and HYPERMAX OS software. Customers with heavy data analytics requirements use storage systems in a fashion similar to a combination of SPC-‐2 LFP and LDQ workloads. The superior LFP and LDQ throughput, high-‐speed cluster interconnect and XtremCache capabilities of EMC VMAX 400K storage make it an excellent storage system for data analytics environments. Historically, batch processing used large tape sequential datasets. Nowadays, mission-‐critical batch processing uses large files of transaction data processed against a large master file or database, all of which are located on SAN storage. The EMC VMAX 400K storage system is the best in the world at such LFP activities.

Summary The EMC VMAX 400K flash storage system has proven to have superior throughput performance on a number of benchmark metrics. The EMC VMAX 400K came in at #1 in overall SPC-‐2 MBPS, #1 in each SPC-‐2 workload and #2 in SPC-‐2 Price-‐Performance. It was also named SCI’s Champion of Champions for Enterprise-‐Class Storage Throughput for the third quarter of 2015. Many customers, especially those in mission-‐critical, batch-‐intensive, data warehousing/mining and data analytics environments, can take advantage of the VMAX 400K’s exceptional throughput performance. Indeed, any customer with high-‐bandwidth IO requirements can benefit from using the flash-‐based EMC VMAX 400K storage system.

Silverton Consulting, Inc., is a U.S.-based Storage, Strategy & Systems consulting firm offering products and services to the data storage community.