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BP1024 Scaling and Best Practices for Virtual Workload Environments with the FS7500 40
5 Best practices
This section provides the best practices for the design and deployment of VMware vSphere virtualized
infrastructure on EqualLogic FS7500.
5.1 Storage
5.1.1 EqualLogic FS7500 recommendations
• Configure the maximum number of NAS service virtual IP addresses on the EqualLogic FS7500
so that the load can be distributed across all FS7500 client network NICs and controller
resources to improve I/O performance and throughput.
• Configure multiple NAS file systems within the NAS reserve to segregate application data for
ease of maintenance and data recovery isolation.
• For higher file I/O throughput, scale the FS7500 systems along with PS Series arrays. In
environments with very high file I/O needs, use two FS7500 systems. Make sure the backend
PS Series arrays support the necessary I/O.
5.1.2 EqualLogic PS Series recommendations
• Dedicate a separate storage pool for file system NAS reserve in environments with heavy file
I/O needs. Typically virtualized server infrastructure environments incur heavy I/O.
• Choose the appropriate RAID type for the PS Series arrays hosting the NAS reserve based on
capacity and workload performance requirements:
o For user loads with a large amount of write data operations: RAID 10 offers the best
performance at lower capacity levels.
o For user loads with a high amount of read data operations: RAID6 offers good
performance at high capacity levels and also sustains double drive failures.
• For workloads with large I/O such as in virtualized environments, ensure end-to-end
bandwidth availability between the host systems and FS7500 systems. Also enable end-to-end
jumbo frames on the client network to assist with improved throughput. Ensure that there are
a sufficient number of PS Series arrays deployed for the NAS reserve to provide sufficient disk
bandwidth, network bandwidth, and processing resources.
5.2 Host and hypervisor
• Configure a dedicated vSwitch on the ESXi host for NFS access via the FS7500 client network.
• Use the IP hash-based load balancing policy on the vSwitch connected to the FS7500 client
network to get optimal distribution of NFS traffic across NIC uplinks.
• Associate more NICs as uplinks with the vSwitch to improve throughput. Ideally this number
should be the same as the number of NAS service IP addresses configured on the FS7500.
• Establish multiple NFS mounts to the same NFS export/NAS file system through different
virtual NAS service IP addresses to distribute the load across all available NIC uplinks on the
vSwitch when using the IP hash-based load balancing policy.
• Ensure that the application load is evenly distributed across the multiple NFS mounts to the
same export to achieve even traffic distribution on the host NICs.