Advantage of the new DELL PE R920 configuration with SSDs on NVME EXPRESS FLASH PCIE

Performance is the most important quality for companies working with Oracle-based programs, which requires low latency and maximum I / O per second from storage subsystems. Thus, it is important to choose a server not only with the latest processor technology and a large amount of RAM, but also with the ability to upgrade to provide a high level of service. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 server with Intel® Xeon processor E7 v2 family delivers the performance you need for mission-critical applications. Using NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, you can take server performance to the next level.

In our test lab, we tested two Dell PowerEdge R920 servers with an Oracle Database 12c database with OLTP TPC-C workloads, the first with standard serial SCSI (SAS) hard drives and the second with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. The updated configuration with PCIe SSDs has increased database performance by 14.9 times compared to hard drives. While the basic configuration provides good server performance, NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can significantly increase it, becoming a profitable investment for businesses seeking to meet the requirements of Oracle database users.

UPDATE DATABASE PRODUCTIVITY SHARPLY GROWS

The Dell PowerEdge R920 with Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family is Dell's fastest 4-socket server with a 4U form factor. Dell designed it to handle mission-critical workloads such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-commerce, full-blown virtualization, and large databases. The standard configuration includes 24 2.5-inch drive bays and supports up to 24 SAS hard drives. NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSD Configuration Supports up to eight PCIe SSDs and up to 16 SAS HDDs in the remaining bays. This provides a maximum speed of eight high-performance disks and high storage capacity on 16 SAS disks.

Although the Dell PowerEdge ServerThe R920 in its standard configuration supports the Oracle database well, we wanted to know how to change performance when using NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. For this, we used a performance appraisal program that tests the performance of many leading databases. As shown in Fig. 1, in the second configuration, the Oracle database performance improves dramatically, the Dell PowerEdge R920 server with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs is almost 15 times more efficient than the first configuration with SAS hard drives It should be noted that in the updated configuration, high efficiency was achieved using only one third of the disks (eight SSDs versus 24 SAS disks in the basic configuration).


Fig. 1 A significant difference in performance was detected between the two server configurations.

We have given only comparative results, since Oracle does not allow publishing specific results of comparative testing. However, even in the basic configuration, the server showed good results.

In fig. 2HammerDB performance improvements are shown for various I / O workloads. To demonstrate performance under various workloads of I / O operations, we changed the fast_start_mttr_target parameter in Oracle to use three different parameter options - 60 seconds, 120 seconds and 180 seconds, and then conducted a comparative test with each parameter. The fast_start_mttr_target parameter settings allow you to specify the number of seconds that the database will spend on recovering from a failure. The faster this happens, the earlier the database will be restored and made available to users. With shorter recovery times, such as 60 seconds, the database instance should flush the contents of the buffer to disk more often, creating a high load of input-output operations on the storage subsystem. With a longer recovery time, for example, 180 seconds, the storage subsystem is less loaded with I / O.

As shown in Figure 2, the Dell PowerEdge R920 server configured with PCIe SSDs is better at handling I / O loads in all three cases. With shorter recovery times, the performance advantage of NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs over SAS drives increases. While the PowerEdge R920 server in the basic configuration with SAS hard drives showed good results, higher performance was recorded in the configuration with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs.


Fig. 2 Relative results of the advantage of the configuration with PCIe SSDs over the basic configuration, recorded with HammerDB

In both test configurations, we used the Oracle recommended approach to Automatic Storage Management (ASM). On each server, we configured the main storage for redundancy, which would be required in almost any environment. Oracle ASM provides three levels of redundancy: Normal with two-channel copying, High with three-channel copying and External without copying, but with redundancy using hardware RAID controllers. In the basic configuration with the Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) H730P, we used RAID 1 and 1 External Redundancy disk groups. In the configuration with PCIe SSDs in the absence of a RAID controller, we used the normal level of redundancy of Oracle ASM with two-channel copying.

I / O Acceleration Value

Improved storage performance after upgrading an Oracle database with NVMe Express PCIe SSDs can provide company benefits in a number of cases:

• Improved service agreement terms by reducing database response time and / or supporting more users.
• Faster recovery time in the event of a failure
• Decrease database maintenance time
• Increase User Satisfaction
• Lower cost by eliminating poor performance hardware

I / O OPERATION PRODUCTIVITY ALSO SHARP INCREASES

In addition to database performance, we analyzed the I / O performance of NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs compared to SAS drives. To measure I / O in two server configurations, we used Flexible I / O, also known as Fio. Figure 3 shows the results: in both tests, the Dell PowerEdge R920 server with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs significantly outperformed the basic configuration with SAS hard drives.
Please note that random write of 313,687 I / O operations per second approximately reflects the configuration being copied. The total number of output operations of the combined devices was doubled, then we divided it into two to reflect the ASM configuration at the normal level of two-channel copying that we used in testing. We ran the Fio tests in a no-copy configuration because the PCIe bus does not have RAID capabilities. We divided the results, 627,374 I / O operations per second, by two, to get the approximate results of copying the record in the RAID 1. For a detailed configuration description, see Appendix B.

Unlike database performance, which includes loads created by applications, queues, and software level, the performance of I / O operations shows the storage subsystem's ability to process data, and often it is many times higher than database performance.


Fig. 3. Fio benchmarking results. A large number of I / O operations per second is preferred. The number of write operations for NVMe was 627,374; we divided the result by two in order to mathematically bring it closer to the copy result.

ABOUT TESTED COMPONENTS

About Dell PowerEdge R920

The Dell PowerEdge R920 is Dell's fastest 4-socket 4U server.
The server is designed to increase productivity for large enterprises, it supports:

• Up to 96 DIMMs
• 24 internal drives
• 8 NVMe Express Flash drives (with optional PCIe backplane)
• 10 PCIe Gen3 / Gen2
• SAS 12Gb / s drives

Server configuration also offers a Dual PERC option controller, PERC9 (H730P), Fluid Cache for SAN environments and many RAS features (reliability, availability, usability), such as Fault Resilient Memory and Intel Run Sure technology.

Using the Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family

The PowerEdge R920 server uses the new Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family, developed by Intel to maintain high-performance mission-critical tasks by adding 50% more cores / threads and 25% more cache memory, which provides a significant jump in performance compared to previous models . The Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family supports up to 6TB of DDR3 memory, up to 24 DDR3 DIMMs per socket and speeds up to 1,600 MHz for improved performance and increased scalability.

The Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family supports all the reliability, availability, and usability features found in previous models to support mission-critical workloads. With Intel Run Sure Technology, this processor has got new features including eMCA Gen 1, MCA Recovery Execution Path, MCA I / O and PCIe Live Error Recovery.

Maintain labor-intensive workloads

The PowerEdge R920 server can handle time-consuming, mission-critical workloads, enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-commerce, full-scale virtualization, and very large databases. It is especially suitable for the following workloads and environments:

• Acceleration of large corporate programs ((ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence)
• Introducing large traditional databases or in-memory databases
• Combining enterprise workloads with full-blown virtualization
• Switching from expensive and outdated RISC hardware to a promising data center

For more information on the Dell PowerEdge R920 server, see www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r920/pd .

About the Dell PowerEdge Server with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs

The Dell PowerEdge Server with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs is the ideal high-performance storage for solutions requiring low latency, maximum I / O per second, and enterprise-class storage reliability. PCIe Gen3 compatible NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSD can be used as a cache or main storage device in a labor-intensive corporate environment, such as blade and rack servers , video on demand servers, web accelerators, virtualization devices.

NVM Express is an optimized, highly efficient, scalable main controller interface with an advanced register interface and instruction set for processing non-volatile memory (NVM). It is designed for enterprises, data centers, client systems using PCIe SSDs.

According to the NVMHCI Work Group, a group of more than 90 storage companies, “NVM Express significantly improves random and sequential performance by reducing latency, providing high levels of duplication and optimizing the instruction set, while maintaining security, continuous data protection and other functions in which user needs. NVM Express guarantees a standards-based approach by providing ecosystem support and PCIe SSD compatibility.

For information on the Dell PowerEdge server with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, see www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/poweredge-express-flash .
For details on the NVM Express interface, see www.nvmexpress.org .

CONCLUSION

High server performance is a prerequisite for companies working with Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 server delivers high performance in its basic configuration with 24 SAS hard drives, but its performance is significantly increased when NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs are connected. During testing, the updated configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 increased the performance of the base configuration by 14.9 times. In addition, when testing the performance of I / O operations, the configuration with NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs exceeded the performance of the basic configuration by 192.8 times. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and in particular database applications,

APPENDIX A - SERVER CONFIGURATION INFORMATION

In Fig. 4 provides information on the configuration of the systems under test.

In Fig. 4 provides information on the configuration of the systems under test.

ANNEX B - TEST METHODOLOGY

About Testing Tools

Hammer db

HammerDB is a publicly available benchmarking tool for many leading databases, including Oracle Database, Microsoft® SL Server®, PostgreS-L, MyS-L ™ and others. Evaluation includes two built-in workloads derived from ratings accepted as an industry standard: transactional (TPC-C) workload and (TPCH) data warehouse workload. For this testing, we used a transactional workload. Our tests are not official TPC results and cannot be compared. For more information about HammerDB, see hammerora.sourceforge.net.

Flexible I / O (Fio) 2.1.4

Fio is a publicly available I / O tool used to load hardware and get results in IOPS (number of I / O operations per second). We downloaded and used Fio 2.1.4 for testing (pkgs.repoforge.org/fio/fio-2.1.4-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm).

Configuration Overview

We used all eight disks in the SSD configuration for random read and write and 20 SAS disks in 10 double-disk RAID configurations 1. Thus, the SAS configuration includes 10 double-disk groups, while the SSD configuration includes eight groups with one disk. The reason for this configuration is that SSDs do not have a RAID controller, unlike SAS drives. For Oracle testing, we defined these configurations in Automatic Storage Management, so we ran Fio to reflect the Oracle configuration. This allowed us to simulate a disk configuration with a database for testing. For Fio, we used an 8k block size to simulate the Oracle database configuration.

Configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Database 12c

We installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on both Dell PowerEdge R920 servers and configured the settings as shown below. The data displayed on the screen is displayed on a gray background.

Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux

We installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the Intel server, and then configured the settings as shown below.

• Insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 DVD into the server and load it.
• Select Install or upgrade your existing system.
• If in doubt about the quality of the installation disc, select OK to check the installation media, otherwise select Skip.
• In the window that opens, click Next.
• Select the desired language, click Next.
• Select a keyboard layout, click Next.
• Select your primary storage devices, click Next.
• Click Yes, reset any data in the storage device warning window.
• Enter the host name, click Next.
• Select the nearest city by time zone and click Next.
• Enter the root password, click Next.
• Select Create Custom Layout, click Next.
• Select the installation disk and click Create. (Create the following arrays: Root = 300GB, Home = 500GB, Boot = 200MB, SWAP = 20GB).
• Click Next.
• In the pop-up window, click Write changes to disk.
• Select the appropriate storage devices and the directory for the bootloader, click Next.
• Select the main software server, click Next. Linux installation begins.
• After installation is complete, select Reboot to reboot the server.

Initial Configuration

Follow these steps to provide the basic functionality required by Oracle Database. We completed all these tasks as root.

Настройка хранилища SAS

We completed the following steps to configure the SAS storage before configuring ASM:

Настройка хранилища PCIe SSD

We have completed the following steps to configure PCIe SSD storage before configuring ASM:

Install Oracle Grid Infrastructure on a standalone 12c server "

Before performing the following steps, we downloaded the Oracle 12 Grid installation file and extracted it to the / home / grid directory.
1.
2. Run the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Wizard.
3. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates and click Next.
4. In the Installation Options, select Install and Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server and click Next.
5. In Product Languages, select English and click on the right arrow to add a language to the selected languages ​​panel. Click Next.
6. In Create ASM Disk Group, select Change Discovery Path.
7. Enter / dev / nvme * for Disk Discovery Path and click OK (We left the default value for SAS configuration).
8. Check all disks and click Next (In the SAS configuration, we did not mark the last disk. We configured the last disk for protocols in the SAS configuration).
9. In ASM Password, select Use same passwords for these accounts. Enter and confirm the password. Click Next.
10. In the Operating System Groups, set all the groups to dba. Click Next.
11. Click Yes to confirm the notifications and continue.
12. In the Installation Location, leave the defaults and click Next.
13. In Create Inventory, leave the defaults and click Next.
14. In Root Script Execution, check the “Automatically run configuration scripts” box.
15. Select Use “root” user credential and enter the root password. Click Next.
16. In the Summary, check the information and click Install to start the installation.
17. Click Yes to confirm the privileged user is used for installation.
18. In the Finish window, click Close to exit the installer.

Install Oracle Database 12c

1.
2. Run the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 setup wizard.
3. In the Configure Security Updates window, clear the “check box” from I wish to receive security updates. Click Next.
4. Click Yes to confirm no email and continue.
5. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates and click Next.
6. In the Installation Options, select Install database software only and click Next.
7. In the Grid Installation Options, select Single instance database installation and click Next.
8. In Product Languages, select English and click on the right arrow to add a language to the panel of selected languages. Click Next.
9. In the Database Edition, select Enterprise Edition and click Next.
10. In Installation Location, leave the defaults and click Next.
11. In the Operating System Groups, leave the defaults and click Next.
12. In the Summary, check the information and click Install to start the installation.
13. Follow the instructions to execute the scripts. After running the scripts, click OK.
14. In the Finish window, click Close to exit the installer.
15. When the appropriate system request is received in the GUI installer, run the shell root script to complete the installation.
/home/oracle/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/root.sh

Creating an Oracle Database (using DBCA)

1. Launch the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA)
2. In Database Operations, select Create Database and click Next.
3. In Creation Mode, select Advanced Mode and click Next.
4. In the Database Template, select Template for General Purpose or Transaction Processing and click Next.
5. In Database Identification, enter orcl in the Global Database Name field.
6. Enter orcl in the SID field. Click Next.
7. In the Management Options, select Configure Enterprise Manager (EM) Database Express. Click Next.
8. In the Database Credentials, select Use the Same Administrative Password for All Accounts.
9. Enter and confirm the administrator password and click Next.
10. In Network Configuration, select the checkbox for all receivers and click Next.
11. In Storage Locations, select User Common Location for All Database Files. Type + DATA in the Database Files Location field.
12. Select the Specify Fast Recovery Area. Enter (ORACLE_BASE) / fast_recovery_area in the Fast Recovery Area field.
13. Set the Fast Recovery Area size to 400 GB and click Next.
14. In Database Options, leave the defaults and click Next.
15. In the Initialization Parameters and under the standard settings, set the memory size to 80% and click Next.
16. In Creation Options, select Create Database. Click Customize Storage Locations.
17. In the Customize Storage panel and under Redo Log Groups, select 1.
18. Set the file size to 51,200 MB. Click Apply.
19. Under Redo Log Groups, select 2.
20. Set the file size to 51,200 MB. Click Apply.
21. Under Redo Log Groups, select 3.
22. Click Remove, then click Yes.
23. To exit the Customize Storage panel, click Ok.
24. Click Next.
25. Check Summary. To finish creating the database, click Finish.
26. Check the information on the screen and click Exit.
27. To exit DBCA, click Close.

Configure Oracle Tablespaces and redo protocol

Настройка Oracle pfile

Настройка клиента HammerDB

We used a dual-processor server with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 for the HammerDB client. We followed the installation procedures at the beginning of this application to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but installed the GUI. Then we installed the HammerDB client software.

Install HammerDB

Download and install version 2.16 on the Red Hat client. We downloaded HammerDB from hammerora.sourceforge.net/download.html. We installed HammerDB in accordance with the installation instructions (hammerora.sourceforge.net/hammerdb_install_guide.pdf).

Installing HammerDB Oracle Libraries

Follow these steps on both systems.
1. Launch Oracle Client Installer.
2. In the Select Installation Type, select Administrator (1.8 GB) as the installation type and click Next.
3. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates and click Next.
4. In Product Languages, select English and click on the arrow pointing to the right to add a language to the panel of selected languages. Click Next.
5. In Specify Installation Location, leave the defaults and click Next.
6. In Create Inventory, leave the defaults and click Next.
7. In the Summary, check the information and click Install to start the installation.
8. In the Install Product, follow the instructions for running the scripts. Click OK after running the scripts.
9. In the Finish window, click Close to exit the installer.

Database setup

Launch HammerDB

We launched HammerDB by filling in the relevant information in the disk options. We tested for 5 minutes of gradual increase in load and 5 minutes of testing. We used 101 virtual users with a user delay of 500 milliseconds and repeated delays. We used rman to restore the database between trials.