In this presentation, it helps you establish a performance baseline that you can use to ensure that you select the appropriate server move groups and address any server or application dependencies in your strategy. Our goal is to give you best practices that you can use when planning and executing your move to Cloud IaaS and to get the best performance out of it. To watch the live webinar for this presentation, please go to https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/10539/97643

1. Cloud Webinar Series
Plan your IaaS Environment
for Optimal Performance
January 15, 2013
Speaker: Jeremy Littlejohn, Founder and Chief Analyst RISC Networks

2. Agenda
1.
2.
3.
4.
Understand common performance issues
How to establish a performance baseline
Keys to your success
Our Analysis

3. Common Performance
Issues

4. Cloud is Still Virtualization –
Same Rules Apply
•
•
•
•
Disk Latency
Hypervisor Memory Oversubscription
Packet-loss on the network
Hypervisor CPU Oversubscription

5. Disk Latency
55% of organizations have
storage latency of over 50ms

6. Hypervisor Memory Oversubscription
53%
Organizations that have
VMware Servers with
performance degradation
due to Memory Swap In /
Swap Out.
Learn More: Performance Troubleshooting for VMware vSphere

7. Packet Loss
64%
26%
64% of organizations have receive packet
loss occurring on virtual switch ports and
26% have transmit packet loss occurring
on virtual switch ports

8. CPU Oversubscription
33%
Of organizations have
at least 1 VMware
Hypervisor with CPU
Oversubscription
Learn More: VMware recommends less than 5% ready time for all VMs’

9. Here is the Kicker!
All of these challenges exist in cloud
environments, both Public and Private.
The question is, how can you build a
baseline that helps you prepare to deal
with them?

10. Establishing a
Performance Baseline

11. Infrastructure Performance Statistics
10
In order to establish an effective
baseline, you have to focus on more
than ONE dimension.
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Infrastructure Performance Statistics
CPU Usage

12. Cross-Functional Analysis
Data Center
54%
Vmware
Perf
Problems
33 %
Oversubscribed
Line Cards
47 %
Storage
Perf
Problems
73 %
Network
Perf
Problems
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Don’t Focus on CPU usage
Analyze Disk I/O
Analyze Network I/O
Capture Network Traffic
Look at the network relations
and dependency

13. Analyze, Don’t Monitor
VS

14. Collect (at least) the following data
• CPU
• Usage %
• % Steal time OR % Ready Time
• Memory
• Swap In/Out Rate (hypervisor if virtual)
• CPU % Wait Time (can show disk slowness for swapping)
• VM Swap Wait
• Disk
• IOPS (I/O Per Second)
• I/O Block Size
• Latency and Queue Length
• Network
• Packet Loss %
• Delay

15. 140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Max IOPS
1/10/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014…
1/9/2014 8:44
1/9/2014 6:20
1/9/2014 3:56
1/9/2014 1:32
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014…
1/8/2014 9:55
1/8/2014 7:34
1/8/2014 5:39
1/8/2014 3:16
1/8/2014 0:55
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014…
1/7/2014 9:21
1/7/2014 7:00
1/7/2014 4:36
1/7/2014 2:13
1/6/2014…
1/6/2014…
1/6/2014…
1/6/2014…
1/6/2014…
A quick example – Planning for Disk
Performance in Amazon AWS
• Amazon EBS (Basic) Supports 100 IOPS (@16KB)
• Step 1: Collect I/O statistics from your vCenter
• Sum the Reads/Writes/Sec for each hour
Max IOPS

16. A quick example – Planning for Disk
Performance in Amazon AWS
• Step 2: If you are < 100 IOPS directly measured, also determine
the Write / Read Size to see if you need to adjust to Provisioned
IOPS
(KB per Write/16) *Writes/Sec<100 = OK
(KB per Write/16)*Writes/Sec>100 = Need Provisioned
IOPS

17. Benchmark your Disk Latency
• If you have latency > 50ms, you are already having problems
• If you are under 50ms, then you want to be sure that you don’t
introduce latency to the applications as you move them.
• You can track queue length on your current system, and then
compare that to AWS EBS VolumeQueueLength metric to verify
performance

18. Keys to Success

19. Keys to your success
1. Gather Data
2. Benchmarking
3. Best Practices
4. Proactive Management

20. Gather Data
• General usage info for CPU, Memory, Disk
• Current usage and impact on performance
• Current network performance information
• Virtualized environment analysis

21. Benchmarking
• Clearly identify specific areas of opportunity
• Set performance expectations
• Validate infrastructure assumption
• Monitor company performance and manage change

22. Best Practices
- Amazon AWS Performance Information
-
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSPerformance.html
- Performance and Troubleshooting Guide
- http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10179
- Network Performance Statistics Information
- http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wanmon/thru-vs-loss.html

23. Proactive Management
• Compare statistics to earlier benchmarks
• Work on Lead, not Lag metrics
• Test routinely – Traffic Simulation, etc
• Capture Traffic so that you can validate Network
Performance

24. Our Analysis

25. 5
Our Analysis
Simulate and
analyze cloud
infrastructure traffic
2
Cloud
Provider
Collect and aggregate
component-level data using
secure data encryption.
1
SaaS delivered analysis
and reporting portal for
anywhere engagement
management
(*) Physical Appliance may be required during network traffic
analysis, depending on the required infrastructure configuration
3
RISC Network’s only listens during infrastructure
analysis and during network/cloud traffic analysis. Only
during network traffic simulation is there active data
being put onto the network
4
Virtual Appliance*
Securely Installed in
as little as 15
minutes

26. Our Analysis by the #’s
97,000
Virtual Machines
VMware Virtual Machines Analyze

27. Our Analysis by the #’s
4,000+
Business
Networks
Analyzed

28. Our Offering

29. Cloud Readiness Analytics
•
•
•
•
•
•
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Pricing Model Analysis
Network Performance Analysis
Move Group Planning and Analysis
Server & App Dependency Visualization
Cloud Performance Testing and
Validation
To learn more about our analytics go to:
http://www.riscnetworks.com/cloudscape

30. Upcoming Webinars
• Subscribe to our BrightTALK™ Channel:
https://www.brighttalk.com/channel/10539
•
•
•
•
February 5th – Why Network Testing is Critical for Cloud Success
February 19th – Top 5 Network Infrastructure Performance Issues
March 5th – Be Confident That Your Cloud Solution is Working Well
March 12th – Performance Benchmarking for Private and Hybrid Cloud

31. Thank you

32. About Us
At RISC Networks we imagine a world where IT leaders are not constrained by the complexities of their
IT tools. We have a perspective, a different way of thinking about IT, a simpler way! We believe you
should have more meaningful data analysis; information that actually helps guide you in solving your
problems, tools that help you research and take immediate action. IT – As simple as it should be™
Based in Asheville, North Carolina, RISC Networks is a Actionable IT Analytics firm that focuses on
developing research and technology that helps IT organizations improve their IT operations. More
information is available at: http://www.riscnetworks.com/. Follow RISC Networks on Twitter
@Risc_Networks or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/RiscNetworks.
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