topic Re: VSA CPU And Memory Configuration in StoreVirtual Storage

VSA CPU And Memory Configuration

hillibilli — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:06:35 GMT

Hello,
I have a P4000 (3x DL380 G6) Lefthand Cluster with 3 VSA.
I have modified the Network RAID settings from Network RAID 10 (2Way) to Network RAID 5. My Custumer told me, that after the RAID 5 configuration the CPU load on all 3 VSAÂ´s goes straight ahead to 100%. See Screenshot of one VSA.
My question is, did I become better performance, when I add a second vCPU to the VSAÂ´s and increase the memory. 3 Volumes with the total size of 4,5 TB is provisioned. Default settings for a VSA (*.ovf vmware) are 1CPU with 2000 MHz reserved and 384 MB memory.
Information about the Network.
2x 1810 Procurve Switches. Jumboframes enabled. Port Policy Any-to-Any
Jumboframes are also enabled on the vSwitch Kernel Port (Vmware).

Re: VSA CPU And Memory Configuration

Jitun — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:06:47 GMT

Requirements
â ¢ Hyper-V host server running a supported 64â bit Windows OS
â ¢ A single virtual CPU with at least 2000 MHz reserved
â ¢ At least 1 GB (1024 MB) of memory reserved
â ¢ Approximately 13 GB available drive space

Network RAID 5 requires Parity Calculation by the VSA, hence the high CPU usage.
The Memory requirement also increases drastically due to the Parity Calculation.

My recommendation is to use Network RAID 10.
If one of the VSA goes down, it pulls down the SAN performance quite a Lot for Network RAID 5 volumes.

Re: VSA CPU And Memory Configuration

Uwe Zessin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:28:37 GMT

Do not use more than one vCPU.
I've seen VSAs hang during boot when multiple vCPUs were used.

Re: VSA CPU And Memory Configuration

hillibilli — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:54:33 GMT

Thank you very much. I think I must prepare my Customer for NWR10(2Way) and they have to accept the fewer GB capacity.
For my understand, NWR5 is for Backup and Remote Copy. RAID10 is for Production.

I have one additional question. During the Ugrade from SAN/IQ 8.5 to 9.0 the upgrade progress hungs. I have canceled the upgrade progress. When I start the upgrade again I become an error Message, see sreenshot. After I have rebooted the affected VSA and started the upgrade again, I become the same error message. I have generated a HP CASE 2 Weeks ago and nothing happens. Do I need to reinstall the VSA? What would you do?

Re: VSA CPU And Memory Configuration

Jitun — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:54:01 GMT

Hi Hille, I am not sure if I can ask you for a Case number here on the forum.
Email it to me.
I can have a check.