Sun 7110 disk and network load

[Duke]

Looks pretty good to me considering what you've got running on it. That last server entry really threw me until I noticed where you work!

[SLMHC]

Yup, I'm in health care.

[cookie_monster]

@ SLMHC: how is your Xenserver networking setup? I know that Xenserver doesn't support LACP but you can bond NICs.

 

If I run through how mine is setup maybe we can compare notes.

 

I have three cards on my 7110 in an LACP link that go into a HP2910al switch, until today I didn't have flow control turned on on the ports carrying iSCSI traffic but I've read recently that that's more important than jumbo frames. I'll see how that goes.

 

On the Xenservers I've got 2 NIC's bonded that can see the 7110 carrying iSCSI traffic and 2 NIC's that the general network sees to connect to my Windows VM's. I've not configured any special settings on the HP switch to accommodate these NIC bonds as I've read that it's not necessary (not quite sure).

 

All on my iSCSI traffic is on the same switch VLAN separated from all other traffic.

 

 

1. Do you just use single NIC's on your Xenservers or are you using NIC bonds as well?

 

2. Do you have flow control enabled on your HP switch ports that carry iSCSI traffic?

 

I picked up the flow control vs jumbo frames info here.

 

http://searchnetworkingchannel.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid100_gci1255870,00.html

 

Cheers.

Edited February 17, 2010 by cookie_monster

[SLMHC]

My hosts are running off an IBM Bladecentre H chassis using HS22 blades with the expansion NIC in them. On the Bladecentre I have 4 Nortel 6 port layer2/3 switches. I read that the Nortel switches can just be fully utilized to get the best throughput, so I have 2 switches each for my corp and SAN (12 port total to each).

 

Looks like I have no flow control setup on the 2824. I haven't read the article yet, but, are they saying that flow control will provide better performance than just using jumbo frames? Since XenServer doesn't support jumbo frames I hadn't turned them on in the 7110 or 2824.