ISE Performance Adapter for
Microsoft Windows Performance
Monitor
April 2013
WP-0004-20130421
Contents
Introduction ... 3
Audience ... 4Solution Overview ... 5
Solution Components ... 5 Created Instances ... 5 Monitored Counters ... 6X-IO Created Data Collection Sets ... 7
Viewing real time data from ISE systems ... 8
Post Processing Analysis ... 11
Summary ... 12
Introduction
Performance monitoring and evaluation is a critical function in any computing environment, but especially important in VDI, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and Cloud Computing solutions. These environments have performance requirements that would be considered Super Computing levels just a few years ago. Performance monitoring for these environments requires several features above and beyond day to day operations monitoring:
1. Fine grained resolution (measured in single digit seconds between samples) 2. The ability to access thousands of possible monitoring points
3. A systematic method for creating, storing, and automatically naming log files
4. Mechanism to extract pertinent data for analysis, and truncate the data based on a specific timeframe
5. Method for visualizing the data from real-time or archived data sources
6. Data portability. Data must be able to be converted to different formats that can be imported to any utility that a customer uses for visualizing the data.
Performance monitoring of this level has traditionally not been feasible, or has been prohibitively expensive. Solutions that can provide this level of insight to system performance have been difficult to implement and required expensive software licenses to purchase. When these solutions have been implemented, analysis has generally been limited to only the tools that the storage vendor supplies with the monitoring application. This data is usually captive in each vendor’s specific format.
Unlike other storage systems, the ISE constantly reports detailed performance metrics with no performance penalty. The X-IO Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor has been designed to provide X-IO customers a method to access the wealth of real time data that is available from the ISE Storage System. This application leverages the Microsoft Windows Performance Monitor platform for providing insight into the ISE systems that high performance environments require.
Audience
This white paper is intended for solutions architects, engineers, and project managers involved in the deployment of ISE-2 and Hyper ISE solutions. Recommendations are offered in this paper, but it should not be regarded as a stand-alone reference.
Readers should have a good, working knowledge of the Microsoft Windows Performance Monitor application and be familiar with disk performance concepts. Creating and Naming Data Collector Sets, adding Counters to the live view, changing between graphing styles are all subjects the reader should become familiar with.
Microsoft Windows Performance Monitor Overview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749249.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749154.aspx
Additionally, readers should be familiar with creating Data Collector Sets, and the naming convention options for log files.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749337.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722414.aspx
Users should also be familiar with the X-IO ISE Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor documentation. The following documentation can be found in the appropriate ISE support matrix at http://xone.xiotech.com.
ISE Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor Install Guide ISE Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor Release Notes ISE Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor User Guide
Solution Overview
The X-IO ISE storage system communicates natively with Web Services, ReST based methods. In addition to command and control functions, extensive performance information is also exposed through this API. A single ISE with 240 Virtual Disks and 120 Hosts can provide over 7,000 points of data that can be monitored. Creating a platform that can record and display this enormous amount of data would have been a challenge for any organization. Fortunately, Microsoft has developed a utility that can accommodate this amount of data. Windows Performance Monitor has been included with every version of Windows since Windows NT, and has evolved to deal with ever increasing amounts of performance data. Microsoft products such as Exchange, SQL, IIS, and Active Directory all extend the Performance Monitor application to report detailed metrics that are specific to each application.
The ISE Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor adds extensions to Windows Performance Monitor in the same way that other Microsoft produced applications do. By exposing ISE performance data through the Performance Monitor interface, detailed ISE performance information can be monitored in real time, and recorded for post processing. Since Performance Monitor is included with every version of Windows, the application can be run on platforms ranging from something as simple as a Windows laptop (or Virtual Machine) to something as complex as a Windows Server with SQL Server accepting the data from Performance Monitor. Supported versions of Windows include Windows XP, 7, 8, Server 2003, Server 2008, and Server 2012. The application can be run on a Windows Virtual Machine or a Physical machine, as the only requirement is that the base version of Windows has the .Net 4 extensions installed. The Windows computer that has the extension only needs to have Ethernet connectivity to the ISEs that need to be monitored, and no Fibre Channel connection is required.
Solution Components
By leveraging the Windows Performance Monitor application, the only component that is required for the solution is the ISE Performance adapter software. This application creates entries in the local instance of Performance monitor for the ISE performance information. The ISE Performance adapter also polls the monitored ISE systems for performance data and populates this information into the local instance of Windows Performance Monitor.
Created Instances
Performance information from the monitored ISEs is contained in several instances on the local windows operating system. These instances are:
1. ISE Virtual Disks – These are the Virtual Disks from all of the ISEs being monitored. 2. ISE Controllers – This instance contains performance information about the ISE
controllers that are being monitored. Entries for each MRC controller (1 and 2), and an entry for the total performance data for both controllers of each ISE are contained in this instance.
3. ISE FCPorts – This instance contains performance information about the Host Facing Fibre Channel ports on the ISE.
4. ISE Host Connections – This instance contains performance information about the Host Bus Adapters that are communicating with the ISE.
5. ISE Capacity Counters – This instance contains counters that show the Total Capacity, Free Capacity, and the Used Capacity of ISE Systems.
Monitored Counters
Each instance created by the ISE Performance Adapter contains several standard counters that report various aspects of performance data.
Counter Description
avgxfrsize This is the average request size of IO that is passing through this instance queuedepth The number of IOs that are outstanding for a given instance
queuedepthmax This is the maximum Queue Depth that has been recorded since the ISE has been booted
readiops The amount of Read IOs reported by this instance
readkbps The amount of Read Throughput reported by the instance. This value is in Kilobytes per second (KB/sec).
readlatency The average latency of Read IO for this instance
readlatrencymax The maximum read latency value that has been reported by this instance since the ISE has been booted
readpercent The percent of IO reported by this instance that is read in nature totaliops The amount of Total IO reported by this instance
totalkbps The Total about of Throughput reported by this instance. This value is in Kilobytes per second (KB/sec).
writeiops The amount of Write IOs reported by this instance
writekbps The amount of Write Throughput reported by the instance. This value is in Kilobytes per second (KB/sec).
writelatency The average latency of Write IO for this instance
writelatencymax The maximum Write Latency value that has been reported by this instance since the ISE has been booted
X-IO
Created Data Collection Sets
As part of the installation, the ISE Performance Adapter creates 4 initial Data Collector Sets. These sets are designed to record data from the Monitored ISEs with different resolutions and formats. All of the Data Collector sets are configured to record the following counters:
\ISE Controllers(*)\* \ISE FCPorts\*
\ISE Host Connections(*)\* \ISE Virtual Disks(*)\*
Automated-ISE
2-day resolution
circular-1
Designed for constant monitoring of the ISEs. Configured as a circular log that contains 2 days of data.
Resolution: 10 min, Format: Windows Binary File
Automated-ISE
2-day resolution
circular-2
Designed for constant monitoring of the ISEs. Configured as a circular log that contains 2 days of data.
Resolution: 10 min, Format: Windows Binary File
Automated-ISE
High Resolution
Collection
Designed for High Resolution recording of ISE Performance Data. Configured as a
circular log file that will reach 500MB in size. Data is refreshed in FIFO fashion.
Resolution: 2 sec, Format: Windows Binary File
Automated-ISE
Long Term Trend
Capture
Designed for long term retention of ISE Performance Data. Collector is restarted
every 4 weeks, and a new file is created.
Resolution: 10 min, Format: Windows Binary File
Windows Performance Monitor will average the performance metrics that are observed over the sample period. For Example, the Long Term Trending Capture data collector set will average all of the performance values that are reported over a 10 min period. While this can be acceptable for performing long term trending analysis at a later time, this sample period may not be
appropriate for detailed performance analysis. The High Resolution counter is configured with a 2 second sample period, and will yield data with a very high level of resolution. Two other data collection sets are created that are designed to provide a 2-day window of performance data that can be analyzed in the event that performance data needs to be reviewed. By having 2 of these data collector sets, one can be stopped to close the file for analysis, while the other data collector set continues to collect data. The sample values for these data collector sets can be modified if the user requires a higher fidelity in collected performance data.
Microsoft has also provided a command line utility to manipulate data collector sets. The “Logman” utility can create, delete, modify, start, and stop data collector sets. Additionally, the data collector sets can be set with start and stop times, and stop conditions to tailor the various monitoring requirements that X-IO customers have.
Viewing real time data from ISE systems
Windows Performance Monitor also has powerful capabilities to visualize real time data from the ISE systems. Windows Performance Monitor can overlay multiple counters into a single graph view to allow monitoring of live data from ISE systems. In the below figure all of the ISE Total Controller counters are shown for a single ISE. By utilizing the “Bar Chart” format, real time levels of different Controller performance metrics can be monitored and compared. Counters can be highlighted to more closely monitor specific activity levels. Below the Total IOPS counter of the ISE Controllers Total is highlighted, showing the Total amount of IOPS flowing through the system. In the below case, instant values (38,852), average values (46,485) and maximum values (71,237) are displayed when a counter is highlighted. The scale of each different counter can be modified, allowing for normalization of the X-Axis to display all of the data in a single view.
Windows Performance Monitor can also show data in a tabulated format. This can be useful if several different sets of performance data need to be monitored in real time
Traditional line charts can also be selected to show the history of different metrics over time as well. The timeframe can be adjusted to as high as 1,000 sec (16.6 min) to allow for viewing real-time trending information. Highlighting a counter will change the color of the line, in addition to displaying the different metrics about the counter. This can be a useful method to track a counters relation to secondary performance metrics that are of interest.
Bar Charts can also be a useful method to display a large amount of data. With the large amount of data that can be generated from the ISE, displaying data in this fashion can allow for quick identification of different system components (or groups of components) that are seeing increased workloads. The below figure shows the total throughput of 40x volumes on an ISE system. From the below bar chart, it can be seen that the majority of the workload is
concentrated on the last 20x LUNs on the system. However if the workload changed, this view would allow for quick identification of what LUNs are now servicing the workload.
Post Processing Analysis
Microsoft provides several methods for post processing of captured performance data. The Performance Monitor utility can open data saved from a Data collector set (any format recorded), provides a way to show only selected data, allows for truncation of the timeframe, and can output the selected data to any of the supported formats.
A command line utility is also available that can be used to analyze the data called “relog”. The “relog” utility is an extremely powerful tool for extracting data from recorded performance log files. This utility can generate a list of counters contained in a file, and can extract data based on a text file with desired counters. This utility can also truncate data based on a desired timeframe. The utility can accommodate performance log files that are several Gigabytes in size, and can convert the output to a format that can be imported to Microsoft Excel (csv, for example) to visualize the data and perform statistical analysis.
Summary
ISE systems are designed to accommodate the most high performance workloads in X-IO customer’s environments. The Performance Adapter for Windows Performance Monitor was created to allow for detailed monitoring of the enormous amount of performance data that the ISEs can report. By leveraging the Windows Performance Monitor platform, and the ReST based communication of the ISE, performance data can be viewed with a high degree of resolution that is required when detailed performance analysis is necessary. Not only can data be viewed in in real time, but an extensive framework for recording and sorting performance data is also available. This data can be exported to industry standard formats for post processing analysis in several different software packages.
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