Aix Io Tuning

IBM Systems Group
Disk IO Tuning in AIX 6.1 and 5.3

June 1, 2009
Dan Braden dbraden@us.ibm.com AIX Advanced Technical Support http://w3.ibm.com/support/americas/pseries
2009 IBM Corporation
Agenda
The importance of IO tuning The AIX IO stack Data layout Tools to characterize IO Testing IO thruput Tuning IO buffers VMM tuning Mount options Asynchronous IO tuning Queue depth tuning
Why is disk IO tuning important?

Moore's law
Processors double in price performance every 18 months Disk growth

Disk densities are doubling every 12 months Customers are doubling storage capacities every 12-18 months
Actuator and rotational speed increasing relatively slowly Network bandwidth - doubling every 6 months Approximate CPU cycle time Approximate memory access time Approximate disk access time 0.0000000005 seconds 0.000000270 seconds 0.010000000 seconds
Memory access takes 540 CPU cycles Disk access takes 20 million CPU cycles, or 37,037 memory accesses
System bottlenecks are being pushed to the disk Disk subsystems are using cache to improve IO service times
Customers now spend more on storage than on servers

Performance metrics
Disk metrics
MB/s IOPS
With a reasonable service time

Application metrics Response time Run time
System metrics
CPU, memory and IO Size for your peak workloads Size based on maximum sustainable thruputs
Bandwidth and thruput sometimes mean the same thing, sometimes not
For tuning - it's good to have a short running job that's representative of your workload
Disk performance
When do you have a disk bottleneck? Random workloads Reads average > 15 ms With write cache, writes average > 2.5 ms Sequential workloads Two sequential IO streams on one disk You need more thruput
IOPS vs IO service time - 15,000 RPM disk
IO service time (ms)
500 400 300 200 100 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300 325
IOPS
The AIX IO stack

Application
Application memory area caches data to avoid IO
Logical file system

Raw disks
Multi-path IO driver (optional) Disk Device Drivers Queues exist for both adapters and disks Adapter Device Drivers Adapter device drivers use DMA for IO Disk subsystems have read and write cache Disk subsystem (optional) Disks have memory to store commands/data Disk Read cache or memory area used for IO Write cache
IOs can be coalesced (good) or split up (bad) as they go thru the IO stack IOs adjacent in a file/LV/disk can be coalesced IOs greater than the maximum IO size supported will be split up
Raw LVs
JFS JFS2
NFS
Other
NFS caches file attributes NFS has a cached filesystem for NFS clients
VMM LVM (LVM device drivers)
JFS and JFS2 cache use extra system RAM JFS uses persistent pages for cache JFS2 uses client pages for cache
Data layout
Data layout affects IO performance more than any tunable IO parameter Good data layout avoids dealing with disk hot spots An ongoing management issue and cost Data layout must be planned in advance Changes are often painful iostat and filemon can show unbalanced IO Best practice: evenly balance IOs across all physical disks
Random IO best practice: Spread IOs evenly across all physical disks For disk subsystems Create RAID arrays of equal size and RAID level Create VGs with one LUN from every array Spread all LVs across all PVs in the VG
Random IO data layout

Disk subsystem
1 2
3
datavg
# mklv lv1 e x hdisk1 hdisk2 hdisk5 # mklv lv2 e x hdisk3 hdisk1 . hdisk4 .. Use a random order for the hdisks for each LV
4 5
RAID array LUN or logical disk PV
Data layout
Sequential IO (with no random IOs) best practice:
Create RAID arrays with data stripes a power of 2 RAID 5 arrays of 5 or 9 disks RAID 10 arrays of 2, 4, 8, or 16 disks Create VGs with one LUN per array Create LVs that are spread across all PVs in the VG using a PP or LV strip size >= a full stripe on the RAID array Do application IOs equal to, or a multiple of, a full stripe on the RAID array N disk RAID 5 arrays can handle no more than N-1 sequential IO streams before the IO becomes randomized N disk RAID 10 arrays can do N sequential read IO streams and N/2 sequential write IO streams before the IO becomes randomized
Data layout
Random and sequential mix best practice:
Use the random IO best practices If the sequential rate isnt high treat it as random Determine sequential IO rates to a LV with lvmstat (covered later)
Data layout
Best practice for VGs and LVs Use Big or Scalable VGs Both support no LVCB header on LVs (only important for raw LVs) These can lead to issues with IOs split across physical disks Big VGs require using mklv T O option to eliminate LVCB Scalable VGs have no LVCB Only Scalable VGs support mirror pools (AIX 6100-02)
For JFS2, use inline logs For JFS, one log per file system provides the best performance If using LVM mirroring, use active MWC Passive MWC creates more IOs than active MWC Use RAID in preference to LVM mirroring Reduces IOs as theres no additional writes for MWC
Use PP striping in preference to LV striping
LVM limits
Max hdisks in VG Max LVs in VG Max PPs per VG Max LPs per LV Standard VG 32 256 32,512 32,512 Big VG Scalable VG (-B) AIX 5.3 128 1024 512 4096 130,048 2,097,152 32,512 32,512
Max PPs per VG and max LPs per LV restrict your PP size Use a PP size that allows for growth of the VG Valid LV strip sizes range from 4 KB to 128 MB in powers of 2 for striped LVs The smit panels may not show all LV strip options depending on your ML
Application IO characteristics
Random IO Typically small (4-32 KB) Measure and size with IOPS Usually disk actuator limited Sequential IO Typically large (32KB and up) Measure and size with MB/s Usually limited on the interconnect to the disk actuators To determine application IO characteristics Use filemon
# filemon o /tmp/filemon.out O lv,pv T 500000; sleep 90; trcstop or at AIX 6.1 # filemon o /tmp/filemon.out O lv,pv,detailed T 500000; sleep 90; trcstop
Check for trace buffer wraparounds which may invalidate the data, run filemon with a larger T value or shorter sleep Use lvmstat to get LV IO statistics Use iostat to get PV IO statistics
filemon summary reports

Summary reports at PV and LV layers
Most Active Logical Volumes -----------------------------------------------------------------------util #rblk #wblk KB/s volume description -----------------------------------------------------------------------1.00 10551264 5600 17600.8 /dev/rms09_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata07 1.00 6226928 7584 10394.4 /dev/rms06_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata04 1.00 128544 3315168 5741.5 /dev/rms04_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oracletemp 1.00 13684704 38208 22879.4 /dev/rms02_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata01 0.99 11798800 16480 19698.9 /dev/rms03_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata02 0.99 600736 7760 1014.5 /dev/rms13_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata11 0.98 6237648 128 10399.9 /dev/oraloblv01 /RMS/bormspr0/oralob01 0.96 0 3120 5.2 /dev/hd8 jfslog 0.55 38056 104448 237.6 /dev/rms041_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oraredo 0.48 2344656 3328 3914.6 /dev/rms11_lv /RMS/bormspr0/oradata09 Most Active Physical Volumes -----------------------------------------------------------------------util #rblk #wblk KB/s volume description -----------------------------------------------------------------------1.00 3313059 4520 5531.2 /dev/hdisk66 SAN Volume Controller 1.00 7563668 22312 12647.6 /dev/hdisk59 SAN Volume Controller 1.00 53691 1868096 3204.1 /dev/hdisk61 SAN Volume Controller 1.00 11669 6478 30.3 /dev/hdisk0 N/A 1.00 6247484 4256 10423.1 /dev/hdisk77 SAN Volume Controller 1.00 6401393 10016 10689.3 /dev/hdisk60 SAN Volume Controller 1.00 5438693 3128 9072.8 /dev/hdisk69 SAN Volume Controller
Device Device Device

Device Device Device
filemon detailed reports

Detailed reports at PV and LV layers (only for one LV shown) Similar reports for each PV
VOLUME: /dev/rms09_lv reads: read sizes (blks): read times (msec): read sequences: read seq. lengths: writes: write sizes (blks): write times (msec): write sequences: write seq. lengths: seeks: seek dist (blks): description: /RMS/bormspr0/oradata07 23999 (0 errs) avg 439.7 min 16 max 2048 sdev 814.8 avg 85.609 min 0.139 max 1113.574 sdev 140.417 19478 avg 541.7 min 16 max 12288 sdev 1111.6 350 (0 errs) avg 16.0 min 16 max 16 sdev 0.0 avg 42.959 min 0.340 max 289.907 sdev 60.348 348 avg 16.1 min 16 max 32 sdev 1.2 19826 (81.4%) init 18262432, avg 24974715.3 min 16 max 157270944 sdev 44289553.4 time to next req(msec): avg 12.316 min 0.000 max 537.792 sdev 31.794 throughput: 17600.8 KB/sec utilization: 1.00
Using filemon
Look at PV summary report Look for balanced IO across the disks Lack of balance may be a data layout problem Depends upon PV to physical disk mapping LVM mirroring scheduling policy also affects balance for reads IO service times in the detailed report is more definitive on data layout issues Dissimilar IO service times across PVs indicates IOs are not balanced across physical disks
Look at most active LVs report Look for busy file system logs Look for file system logs serving more than one file system
Using filemon
Look for increased IO service times between the LV and PV layers Inadequate file system buffers Inadequate disk buffers Inadequate disk queue_depth Inadequate adapter queue depth can lead to poor PV IO service time i-node locking: decrease file sizes or use cio mount option if possible Excessive IO splitting down the stack (increase LV strip sizes) Disabled interrupts Page replacement daemon (lrud): set lru_poll_interval to 10 syncd: reduce file system cache for AIX 5.2 and earlier Tool available for this purpose: script on AIX and spreadsheet
Average LV read IO Time 17.19
Average LV write IO Time

Average PV read IO Time Average PV write IO Time Delta Between LV and PV layers for reads Delta Between LV and PV layers for writes
2.97
2.29 1.24 14.90 1.73
Using iostat
Use a meaningful interval, 30 seconds to 15 minutes
The first report is since system boot (if sys0s attribute iostat=true) Examine IO balance among hdisks
Look for bursty IO (based on syncd interval)
Useful flags: -T Puts a time stamp on the data

-a Adapter report (IOs for an adapter) -m Disk path report (IOs down each disk path)
-s System report (overall IO) -A or P For standard AIO or POSIX AIO

-D for hdisk queues and IO service times -l puts data on one line (better for scripts)
-p for tape statistics (AIX 5.3 TL7 or later) -f for file system statistics (AIX 6.1 TL1)
Using iostat
# iostat <interval> <count> For individual disk and system statistics tty: tin tout avg-cpu: % user % sys % idle % iowait 24.7 71.3 8.3 2.4 85.6 3.6 Disks: % tm_act Kbps tps Kb_read Kb_wrtn hdisk0 2.2 19.4 2.6 268 894 hdisk1 5.0 231.8 28.1 1944 11964 hdisk2 5.4 227.8 26.9 2144 11524 hdisk3 4.0 215.9 24.8 2040 10916 ... # iostat ts <interval> <count> For total system statistics System configuration: lcpu=4 drives=2 ent=1.50 paths=2 vdisks=2 tty: tin tout avg-cpu: % user % sys % idle % iowait physc % entc 0.0 8062.0 0.0 0.4 99.6 0.0 0.0 0.7 Kbps tps Kb_read Kb_wrtn 82.7 20.7 248 0 0.0 13086.5 0.0 0.4 99.5 0.0 0.0 0.7 Kbps tps Kb_read Kb_wrtn 80.7 20.2 244 0 0.0 16526.0 0.0 0.5 99.5 0.0 0.0 0.8
What is %iowait?
Percent of time the CPU is idle and waiting on an IO so it can do some more work
High %iowait does not necessarily indicate a disk bottleneck

Your application could be IO intensive, e.g. a backup You can make %iowait go to 0 by adding CPU intensive jobs
Low %iowait does not necessarily mean you don't have a disk bottleneck The CPUs can be busy while IOs are taking unreasonably long times
Conclusion: %iowait is a misleading indicator of disk performance
Using lvmstat
Provides IO statistics for LVs, VGs and PPs You must enable data collection first for an LV or VG:
# lvmstat e v <vgname> Useful to find busy LVs and PPs
root/ # lvmstat -sv rootvg 3 10 Logical Volume iocnt Kb_read hd8 212 0 hd4 11 0 hd2 3 12 hd9var 2 0 .. hd8 3 0 . hd8 12 0 hd4 1 0 # lvmstat -l lv00 1 Log_part mirror# iocnt 1 1 65536 32768 2 1 53718 26859 Log_part mirror# iocnt 2 1 5420 2710 Log_part mirror# iocnt 2 1 5419 2709 Log_part mirror# iocnt 3 1 4449 2224 2 1 979 489
Kb_wrtn 848 44 0 8 Kbps 24.00 0.23 0.01 0.01
12
48 4
8.00
32.00 2.67
Kb_read 0 0 Kb_read 0 Kb_read 0 Kb_read 0 0
Kb_wrtn 0.02 0.01 Kb_wrtn 14263.16 Kb_wrtn 15052.78 Kb_wrtn 13903.12 3059.38
Kbps
Kbps Kbps Kbps
Testing thruput
Sequential IO Test sequential read thruput from a device:
# timex dd if=<device> of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100 Test sequential write thruput to a device:
# timex dd if=/dev/zero of=<device> bs=1m count=100 Note that /dev/zero writes the null character, so writing this character to files in a file system will result in sparse files
For file systems, either create a file, or use the lptest command to generate a file, e.g., # lptest 127 32 > 4kfile Test multiple sequential IO streams use a script and monitor thruput with topas:
dd if=<device1> of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100 & dd if=<device2> of=/dev/null bs=1m count=100 &
Testing thruput
Random IO
Use ndisk which is part of the nstress package

http://www.ibm.com/collaboration/wiki/display/WikiPtype/nstress
# dd if=/dev/zero of=tempfile_10MB bs=1m count=10
# ndisk -R -f ./tempfile_10MB -r 50 -t 60 Command: ndisk -R -f ./tempfile_10MB -r 50 -t 60 Synchronous Disk test (regular read/write) No. of processes = 1 I/O type = Random Block size = 4096 Read-Write = Equal read and write Sync type: none = just close the file Number of files = 1 File size = 33554432 bytes = 32768 KB = 32 MB Run time = 60 seconds Snooze % = 0 percent ----> Running test with block Size=4096 (4KB) . Proc - <-----Disk IO----> | <-----Throughput------> RunTime Num TOTAL IO/sec | MB/sec KB/sec Seconds 1 331550 5517.4 | 21.55 22069.64 60.09
Dealing with cache effects

Prime the cache (recommended) Run the test twice and ignore the first run or
Use #cat <file> > /dev/null to prime file system and disk cache or Flush the cache
Unmount and remount file systems For disk subsystems, use #cat <unused file(s)> > /dev/null
The unused file(s) must be larger than the disk subsystem read cache It's recommended to prime the cache, as most applications will be using it and you've paid for it, so you should use it
Write cache
If we fill up the write cache, IO service times will be at disk speed, not cache speed
Use a long running job

Reads from the disk subsystem will also inhibit unloading of the write cache
AIX 6.1 Restricted Tunables

Some ioo/vmo/schedo/raso/nfso/no tuning parameters are now restricted Generally should only be changed per AIX Support
Display all the tunables using: # <ioo|vmo|schedo|raso|nfso|no> -FL

Display non-restricted tunables without the F flag smit access via # smitty tuningDev Dynamic change will show a warning message
Permanent changes require a confirmation

Permanent changes will result in a warning message at boot in the error log Some restricted tunables relating to disk IO tuning include:
Most aio tunables j2_nBufferPerPagerDevice maxpgahead minpgahead maxrandwrt numclust numfsbufs pv_min_pbuf sync_release_ilock lru_file_repage lru_poll_interval maxperm minperm strict_maxclient strict_maxperm
Tuning IO buffers
1 Run vmstat v to see counts of blocked IOs
# vmstat -v | tail -7 <-- only last 7 lines needed 0 pending disk I/Os blocked with no pbuf 0 paging space I/Os blocked with no psbuf 8755 filesystem I/Os blocked with no fsbuf 0 client filesystem I/Os blocked with no fsbuf 2365 external pager filesystem I/Os blocked with no fsbuf
2 Run your workload 3 Run vmstat -v again and look for larger numbers 4 Increase the resources For pbufs, increase pv_min_pbuf with ioo or see the next slide For psbufs, stop paging or add paging spaces For fsbufs, increase numfsbufs with ioo For external pager fsbufs, increase j2_nBufferPerPagerDevice (not available in 6.1) and/or j2_dynamicBufferPreallocation with ioo For client filesystem fsbufs, increase nfso's nfs_v3_pdts and nfs_v3_vm_bufs (or the NFS4 equivalents) 5 Unmount and remount your filesystems, and repeat
AIX 5.3 and 6.1 pbuf tuning

pbufs pinned memory buffers - keep track of IOs for hdisks System wide resource at AIX 5.2 or earlier (pv_min_pbuf) Configurable for VGs at AIX 5.3
lvmo -v VgName -o Tunable [ =NewValue ] lvmo [-v VgName] -a # lvmo -a vgname = rootvg pv_pbuf_count = 512 - Number of pbufs added when one PV is added to the VG total_vg_pbufs = 512 - Current pbufs available for the VG max_vg_pbuf_count = 16384 - max pbufs available for the VG, requiresvaryoff/varyon pervg_blocked_io_count = 1 - delayed IO count since last varyon for the VG pv_min_pbuf = 512 - Minimum number of pbufs added when PV is added to any VG global_blocked_io_count = 1 - System wide delayed IO count
To increase a VGs pbufs: # lvmo v <vgname> -o pv_pbuf_count=<new value> pv_min_pbuf is tuned via ioo and takes effect when a VG is varied on Increase value, collect statistics and change again if necessary
The AIX IO stack

Application
Logical file system

Raw disks
Multi-path IO driver (optional) Disk Device Drivers Adapter Device Drivers Disk subsystem (optional) Disk Write cache Read cache or memory area used for IO
Raw LVs
JFS JFS2
NFS
Other
File system buffers at this layer
VMM LVM (LVM device drivers)

Disk buffers, pbufs, at this layer
VMM the Virtual Memory Manager

All IO requires memory All input goes to memory, all output comes from memory File system cache consumes memory File system cache takes CPU cycles to manage Initial tuning recommendations: maxperm%=maxclient% > numclient% Start with the default of 90% minperm% < numperm% Start with the default of 3% strict_maxperm=0 Default strict_maxclient=1 Default lru_file_repage=0 Default is 1 at 5.3, 0 at 6.1 lru_poll_interval=10 Now is the default page_steal_method=1 Default at 5.3 is 0 and 6.1 is 1
Initial Setting AIX 5.3 and 6.1

minfree = max lcpus * 120 ------------# of mempools maxfree = minfree +(Max Read Ahead * lcpus) ---------------------# of mempools The delta between maxfree and minfree should be a multiple of 16 if also using 64KB pages 960,
Initial Setting AIX 5.2

minfree = max( 960, lcpus * 120) maxfree = minfree +(Max Read Ahead * lcpus)
Where,
Max Read Ahead = max( maxpgahead, j2_maxPageReadAhead)
Number of memory pools = # echo mempool \* | kdb and count them
Read ahead
Read ahead detects that we're reading sequentially and gets the data before the application requests it
Reduces %iowait Too much read ahead means you do IO that you don't need Operates at the file system layer - sequentially reading files
Set maxpgahead for JFS and j2_maxPgReadAhead for JFS2 Values of 1024 for max page read ahead are not unreasonable Disk subsystems read ahead too - when sequentially reading disks Tunable on DS4000, fixed on ESS, DS6000, DS8000 and SVC
If using LV striping, use strip sizes of 8 or 16 MB Avoids unnecessary disk subsystem read ahead Be aware of application block sizes that always cause read aheads
Write behind
Write behind tuning for sequential writes to a file Tune numclust for JFS Tune j2_nPagesPerWriteBehindCluster for JFS2
These represent 16 KB clusters Larger values allow IO to be coalesced

When the specified number of sequential 16 KB clusters are updated, start the IO to disk rather than wait for syncd
Write behind tuning for random writes to a file Tune maxrandwrt for JFS
Tune j2_maxRandomWrite and j2_nRandomCluster for JFS2 Max number of random writes allowed to accumulate to a file before additional IOs are flushed, default is 0 or off
j2_nRandomCluster specifies the number of clusters apart two consecutive writes must be in order to be considered random
If you have bursty IO, consider using write behind to smooth out the IO rate
More on write behind and syncd

syncd - system wide file system cache flushing Historical Unix feature to improve performance Applies to asynchronous IOs (not necessarily aio) inode is locked when each file is synced There is a tradeoff: Longer intervals allow more IO to be coalesced Longer intervals can: Create bursty IO Bursty IO can slow down other IO Increased IOPS reduces IO service times AIX 5.3 keeps a list of dirty pages in cache (new feature) There can be too much filesystem cache Somewhere around 24 GB for pre-AIX 5.3 sync_release_ilock=1 releases inode lock during syncs, but not recommended when creating/deleting many files in a short time
No time for atime

Ingo Molnar (Linux kernel developer) said:
"It's also perhaps the most stupid Unix design idea of all times. Unix is really nice and well done, but think about this a bit: 'For every file that is read from the disk, lets do a ... write to the disk! And, for every file that is already cached and which we read from the cache ... do a write to the disk!'"
If you have a lot of file activity, you have to update a lot of timestamps
File timestamps File creation (ctime) File last modified time (mtime) File last access time (atime) New mount option noatime disables last access time updates for JFS2 File systems with heavy inode access activity due to file opens can have significant performance improvements First customer benchmark efix reported 35% improvement with DIO noatime mount (20K+ files) Most customers should expect much less for production environments
APARs
IZ11282 IZ13085 AIX 5.3 AIX 6.1
# mount a rw,noatime /myfilesystem
Mount options
Release behind: rbr, rbw and rbrw Says to throw the data out of file system cache rbr is release behind on read rbw is release behind on write rbrw is both Applies to sequential IO only DIO: Direct IO Bypasses file system cache No file system read ahead No lrud or syncd overhead No double buffering of data Half the kernel calls to do the IO Half the memory transfers to get the data to the application Requires the application be written to use DIO CIO: Concurrent IO The same as DIO but with no i-node locking
The AIX IO stack

Application
Logical file system

Raw disks
Raw LVs
JFS JFS2
NFS
Other
i-node locking: when 2 or more threads access the same file, and one is a write, the write will block all read threads at this level
VMM LVM (LVM device drivers) Multi-path IO driver Disk Device Drivers Adapter Device Drivers Disk subsystem (optional) Disk Write cache Read cache or memory area used for IO
Mount options
Direct IO IOs must be aligned on file system block boundaries IOs that dont adhere to this will dramatically reduce performance Avoid large file enabled JFS file systems - block size is 128 KB after 4 MB
# mount -o dio # chfs -a options=rw,dio <file system>

DIO process
1 Application issues IO request to kernel 2 Kernel initiates disk IO 3 Data transferred to/from application buffer to disk
Normal file system IO process File system reads

1 Application issues read request 2 Kernel checks FS cache 1 Data found - kernel copies it to the application buffer 2 Data not found - kernel does disk IO 3 Data transferred FS cache 4 Kernel copies data to app buffer
File system writes

1 Application issues write request 2 Kernel writes data to FS cache and returns acknowledgment to app 1 Application continues 3 Syncd periodically flushes dirty cache to disk
Mount options
Concurrent IO for JFS2 only at AIX 5.2 ML1 or later # mount -o cio
# chfs -a options=rw,cio <file system> Assumes that the application ensures data integrity for multiple simultaneous IOs to a file Changes to meta-data are still serialized I-node locking: When two threads (one of which is a write) to do IO to the same file are at the file system layer of the IO stack, reads will be blocked while a write proceeds Provides raw LV performance with file system benefits
Requires an application designed to use CIO

For file system maintenance (e.g. restore a backup) one usually mounts without cio during the maintenance
Disabling file system journaling

You may lose data in the event of a system crash!
Improves performance for meta-data changes to file systems

When you frequently add, delete or change the size of files JFS
# mount o nointegrity <file system> JFS2

# mount -o log=NULL <file system>
New JFS2 Sync Tunables

AIX 5.3 ML8 and 6.1 ML1 ioo JFS2 Sync Tunables
The file system sync operation can be problematic in situations where there is very heavy random I/O activity to a large file. When a sync occurs all reads and writes from user programs to the file are blocked. With a large number of dirty pages in the file the time required to complete the writes to disk can be large. New JFS2 tunables are provided to relieve that situation. j2_syncPageCount
Limits the number of modified pages that are scheduled to be written by sync in one pass for a file. When this tunable is set, the file system will write the specified number of pages without blocking IO to the rest of the file. The sync call will iterate on the write operation until all modified pages have been written. Default: 0 (off), Range: 0-65536, Type: Dynamic, Unit: 4KB pages
j2_syncPageLimit
Overrides j2_syncPageCount when a threshold is reached. This is to guarantee that sync will eventually complete for a given file. Not applied if j2_syncPageCount is off. Default: 16, Range: 1-65536, Type: Dynamic, Unit: Numeric
If application response times impacted by syncd, try j2_syncPageCount settings from 256 to 1024. Smaller values improve short term response times, but still result in larger syncs that impact response times over larger intervals. These will likely require a lot of experimentation, and detailed analysis of IO behavior. Does not apply to mmap() memory mapped files. May not apply to shmat() files (TBD)
IO Pacing
IO pacing - causes the CPU to do something else after doing a specified amount of IO to a file Turning it off (the default) improves backup times and thruput Turning it on ensures that no process hogs CPU for IO, and ensures good keyboard response on systems with heavy IO workload
With N CPUs and N or more sequential IO streams, keyboard response can be sluggish
# chgsys -l sys0 -a minpout=256 maxpout=513 Normally used to avoid HACMP's dead man switch Old values of 33 and 24 significantly inhibit thruput but are reasonable for uniprocessors with non-cached disk AIX 5.3 introduces IO pacing per file system via the mount command mount -o minpout=256 o maxpout=513 /myfs AIX 6.1 uses minpout=4096 maxpout=8193 These values can also be used for earlier releases of AIX
Tuning asynchronous IO servers

Turn on AIO if your application uses it Applies to IO to raw LVs and filesystems Otherwise IOs will be synchronous and slow down the application Set minservers and maxservers via smitty aio minservers is how many AIO kernel processes will be started at boot Don't make this too high, it only saves time to startup the processes maxservers is the maximum number of AIOs that can be processed at any one time maxreqs is the maximum number of AIO requests that can be handled at one time and is a total for the system. Run # pstat -a | grep aios | wc -l to see how many have been started represents the max simultaneous AIOs since boot Adjust maxservers until maxservers is greater than the number started This is not applicable to AIO thru raw LVs if the fastpath attribute is enabled IOs in this case are handed off to the interrupt handler AIX 5.2 or later, min/maxservers value is per CPU, for 5.1 is it system wide Typical values for AIX 5.3
minservers maxservers maxreqs
Default 1 10 4096
OLTP 200 800 16384
SAP 400 1200 16384
Asynchronous IO tuning
New -A iostat option monitors AIO (or -P for POSIX AIO) at AIX 5.3 and 6.1
#
iostat -A 1 1 System configuration: lcpu=4 drives=1 ent=0.50 aio: avgc avfc maxg maxf maxr avg-cpu: %user %sys %idle %iow physc %entc 25 6 29 10 4096 30.7 36.3 15.1 17.9 0.0 81.9
Disks: % tm_act Kbps tps Kb_read Kb_wrtn hdisk0 100.0 61572.0 484.0 8192 53380
avgc - Average global non-fastpath AIO request count per second for the specified interval avfc - Average AIO fastpath request count per second for the specified interval for IOs to raw LVs (doesnt include CIO fast path IOs) maxg - Maximum non-fastpath AIO request count since the last time this value was fetched maxf - Maximum fastpath request count since the last time this value was fetched maxr - Maximum AIO requests allowed - the AIO device maxreqs attribute If maxg gets close to maxr or maxservers then increase maxreqs or maxservers
AIX 5.3 TL5 AIO fast path for CIO

How to turn it on aioo command option aioo o fsfastpath=1 Not a persistent setting Must be enabled after each reboot Cant be run until aio is loaded Disabled by default Reduces context switching and initiates IO faster Application must support CIO
AIX 6.1 AIO tuning

All aio smit panels have been removed No longer store AIO tuning parameters in the ODM The aio kernel extensions are loaded at system boot No aio servers are started automatically at boot They are started when AIO requests are made AIO servers go away with no activity per aio_server_inactivity and posix_aio_server_inactivity vmo parameters (default of 300 seconds) The maximum number of AIO servers is limited per the aio_maxreqs and posix_aio_maxreqs vmo parameters (default of 65536) Only maxservers and the aio_maxreqs or posix_aio_maxreqs to tune
Queue depth tuning

IO flow Multipath IO code submits IO to hdisk driver SDD queues IOs and wont submit more than queue_depth IOs to a hdisk Disable this with # datapath qdepth disable for heavy IO SDDPCM does not queue IOs Hdisk driver has in process and wait queues in process queue contains up to queue_depth IOs Hdisk driver submits IOs to adapter driver Adapter driver has in process and wait queues FC adapter in process queue contains up to num_cmd_elems IOs Adapter driver uses DMA to do IOs Adapter driver submits IOs to disk subsystem List device attributes with # lsattr -EHl <device> Attributes with a value of True for user_settable field can be changed Sometimes you can change these via smit Allowable values can be determined via: # lsattr -Rl <device> -a <attribute> Change attributes with a reboot and: # chdev l <device> -a attribute=<newvalue> -P
Queue depth tuning

Dont increase queue depths beyond what the disk can handle! IOs will be lost and will have to be retried, which reduced performance FC adapters max_xfer_size attribute controls a DMA memory area for data IO At the default of 0x100000, the DMA area is 16 MB At other allowable values (e.g. 0x200000) the DMA area is 128 MB We often need to change this for heavy IO lg_term_dma attribute controls a DMA memory area for control IO The default is usually adequate How to determine if queues are being filled With SDD: # datapath query devstats and # datapath query adaptstats With SDDPCM: # pcmpath query devstats # pcmpath query adaptstats With iostat: # iostat D for data since system boot and # iostat D <interval> <count> for interval data With sar: # sar d <interval> <count>
Adapter queue depth tuning

Queue depth is the num_cmd_elems parameter of fcs device With SDDPCM use # pcmpath query adaptstats With SDD use # datapath query adaptstats Use the fcstat command to see counts of IOs delayed since system boot:
# pcmpath query adaptstats Adapter #: 0 ============= Total Read Total Write Active Read Active Write Maximum I/O: 1105909 78 3 0 200 SECTOR: 8845752 0 24 0 88 # fcstat fcs0 FC SCSI Adapter Driver Information No DMA Resource Count: 4490 <No Adapter Elements Count: 105688 <No Command Resource Count: 133 < FC SCSI Traffic Statistics Input Requests: 16289 Output Requests: 48930 Control Requests: 11791 Input Bytes: 128349517 <- Useful Output Bytes: 209883136 <- Useful
Increase max_xfer_size Increase num_cmd_elems Increase num_cmd_elems
for measuring thruput for measuring thruput

SAN attached FC adapters

Set fscsi dynamic tracking to yes Allows dynamic SAN changes Set FC fabric event error recovery fast_fail to yes if the switches support it Switch fails IOs immediately without timeout if a path goes away Switches without support result in errors in the error log
# lsattr -El attach dyntrk fc_err_recov scsi_id sw_fc_class fscsi0 switch no delayed_fail 0x1c0d00 3
How this adapter is CONNECTED False Dynamic Tracking of FC Devices True FC Fabric Event Error RECOVERY Policy True Adapter SCSI ID False FC Class for Fabric True
# chdev l fscsi0 a dyntrk=yes a fc_err_recov=fast_fail P # shutdown Fr
AIX 5.3 iostat options

Options to summarize IO queueing
# iostat -D 5 System configuration: lcpu=4 drives=2 paths=2 vdisks=0 hdisk0 xfer: %tm_act bps tps bread bwrtn 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 read: rps avgserv minserv maxserv timeouts 0.2 8.3 0.4 19.5 0 write: wps avgserv minserv maxserv timeouts 0.1 1.1 0.4 2.5 0 queue: avgtime mintime maxtime avgwqsz avgsqsz 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.0
fails 0 fails 0 sqfull 1020
sqfull = number of times the hdisk drivers service queue was full At AIX 6.1 this is changed to a rate, number of IOPS submitted to a full queue
avgserv = average IO service time

avgsqsz = average service queue size
This can't exceed queue_depth for the disk

Waiting to be sent to the disk
avgwqsz = average wait queue size

If avgwqsz is often > 0, then increase queue_depth

If sqfull in the first report is high, then increase queue_depth
AIX 5.3 new sar output

sar -d formerly reported zeros for avwait and avserv avque definition changes in AIX 5.3 # sar -d 1 2 AIX sq1test1 3 5 00CDDEDC4C00 06/22/04 System configuration: lcpu=2 drives=1 ent=0.30
10:01:37 10:01:38 10:01:39 Average
device %busy avque r+w/s Kbs/s avwait avserv hdisk0 100 36.1 363 46153 51.1 8.3 hdisk0 99 38.1 350 44105 58.0 8.5 hdisk0 99 37.1 356 45129 54.6 8.4
avque - average IOs in the wait queue
Waiting to get sent to the disk (the disk's queue is full)

Values > 0 indicate increasing queue_depth may help performance Used to mean number of IOs in the disk queue
avgwait - time (ms) waiting in wait queue

avgserv - IO service time (ms) when sent to the disk
VIO
The VIO Server (VIOS) uses multi-path IO code for the attached disk subsystems The VIO client (VIOC) always uses SCSI MPIO if accessing storage thru two VIOSs In this case only entire LUNs are served to the VIOC At AIX 5.3 TL5 and VIO 1.3, hdisk queue depths are user settable attributes (up to 256) Prior to these levels VIOC hdisk queue_depth=3 Set the queue_depth at the VIOC to that at the VIOS for the LUN Set MPIO hdisks hcheck_interval attribute to some nonzero value, e.g. 60 when using multiple paths for at least one hdisk

Aix Io Tuning

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Aix Io Tuning

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Disk IO Tuning in AIX 6.1 and 5.3

2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

Why is disk IO tuning important?

Processors double in price performance every 18 months Disk growth

Customers now spend more on storage than on servers

With a reasonable service time

The AIX IO stack

Logical file system

VMM LVM (LVM device drivers)

Random IO data layout

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2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

filemon summary reports

Device Device Device

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filemon detailed reports

2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

Average LV write IO Time

Useful flags: -T Puts a time stamp on the data

-s System report (overall IO) -A or P For standard AIO or POSIX AIO

2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

High %iowait does not necessarily indicate a disk bottleneck

2009 IBM Corporation

Kb_read 0 0 Kb_read 0 Kb_read 0 Kb_read 0 0

Kbps Kbps Kbps

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2009 IBM Corporation

Use ndisk which is part of the nstress package

# dd if=/dev/zero of=tempfile_10MB bs=1m count=10

Dealing with cache effects

Use a long running job

2009 IBM Corporation

AIX 6.1 Restricted Tunables

Display all the tunables using: # <ioo|vmo|schedo|raso|nfso|no> -FL

Permanent changes require a confirmation

2009 IBM Corporation

AIX 5.3 and 6.1 pbuf tuning

2009 IBM Corporation

The AIX IO stack

Logical file system

File system buffers at this layer

VMM LVM (LVM device drivers)

2009 IBM Corporation

VMM the Virtual Memory Manager

Initial Setting AIX 5.3 and 6.1

Initial Setting AIX 5.2

2009 IBM Corporation

These represent 16 KB clusters Larger values allow IO to be coalesced

More on write behind and syncd

No time for atime

# mount a rw,noatime /myfilesystem

2009 IBM Corporation

The AIX IO stack

Logical file system

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# mount -o dio # chfs -a options=rw,dio <file system>

Normal file system IO process File system reads

File system writes

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Requires an application designed to use CIO

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Disabling file system journaling

Improves performance for meta-data changes to file systems

# mount o nointegrity <file system> JFS2

2009 IBM Corporation

New JFS2 Sync Tunables

2009 IBM Corporation

2009 IBM Corporation

Tuning asynchronous IO servers

minservers maxservers maxreqs