Proxmox 3.3 vs Hyper-v 2012r2 on EMC vnx over FC block access

[bromac]

Hello
We have 4 servers with Proxmox using local hard drives (even in version 2.3 but at the moment it is not important).
To improve the performance of virtual machines purchased a disk array EMC VNX 5200 - block access by card 8Gb FC (lpe12002 with 2 x MiniGBIC FC 8Gb / s). 25 x 600GB 10krpm (4 x disk with RAID5 and 16 x drive with RAID 10). Each server is connected to the array 2 cables (on EMC Failover Mode: Active-Active mode (ALUA) -failovermode 4).
I devoted for testing one server (IBM System x3400) and I am shocked Proxmox 3.3 performance compared to the performance of Hyper-v 2012r2. Of course, in the case of Proxmox configured the multipath (Alua) and hyper-v MPIO.
Below screenshots of the test read / write HDTune program running on a virtual machine with a clean newly installed system Windows2008r2 - without any updates. Tests hyper-v and Proxmox done on the same physical server.
If HyperV 2012r2 on two resources (RAID5 and RAID10) I created NTFS partitions.
In the case of Proxmox 3.3 obtain similar performance with LVM as well as a mounted partition with ext3 and raw disks (writeback cache). Similar perfomance is with cache writeback an cache none. I tried virtio driver and have this same performance like without driver virtio.

We use Proxmox without purchased support because we are a public institution (Public Library), which has no additional funds for an annual subscription fee - array we bought the resources acquired of the Ministry of Culture.

I would like to stay with Proxmox, but if I can not improve the performance of this I will be forced to change virtualizer.
If I have to perform additional tests (indifferently on which hypervisor) or share some logs please let us know.

 

[spirit]

Hi,

Maybe it could perform with with direct iscsi lun access (witout lvm, 1 lun by vm disk) + virtio-scsi drivers

vmconfig
---------
scsi0:/dev/sdX
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci

(you need to install drivers in windows, they are not the same than classic virtio-blk)

This enable enable full iscsi passthrough.

It's a little bit more complex to manage disk, because you need to create luns manually.

 

[christophe]

Hi,

You can safely use "writeback (not safe)" with an EMC SAN or any SAN with a BBU.

You can easily compare by moving the VM disk on a local storage, and test again.

You should really upgrade to pve 3.3, v2.3 is a bit old nowadays.

Christophe.

 

[bromac]

@spirit thanks for the information, but it is still a performance problem (see attachment). Of course the windows on the driver scsi.

@christophe I agree with you. After solving the problem definitely I upgraded to version 3.3 Proxmox on all servers - all tests in this thread I performed on the latest version 3.3.




I wonder if sometimes the problem is not multipath. Tomorrow I will unlink a one bundle FC and see lun connected to the VM directly without multipath-tools.

 

[udo]

Hi,
to see is the issue host or guest related, what is the performance from the pve-host and what from an linux-vm?

Udo

 

[bromac]

@Udo I do not know how well I understand the enclosed tests but from this it follows that linux on proxmox will have a great performance, as well as windows on HyperV. But when you mix environments is followed by problems in the performance?

 

[mir]

Have you tried with a virtio-disk for windows vm?

 

[bromac]

@mir I did test windows vm on virtio disk. Note that the read performance (on proxmox3.3) is still three times lower compared to the hyperv2012r2. Also, access times are much higher than in HyperV.

 

[mir]

What is cache configuration in both cases?

 

[bromac]

@mir look at foot screen. I tried write configuration everywhere in printscreens in the footer. Cache for tests (into post nr 8) is "writeback unsafe"

 

[mir]

What is the cache settings for your hyperV instance?

After much testing here I found the option 'no cache' to perform best.

 

[bromac]

Hello @Mir,
I do it tests with "no cache" on EMC vnx5200 (raid 5 + raid10)


I don't know what is the cache setting for hyperV instance. HyperV2012r2 is installed on the same server which is now proxmox - I did not do any specific changes (only MPIO - multipath) + created an NTFS partition. Below screens.


Maybe install on this machine vmware ESXi and it also do the test?

 

[afrugone]

I've a similar configuration, did you found a solution for this?