SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 Result

Throughput (ops/sec) Response (msec) 12002 0.2 24018 0.3 36051 0.3 48125 0.4 60156 0.5 72220 0.8 84315 1.0 96464 1.7 108425 2.5 120954 2.9

Tested By	Alacritech, Inc.
Product Name	ANX 1500-20
Hardware Available	January 2011
Software Available	March 2011
Date Tested	March 2011
SFS License Number	1466
Licensee Locations	San Jose, CA USA

The Alacritech ANX 1500 is a NFS throughput acceleration appliance designed to improve both response times and aggregate throughput in NAS environments. The ANX 1500-20 consists of 4TB of usable SSD capacity and is additionally comprised of 64-bit Intel processors executing Alacritech's proprietary operating system, NFS-BridgeOS. The ANX 1500 functions as a write-through cache, satisfying NFS reads and most NFS metadata operations from its cache. Throughput and latency benefits are enhanced through the use of Alacritech 10 GbE TCP offload technology with optimizations for NFS and tight integration with NFS-BridgeOS. This test utilized a dual-node NetApp FAS6070C system as back end storage.

Item No	Qty	Type	Vendor	Model/Name	Description
1	1	Throughput Acceleration Appliance	Alacritech, Inc.	ANX 1500-20	Alacritech caching appliance running Alacritech OS version 1.3.2.1 software. Includes 20 200GB solid state drives (10 of which were Unigen Model UGB88PGC200HF3, and 10 were SuperTalent Model FTM20FT25H).
2	2	NAS Appliance	NetApp, Inc.	FAS6070C	NAS Appliance used for back-end storage
3	12	Disk Shelf	NetApp, Inc.	DS14MK4	Disk shelf for NetApp FAS6070C
4	168	Disk	NetApp, Inc.	X278A-R5	144GB 15k RPM FC disks. 160 drives were used for SPEC sfs2008 data, 6 drives were used for system disks, 2 drives were reserved as spares.
5	4	FC-AL Adapter	NetApp, Inc.	X2055A-R6	HBA,FC,2-port,PCIe,4Gb,R6
6	2	10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter	NetApp, Inc.	X1008A-R6	NIC,TOE,2-Port,10GbE Fiber, PCIe,R6
7	2	Software License	NetApp, Inc.	SW-T7C-NFS	NFS Software,T7C

OS Name and Version	Alacritech OS version 1.3.2.1
Other Software	FAS6070C Storage system ran NetApp Data ONTAP 7.3.3
Filesystem Software	None

Name	Value	Description
Read Pull-Ahead Blocks	0	The number of readahead SSD blocks
vol options 'volume' no_atime_update	on	Disable atime updates on FAS6070C storage system (applied to all volumes)

Server Tuning Notes

N/A

Description	Number of Disks	Usable Size
The ANX 1500 contains 20 200GB SSDs used for cache storage.	20	3.9 TB
The ANX 1500 contains 2 mirrored 500GB SATA drives. These disks are for system use.	2	1000.0 GB
The NetApp FAS6070C contains 160 15K RPM 144GB FCAL drives. All data filesystems reside on these disks.	160	16.0 TB
The NetApp FAS6070C contains 6 15k RPM 144GB FCAL drives. These disks are for system use	6	114.0 GB
Total	188	21.0 TB

Number of Filesystems	2
Total Exported Capacity	16 TB
Filesystem Type	WAFL
Filesystem Creation Options	Default
Filesystem Config	Each filesystem was striped across 80 disks
Fileset Size	14058.2 GB

The storage configuration consisted of 12 shelves, each with 14 disks. Groups of 6 shelves were daisy-chained such that the outputs of each shelf were attached to the inputs of the next shelf in the group. The first shelf in each group had two 4Gbit/S FC-AL loop connections, each one connected to one of 2 FC-AL ports (on the FC HBA) on the storage controller. Each storage controller was the primary owner of 6 shelves, with 80 disks in those shelves placed into a single aggregate. Each aggregate was composed of 6 RAID 4 groups. 5 RAID groups were comprised of 13 data disks and 1 parity disk and the remaining group was comprised of 9 data disks and 1 parity disk. Within each aggregate, a flexible volume (utilizing Data ONTAP FlexVol (TM) technology) was created to hold the SFS filesystem for that controller. Each volume was striped across all disks in the aggregate where it resided. Each controller was the owner of a single volume, but the disks in each aggregate were dual-attached so that, in the event of a fault, they could be managed by the other controller via an alternate loop. A separate flexible volume residing in a three-disk root aggregate on each controller was created to hold the Data ONTAP operating system and system files. The remaining disk on each controller was reserved as a spare.

Item No	Network Type	Number of Ports Used	Notes
1	10 Gigabit Ethernet	2	Alacritech 10 Gigabit Ethernet TCP offload adapters
2	10 Gigabit Ethernet	4	10 Gigabit Dual-port Ethernet PCI-X adapter

Network Configuration Notes

The Alacritech ANX 1500 was connected by way of 2 Alacritech 10 Gigabit Ethernet Accelerator ports to a Brocade TurboIron 24X switch. The load generating clients were each connected by way of a single 10 Gigabit Ethernet port to the same switch. Each FAS6070C storage controller was connected to the Brocade switch by way of 2 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. A 1500 byte MTU was deployed throughout the network.

A standard MTU size of 1500 was set for all connections to the switch.

Item No	Qty	Type	Description	Processing Function
1	2	CPU	Intel Xeon E5520 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Processor.	ANX 1500 OS, Network, NFS, Cache Subsystem, Device Drivers
2	8	CPU	AMD Opteron 852 2.6-GHz Single Core	NAS Storage System
3	2	TOE	Alacritech TCP Offload Engine	NFS/TCP/IP/Ethernet

Processing Element Notes

The ANX 1500 has two physical processors, in addition to two Alacritech ASICs found on the Alacritech 10 Gibabit Ethernet TCP Offload adapters.

Description	Size in GB	Number of Instances	Total GB	Nonvolatile
ANX 1500 system memory	48	1	48	V
NAS Storage memory	32	2	64	V
NAS Storage Non-volatile memory	2	2	4	NV
Grand Total Memory Gigabytes			116

Memory Notes

The ANX 1500 contains main memory that is used by both NFS-BridgeOS and for caching filesystem data. Each NAS storage controller contains main memory used for the ONTAP operating system and for caching filesystem data. Each NAS storage controller also contains a separate battery backed RAM module used to provide stable storage for writes that have yet to be written to the disk drives.

The ANX 1500 operates as an optimized write-through cache. The ANX 1500 will not respond to a write request, or other filesystem modifying transaction, nor commit it to its cache, until such transaction has been successfully responded to by the NAS. NetApp's WAFL filesystem, excecuted on each NAS storage controller, logs writes and other filesystem modifying transactions to the NVRAM adapter. Filesystem modifying operations are not acknowledged until after the storage system has confirmed that the related data is stored in the NVRAM adapter. The battery backing the NVRAM ensures that any uncommited transactions are preserved for at least 72 hours.

The system under test consisted of one ANX 1500-20. The ANX 1500 was attached to the network via two 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters. The ANX 1500 node contains 20 200GB solid-state disks. The NAS storage system consisted of two FAS6070C storage controllers configured with 12 disk drive storage shelves, with each shelf containing 14 144GB FC-AL disk drives. The two NAS storage controllers executed the Data ONTAP 7.3.3 operating system. Each storage controller included a dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter. The storage shelves were configured in groups of six shelves, which were connected to each other via two 4Gbit/S FC-AL connections. Each group had four 4Gbit/S FC-AL connections, two to each storage controller. The ANX 1500, the FAS6070C storage controllers, and the clients all connected to a Brocade TurboIron 24X 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch.

All standard data protection features were enabled on the NAS storage system, including background RAID and media error scrubbing, software validated RAID checksumming, and disk failure protections via RAID 4.

Item No	Qty	Vendor	Model/Name	Description
1	7	Advanced Industrial Computer, Inc.	PSG-SB-2URGEDP0114	Workstation with 24GB of RAM running RHEL 2.6.18-128.el5
2	1	Brocade	TurboIron 24X	Ethernet Switch

LG Type Name	LG1
BOM Item #	1
Processor Name	Quad-Core Intel E5520 Processor
Processor Speed	2.26 GHz
Number of Processors (chips)	2
Number of Cores/Chip	4
Memory Size	24 GB
Operating System	RHEL 2.6.18-128.el5 SMP
Network Type	Intel X520-SR1 10 Gigabit Ethernet server adapter

Benchmark Parameters

Network Attached Storage Type	NFS V3
Number of Load Generators	7
Number of Processes per LG	96
Biod Max Read Setting	2
Biod Max Write Setting	2
Block Size	AUTO

Testbed Configuration

LG No	LG Type	Network	Target Filesystems	Notes
1..7	LG1	1	/fas6070a/vol/vol1,/fas6070b/vol/vol1	N/A

Load Generator Configuration Notes

Both filesystems were mounted on all clients, which were connected to the same physical and logical network.

Each client hosted 96 processes. The assignment of processes to filesystems and network interfaces was done such that they were evenly divided across all filesystems and network paths to the ANX 1500. The filesystem data was distributed evenly across all disks and FC-AL loops on the NAS storage system

N/A

• Config Diagram