SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 Result

LSI Corp. : COUGAR 6720
SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 = 61497 Ops/Sec (Overall Response Time = 1.67 msec)


Performance

Throughput
(ops/sec)
Response
(msec)
6154 0.8
12312 0.9
18496 1.3
24672 1.5
30844 1.7
37074 1.8
43234 2.0
49475 2.2
55764 2.6
61497 3.9
Performance Graph


Product and Test Information

Tested By LSI Corp.
Product Name COUGAR 6720
Hardware Available August 2008
Software Available August 2008, September 2010
Date Tested November 2010
SFS License Number 3634
Licensee Locations Milpitas, CA

The Cougar 6000 represents LSI ONStor's family of scalable clustered NAS gateway systems targeted at high-end enterprise file serving environments. Cougar 6000 systems are available in two models: Cougar 6720 & Cougar 6520. These systems are based on 64-bit, multi-core network processors which feature system-on-a-chip design, with integrated i/o and hyper-transport interconnects for high data throughput at significantly lower power consumption. Each Cougar 6000 system supports up to eight 4Gb Fibre Channel and eight Gigabit Ethernet ports in a highly available configuration within a compact 2U form factor. Cougar 6000 systems are architected to scale out to multiple NAS gateways in a single cluster and deliver high performance and capacity scaling across a broad range of storage systems.

Configuration Bill of Materials

Item No Qty Type Vendor Model/Name Description
1 1 NAS Gateway LSI ONStor Cougar 6720 18 core Cougar with 18 GB RAM
2 2 Storage System LSI 7900 Storage array with 2 controllers, 160 drives, 4 FC 4 Gb ports
3 1 SAN Switch QLogic 5600 SAN switch with 4Gb FC ports (16 ports utilized)

Server Software

OS Name and Version Everon OS R4.0.2.20
Other Software LSI 7900 Controller Module firmware 07.60.39.00
Filesystem Software StorFS

Server Tuning

Name Value Description
read ahead in filer dcache off Anticipatory reads of storage by filer

Server Tuning Notes

none

Disks and Filesystems

Description Number of Disks Usable Size
73GB FCAL 15K RPM Disk Drives 320 21.2 TB
Total 320 21.2 TB
Number of Filesystems 16
Total Exported Capacity 9.877 TB
Filesystem Type StorFS
Filesystem Creation Options Default
Filesystem Config Each of the 16 filesystems was striped over 20 drives utilizing RAID-0
Fileset Size 7201.0 GB

Two standard LSI 7900 storage systems were utilized. Included in each was a 7900 controller module and 10 shelves of 16 Fibre Channel drives (15K RPM). Each array had 8 filesystems, each striped over its own set of 20 disks. Four file systems were assigned to controller A and four were assigned to controller B. While both Cougar blades could access either controller of either storage system for failover purposes, each blade was assigned to its own 7900 during the SPEC test. Storage settings included read ahead off, read cache enabled, write cache enabled, and 128 KB stripe size,

Network Configuration

Item No Network Type Number of Ports Used Notes
1 Gigabit Ethernet 8 Four GbE ports per Cougar 6720 blade. The 4 ports were aggregated into 1 logical port.

Network Configuration Notes

A Cisco Catalyst 2960G ethernet switch (48 ports) was utilized. The network interfaces used standard frames.

Benchmark Network

The Cougar 6720 was connected to the Cisco switch via GbE connections (8 ports). The connections were organized into 2 groups of 4. Each group of 4 was aggregated at the switch and the Cougar blade. Each of the 8 clients was connected to the Cisco switch with a 1 GbE connection.

Processing Elements

Item No Qty Type Description Processing Function
1 4 CPU 900 MHz Broadcom SiByte 1480 (4 cores) TCP/IP, NFS, CIFS protocol, filesystem
2 2 CPU 600 MHz Broadcom 1125 management

Processing Element Notes

Each Cougar 6720 contains two processing blades. Each blade has 2 physical processors (Broadcom SiByte 1480 - four processing cores per chip) for data path processing (TCP/IP, NFS, CIFS, filesystem) and 1 physical processor (Broadcom SiByte 1125 - one processing core per chip) for operating system management and control, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and four 4Gb/s Fibre Channel ports.

Memory

Description Size in GB Number of Instances Total GB Nonvolatile
DDR2 RAM (Cougar) 1 18 18 V
NV RAM (LSI XBB2 control module) 1 16 16 NV
Grand Total Memory Gigabytes     34  

Memory Notes

Each Cougar 6720 NAS blade has 8 GB of memory for the data path (protocol and file system operations) and 1 GB of memory for operating system management and control.

Stable Storage

The NAS system under test includes the Cougar 6720 gateway and LSI 7900 storage. Only the LSI 7900 storage system has stable storage. The LSI 7900 stable storage consists of disk drives and DDR2 RAM with a backup system utilizing batteries and USB-based flash drives. In the event of power failure, the battery backed system writes cache data to flash drives. If the batteries are not charged, then the storage system operates in pass-through mode with the disk drives being considered the only stable storage. Data is stored in stable storage before NFS stable write and commit operations are acknowledged. Note that the USB flash drives are implicitly included in the NV RAM line in the Memory table.

System Under Test Configuration Notes

The test configuration used dedicated resources (network switch, SAN switch, storage).

Other System Notes

Standard LSI storage default settings were utilized.

Test Environment Bill of Materials

Item No Qty Vendor Model/Name Description
1 8 Dell PowerEdge 1850 Dell load generator client
2 1 Cisco Catalyst 2960G switch 48 port switch

Load Generators

LG Type Name LG1
BOM Item # 1
Processor Name Intel Xeon
Processor Speed 3.0 GHz
Number of Processors (chips) 2
Number of Cores/Chip 2
Memory Size 2 GB
Operating System Red Hat REL4 2.6.9-5.ELsmp
Network Type Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection

Load Generator (LG) Configuration

Benchmark Parameters

Network Attached Storage Type NFS V3
Number of Load Generators 8
Number of Processes per LG 32
Biod Max Read Setting 2
Biod Max Write Setting 2
Block Size AUTO

Testbed Configuration

LG No LG Type Network Target Filesystems Notes
1..8 1 1 vol1-vol8, vol101-vol108 None

Load Generator Configuration Notes

None

Uniform Access Rule Compliance

Thirty-two processes were utilized on each load generating client. The LSI ONStor Cougar 6720 Gateway had two blades, each running 1 virtual server and 8 file systems. Each blade was configured with 1 logical interface to the clients (an aggregation of four GbE interfaces). To satisfy the uniform access rule, each client used 32 mount points, 2 for each of the 16 file systems in the Cougar 6720 Gateway. Thus each client's load was evenly distributed over the 16 file systems and the 2 network interfaces. On the storage side, each virtual server could access any of the raid groups via either of the 2 storage systems.

Other Notes

None

Config Diagrams


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First published at SPEC.org on 30-Nov-2010