Signature Bank of Arkansas Improves Server Application Performance and Reduces Data Center Costs with VMware Server Virtualization and OCZ Solid-State Storage
Combination of OCZ Technology’s Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD and VXL Virtualization Software Enables Flash Resources to be Distributed On-Demand Across Virtual Machine Applications to Maximize Performance
Application Focus
Reduce/eliminate disk I/O bottlenecks
Run virtualized applications on virtual machines (VMs)
Improve server application performance
Accelerate access to stored data
Return on Investment (ROI)
Improved MS Server Exchange email exchange performance by 300%.
Improved Oracle database financial analysis performance by 300%.
Improved risk management assessments from hours to minutes.
Improved SQL Server snapshots from extensive lag/latency delays to real-time access.
Improved large graphic image read performance by 1000%.
User Quote
"The addition of VXL software and Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs to SBoA’s newly implemented virtualization infrastructure provided immediate perf ormance successes and capabilities, and efficiently distributed flash resources across VMs to maximize performance of key applications."
Matt Wood, IT Director
Signature Bank of Arkansas
Introduction:
Signature Bank of Arkansas (SBoA) is a community bank that was established in 2005 by a team of experienced and well-respected local bankers to provide full banking and wealth management services for individuals and businesses in northwest Arkansas. SBoA has seen radical changes in banking over the last few years as the U.S. and global economies continue to be challenged. To weather this economic storm, SBoA raised capital, decreased corporate spending, changed its capital ratio, and combined with strong strategic direction and management, has stabilized its business during this difficult economy. As the future looks bright, SBoA’s mantra is to continually improve productivity and customer service while reducing operational costs.
One of the areas SBoA centered on to improve operations was the outdated network infrastructure and equipment they inherited back in 2005. As more clients, employees, applications and capabilities were added to the SBoA network, data traffic increased, disk I/O became a performance bottleneck, and the end user experience was compromised at times. The network was showing its age and simply did not provide the server application performance or data access that SBoA required. In the highly competitive, customer service-oriented bank industry, ineffective system automation in a down economy will drive customers to the competition.
To address disk I/O bottlenecks in the early years, SBoA added hard disk drives (HDDs) to the network, but that only provided a band-aid performance solution at an increase in both capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expense (OPEX). The more hard drives that were added, the higher the costs rose for power consumption, cooling, maintenance and support. Over time, the storage segment of SBoA’s enterprise became its most expensive part and adding HDDs to alleviate system performance bottlenecks was not the most cost-effective way to evolve the network.
After six years of developing the IT infrastructure to provide automated business services to a central branch and satellite locations, its employees an d thousands of accounts, SBoA felt that a complete re-evaluation and assessment of the network was required beginning with its most expensive parts – the storage area network (SAN). In addition, the VMware software used to run virtualized applications on multiple virtual machines (VMs) was not being utilized to its full potential, so a new approach to SBoA’s virtualized environments was also required as part of the IT refresh.
As more clients, employees, applications and capabilities were added to the SBoA network, data traffic increased, disk I/O became a performance bottleneck, and the end user experience was compromised at times.
This case study shows how SBoA addressed the storage challenges it faced by upgrading its infrastructure to new and improved capabilities that deliver flash data caching into virtualized server platforms and distributes these flash resources on-demand across VM applications to maximize performance. The combined hardware and software solution, developed by solid-state storage leader OCZ Technology, includes Z-Drive R4 PCI Express (PCIe) flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) with VXL virtualization and acceleration software. Through this new implementation, SBoA is achieving significant improvements in server application performance and data access while reducing data cente r costs.
SBoA’s Network Infrastructure:
At the time of its inception, the SBoA data center was comprised of outsourced network infrastructure components, non-configured servers, and a range of orphaned network accessories and software that the IT department developed into a workable and successful enterprise. Whether providing employee email exchanges, client account information, reports, financial analysis, or a host of automated office/business services and capabilities, SBoA realized after the first year of operation that its enterprise needed to constantly evolve, scale to support add itional employees, clients and applications, as well as be easily maintained and controlled internally.
To address these needs and determine a more cost-effective solution that optimized server application performance and data access latency, SBoA’s IT department extensively researched and evaluated server virtualization technology. The technology would enable SBoA to expand its limited central server resource to virtual machines (that run their own OS and application independently) and run multiple virtual server loads concurrently from a single physical host. Server virtualization would also provide SBoA with a way to load balance or expand processing capabilities in the enterprise since VMs can be moved or copied from one server to another. For SBoA, the virtua lized environment would provide better utilization of CPU and memory resources, and would make the deployment, high availability (HA) and maintenance of the server loads simpler. So in late 2006, SBoA implemented VMware software as part of its enterprise.
The initial SBoA enterprise utilized two Dell PowerEdge 2950 central servers and VMware ESX software to create a virtualized environment that eventually grew to a third PowerEdge 2950 server. The servers were initially configured to support approximately eight VMs with key applications such as SQL Server (databases), MS Server Exchange (email exchanges), Oracle (financial analysis), and Windows Office. As SBoA’s virtualization environment became more effective over time, more VMs were added to the environment as required resulting in a total of forty VMs.
For SBoA, the virtualized environment would provide better utilization of CPU and memory resources, and would make the deployment, high availability (HA) and maintenance of the server loads simpler.
SBoA also selected the Compellent Series 20 SAN Array to support its server virtualization model and implemente d 30 HDDs within the array for storage that eventually grew to 40 HDDs. Fibre Channel was used to connect the disk array to the central servers, and when there was only one branch, the SAN was centralized, but as more branches were added, the SAN became distributed. This initial SBoA network had been operational since late 2006.
HDD Limitations:
While servers can handle millions of input/output operations per second (IOPS), a typical HDD can only deliver between a 100 and 200 IOPS performance. As more VMs were added to SBoA’s network, the HDDs within the SAN array simply could not keep up with the server workload demands. Additionally, as many applications run concurrently in the SBoA virtualized environment, strong random access capabilities are necessary which presents a major problem for HDDs whose physical heads need to continuously jump from one location to another.
HDDs also have physical limitations being the only mechanical devices in the data center. For every instance that data is requested from a different location in HDD storage, the HDD head needs to move, limiting the drive’s physical ability to quickly read or write random data. Each movement takes time and the read/write IOPS performance, as well as latency, slows down considerably until the data is found and accessed. See Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Concurrently running multiple virtual machines (VMs)
in a virtualized environment will cause heavy randomization of
data access towards the SAN
Solid-State Drives:
In contrast to HDD storage, solid-state drives store data using NAND flash memory, and with no moving parts, they handle random data access effortlessly, making them a superior enabler of virtualization. In fact, a single host-based flash SSD virtually connected to VMs can deliver random IOPS performance comparable to a large SAN array with thousands of HDDs incorporated.
SBoA first incorporated SSDs into its IT infrastructure back in 2009 for specific workstation applications that required very fast data access and RAID redundancy. Though the cost for many SSDs was still at a premium in 2009, SBoA purchased five (5) drives from OCZ Technology for this project after extensive research and evaluation. The OCZ SSDs provided SBoA with an exceptional balance of performance, reliability and value while delivering exceptional read performance of up to 525 Mbps, write performance of up to 500 Mbps, and random write performance of up to 60,000 IOPS. The forty HDDs in the SAN array, each capable of 100 to 200 IOPS performance, were no match for the incredible performance achieved from even just one OCZ SSD.
"We were extremely impressed with the OCZ SSDs – not only did they deploy as an easily swap-able replacement of HDDs, but the performance improvements that we experienced on this workstation project were nothing short of unbelievable," said Matt Wood, IT Director for Signature Bank of Arkansas. "Not only did we feel that SSDs would change the storage world similar to how VMware changed the server world, but adding flash memory to the enterprise would enable us to easily and cost-effectively advance of server virtualization capabilities as part of our next IT refresh."
Adding Flash to the Enterprise:
To prepare for its upcoming IT refresh, SBoA performed a complete assessment of its network infrastructure in 2012 and determined that the SAN array and associated HDD storage model needed a makeover, not only addressing an increase in performance and capacity, but by adding flash memory to the virtualization hosts would also enable capabilities that SBoA was not currently taking advantage of. Flash memory is ideally suited for server virtualization and data that is accessed from HDDs, external SAN arrays, or Networked Attached Storage (NAS) devices can be cached on flash residing in the host physical server, allowing for significantly faster data access.
With the successes and performance improvements that SBoA experienced using the SSDs as part of a separate workstation project, the IT department wanted to implement solid-state storage as part of the IT refresh. SBoA was very interested in PCIe flash-based SSDs not only because they provide more than 40 times faster speed than SAS or SATA interfaces, but the compact, power-efficient card fits directly into the server’s PCIe bus slot increasing server application performance while delivering fast and reliable access to data while offloading host CPU and memory resources.
< div style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal">The Virtualization Solution:
With the successful workstation deployment of SSDs, SBoA returned to OCZ Technology and found that the company developed a hardware and software solution that enables flash caching of data into virtualized server platforms. The OCZ solution included VXL virtualization software and its fourth generation Z-Drive R4 PCIe flash-based SSD that provides maximum read/write performance of up to 2800 MB/s, 410,000 random write IOPS, and a maximum capacity of 3.2 Terabytes. At this level of I/O performance, coupled with flash caching, server virtualization and acceleration, SBoA obtained the OCZ virtualization solution as part of its IT refresh and began planning for its implementation.
"Not only did we feel that SSDs would change the storage world similar to how VMware changed the server world, but adding flash memory to the enterprise would enable us to easily and cost-effectively advance of server virtualization capabilities as part of our next IT refresh."
Matt Wood, IT Director
Signature Bank of Arkansas
The OCZ virtualized server solution distributes flash caching resources on-demand across VMs to maximize performance of key applications, and distributes the flash between VMs based on need while making sure that no VM inefficiently occupies flash when it could be better used elsewhere in the environment. The flash cache is optimally utilized at all times regardless of how many VMs are running concurr ently and its unique ability to monitor all data requests reduces data traffic to and from the SAN by 90%, while keeping the critical data locally in the Z-Drive R4 flash card. For SBoA, the combination of OCZ PCIe flash-based SSDs and VXL flash cache virtualization software would invariably resolve the disk I/O bottleneck issues and enable up to 10 times the number of VMs on a physical host. See Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Solving the virtualization storage bottleneck with OCZ VXL virtualization
software and Z-Drive R4 PCIe solid-state cards
How the OCZ Virtualization Solution Works:
OCZ Technology brings the power of flash to virtualized environments so that all of the benefits of virtualization in reduced CAPEX and OPEX are only enhanced whenever flash is used by a VM. To accomplish this, OCZ treats the flash as another virtual resource and creates a central virtual appliance that works with the OS hypervisor to dynamically distribute the flash according to need, inside and outside of the physical server.
VXL software does not require guest agents within the application VM, and through hypervisor connectivity, works with any OS supported by a virtualization platform including Windows, Linux, OpenSolaris and FreeBSD. This is in contrast to other cache software solutions that require agent or driver installation on every VM in the virtualized cluster. The OCZ VXL ‘no-agents’ approach dramatically simplifies the deployment, management and maintenance of storage.
Testing and Implementation:
In anticipation of evolving the storage capabilities of its IT infrastructure to the next level, SBoA tested, evaluated and implemented VXL software and Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs from OCZ Technology with the goal of accomplishing four specific enterprise improvements:
Run all host applications (not just specific ones) off of the SAN in a virtualized environment
Increase server application performance and access to stored data using flash cache to offload the SAN
Utilize more VMs but do not put too much of a load on the SAN
Utilize more virtualization capabilities
Before the planned implementation occurred in May 2012, SBoA performed preliminary tests months before as a means to optimize the MS Exchange Server environment. After installing the Z-Drive R4 PCIe card and VXL software in the Dell server, SBoA was anxious to try out this virtualization solution and configured a non-critical Oracle database server on a VXL accelerated volume as a test. The results from this non-critical install ation were eye-opening, and SBoA generated a 300% improvement in performance over a non-accelerated configuration while still utilizing their six-year old SAN. From this preliminary implementation, SBoA now had the confidence that the OCZ virtualization solution would enable all host applications to be run off of the SAN while increasing application performance and access to stored data.
During the planned implementation in May 2012, SBoA ran several different applications and services on VXL accelerated volumes for test purposes and experienced similar results. In this first example, when SBoA tested its financial analysis application (that runs on an Oracle database) in comparison to a non-accelerated configuration, they experienced a 300% impro vement in performance, and a significant metric being a write-intensive application.
As a second example, SBoA moved its MS Exchange Server to a VXL accelerated volume and experienced a noticeable increase in performance as well. Using standard industry tests, SBoA witnessed another 300% improvement in random read performance.
In a third example, SBoA financial analysts have been using a risk management software application to run multiple queries and ‘what/if’ scenarios to analyze various financial investment possibilities. What used to take hours to complete a risk management assessment, now takes only seven minutes when the application is run off of the SAN and the analysis is processed locally using flash-based virtualization.
As a fourth example, SBoA has been using snapshots to access core data and moves those snapshots to SQL Server to save them, or use them for reports or online analysis. Accessing snapshots became long and extensive process. However, when OCZ’s server virtualization model was added to the configuration, access to these snapshots occurred in real-time without any lag or latency delays.
And as a final example, SBoA has been using a ‘reading-intensive’ application that saves large graphic images to storage, and with VXL acceleration, the application accessed and created the images 1000% faster from local flash cache than reading it directly from the hard drive array.
SBoA was anxious to try out this {OCZ} virtualization solution and configured a non-critical Oracle database server on a VXL accelerated volume as a test. The results from this non-critical installation were eye-opening, and SBoA generated a 300% improvement in performance over a non-accelerated configuration while still utilizing their six-year old SAN.
During the planned implementation, SBoA discovered other important capabilities of the OCZ virtualization solution worth noting:
Based on SBoA research and testing, OCZ’s Z-Drive R4 PCIe card achieved the highest performance and offered the largest capacities in the PCIe SSD market.
From a scalability perspective, VXL software was run on a single server, yet, it was accessed by multiple virtualization hosts and scaled very well. The software can also be clustered and added to multiple systems for redundancy, fault tolerance, and even to achieve better performance.
VXL also provided write-through caching capabilities that enabled all VXL accelerated volume writes to be written to flash at the same time they were written to the SAN. As data gets cached for write operations, the data became immediately available on the cache for future read requests.
The OCZ virtualization solution also advanced data integrity. Since 100% of the data stored on VXL accelerated volumes is still stored in the SAN, in the event that the Z-Drive R4 or VXL acceleration appliance were to become unavailable, all of the stored data was still available on the SAN just as it was before the flash cache was introduced.
The addition of VXL software and Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs to SBoA’s newly implemented virtualizat ion infrastructure provided immediate performance successes and capabilities, and efficiently distributed flash resources across VMs to maximize performance of key applications. The refreshed virtualized network was successfully implemented in May 2012.
Conclusions:
The combination of OCZ’s Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD with VXL software has transformed the SBoA network by providing these key enablers for virtualization:
1) Increased Server Utilization – By eliminating HDD storage bottlenecks, SBoA increased the number of VMs that can run on the central host by a factor of 10. This enables SBoA to greatly reduce the inefficient use of server resources and allows the data center to grow without excessive CAPEX, while providing higher quality of service (QoS) to customers and employees.
2) Reduced SAN Costs – VXL software provides the required storage virtualization services at the host layer (rather than at the SAN), while the Z-Drive R4 PCIe card generates the IOPS requested by each VM, eliminating the need for SBoA to deploy costly, high-end SANs with heavy virtualization services at the SAN layer.
In its place, SBoA uses cost-efficient HDD arrays for lower priority capacity storage and reduces the number of HDDs required as I/O performance no longer needs to be generated by concurrently running spindles. Not only is SBoA experiencing a considerable reduction in CAPEX with the addition of PCIe-based SSDs, but also a reduction in power and cooling requirements associated with high-end SAN arrays.
3) Highly Efficient Flash Utilization – The flash resources in SBoA’s data center are now virtualized and can be efficiently distributed between all VMs. Even though the flash cache resources are located in one server, they can be shared across multiple servers making VXL software the only flash cache and virtualization software that can deliver this unique capability.
4) Reduced Maintenance Costs – Since SBoA deploys and manages the VXL software centrally, there is no need for the IT department to perform VM-specific maintenance for acceleration. Since the acceleration was transparent to the VM guest operating system, the accelerated VMs were treated exactly as their non-accelerated counterparts enabling SBoA to deploy a simpler, easier-to-manage maintenance process while reducing OPEX costs.
