Home > Ask the Storage Technology Experts > Storage Networking: SAN/NAS Questions & Answers > Performance monitoring on boot from SAN
Ask The Storage Expert: Questions & Answers
EMAIL THIS

Performance monitoring on boot from SAN

Greg Schulz EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: Greg Schulz

Pose a Question
Other Storage Categories
Meet all Storage Experts
Become an Expert for this site


Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us   


>
QUESTION POSED ON: 15 June 2006
I'm working on a project now for a bank in Israel, and we are considering booting from the storage area network (SAN). The customer's main fear is the amount of I/O. How can I know how many I/Os each OS will perform on the storage? I know there are many considerations. Can you help me get started?

>
Depending upon what OSs are involved, there are different tools that can be used to gather various levels of performance detail on a server-by-server basis. Likewise, depending upon what storage systems you have, there are tools that can tell you what your I/O performance is per server of storage I/O port or on a LUN basis.

At a minimum, you should be able to use vendor supplied tools from Microsoft, HP, IBM and Sun to monitor disk I/O performance. Also, you should look at third-party add-on tools. In general, look at the amount of I/Os per second to the various disk drives during the boot process, while monitoring performance during normal running operations. Also, take into consideration performance impact during backup and database maintenances for a holistic performance picture.

Keep track of the average number of I/Os per second, the peak and sustained reads and writes and the average I/O sizes to help characterize the workloads of the server. Depending upon the storage system being used, you should be able to get some information about the I/O workload activity. If this is a new install with no baseline or historical data to work from, you have more of a challenge in front of you. If not sure what to do with a new environment, drop me a note, and we can discuss some different options and strategies.

Do you know…

How to minimize I/O latency?


BROWSE BY TAG
Storage Networking: SAN/NAS,   SAN management,   Storage Area Network,   Storage area network management,   Storage area network performance/capacity,   SAN (storage area network),   VIEW ALL TAGS

Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us   



RELATED CONTENT
Storage Networking: SAN/NAS
Upgrading operating systems for two fabrics
Data centers and synchronous replication
Network File Sharing vs. Common Internet File System
Use of RAID with multiple drives
How to add more channels to a network
Achieving secure data storage for shared read/write I/O operation
SAN server accommodation
Offsite vs. onsite storage
SATA on a Dell Dimension 4400
FCID on two separate fabrics

SAN management
Unilever maintains 5 PB Fibre Channel SAN storage performance with Virtual Instruments' NetWisdom
Storage Decisions Chicago 2009 Session Downloads
Storage Decisions Session Downloads: Managing Storage Networks Track (Chicago 2009)
Storage-area networks to become increasingly object based
Data storage management in virtual server environments
10 Gb Ethernet bodes well for iSCSI
Mellanox builds bridge to consolidation
Best storage Products of the Year 2008
Wide stripe before you dive into SSD
How your SAN will evolve
SAN management Research

Storage area network performance/capacity
Handbook: Best practices for SAN expansion
Using global spare drives to increase SAN reliability
How to create a SAN performance baseline
SAN performance
SAN performance: Five tips in five minutes

RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS
Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary
Fast Guide to Storage Technologies  (WhatIs.com)
fat provisioning  (SearchStorage.com)
oversubscription  (SearchStorage.com)
RAID  (SearchStorage.com)
storage area management  (SearchStorage.com)
storage area network  (SearchStorage.com)
thin provisioning  (SearchStorage.com)
unified storage  (SearchStorage.com)
virtual provisioning  (SearchStorage.com)
zoned-bit recording  (SearchStorage.com)

RELATED RESOURCES
2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems
Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts
Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary



Search and Browse the Expert Answer Center
Search and browse more than 25,000 question and answer pairs from more than 250 TechTarget industry experts.
Browse our Expert Advice



Search for Data Management Tools
TechTarget Storage Media
Storage Magazine View this month\\'s issue and subscribe today.
Storage Decisions Apply online for free conference admission.
SearchStorage.com
HomeNewsMagazineTopicsLearningMultimediaWhite PapersBlogsEventsAbout Us

About Us  |  Contact Us  |  For Advertisers  |  For Business Partners  |  Site Index  |  RSS
TechTarget provides technology professionals with the information they need to perform their jobs - from developing strategy, to making cost-effective purchase decisions and managing their organizations' technology projects - with its network of technology-specific websites, events and online magazines.

TechTarget Corporate Web Site  |  Media Kits  |  Site Map




All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2000 - 2009, TechTarget | Read our Privacy Policy
  TechTarget - The IT Media ROI Experts