White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

White paper
FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS DX and VMware VAAI
deliver agile solutions for virtualization

FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS DX series support VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration that
offloads tasks from servers to disk arrays to accelerate system operations in virtualization
environment.

Table of contents
Introduction 2
Overview of VMware VAAI 3
Procedure of Enable/Disable VAAI 6
Verification contents and verification result 7
Conclusion 10

Nov., 2013
ED-WP-0033-02

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Introduction

Purpose of this document About the ETERNUS DX series

To satisfy the demands of cloud computing, storage products must The ETERNUS disk array provides various functions to handle
have greater expandability to enable flexible capacity expansion, mission critical operations.
higher reliability to avoid service interruptions or data loss and The small-sized ETERNUS DX100 S3/DX200 S3 provides high-end
increased performance to provide quick access to data. In addition, class features. Scalable models provide optimal storage
storage products must have greater affinity for virtualization environments for customer scales and usage scenes.
environment, which achieves cost reduction by consolidating The ETERNUS DX500 S3/DX600 S3 is the midrange disk array
multiple servers into one server. supporting UNIX/Industry standard servers. The extensive lineup
The ETERNUS DX100 S3/DX200 S3, DX500 S3/DX600 S3 and and optimized expandability provide an appropriate solution for
DX8700 S2 disk array have been providing affinity for VMware information systems requiring data integrity or compliance.
vSphere. For example, they support major versions of ESX and the ETERNUS DX8700 S2 is the enterprise disk array where know-how
VMware disaster recovery solution "VMware vCenter Site Recovery is accumulated through our experiences. This series provides
Manager". stable operation by offering flexibility for various operation needs
and superior reliability for data protection.
By using the Reclamation with VMware vStorage APIs for Array * The ETERNUS DX100 S3/DX200 S3, DX500 S3/DX600 S3 and DX8700 S2
*2
Integration supported from vSphere 4.1, ETERNUS DX100 will be referred to as the ETERNUS DX in this document.
S3/DX200 S3, DX500 S3/DX600 S3 and DX8700 S2 disk array
achieve greater affinity and efficient use of storage capacities,
speeding up of ESX server operations and reducing work load on
ESX servers.
2; vStorage APIs for Array Integration will be referred to as the VAAI in
this document.
We verified that the time needed for creating virtual disks, cloning
virtual machine and booting multiple virtual machines is reduced.
This result shows that system performance is improved by
offloading workload from the ESX server to the ETERNUS DX100
S3/DX200 S3, DX500 S3/DX600 S3 or DX8700 S2.
This document explains the verification contents and advantages
of features of VMware VAAI.

ETERNUS DX500 S3/DX600 S3

ETERNUS DX100 S3/DX200 S3

ETERNUS DX8700 S2

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Overview of VMware VAAI (1)

What is VMware VAAI?

Recently, requests for high-performance virtual machines are
increasing as well as requests for cloud computing and cost
reduction. To satisfy this requirement, VMware vSphere 4.1
supported VMware VAAI. VMware VAAI speeds up system operation
and reduces work load on server by offloading workload from ESX
server to the ETERNUS DX. 1. Issues
VAAI supports three functions: Full Copy, Block Zeroing and only copy 2. Data is copied
Hardware Assisted Locking. execution within the storage.
command.

Full Copy
Without VMware VAAI, data copy is processed through the server.
This function enables data copy within the disk array without using
the server to transfer data. The server only issues a data copy
command to the disk array. Copy processing is executed using
Extended Copy function of the ETERNUS DX. As the data is copied
within the high performance ETERNUS DX, copy processing is faster Figure 1-2 with VAAI
and server work load and I/O load between server and storage are
reduced. ETERNUS provides high-speed copy, supporting the The server sends a command for copy execution.
Extended Copy command. Data is copied within the ETERNUS DX using
Extended Copy function. This minimizes data
transmission and speeds up copy processing.

Scenes which function works

2. Server When cloning a virtual machine
writes data to When deploying virtual machines from a template
1. Server When conducting Storage vMotion within the same array
reads data another
from the storage
storage. volume.

Figure 1-1 without VAAI

Server reads data from the ETERNUS DX and writes it

to another volume.
A large amount of data is transmitted between server
and ETERNUS DX using server resources.

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Overview of VMware VAAI (2)

Block Zeroing Scenes which function works

To allocate storage capacity for creating new virtual machine with
Eager Zeroed Thick format, all areas must be initialized to zero.
Conventionally, the server wrote zero data to the disk array. This
function enables the disk array to write zero data instead of the
server, reducing the server load, the I/O load between the server
and storage, and accelerates capacity allocation.
When creating new virtual machine with Eager Zeroed
Thick format
When writing data to unused area in virtual machine in
Zeroed Thick format or Thin format
* For details on Eager Zeroed Thick format, Zeroed Thick format
and Thin format, please refer to VMwares official manual.
(http://pubs.vmware.com/vsp40/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.
htm#href=server_config/c_supported_disk_formats.html#1_18_8_8
_9_6_1)

1. Server
executes
initialization.

Figure 2-1 without VAAI

Server writes zero data to all areas.

1. Only issues
initialization
command. 2. Initialization is
executed in
storage.

Figure 2-2 with VAAI

The process of filling zero data is executed in ETERNUS DX.

The server only issues one command (Server sends 1 block
data and ETERNUS DX writes the same data for specified
number of blocks).

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Overview of VMware VAAI (3)

Hardware Assisted Locking

Exclusive control of shared storage for multiple servers was
performed at the storage array LUN (logical volume) level. This
function enables exclusive control at block level.
This eliminates delays waiting for access to unrelated storage
areas that share a LUN, improving operational efficiency of the
virtual machines.

2. Volume is
entirely locked.

Other servers

cannot access

1. Locks whole the volume.

volume that
contains blocks
to be used.

Figure 3-1 without VAAI

2. Volume is
not locked.

Other servers

1. Locks only a can access to

block to be the volume.
used.

Figure 3-2 with VAAI

Scenes which function works

When booting a virtual machine
When shutting down a virtual machine
When conducting vMotion

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Procedure of Enable/Disable VAAI

Procedure of enable/disable VAAI

Enable/Disable of VAAI can be changed from vSphere Client.
Full Copy
When value of [Configuration] (in case of the vSphere Web Client,
[Manage]) - [Advanced Settings] [HardwareAcceleratedMove] is
1, it will be enabled. When the value is 0, it will be disabled.
And default value is 1.
Hardware Assisted Locking
When value of [Configuration] (in case of the vSphere Web Client,
[Manage])- [Advanced Settings] [HardwareAcceleratedLocking]
is 1, it will be enabled. When the value is 0, it will be disabled.
And default value is 1.

Block Zeroing
When value of [Configuration] (in case of the vSphere Web Client,
[Manage]) - [Advanced Settings] [HardwareAcceleratedInit] is
1, it will be enabled. When the value is 0, it will be disabled.
And default value is 1.

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Verification contents and verification result (1)

Connection Image for verification Time

Verifications were conducted in the following system environment. without VAAI (Blue) :10 minutes 9 seconds
Server and switch were connected by dual paths. And also switch with VAAI (Red) :1 minutes 8 seconds
and storage were connected by dual paths. Approx. 89% time reduction
The verification of Full Copy and Block Zeroing was conducted with
single ESX server (red dotted line). The verification of Hardware
Assisted Locking was conducted with 4 ESX servers (blue dotted sec. Required Time (Full Copy)
line). 700
600
500 89% time reduction
400
300
200
100
0
VAAI
without with
VAAI

Graph 1-1 Required time (Full Copy)

CPU load of ESX Host

without VAAI (Blue): average 11.78%
with VAAI (Red): average 1.91%
Figure 4-1 Connection Image for verification Approx. 84% reduction
Full Copy (These values were recorded / observed using vCenter.)
Verification environment
All verifications of Full Copy were conducted under the following
environment. CPU load of ESX Host (Full Copy)
%
Storage: ETERNUS DX410 S2(V10L20) 15
* Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s)
Server: 1 x PRIMERGY BX620 S4
* CPU: 2 x Intel (R) Xeon(R) Processor E5405
Cache: 16GB, Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s) 10 84% reduction
Hypervisor: vSphere 5
Capacity of virtual machine: 10GB (Eager Zeroed Thick format) x
4 virtual machines
Disk Type: 600GB (10000rpm) 5
RAID Type: RAID1+0(8+8) (Both copy source and destination)

Verification contents
Clones virtual machine into a different RAID group.
0
Measures time for completing cloning of virtual machine.
without
VAAI with
VAAI
Time is measured until status on GUI of vCenter becomes
Complete. Graph 1-2 Load on CPU (Full Copy)
Time is measured with VAAI and without VAAI

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Verification contents and verification result (2)

Number of transferred packets from server to storage

without VAAI (Blue): average 1228643 Required time (Block Zeroing)
sec.
with VAAI (Red): average 34208 Approx. 97% reduction
(These values were recorded / observed using vCenter.) 60
50 65% time reduction
packets Number of transferred packets(Full Copy) 40
1400000 30
1200000 20
1000000 10
97% reduction
800000 0
600000 VAAI
without
with VAAI
400000
Graph 2-1 Required time (Block Zeroing)
200000
CPU load of ESX Host
0
without VAAI (Blue): average 12.55%
without
VAAI with
VAAI
with VAAI (Red): average 2.05% Approx. 84% reduction
(These values were recorded / observed using vCenter.)
Graph 1-3 Number of transferred packets (Full Copy)

CPU load of ESX Host (Block Zeroing)

%
Block Zeroing
Verification environment 14
All verifications of Block Zeroing were conducted under the 12
10
84% reduction
following environment.
8
Storage: ETERNUS DX440 S2(V10L10) 6
* Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s) 4
Server: 1 x PRIMERGY BX620 S4 2
* CPU: 2 x Intel (R) Xeon(R) Processor E5405 0
Cache: 16GB, Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s) VAAI VAAI
VAAI Plug-in: ETERNUS VAAI Plug-in 1.0.1
without with
Hypervisor: vSphere 4.1 Update 1 Graph 2-2 Load on CPU (Block Zeroing)
Capacity of virtual machine: 10GB (Eager Zeroed Thick format)
Number of transferred packets from server to storage
Disk Type: 146GB (10000rpm)
without VAAI (Blue): average 1391419
RAID Type: RAID1+0(8+8)
with VAAI (Red): average 9530 Approx. 99% reduction
(These values were recorded / observed using vCenter.)
The following shows verification contents.
Measures time required for initialization to create new virtual
machine with Eager Zeroed Thick format.(OS is not installed on packets Number of transferred packets
virtual machine.) (Block Zeroing)
Measures time until the status of virtual machine creation 1500000
becomes Complete on vSphere Client. 99% reduction
Time is measured with VAAI and without VAAI 1000000

Time
500000
without VAAI (Blue): 57 seconds
with VAAI (Red): 20 seconds Approx. 65% time reduction
0

without VAAI VAAI
with
Graph 2-3 Number of transferred packets (Block Zeroing)

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Verification contents and verification result (3)

Verification environment
Verification of Hardware Assisted Locking was conducted under the
following environment.
Storage: ETERNUS DX440 S2(V10L10)
* Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s)
Server: 2 x PRIMERGY BX620 S4
* CPU: 2 x Intel (R) Xeon(R) Processor E5405
Cache: 16GB, Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s)
2 x PRIMERGY BX620 S4
* CPU: 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor X5460
Cache: 32GB, Interface: 2 x iSCSI (1Gbit/s)
Hypervisor: vSphere 4.1 Update1
VAAI Plug-in: ETERNUS VAAI Plug-in 1.0.1
Capacity of virtual machine: 10GB (Thin format)
Disk Type: 146GB (10000rpm)
RAID Type: RAID1+0 (8+8)
OS of virtual machine: not installed

The following shows verification contents.

300 virtual machines are evenly distributed across 4 ESX
servers using single shared datastore. All virtual machines
are powered on simultaneously.
Measures time until Power On virtual machine status of
virtual machines becomes Completed on vSphere Client.
Time is measured with VAAI and without VAAI

Time
without VAAI (Blue): 1 minutes 19 seconds
with VAAI (Red): 59 seconds
Approx. 25% time reduction

sec. Required time (Hardware Assisted Locking)

100
25% time reduction
80

60

40

20

0
without
VAAI with
VAAI

Graph 3-1 Required time (Hardware Assisted Locking)

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White paper ETERNUS DX series and VMware VAAI deliver agile and flexible solutions for virtualization

Conclusion

Conclusion reached from verification result From now

Verification result shows that the combination of ETERNUS DX and
VMware VAAI achieves high speed processing and reduction of
server load and the I/O load. In addition, the following advantages
are verified. This result certifies that system performance is
improved by offloading ESX server load onto ETERNUS DX.
Full Copy
It is verified that the time required for cloning a virtual machine,
the CPU load on server and number of transferred packets from
server to storage are reduced.
Therefore, this verification result shows that system performance
can be improved by reducing the time to clone a virtual machine,
the work load on host server and I/O load between server and
storage when cloning a virtual machine. We have verified that
copy speed is faster than before supporting an Extended Copy
command.
The demand for virtualization for server consolidation and cloud
computing is increasing. The market will require storage and
servers to have higher performance, higher reliability, greater
functionality, and increased cost effectiveness.
Therefore, the ETERNUS DX, which pursues high performance, high
reliability and greater functionality, and virtual machines such as
VMware, which are suitable for reducing cost, will become
increasing more important. In addition, the combination of
ETERNUS DX and VMware VAAI, which contributes to high
performance virtual machines, is a cost effective high performance
virtualization solution.
Fujitsu is committed to providing an outstanding virtualization
environment with the combination of ETERNUS DX and VMware
VAAI.

Block Zeroing
It is verified that the required time for creating a new virtual
machine with Eager Zeroed Thick format, the CPU load on server
and number of transferred packets from server to storage are
reduced are reduced.
Thus, this verification result shows that reductions of work load
on host server and I/O load between server and storage improves
system operation as well as Full Copy. In addition, this result also
shows the time required for creating a new virtual disk can be
greatly reduced.

Hardware Assisted Locking

It is verified that the required time to boot a large amount of
virtual machines simultaneously is reduced. This result shows
that the combination of ETERNUS DX and VAAI optimizes
operation efficiency of virtual machines in a large-scale
environment. In addition, the combination avoids I/O
bottlenecks caused by LUN based locking.

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Website: http://www.fujitsu.com/eternus/ countries.
Not all System names or product names in this document are followed by (R) or (TM).
Other company, product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
owners.
This white paper is devoted to provide technical information and an overview of the basic facilities
of ETERNUS Disk Storage Systems. The contents of this document may be modified without any prior
notice.
Please contact FUJITSU Limited if you find any error in description.
FUJITSU Limited is not responsible indemnity that might be caused by the contents in this
documentation or any damage related to contents in this documentation.
Copyright 2013 FUJITSU LIMITED

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