EMC ECS VDC Disk Workload Test

Apart from reading and writing user data, EMC ECS also performs a set of operations on the disks to support data protection through Erasure encoding, data consistency checks, XOR encoding for enhanced protection of data, geo-replication, etc. All of these read and write operations add to the load on the disk. Given so much activity, it is important for administrators that disk workload is monitored and managed actively to avoid any damage to disk and loss of data.

The purpose of this test is to collect metrics around the performance of various kinds of read and write operations. The insights gained from these metrics can help in identifying an ongoing issue with ECS deployment or maybe pointing to potential disk failure, in any case, the information is vital for administrators.

Target of the test : A Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage System

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each Virtual Data Centre (VDC) in EMC Elastic Cloud Storage

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed .
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured. Since the storage device is managed using the IP address of its storage controller, the same will be displayed as host.
Port	The port number at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL.
ECS REST API Port	This is the port at which REST API connectivity is provided. By default, port 4443 is used.
Username and Password	To collect performance metrics from the target storage device, the eG agent should be configured with the credentials of a user who is vested with "read-only" privileges to access REST API of the target storage device. Specify the credentials of such a user in the Username and Password text boxes.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
Timeout Seconds	Specify the time duration for which this test should wait for a response from the storage system in the Timeout text box. By default, this is 60 seconds.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit
Erasure encoding reads	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed in system erasure encoding reads.	MB/Sec
Consistency checker reads	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed in system consistency checker reads.	MB/Sec
XOR reads	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is used in the system's XOR data protection operations for reads data. Note that XOR operations occur for systems with three or more sites (VDCs).	MB/Sec
User Reads	Indicates the rate at which user reads are getting performed on the disk.	MB/Sec
Geo reads	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed to support geo reads.	MB/Sec
Hardware recovery reads	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed to recover the data after hardware failure for reads data.	MB/Sec
Total reads	Indicates the over rate at which overall disk operations are performed including all kinds of reads operations	MB/Sec
Erasure encoding writes	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed in system erasure encoding coding write operations.	MB/Sec
Consistency checker writes	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed to check the inconsistencies between protected data and its replicas.	MB/Sec
XOR writes	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is used in the system's XOR data protection operations for writes data. Note that XOR operations occur for systems with three or more sites (VDCs).	MB/Sec
User writes	Indicates the rate at which user writes are getting performed on the disk.	MB/Sec
Geo writes	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed to support geo write operations.	MB/Sec
Hardware recovery writes	Indicates the rate at which disk bandwidth is consumed to recover the data after hardware failure for writes data.	MB/Sec
Total writes	Indicates the over rate at which overall disk operations are performed including all kinds of write operations.	MB/Sec