VNX Unif Perf WRKSHP Lab Guide

VNX Unified Storage
Performance Workshop
Lab Guide
March, 2014
EMC Education Services

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Revision Date: March, 2014

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EMC Education Services

Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT ........................................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO LASER MEDICAL, INC. ......................................... 5
LAB EXERCISE 1: INSTALLATION AND SETUP OF UNISPHERE CLIENT ................................7
LAB EXERCISE 2: ANALYZER SETTINGS........................................................................11
LAB EXERCISE 3: ANALYZER INTERFACE NAVIGATION (OPTIONAL) ..............................19
CASE STUDY 1: LUN PERFORMANCE ISSUE ........................................................... 31

CASE STUDY 2: VNX FILE OE SERVER_STATS ........................................................ 33
CASE STUDY 3: LUN LAYOUT ANALYSIS ................................................................. 35
CASE STUDY 4: VNX FILE SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ............................................. 37
CASE STUDY 5: FAST CACHE ANALYSIS................................................................... 39
CASE STUDY 6: FAST VP PERFORMANCE ............................................................... 41
CASE STUDY 7: VNX SNAPSHOT PERFORMANCE ISSUE .................................... 45
CASE STUDY 8: SNAPVIEW SNAPSHOT ANALYSIS............................................... 47
CASE STUDY 9: SNAPVIEW CLONE ANALYSIS ....................................................... 49
CASE STUDY 10: INCREMENTAL SAN COPY ANALYSIS ...................................... 51
CASE STUDY 11: MIRRORVIEW PERFORMANCE ISSUE ..................................... 53
EMC Education Services 3

Introduction: Welcome to Laser Medical, Inc.
Laser Medical Inc. (LMI) is a health industry provider specializing in the very latest laser technology
devices used in medical diagnosis, treatment, and therapy. LM’s headquarters and primary data
center are located near Boston, MA. LM has a strong presence up and down the US east coast with
branches in New York, Norfolk - VA, Raleigh - NC, Atlanta, and Miami.
During this week, you will utilize Unisphere Analyzer and Unisphere VNX Client (off-array Analyzer) to
complete various tasks and case studies. As you will not be using a live array, many options within the
client interface will be blank. Example diagrams will be provided for important windows as needed.

Lab Exercise 1: Installation and Setup of Unisphere Client
First, you will need to install the two files needed to launch the Unisphere Client (the client/server
versions may be different).
These files may be downloaded from Powerlink. Search for “Unisphere Server” and “Unisphere
Client”. You will also find a demo on how to install and configure the two files on your Windows
machine. Make sure you first install the UnisphereServer.exe file before the UnisphereClient.exe file.

Connect Unisphere to the localhost IP address. This will log the Unisphere VNX Client into the
management server locally installed on your machine.
1. After launching Unisphere Client, enter the IP address of 127.0.0.1 in the Connect field.
2. Click Connect.
Log into the local host with the domain username and password that has been pre-set on the host.
The default username and password is admin.
1. Click the Unisphere Server link for the local Unisphere Server.

To get to the Unisphere Analyzer interface:
1. Hover your mouse over Monitoring
2. Select Analyzer
The below window is what you should see. This is the Analyzer screen for Unisphere VNX Client.

Lab Exercise 2: Analyzer Settings
This next section focuses on the Settings section of the Analyzer window, which is located in the top
left of the Analyzer screen. The Unisphere Analyzer lab activities in this course presume the following
settings have been configured.
In the Settings portion of the window, you will see options for:
 Performance Data Logging
 Customize Charts

Open the Customize Charts dialog box:
1. Click Customize Charts within the Settings portion of the Analyzer window
Customize Charts is the dialog box to set preferences for Unisphere Analyzer. The main tab in this
window is the General tab, which can be seen when the window is launched.
The most commonly changed settings on the General tab are:

 The Advanced option within the Characteristics (Analyzer) box
 The Only get performance data for those objects that are selected in tree chart option within the
Real-time Chart (Analyzer) box
For more information on each of the settings within the General tab, click Help. Close Help once you
are done viewing it.

The Advanced checkbox, when checked, will allow you to view Advanced Analyzer Statistics in the
Performance Detail window. Without the box checked, you will just see basic statistics in the
Performance Detail window. As you will be viewing advanced characteristics later in this Lab, you
need to enable this option at this time:
1. Select the Advanced checkbox

2. Click Apply
3. Click OK in the Message: Success dialog box

1. Next, choose the Survey Charts tab
The Survey Charts tab is used in conjunction with the Performance Survey window. This window will
be shown later in the Lab.
In the Threshold box, you can enable a statistic to monitor and specify the threshold value and the
number of samples at that threshold. If the threshold is exceeded, the box for that characteristic in
the Performance Survey window will be outlined in red. If the threshold is not exceeded, the outline
will be green.
Select the following options and configure the following values, leave the samples at 10 for each:
 Utilization = 70%
 Throughput = 1000 IOPS
 Bandwidth = 50 MB/s
 Response Time = 15ms
 Average Queue Length = 12

The Survey Charts tab also contains a Graph Colors box. In this box you can change:
1. The Threshold Line color, which sets the color used to represent the threshold set when displaying
data in the Performance Survey window
2. The Point color, which controls the color used to for the data points in the Performance Survey
window
The Archives tab is a tab in which you will typically set the values once and not change them.
Within the Archives tab, in the General section, you can specify the Default Archive Location and the
Default Dump Location. When opening Archives, setting the default path allows the user to quickly
find their Archive files and open them.

Within the Archives tab, in the Analyzer section, you have multiple options you can set. The first is
what Analyzer chart you would like to view by default when you open an Archive file. You can also set
if you would like to use the search dialog box for more than a certain number of LUNs. By default the
box is checked for 500 LUNs. The Search Window is a way to narrow down the amount of LUNs in the
display. The last option is to select if you would like all tree objects to be checked when the Archive is
opened (eg. Have all LUNs selected). Typically this is unchecked. Click OK to close and save settings.

Lab Exercise 3: Analyzer Interface Navigation (Optional)
Note: If you use Analyzer, and work with NAR files, on a daily/weekly basis and/or feel confident with the
tool, you may skip this exercise.
This section focuses on the Archive Management section of the Analyzer window, which is located in
the top right of the Analyzer screen. In the Archive Management portion of the window, you will see
options for:
 Open Archive
 View Archive
 Close Archive
 Retrieve Archive
 Merge Archive
 Dump Archive
In this step you will open an Analyzer Archive file. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Click on Open Archive
2. Navigate to the location of the course lab files that you have downloaded. Please refer to the
Instructor to acquire the files. Choose Analyzer_Overview.nar
3. Click Open to open the Unisphere Analyzer File

The Set Time Range dialog box appears. This screen informs you of the Start Time and End Time for
the file being viewed. In the bottom half of the window, you can adjust the time frame to be shorter
than what is contained in the Analyzer file if you wish. You will keep the defaults for now.
1. Click OK

The default screen that launches is the Performance Survey chart. This screen provides a simple, at-a-
glance overview of performance for selected LUNs. The display has five small thumbnail graphs for
each LUN that show the essential performance characteristics.
1. Observe that none of the thumbnails contain a scale. This is because this is just an overview
screen.
Under each of the titles you will see the words No Threshold as none were previously set in the
Customize Charts dialog box.
The 5 performance characteristics presented are:
 Utilization (%)
 Total Throughput (IO/S)
 Total Bandwidth (MB/S)
 Response Time (ms)
 Queue Length
The example below is from a system where a number of thresholds are set in the Customize Charts
dialog box under the Survey Charts tab. For statistics with thresholds, the graph displays a blue dashed
line to represent the threshold value set and the performance boxes will be outlined in red or green to
signify if the threshold set is exceeded or not. This window is particularly useful when you want to
quickly compare performance against goals you may have.
Again, this diagram is only an example.

Launch the Performance Detail window from the Performance Survey window.
1. Double-click on the Utilization Graph for LUN 0 within the Performance Survey window
2. Maximize this window for viewing

The Performance Detail line chart shows the data, based on the performance characteristic(s) for each
component whose checkbox was selected. The values shown are either those seen since the Analyzer
started receiving real-time performance data (real-time chart) or those at the time data was recorded
in the archive file (archive-file chart).
The Performance Detail window contains 5 major areas and each is outlined in the following steps.
They are:
 The Tools Bar
 The Analyzer Tree
 The Performance Characteristic Checklist
 The Performance Chart Display Area
The pane outlined below is the Analyzer Tree. In here is where you would select the component(s) you
would like to display. There are 3 tabs you can choose from; LUN, Storage Pool, and SP. On the LUN
tab, you have the option of selecting to display the base LUN, or sub-components of the LUN.
1. LUN 0 is a Pool based LUN, and the tree is expanded by default. As you can see, the only option
presented is the SP the LUN is currently owned by.
2. Expand the tree for LUN 4 by clicking the + sign next to LUN 4. This is a traditional RAID Group LUN
and, as you can see, you can select the underlying drives the LUN is built on, or the SP the LUN is
owned by.
3. LUN 6 is a MetaLUN, expand its' tree, you can choose and display MetaLUN sub-components,
along with drives and the SP the LUN is owned by.

This pane is the Performance Characteristic Checklist. When a device is chosen and the device name
has been selected, the checklist displays what characteristics are available to view for that device and
the options vary by device.
1. Click on SP A under LUN 0 (the name of SP A not the check box), this will display SPA's
characteristics that can be chosen in the bottom left pane. As you can see, there are a number of
options you can choose.
2. Click on LUN 0, and you can see what performance characteristics are available.
To display performance data for components on the LUN tab:
1. Collapse all + signs next to each LUN you expanded and check the boxes for each of the LUNs
2. Click the name of a LUN to display the list of characteristics you can view for this device
3. Choose a characteristic to display
In the example below, Total Throughput is chosen. If you chose Total Throughput, you can compare
the IO load each LUN is receiving. The workloads presented in this Archive file are fairly consistent
workloads of varying IO sizes and Read/Write mixes. At this time you can explore this window and the
characteristics further if you wish. To view data for a particular point, hover your mouse over the data
point.

To quickly un-check all components, right-click in the Analyzer Tree pane and select Deselect All ->
Items. Using the above technique will allow you to quickly deselect all components you are currently
viewing.
Explore the other Performance windows within Unisphere Analyzer:
1. Click the LUN tab

2. Right-click LUN 4 (Traditional RAID Group LUN)
The Performance windows that are available to be viewed for are displayed. The Traditional LUN
options are:
 Performance Survey (Previously Seen)
 Performance Summary
 Performance Detail (Currently Viewing)
 IO Size Distribution Summary
 IO Size Distribution Detail
 LUN IO Disk Detail

1. Choose Performance Summary and maximize this window for viewing

The Performance Summary chart shows the activity, based on the performance characteristic(s) for
each component whose checkbox was selected. Only one performance property at a time can be
selected.
1. Select the checkboxes for the drives under LUN 4

2. Select Total Throughput (IO/s)
Since LUN 4 was chosen in the Performance Detail window, only LUN 4 is available in this window.
The Performance Summary chart shows a value range over an entire period, unlike the Performance
Detail Chart, which tracks the progression of values at intervals during the period.
A legend is present and the symbols mean the following:

 a vertical line represents the range of values, min to max (default color is red)
 a diamond represents the latest value (default color green)
 a circle is used for the average value (default color pink)
You may take time to explore this window if you wish.

Examine the IO Size Distribution Summary window:
1. Right-click LUN 4
2. Choose IO Size Distribution Summary
4. Right-click in the left pane of the IO Size Distribution Summary window, then Select All -> Values
The IO Size Distribution chart is a bar chart (histogram) that shows how many reads and writes of each
size occurred on the LUN. The symbols mean the same as seen in the Performance Summary window.
The I/O Count and I/O/sec (IOs/Second) radio buttons in the bottom left of this window let you
display the data as a count or a rate. You can switch between the values using these radio buttons.
The IO size on this LUN was primarily 4KB with 4KB Reads being the predominate load.
You may take time at this point to explore this window, once done, close this window.
Launch the IO Size Distribution Detail window:
1. In the Performance Detail window, right-click LUN 4

2. Choose IO Size Distribution Detail
4. Right-click in the left pane of the IO Size Distribution Detail window, then Select All -> Values
The IO Size Distribution Detail chart (LUN and MetaLUN only) shows the reads, writes, and total I/O
sizes that occurred with the LUN at each interval. The IO Size Distribution Detail window presents the
same options as the IO Size Distribution Summary window seen previously.
After exploring this window further, close the window.

Examine the LUN IO Disk Detail window:
1. In the Performance Detail window, right-click LUN 4

2. Choose LUN IO Disk Detail
4. Right-click in the top-left pane of the LUN IO Disk Detail window and Select All -> Disks
5. Check the box for Total Throughput (IO/s) in the Characteristics List pane
The LUN IO Disk Detail chart shows the portion of disk performance that is the result of activity on a
specific Traditional LUN. This chart is useful when multiple LUNs occupy a single RAID Group and you
need to determine which LUNs are having the greatest effect on the disks' performance. You can
select multiple performance properties at a time.
The chart below shows the Total Throughput for each disk that is caused by a particular LUN. The
group of 5 lines at the top represent IO on the disks in Raid Group 0 that is caused by LUN 5's IO. The
bottom group of lines is the IO load for the same drives which is caused by LUN 4. This Throughput is
back-end IO that includes parity IO, and the information gained from this screen can be very useful
when trying to balance IO loads across RAID Groups.
After exploring this window, close the LUN IO Disk Detail, Performance Detail, Performance Survey
windows, and any other opened chart.
This concludes the introductory piece of this Lab Guide.

Case Study 1: LUN Performance Issue
Case Scenario
The NAR file identified below contains historical storage performance data for eight LUNs (LUNs 20 -
27). Your task is to analyze the data contained in the archive, determine if a performance problem
exists. If you determine a problem is evident, determine the cause, and suggest a remedy to the
problem. (If you do not already have the above NAR file, please request guidance from your instructor
to obtain the file.)
Case Details
The first step in analyzing performance should be to characterize the IO workload. Using Analyzer,
examine the LUNs in question and look for response time, read/write bandwidth, read/write size, SP
cache hits, Avg seek distance, and forced flushes. Use the information you gathered to diagnose the
problem.
NAR file to be analyzed: LUN_Performance.nar
If you do not already have the above NAR file, please request guidance from your instructor to obtain the file.
Conclusion & Recommendations
 After examining this case, do you believe that there is a performance problem evident? If yes,
what storage object(s) do you believe is manifesting a problem?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

 What workload characteristics from this archive file do you believe are relevant? List each
characteristic, along with its value(s), and why you believe it is important.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Be prepared to share the results of your analysis with the class. Make sure you come up with some
recommendations to fix the performance issue in hand.

Case Study 2: VNX File OE server_stats
Case Scenario
This lab activity focuses on examination of performance output from the server_stats and other
command line utilities. Your task is to analyze the recorded output to determine if a problem is
evident. If you determine that a problem is present, provide a possible diagnosis and resolution to the
problem.
The data from this case originated from Laser Medical’s marketing department. LMI was monitoring
several data mining applications accessing VNX file systems as part of an end-of-quarter procedure in
an effort to single out any performance issues. One of the main data mining applications was
performing decently, but management wanted to increase its performance by at least 10%, if possible.
Case Details
You will be provided with several text files containing server_stats command output, along with some
Control Station CLI and naviseccli command output. The VNX file system being accessed by the
application is called LaserMed_DM7. You will need to determine the IO workload being generated by
the application as part of your analysis. Look for application/LUN/disk IO size, throughput, and
bandwidth, among other things.
Files to be analyzed:

 What is the makeup of the LaserMed_DM7 file system (dVols, disks, etc.)?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
 List any IO characteristic (IO size, R/W ratio, IOPS, Bandwidth, etc.) that you believe to be relevant,
along with its value(s), and why you believe it is important. Also, note any other information that
you suspect might be important.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Be prepared to share the results of your analysis with the class.

Case Study 3: LUN Layout Analysis
Case Scenario
This activity focuses on the placement of LUNs in a RAID Group and the effect this has on an
application’s performance.
The NAR files below contains archived performance data from an Iometer test on three different RAID
Groups. Each RAID Group has a different LUN layout.
Case Details
Analyze the three NAR files. One of the NAR files has the busiest LUNs placed in the front of the RAID
Group; these LUNs are 20 and 21. The second NAR file has the busiest LUNs placed in the center of
the RAID Group; the busy LUNS here are 23 and 24. And the third NAR file has the busiest LUNs
placed at both ends of the RAID Group; these LUNs are 20 and 27.
NAR files to be analyzed: LUNlayout_front.nar, LUNlayout_center.nar, LUNlayout_ends.nar
First gather some data on each set of busy LUNs in order to present your findings to the storage team.
Pay close attention to Total Bandwidth, Total Throughput, Response Time, and Average Seek Distance.
You may use the table below to compare the average of each set of busy LUNs:
LUNs in LUNs in the LUNs at both

Front Center Ends
Bandwidth
Throughput
Response Time
Avg Seek Distance

The questions located below will need to be answered as you analyze the LUNs. Keep these in mind
as you prepare to share the results of your analysis with the class.
 Which layout achieves the best performance for the busiest LUNs?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
 Which layout achieves the best performance for the LUNs that are not busy (IOPS)?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
 Which layout achieves the best overall performance for all LUNs (IOPS)?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
 Are these the results you expected? Explain your answer.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

Case Study 4: VNX File System Performance
Case Scenario
Laser Medical Inc. has been testing a new application on their recently acquired VNX5400 Unified
storage system. This application collects specific data related to LMI’s newest body temperature
cooling device called Coolguard. The application has two components, Coolguard_Update and
Coolguard_DSS. These two components use the same VNX file system called LaserMed_Coolguard.
Each night, the Coolguard_Update application component runs an update against the file system. This
update process can be characterized as large, single-threaded, sequential write IOs about 128 KB in
size. This process seems to be running fairly well since it’s done at night and there are no other
processes trying to share resources.
During the day, several LMI functional groups, such as marketing and sales, require the use of the
LaserMed_Coolguard data. These groups use the Coolguard_DSS application, which can be
characterized as processing multi-threaded small, random IOs. Some concern has been expressed
over the performance of this application.
Case Details
Two VNX CIFS shares have been created for the LaserMed_Coolguard file system on LM_SERVER_14.
One share is called Coolguard_Update and is being used by the nightly update application. The other
share is called Coolguard_DSS and is used by the application of the same name. You have been
provided with a NAR file containing the Coolguard_DSS workload, and several text files with Control
Station CLI command output on the file system and VNX CIFS shares.
NAR file to be analyzed: Coolguard_DSS.nar
Text files to be analyzed:

Your objective is to use the information provided to analyze, determine if there is a performance
problem, and if so diagnose the performance issue. Be prepared to share the results of your analysis
with the class.
 What are the characteristics and structure of the file system and its underlying volumes?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
 What are the workload characteristics?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
 What recommendations do you suggest?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

Case Study 5: FAST Cache Analysis
Case Scenario
This case study is to determine if FAST Cache will benefit an application of a particular workload. This
application will be accessing two different LUNs. Use Analyzer to examine the performance data from
the system and determine if the application workload is a fit for FAST Cache or not.
The below NAR file is a representative of the load that the application will be running.
Case Details
Your objective is to determine if FAST Cache has any kind of effect on the application load. First
determine the IO profile for the LUNs as this will help you in your analysis. As mentioned above,
Analyzer archives were previously collected and merged from a VNX storage system. The NAR file that
you will be using covers two LUNs, LUN 4 and LUN 5, with different IO profiles.
NAR file to be analyzed: Merge_Archive.nar
Use the space below to record findings from your analysis. Note the workload characteristics that you
believe will be essential for making a FAST Cache recommendation. Be prepared to share the results
of your analysis with the class, and whether FAST cache improved each LUN’s performance.
LUN 4 Workload Characteristics
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

LUN 5 Workload Characteristics
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
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Case Study 6: FAST VP Performance
This Case Study has three Parts.
Part 1
Case Scenario
LMI has a database application which they would like to host on their VNX. The database has two
large data files, one of which contains mainly older data which is seldom accessed, and the other of
which contains current data.
IO sizes used by the database application are consistent at 2 KB for the older data, and 512 Bytes for
the new data. Required performance for the older data is less than 50 IOPS, while the expectation is
that the newer data should be accessible at 10,000 IOPS or more. The database application requires
an average latency of less than 10 ms. The storage administrator is familiar with the application, and
estimates the skew to be in the region of 90%.
You perform the necessary calculations, and recommend a 3-tiered Pool, with 5 FLASH drives, 5 SAS
drives, and 8 NL-SAS drives. LMI management looks at your calculations and decides to use only FLASH
and NL-SAS drives in the pool.
Their storage administrator creates a pool with five 200 GB FLASH drives in a 4+1 R5 configuration,
and eight 2 TB NL-SAS drives in a 6+2 R6 configuration. When the pool has completed its initialization,
the storage administrator then creates a 2 TB Thick LUN and names it First_2TB , chooses the default
policy, and leaves for an hour-long meeting. Upon returning, the administrator creates a second 2 TB
Thick LUN with the same policy as the first, and names it Second_2TB.
The data is then copied onto the LUNs. Testing is started once the data copy process is complete.
Performance does not meet expectations.The below NAR file contains historical performance data
from this test.
Case Details
Investigate the cause of the performance issue. You will need to verify many of the details supplied by
LMI.
NAR file to be analyzed: FASTVP_Part1.nar

Record your observations and analysis
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

Part 2
Case Scenario
LMI has 3 unused 200 GB FLASH drives. You advise them to keep one of them free to be used as a
spare, and use the remaining drives to create a 200 GB FAST Cache. The storage administrator creates
a FAST Cache of the desired size, and verifies that FAST Cache is enabled for the Pool. The testing
continues, but performance is still lower than expected.
The below NAR file contains historical performance data from this test.
Case Details
Determine why performance is lower than expected. You will need to investigate LUN as well as Pool
performance to get an idea of how well FAST Cache is performing.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

Part 3
Case Scenario
You recommend that LMI allow FAST VP to perform scheduled data relocations, and to start by
running a manual relocation. The storage administrator makes the required changes and resumes
testing.
The below NAR file contains historical performance data from this test.
Case Details
Look at the NAR file to see if your recommendations have helped performance.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
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Case Study 7: VNX Snapshot Performance Issue
Case Scenario
LMI has an application that requires point-in-time copies to be kept at regular intervals. Their eventual
goal is to take Snapshots of the application LUNs every hour for a day, and then start replacing the
oldest one with the newest on a round-robin basis. You explain that VNX Snapshots have that
capability, and LMI decide to perform testing of the concept.
Case Details
The LMI storage administrator creates two LUNs for testing, LUN 0 and LUN 1. Once the LUNs are
created, a connected host is used to generate a workload. Point-in-time copies are created on the two
LUNs at approximately the same time, and at reasonably consistent intervals, and then deleted some
time later to simulate the production environment.
After looking at the results of a partial test, LMI management becomes concerned about the
performance of the test LUNs, and the impact the point-in-time copies will have on their production
application. They supply you with an excerpt from an SP Event Log, and the two NAR files identified
below. They explain that during the period between the capture of the NAR files, performance was
consistent, and the NAR for that time period was discarded.
Files to be analyzed: VNXSnapshot1.nar, VNXSnapshot2.nar, VNXSnapshot_log.txt

You will need to use the NAR files and SP log to see what type of point-in-time copies were used. You
will also need to determine why the performance is a concern to LMI management, and make
recommendations to improve that performance. Be prepared to share the results of your analysis
with the class.
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Case Study 8: SnapView Snapshot Analysis
Case Scenario
The focus of this activity is to analyze the performance characteristics of SnapView Snapshots using
the below NAR file.
Case Details
The source LUN is LUN 27, and the Reserved LUN is RL_1. The SnapView session starts at about 30
minutes after the start of the NAR file run.
NAR file to be analyzed: Snapview_Snapshot.nar
The questions located below will need to be answered as you analyze the LUNs. Keep these questions
in mind as you prepare to share the results of your analysis with the class.
 What is the I/O size at the Source LUN? What is the approximate read/write ratio at the Source
LUN?
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 What is the I/O size and read/write ratio at the Reserved LUN? Is this what you expected to see?
How can you tell when the session is started?
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 What is the effect on Throughput, Bandwidth and Response Time on the source LUN when the
session is started? Why is the source LUN behaving this way?
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 Do the IOPS from the Reserved LUN match the source LUN? Explain.
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 How many sessions are running simultaneously on the Source LUN? Would you expect different
performance as the number of sessions increase? Explain.
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Case Study 9: SnapView Clone Analysis
Case Scenario
The focus of this activity is to analyze the performance characteristics of SnapView Clones using the
below NAR file.
Case Details
The active LUNs are LUN 20 and 27, which share the same disks. LUN 20 is the only LUN with a Clone,
LUN 21.
NAR file to be analyzed: Snapview_Clone.nar
 Analyze the workload for LUN 20 at the beginning of the test, paying close attention to IOPS,
Bandwidth, Queue Length, IO Size, and Response Time. Are these values the same for LUN 27 at
the beginning of the test?
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 Clone initial synchronization, at the Medium rate, starts at around 28 minutes into the test. View
the workload of both LUNs at the 35 minute mark and compare your results against the workload
from the beginning of the test. What caused the difference between the two LUNs?
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 Is the Clone LUN seeing any IOPS or Bandwidth? Explain.
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 How could you improve performance for the active LUNs?
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Case Study 10: Incremental SAN Copy Analysis
Case Scenario
The focus of this activity is to analyze the performance characteristics of Incremental SAN Copy using
the below NAR files—one representing a SAN Copy initialization and the other a SAN Copy
incremental update.
Case Details
In the SAN Copy initialization NAR file, LUN 0 is the source LUN and LUN 10 is the destination LUN.
The session was created and started with a throttle value of 7 shortly before the start of the NAR file
and there is no host attached to the LUNs.
In the SAN Copy incremental initialization NAR file, LUN 0 is the source LUN and LUN 10 is also the
destination LUN. The initial synchronization session is started at around 16 minutes into the test, and
runs for about 2.5 hours. An incremental update is then started around 3 hours and 12 minutes after
the start of the NAR file.
NAR files to be analyzed: SANCOPY_initialization.nar and SANCOPY_incremental.nar
Initial Synchronization Analysis
 Look at the read and write activity for LUNs 0 and 10. Do you see any LUN activity? Explain what
you see.
___________________________________________________________________________
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 Now look at the read and write activity for the disks on which LUNs 0 and 10 were created. What
do you see there? Why does the Write size value for disk 0_0_10 change at the 13:18 mark? Why
does the Read size value for disk 0_0_5 change at the same time?
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Incremental Update Analysis
 View the Total Throughput for LUN 0. What can you conclude from the shape of the graph?
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 Look at the Response Time for LUN 0. What causes the spikes at the 14:39 and 17:36 marks?
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Case Study 11: MirrorView Performance Issue
Case Scenario
Laser Medical’s primary Data Center is located near Boston. LM’s secondary Data Center is located in
Atlanta and is mainly used as a Data Recovery site. A new employee was recently hired at the
secondary site to work with VNX remote replication implementations between the two Data Centers.
There are now performance concerns with the MirrorView/A data transfers. Every time a data
transfer started, the employee noticed that primary LUN performance decreased. The below NAR
files were at the primary and secondary sites during one of the data transfers. Use these NAR files to
analyze the issue.
Case Details
The LUN being mirrored is LUN 500, this is also the LUN number of the mirror LUN at the secondary
site. LUN 2000 is the Reserved LUN on both sites. As you analyze the issue, make sure you profile
and compare the LUN IO activity at both sites.
NAR files to be analyzed: MV_Primary_Mirror.nar and MV_Secondary_Mirror.nar
Use the questions below to help guide you in the analysis. Be prepared to share the results of your
analysis with the class.
 What is the IO size for both the primary and secondary images?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
 What is the IO size for the RLs? Are they the same at both sites? Explain.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

 What is the effect on Throughput, Bandwidth and Response Time when the data transfer is
started? Is this what you expect to see? Is there any effect when the mirror is not actively
transferring data?
____________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________
This concludes the case studies in this Lab Guide.

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CASE STUDY 1: LUN PERFORMANCE ISSUE ........................................................... 31

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The most commonly changed settings on the General tab are:

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1. Select the Advanced checkbox

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To display performance data for components on the LUN tab:

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Explore the other Performance windows within Unisphere Analyzer:

1. Click the LUN tab

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1. Select the checkboxes for the drives under LUN 4

A legend is present and the symbols mean the following:

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Launch the IO Size Distribution Detail window:

1. In the Performance Detail window, right-click LUN 4

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1. In the Performance Detail window, right-click LUN 4

This concludes the introductory piece of this Lab Guide.

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NAR file to be analyzed: LUN_Performance.nar

Conclusion & Recommendations

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Be prepared to share the results of your analysis with the class.

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NAR files to be analyzed: LUNlayout_front.nar, LUNlayout_center.nar, LUNlayout_ends.nar

LUNs in LUNs in the LUNs at both

Avg Seek Distance

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 Are these the results you expected? Explain your answer.

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NAR file to be analyzed: Coolguard_DSS.nar

Text files to be analyzed:

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 What are the workload characteristics?

 What recommendations do you suggest?

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NAR file to be analyzed: Merge_Archive.nar

Conclusion & Recommendations

LUN 4 Workload Characteristics

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This Case Study has three Parts.