Forum Discussion

laroberts's avatar
laroberts
Novice I
9 months ago
Solved

SQL within VMware

If we are setting up SQL within vmware using NVME vvols and NVME controllers on the VM, is there a reason to have your data/log/tempdb volumes on separate virtual NVME storage controllers (for reference: https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2021-09-27-sqlserver-vms-best-practices/#vm-configuration)? Or do those benefits not really translate over when doing NVME storage protocols?

VMWARE
  • laroberts's avatar
    laroberts
    8 months ago
    So, small update: I realized that my NVME vvol was not NVME at all. I'm on Purity v6.5.8 but NVME vvols aren't supported until v6.6.2 (I was confused because the storage endpoint is upgraded to VASA 5 but I guess it still doesnt support the NVME vvol logic until I get onto purity v6.6.2 and it auto added the NVME vvol I created to SCSI instead without me realizing). https://support.purestorage.com/bundle/m_release_notes_for_vmware_solutions/page/Solutions/VMware_Platform_Guide/Release_Notes_for_VMware_Solutions/topics/reference/r_flasharray_vasa_provider_version_by_purity_release.html|https://support.purestorage.com/bundle/m_release_notes_for_vmware_solutions/page/Solutio[…]r_flasharray_vasa_provider_version_by_purity_release.html But I still have the interesting performance difference of using PVSCSI controllers vs the vmware NVME controller (even though they are going over the same SCSI-FC vvol)
  • anocentino's avatar
    anocentino
    Novice I
    9 months ago
    Can you run the test with the same thread/vcpu config to see if you get the SCSI one closer to the NVMe one? If you extrapolate out 22488394 IOP/s from 8 CPUs to 16...its about 44976788 IOPs
  • laroberts's avatar
    laroberts
    Novice I
    9 months ago
    So I'm still looking at this but I've found some weirdness; if I run with 14 threads then I get the weird CPU burn and 150k IOPS, but if I _lower_ it to 8 threads then I get the above with about 190k IOPS. Something isn't right somewhere, but I'll have to dig more at a later time (not sure if this is a vmware PVSCSI driver / windows / or diskspd issue?)
  • laroberts's avatar
    laroberts
    Novice I
    8 months ago
    So, small update: I realized that my NVME vvol was not NVME at all. I'm on Purity v6.5.8 but NVME vvols aren't supported until v6.6.2 (I was confused because the storage endpoint is upgraded to VASA 5 but I guess it still doesnt support the NVME vvol logic until I get onto purity v6.6.2 and it auto added the NVME vvol I created to SCSI instead without me realizing). https://support.purestorage.com/bundle/m_release_notes_for_vmware_solutions/page/Solutions/VMware_Platform_Guide/Release_Notes_for_VMware_Solutions/topics/reference/r_flasharray_vasa_provider_version_by_purity_release.html|https://support.purestorage.com/bundle/m_release_notes_for_vmware_solutions/page/Solutio[…]r_flasharray_vasa_provider_version_by_purity_release.html But I still have the interesting performance difference of using PVSCSI controllers vs the vmware NVME controller (even though they are going over the same SCSI-FC vvol)