Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Reference Architecture with VMware and Tintri WHITE PAPER Authors:VLSS:DeanBoltonTintri:ChristopherSlater,RobGirardVMware:DonSullivan,MohanPotheri

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Table of ContentsExecutiveSummary.................................................................................................................................................5WhatisDatabase-as-a-Service(DBaaS)?.......................................................................................................6DBaaSSolutionArchitecture...............................................................................................................................7vSphereServers...................................................................................................................................................7Network...................................................................................................................................................................7Storage.....................................................................................................................................................................7

TintriVMstoreStorage..........................................................................................................................................8DBaaSvSphereCluster..........................................................................................................................................9vRealizeAutomationComponents.................................................................................................................10ServiceCatalog...................................................................................................................................................10AdvancedServiceDesigner...........................................................................................................................10Infrastructure-as-a-Service...........................................................................................................................10vSphereESXiandVMwarevCenterServerVMwarevSphere.......................................................11vRealizeOrchestrator......................................................................................................................................11vRealizeAutomationInstallationComponents....................................................................................11

DeployingvRealizeAutomationfortheDBaaSReferenceArchitecture........................................12vRAAppliance.....................................................................................................................................................12IAASComponents..............................................................................................................................................12vRAEnvironmentConfiguration................................................................................................................12DBaaSBlueprints...............................................................................................................................................13ServiceCatalog...................................................................................................................................................14

DatabaseTemplates..............................................................................................................................................15SQLServer2012VMTemplate...................................................................................................................15Oracle12cVMTemplate................................................................................................................................16

UsingtheDatabase-as-a-Service(DBaaS)...................................................................................................17DBaaSPerformanceTestingScenarios.........................................................................................................18SummarizedResults:............................................................................................................................................18BestPracticesRevealedfromPerformanceTesting...............................................................................19Day2Activities........................................................................................................................................................21Day-2Activity:Reconfigureanexistingvirtualmachine.................................................................21Day-2Activity:ResetVMstoaBaselineSnapshot..............................................................................21Day-2Activity:ReplicateDatabaseVMs.................................................................................................21Day-2Activity:RefreshTestandDevelopmentDatabaseFiles....................................................22

Conclusion:................................................................................................................................................................24AppendixA-HardwareandSoftwareDetails...........................................................................................25ServerHardwareandConfiguration.........................................................................................................25VMware..................................................................................................................................................................25TintriVMstore....................................................................................................................................................25Tintri®VMstore™Features..........................................................................................................................26

AppendixB:DBaaSProvisioningTestsandResults...............................................................................27Test1:BaselineTest–Provision50VMswithVAAIDisabled......................................................27Test2:Provision50OracleVMs.................................................................................................................28Test3:Provision50SQLServerVMs.......................................................................................................30

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Test4:GenerateaHighIOPSWorkloadandProvision50DatabaseVMs...............................32AppendixC-References.....................................................................................................................................34

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Table of FiguresFigure1:DBaaSDeploymentArchitecture...................................................................................................7Figure2:VMwareClusterforDBaaS...............................................................................................................9Figure3:DetailsforanIndividualServerintheVMwareClusterforDBaaS................................9Figure4:vRALogicalArchitecture.................................................................................................................10Figure5:EditBlueprint.......................................................................................................................................13Figure6:vRAServiceCatalog...........................................................................................................................14Figure7:SQLServerTemplateDetails.........................................................................................................15Figure8:OracleTemplateDetails...................................................................................................................16Figure9:DBaaSprocess......................................................................................................................................17Figure10:TintriSyncVMScreen.....................................................................................................................23Figure11:SyncVMrefreshingmultipleVMsfromasinglemasterVM.........................................23Figure12:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithOracle.......................................................................................29Figure13:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithSQLServer.............................................................................31Figure14:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithhighlatency...........................................................................33

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ExecutiveSummaryDatabase-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is a real-world example of cloud computing that deliversdatabasesanddatabaseapplications throughself-serviceportalswithout IT intervention.One thing that needs to be emphasized here is that the DBaaS in this paper refers toprovisioningindividualdatabaseserversforeverydatabase,comparedtohavingmultipleinstanceswithin a database. Providingmultiple copies of relational database servers fortestinganddevelopment is traditionallya complexoperation that involves thecombinedefforts of multiple teams and the creation of custom scripts. Yet the ability to quicklyprovisioninstancesofOracleandSQLServerdatabasescanreducethetimetocreate,test,deliver,anddeploynewapplications.BasingaDBaaSreferencearchitectureonVMwarevRealizeAutomationgivesusarobustarchitectureforrunningaDBaaSsolution.vRealizeAutomationacceleratesthedeploymentandmanagementofapplicationsandcomputeservices,therebyimprovingbusinessagilityandoperationalefficiency.VMwarevRealizeAutomationprovidesthefollowingITservicesonvSphere:

• Asecureportalwhereauthorizedadministrators,developersorbusinessuserscanrequestnewITserviceswhileensuringcompliancewithbusinesspolicies

• On-demand creation of multiple Oracle and SQL Server databases, with server,network,andstorageresources.

• Completemanagementofthelifecycleofprovisioneddatabases.• Provisioning,monitoring,andmanagementoftheVMsbytheenduser,withoutIT

administratorinvolvement• The ability to incorporate day 2 activities, such as backup, reconfigure, data

replication,anddecommissioningWesetouttodocumenttheviabilityofaDBaaSsolutionbasedonvRealizeAutomationanddecided that theoverallperformanceand responsiveness is ausefulmetricbywhichwecan measure our success. Thus we created a DBaaS solution that provisions Oracledatabase and SQL Server VMs. We chose the Tintri VMstore T800 hybrid-flash seriesstoragetohosttheseworkloadsduetotheirVM-awarestoragearchitecturethatprovidesVM-level isolation.We ran tests against the entire system to document the provisioningperformance.We also ran increasingly large workloads against the system to see if theperformanceandresponsivenesschangesastheworkloadincreases.TherestofthisdocumentdescribesthereferencearchitectureandthetestsweperformedtovalidatetheperformanceandusabilityofthisDBaaSreferencearchitecture.

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WhatisDatabase-as-a-Service(DBaaS)?Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) describes a cloud-based, self-servicemodel for deployingdatabasesanddatabaseapplicationstoenduserswithoutrequiringtheeffortsofITstaff,aDBA,oranApplicationteamtodeployormanagethedatabaseinstances.Physical deployments of test and development environments for database applicationstypically involve the consumptionof largenumbersof servers, largeamountsof storage,andorphaned resources. Simplifying thedeploymentand life cyclemanagementof thesedatabasescanprovidesubstantialsavingsintimeandhardwareexpensestotheteamsinchargeofthecareandfeedingofthesedatabases.With VMware vRealize Automation, we are provided with tools that simplify thedeploymentof largenumbersofdatabaseserversasVMs.Because theyareVMs,wecanusevRealizeAutomationtostandardizethedatabasedeploymentsandprovidepre-testedandpre-configured“Day2”taskstohundredsofserversquickly.Wecanalsomonitortheuseoftheseserversandreturnorphanedresourcestoasharedpool.With vRealize Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), you can rapidly model and provisionservers and desktops across virtual and physical, private and public, or hybrid cloudinfrastructures. Modeling is accomplished by creating a machine blueprint, which is aspecification foravirtual,cloud,orphysicalmachine.Blueprintsarepublishedascatalogitems in the common service catalog.When a user requests amachine based on one oftheseblueprints,IaaSprovisionsthemachine.SomeofthebenefitsofdeployingDBaaS

• On-demand,self-servicedatabaseprovisioning.End-userscancreateor teardowndatabaseservicesbasedontheirneeds.

• Provides for outsourcing the administration and monitoring of databases andoperational activities such as backup, recovery, tuning, optimization, and patchmanagement. Administration taskscanbeautomated—scheduledorproactivelyinitiatedtosupportvariousdatabaseactivities.

• Abilitytomeasuredatabaseusageandchargebackusers.• ITstaffdonothavetomanagethedatabaseenvironment.Alltasksareoffloadedto

theDBaaSprovider.• Speedsupapplicationdevelopmentandtestingthroughfasterprovisioningofnew

databasesandautomationoftheadministrationprocess.• AmovefromCAPEXtoOPEXforthedatabaseservice.Capacitycanbeobtainedas

andwhenneededwithouthavingtoprocurecapacityinadvance.

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DBaaSSolutionArchitecturevRealize Automation has many components, which work in concert with each other tosupporttheprovisioningandmanagementofindividualVMs.ThehardwareinfrastructurethatsupportsvRealizeAutomationcomponentsandprovisioneddatabasesmustberobustand capable of providing high performance to the entire environment. End users mustexperience fast provisioning times, a responsive system, and great performance for theprovisioneddatabaseservers.

Figure1:DBaaSDeploymentArchitecture

vSphereServersEnsure that you employ a cluster of vSphere serverswith enough compute resources tosupportthenumberandconfigurationofVMsthatyouplantosupport.

NetworkESXihostsshouldbeconnectedbyredundant10GbEnetworking.

StorageLow latency, high performance storage provides the storage foundation for this DBaaSreferencearchitecture.TheTintriVMstoreT880wasspecificallychosenforthisreferencearchitecture as it provides low-latency, high performance storage, with per-VMperformanceisolation,andspacesavingcompressionandde-duplicationtechnology.As we plan to run this system in productionwhile we provision hundreds of VMs, it isimportanttouseastoragearraythathasthefollowingcapabilities:

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• Hybrid-FlashorAll-Flashstoragetechnologyforperformance• VM-levelperformanceisolation• Efficientspacesavingfeaturessuchasin-linecompressionandde-duplication.• VAAIenabledtooffloadcloningtothestoragearray.

TintriVMstoreStorageTheTintriVMstoreT880Hybrid-FlashArraywasusedtoprovidethestorage foundationfor this reference architecture. This flash-based system provides low-latency and highperformancestoragefortheDBaaSdeployment.TintriisthefirstVM-awarestoragearraythathasbeenengineeredspecificallytosupporttheuniqueperformancedemandsthat isrequiredbyVMwareVirtualMachines.AshundredsofVMsareloadedontoatraditionalflash-basedstoragearray,itistypicalforthose VMs to suffer from uneven performance and be affected by “noisy neighbor”problems.NoisyNeighborsarethoseVMsthatdemandlargeamountofI/Ofromthearrayand thus starve other VMs from access to I/O. Tintri recognized that solving the I/Ochallenge was key to providing a storage array that could support thousands of VMsconcurrently.Thus the Tintri VMstorewas designed from the ground up to provide low-latency, highthroughputperformancetoeachandeveryVM,nomattertheirIOprofile.Tintridoesthisby providing each VM with its own IO lane and monitors those IO lanes by automatedQuality of Service that provides predictable performance to every VM. This technologyprovidesbothhighperformanceandeliminatesthenoisyneighborproblem.Aswewillseein this paper, solving the noisy neighbor problem is very important to successfullydeployingahighperformanceDBaaSreferencearchitecture.The Tintri VMstore T880 provides full Integration with VMware Management Tools viavStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). This integration allows us to leverage theVMstore offload technology for rapid deployment of Oracle and SQL Server VMs on theVMstore.LeveragingtheVAAItechnologyhelpssignificantlyreducesthetotalprovisioningtimeforthevRAworkflow.InadditiontospaceefficientsnapshotsviaSnapVM,andspaceefficientclonesviaCloneVM,Tintriemployspowerfulcompressionandde-duplicationtechnologiestoensure itmakesthemostefficientuseofphysicalstorageresourcesonthesystem.In addition to the Tintri VMstore T800 hybrid-flash series storage, Tintri also offers theVMstoreT5000all-flashseriesformoredemandingenvironments.CertainDBaaSusecasesmay require the consistent flash performance and sub millisecond latency of all flash,especiallywheremorethan5-10TBofactivelyaccesseddatabasedataisrequired.

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DBaaSvSphereClusterSevenESXiservershostalltheVMsrequiredfordeployingandmanagingtheDBaaS.TheVMwarevCenter cluster consistsof sevenSupermicro servers runningvSphere6.0.Eachserverfeatures16cores,96GBRAM,anddual10GbEnetworking.

Figure2:VMwareClusterforDBaaS

Figure3:DetailsforanIndividualServerintheVMwareClusterforDBaaS

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vRealizeAutomationComponentsITorganizationsuseVMwarevRealizeAutomation(vRA)todeliverservicestotheirlinesofbusiness. Using vRealize Automation we can provide a powerful and stable basis fordeliveringDatabase-as-a-Service(DBaaS)toadministrators,developersandend-users.vRealizeAutomationprovidesasecureportalwhereauthorizedadministrators,developersorbusinessuserscanrequestnewITservicesandmanagespecificcloudandITresources,while ensuring compliance with business policies. Requests for IT service, includinginfrastructure,applications,desktops,andmanyothers,areprocessedthroughacommonservicecatalogtoprovideaconsistentuserexperience.

ServiceCatalogTheservicecatalogprovidesaunifiedself-serviceportalforconsumingITservices.Userscanbrowsethecatalogtorequestitemstheyneed,tracktheirrequests,andmanagetheirprovisioneditems.

Figure4:vRALogicalArchitecture

AdvancedServiceDesignerWith theAdvancedServiceDesigner, servicearchitectscancreateadvancedservicesandpublish them as catalog items. With advanced services, you can provide anything as aserviceusingthecapabilitiesofVMwarevRealizeAutomation.Thisallowsforthecreationof various “day 2” activities. For example, you can create a service that allows a user torequestabackupofadatabase.Aftercompletingandsubmittingabackuprequest,theuserreceivesabackupfileofthedatabasetheyspecified.

Infrastructure-as-a-ServiceWith Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS),youcanrapidlymodelandprovisionserversanddesktopsacrossvirtualandphysical,privateandpublic,orhybridcloudinfrastructures.

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Modeling is accomplishedby creating amachine blueprint,which is a specification for avirtual, cloud, or physical machine. Blueprints are published as catalog items in thecommonservicecatalog.Whenauserrequestsamachinebasedononeoftheseblueprints,IaaSprovisionsthemachine.WithIaaS,youcanmanagethemachine lifecycle fromauserrequestandadministrativeapproval through decommissioning and resource reclamation. Built-in configuration andextensibility features also make IaaS a highly flexible means of customizing machineconfigurations and integrating machine provisioning and management with otherenterprise-critical systems such as load balancers, configurationmanagement databases(CMDBs), ticketing systems, IP address management systems, or Domain Name System(DNS)servers.

vSphereESXiandVMwarevCenterServerVMwarevSphereESXiisavirtualizationplatformforbuildingcloudinfrastructures.vSphereenablesyoutoconfidently runyourbusiness-critical applications tomeet yourmostdemanding servicelevelagreements(SLAs)atthelowesttotalcostofownership(TCO).vSpherecombinesthisvirtualization platform with the award-winning management capabilities of VMwarevCenterServer.Thissolutiongivesyouoperationalinsightintothevirtualenvironmentforimprovedavailability,performance,andcapacityutilization.

vRealizeOrchestratorvRealizeOrchestratorisadevelopment-andprocess-automationplatformthatprovidesalibraryofworkflows.Youcanuse thevRealizeOrchestratorworkflowstocreateandrunautomated,configurableprocessestomanagetheVMwarevSphere infrastructureaswellasotherVMwareandthird-partytechnologies.Bydefault,vRealizeOrchestratorexposeseveryoperation in theVMwarevCenterServerAPI,andyoucanintegratealloftheseoperationsintoyourautomatedprocesses.ByusingvRealizeOrchestrator,youcanalso integratewithothermanagementandadministrationsolutionsthroughitsopenplug-inarchitecture.

vRealizeAutomationInstallationComponentsAvRealizeAutomationinstallationincludesinstallingandconfiguringsinglesign-on(SSO)capabilities,theuserinterfaceportal,andInfrastructure-as-a-Service(IaaS)components.You can use the Identity Appliance SSO provided with vRealize Automation or someversionsoftheSSOprovidedwithvSphere.Forinformationaboutsupportedversions,seevRealizeAutomationSupportMatrixontheVMwareWebsite.

• VMware Identity Appliance - Identity Appliance is a preconfigured virtualappliance that provides single sign-on (SSO) capabilities for the vRealizeAutomationenvironment.

• VMware vRealize Appliance - The vRealize Appliance is a preconfigured virtualappliance that deploys the vRealize Automation server. vRealize Automation isdelivered as an open virtualization format (OVF) template. The systemadministratordeploysthevirtualappliancetoanexistingvirtualizedinfrastructure.

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• vRealize Automation Infrastructure-as-a-Service – Infrastructure-as-a-Service(IaaS)enablestherapidmodelingandprovisioningofserversanddesktopsacrossvirtualandphysical,privateandpublic,orhybridcloudinfrastructures.

DeployingvRealizeAutomationfortheDBaaSReferenceArchitectureThis section describes how vRealize Automation was deployed for the DBaaS referencearchitecture.

vRAApplianceAvRealizeAutomation6.2.1environmentwasconfiguredagainstthevCenterenvironmentusing standard installation procedures (https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcac-pubs.html).vRAAppliancewasdeployed fromanOVAforaquickandeasy install. AftertheOVAwasdeployed,thehost,SSLcertificates,SSOandLicensingwereconfigured.

IAASComponentsThe next step was to setup the IAAS components. As this was a proof of conceptenvironment,wecreatedasingleWindows2012ServervirtualmachineandinstalledalloftheIAAScomponentsonthatserverusingthe“Complete”installprocess.

vRAEnvironmentConfigurationAfterthetwoserversweredeployedandconfigured,afewadditionalstepswererequiredtogettheenvironmentupandrunning.AsourenvironmentwasconfiguredforaPOCandnot production, we were not concerned with role separation. As such, everything wasconfiguredbythelocalAdministrator;however,separaterolescanandshouldbeusedinaproductionversion.

1. Anendpoint is required.AnewVirtual ->vCenterendpointwascreatedand thentherequisitecredentialswereprovided.

2. AfabricgroupwascreatedbyspecifyingcomputeresourcesimportedfromvCenterthatareavailable forDBaaS. Inourscenario,weseparatedthehostsavailable forDBaaS,whichcanbeveryimportantfromalicensingperspective.

3. A reservation policy and a storage reservation policy were created. A networkprofile with a minimum of one IP address was specified. A machine prefix wasspecifiedtoidentifyandgrouptheDBaaSprovisionedVMs. Abusinessgroupwascreatedalongwitha reservation to limit theamountof resourcesavailable to theDBaaSprovisioning.

4. Important Note: vRA considers everything as thick provisioned from a storageperspective. In our environment,we provisioned over 50TB of storage at a timewithin 100 VMs, which was larger than the total capacity of the Tintri array.However,sincewewereemployingtheVAAIplug-in,thearrayintelligentlyusedde-duplicationduringcloningtodeploynewcopiesoftheOracleandSQLServerVMs.EachnewVMconsumedlittleadditionalstoragecomprisingonlytheuniqueblocksassociated with it. Therefore, it is sometimes required to overprovision the totalstorageavailablewithinvRA.

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DBaaSBlueprintsDBaaS Service Catalog items are created and published using the blueprint feature ofvRealize Automation. The tools to create new blueprints are available from the vRAInfrastructure tab. Byusing theEditBlueprint screen you can select theBlueprintType,Action, Workflow and the VM Template. The Blueprint screen also provides tools formodifyingtheVMbychangingtheCPU,MemoryandStorage.TheDBaaSBlueprintsusetheCloneaction.TheuseoftheCloneaction,combinedwiththeTintri VAAI plug-in, allows vCenter to offload the VM copy commands to the array. TheTintriactuallyusescloningtechnologytorapidprovisioningVMsirrespectiveoftheirsize.With this clone technology fifty VMs with 50 GB disk space can be provisioned just asquicklyasfiftyVMswith1TBdiskspace.

Figure5:EditBlueprint

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ServiceCatalogAfter the blueprint is created, it is published, which is followed by service creation. AnentitlementtolinktheservicestothecatalogitemsallowsendusersaccesstotheitemintheServiceCatalog.On successful completionof the configuration, anenduser can loginand see theServiceCatalogscreen:

Figure6:vRAServiceCatalog

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DatabaseTemplates

SQLServer2012VMTemplateThetemplateusedfortheSQLServerdeploymentworkflowsmodelsthedatabaseserversused by end-users for development, test andQA. The SQL ServerVMswere provisionedwithasinglevCPU,512MBRAM,a60GBvDiskfortheOSandan800GBvDiskfordata(MDF)andlog(LDF)files.VMSummary:1vCPU,512MBvRAMand1.04TBstorage

Figure7:SQLServerTemplateDetails

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Oracle12cVMTemplateThe template use for the Oracle deployment workflows is setup for a Test andDevelopmentscenario;hence,ithasasimplifiedstoragelayoutthatusestheLinuxExt3filesystem. The Ora12c_Template VM has an Oracle 12.1.0.1 database running on OracleEnterpriseLinux6.5withasingle listenerconfiguredonport1521. Thetemplateuses1vCPU,2048MBofvRAMwithtwo25GBSCSIvirtualdisks.Onediskheldtherootofthefilesystemwhich included theOSsystemfilesaswellas theOraclesoftware installedunder/u01conformingtoOFAstandards.Theseconddiskwasmountedas/u02andwasusedtostore20GBofuserdataimportedintothedatabase.VMSummary:1vCPU,2GBvRAMand50GBstorage.

Figure8:OracleTemplateDetails

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UsingtheDatabase-as-a-Service(DBaaS)Afterdeploying thesevRealizeAutomationcomponents,wehaveaworkingenvironmentforDBaaS.AuserwouldfirstlogintothevRealizeAutomationcatalogandthentheycouldrequestasmanyOracle12cVMsorMicrosoftSQLServerVMsastheydesire.

Figure9:DBaaSprocess

ThevRealizeAutomationinfrastructurehasmanycomponents,whichworkinconcertwitheach other to allow the provisioning of VM templates to the vCenter hosts. Thesecomponents must be robust and capable of providing high performance to theenvironment,sothattheendusersexperienceafastandresponsiveenvironment.MakingaVMfromthetemplatefirst involvescopyingthecontentsoftheVMtemplatetocreatetheVM.Thisprocesscanbethrottledbythespeedoftheservers,thenetworkandthe storage. The entire process can bemade efficient by using the VAAI-enabled offloadfeatures of the Tintri VMstore. Thiswill reduce the time to deploy a VM significantly asTintri uses cloning technology that takes merely seconds to create a new VM from atemplate. The VAAI cloning offload to the storage is automatically enabled once VAAI isinstalledontheindividualvSphereservers.

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DBaaSPerformanceTestingScenariosNowthatwehavecreatedaDBaaSfromvRealizeAutomation,howdowedeterminethatitisausefulcloud-basedserviceforourend-users?WedecidedthatconstructingworkloadteststorevealwhatendusersexperiencewiththeDBaaSservicewouldbeagoodmetric.Thusinourtestingweranworkflowstoprovision50databaseVMsatatimewhilerunningTPC-C “like” database workloads against VMs that shared the DBaaS environment –servers,networkandstorage.Attheendofthetestrunwenotedthetimetoprovisionthe50databasesandcompareditwiththelatencyexperiencedbythestorage.InourDBaaSarchitecture,wepurposelyplacedalloftheDBaaScomponentstogetherwiththe same vSphere servers that support the provisioningworkflows. Thismeans that thevRealize infrastructure VMs share the same resources on the vSphere servers that arerunning thedatabaseworkloadsandprovisioning thenewdatabaseVMs. If anyof theseVMs suffer from IO starvation this will become apparent as the time to provision andconfigureVMswillincreasedramatically.ThesetestsweredesignedtoverifytheresponsivenessoftheentiresystemanditsabilitytoquicklyprovisionmanyDatabaseVMs.Theprovisioningprocessshouldnotbeaffectedbytheamountofworkloadonthestoragearray.ThevRealizeAutomationServiceCatalogshouldremainresponsiveaswellasalltheotherVMsonthearray.

SummarizedResults:ThedetailedtestscenariosandresultsareshowninAppendixB.Thetimetoprovision50SQL Server VMs stays between 5 and 6minutes even aswe increase the latency on thestorage from1ms to72ms.Thisshows that thesystemremainsresponsiveevenas theIOPSworkloadincreasessubstantially.The Tintri VMstore was designed from the ground up to provide low-latency, highthroughputperformancetoeachandeveryVM,nomattertheirIOprofile.Tintridoesthisby providing each VM with its own IO lane and monitors those IO lanes by automatedQuality of Service that provides predictable performance to every VM. This technologyprovidesbothhighperformanceandeliminatesthenoisyneighborproblem.TheconsistencyoftheprovisioningtimesdemonstratesthattheVMperformanceisolationfeaturesoftheTintriVMstoreprovideslowlatencyaccesstoIOtoeveryVMregardlessoftheworkloadappliedtothestorage.Whenheavyworkloads are applied to flash storage arrays that arenotVM-aware, thesesystemsare forcedtosupply IOona firstcome, firstservedbasis.With“noisyneighbor”VMsthiscanleadtoIOstarvationtootherVMsonthearray.Byattemptingtoconsumeallof the available IOon the flash-based array these “noisyneighbor”VMs effectivelyblock

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otherVMswithlowerIOPSprofilesfrombeingserviced.ThusthesenonVM-awaresystemsexperiencecontinuoushigh-latencythatleadstounresponsiveVMs.IntheDBaaSreferencearchitecture,alloftheVMssharetheTintriVMstoreT880storagearray.Allof thevRAserversarerunningon thearray, theToolsserver thatdeploysandconfigurestheVMsisrunningonthearray,asareallofthenewlyprovisionedVMs.IfanyoftheseVMssufferfromIOstarvationthiswillbecomeapparentasthetimetoprovisionandconfigureVMswillincreasedramatically.These testswill reveal the responsivenessof theentire systemand theability toquicklyprovision many Database VMs. The system should not be affected by the amount ofpressure on the storage array. The vRealize Automation Service Catalog should remainresponsive,asshouldthetoolsserver,aswellasalltheotherVMsonthearray.TheDBaaSreferencearchitecture isonlyuseful if end-users candeploya catalogofVMsunder varying conditions and workloads. These test results highlight threeaccomplishmentsinthevRADBaaSreferencearchitecturewithTintri.

1. VAAI enabledoffload allowed theTintri storage array cloning feature to drop theaveragetimetoprovision50VMsfrom17minutesto6minutes;a65%decrease.

2. The DBaaS provisioning timeswere low and stable even as the load is increasedsignificantlyontheDBaaSsystems.

3. EvenwhenanextremeworkloadisappliedtotheTintriVMstorestoragearray,theDBaaSprovisioningtimeswereconsistentlylow.

ThelasttesthighlightstheTintriVMstore’sresistanceto“NoisyNeighbor”workloads,evenwhen an extreme load is applied to the system. This responsiveness under load is veryimportanttotheend-usersofaDBaaSsolution.

BestPracticesRevealedfromPerformanceTestingWhile testing this reference architecture we found several things of interest whendesigning this architecture to reduce the time to deploy 100s of VMs with vRealizeAutomationtools.

1. Employing the VAAI integration with the Tintri VMstore allowed us to use thecloning featurewhen deployingVMs from the template. This reduced the time todeployaVMsignificantlyasthecloningtechnologytakesmerelysecondstocreateanew VM from a template, no matter how large the template. The VAAI cloningoffloadtothestorageisautomaticallyenabledonceVAAIisinstalledonthevSphereservers.

2. WhenvRAprovisionsaVM,itcalculatesandaccountsforstoragebasedonthefullyprovisioned size. However, since we use the VAAI plug-in, the Tintri VMstoreintelligently cloned theOracleandSQLServerVMs.EachnewVMconsumed little

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additionalstorage,whichcompriseonlytheuniqueblocksassociatedwiththatVM.In theDBaaSenvironmentweprovisionedover50TBofstorageata timewith501TBSQLServerVMs,whichwaslargerthanthetotalcapacityoftheTintriarray.Inthis scenario, it is safe and necessary to over allocate storage resources withinvRealizeAutomation.

3. Tuning the DEM workers is not normally possible, but given the speed of the

deploymentoftheVMswewereabletoreducesomeDEMworkertimeoutswithoutincurring collisions. This tuning allowed us to reduce the time to perform theconfigurationoftheindividualVMsaftertheywerecloned.

4. Theuseofhighperformance, low latency, shared flashstoragearraysprovide the

foundationforaresponsiveandgoodperformingDBaaSdeployment.TestingwiththeTintriVMstoreFlasharrayshowedthatthetimetoprovision50databaseVMsstays consistent nomatter theworkload on the storage array. This illustrates thevalue of using a Flash storage array that can work effectively with both “noisyneighbors”and“quietneighbors”whencreatingaDBaaSdeployment.

5. If you plan to deploy 100’s of VMs with vRealize Automation in a DBaaSarchitecture,ensureyouhaveplentyofIPaddressesavailableforusebythenewlycreated VMs. When we first started testing we worked with a small range of IPaddressesandtheDHCPserverquicklycutusofffromnewIPaddresses!OnceweconfiguredtheDHCPservertosupplyalargerangeofIPaddresseswewereabletoworkwiththesystemformonthswithoutrunningoutofIPaddresses.

6. Anticipatethevarioususes fortheDatabaseVMsthatarebeingcreated. If theVMtemplate referenced by the Blueprint has vDisks that are too small for your end-users then they can run out of space before they accomplish their taskswith thedatabase.WorkwithyourDBAs todetermine theoptimalconfigurationof theVMTemplatesthatarebeingusedinyourDBaaSblueprints.

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Day2ActivitiesThere ismore you can dowith a VM than just provision it, such as provision, snapshot,restore or destroy. Fortunately these Day-2 post-provisioning activities can also becapturedandincorporatedintoBlueprintsdeliveredtoend-usersviatheServiceCatalog.ExamplesofDay-2post-provisioningactivities:

• DatabaseandVMbackup• VM-levelsnapshots• VM-levelrestores• VM-levelreplication• Restoredatafromothersources• Restoreentirelabenvironments• Resetdemokiosks• DestroyVM

AutomatedDay-2activitiesaremadepossiblethroughtheVMwarevRealizeOrchestratorwhich is the automation and management engine. vRealize Orchestrator exposes everyoperationintheVMwarevCenterServerAPIsotheycanbeintegratedintoaDay-2activity.vRealizeOrchestratoralsosupportsalargenumberofplug-insthatcanbeusedtoaccessexternal technologies. By using the Windows PowerShell plug-in we can call SnapVM,CloneVM and SyncVM commands within the shared Tintri VMstore storage array andextendthecapabilitiesofourDay-2tasks.

Day-2Activity:ReconfigureanexistingvirtualmachineThereconfigurationofamachinecanbecomeaDay-2activitythat ismadeavailableasaseparate action and independently executed. This Day-2 activity would reconfigure theresourcesassignedtoavirtualmachine.Anyofthefollowingchangesarepossible:

• Increaseordecreasememory• IncreaseordecreasethenumberofCPUs• Modifystoragebyadding,removing,orincreasingthesizeofvolumes• Modifynetworksbyadding,removing,orupdatingnetworkadapters

Day-2Activity:ResetVMstoaBaselineSnapshotDatabase test environments, demonstration systems, or lab systems can be reset to aknownbaselinebyrestoringtheVMstoapreviouslycreatedsnapshot.

Day-2Activity:ReplicateDatabaseVMsA Day-2 activity can replicate a VM from one datacenter to another. This can be usefulwhen the primary or production database is located in one cluster, and the test anddevelopmentactivitiesareinanothercluster.

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Day-2Activity:RefreshTestandDevelopmentDatabaseFilesOnce you create a test and development environment using VMs provisioned from theDBaaS catalog, youneed to initializeor refresh theOracle andSQLServerdatabaseVMswithdatafromanewsource,orfromaproductiondatabase.Normally,theprocessofupdatingvDiskscontainingdatabasedatafilesfromaproductiondatabaseinaVMtomultipleVMs,canbetimeconsumingtoscriptandexecute.WiththeTintriSyncVMtechnologywecansimplifythistaskbyperformingthefollowingsteps.FourStepstoSynchronizevDisksbetweena“master”VManda“child”VMStep1 UseSnapVMtocreateasnapshotofthemasterdatabaseVM

Step2 UseSyncVMtorefreshindividualvDisksonthe“child”VMfromthevDiskscontainedinthesnapshotthatyoucreatedinStep1

Step3 SyncVMautomaticallyrestartsthe“child”VM.

Step4 Ifneeded,manuallystartthedatabaseandperformrecovery.IntheDBaaSenvironment,wepurposelycreatedOracleandSQLServerVMswithseparatevDisks for storing the database data and log files for these Day 2 activities. Using theSyncVMtechnologywewereabletoupdatethevDisksthatcontainthedatabasedatafilesonthetargetVMswithoutaffectingtheOSdisk,ortheconfigurationoftheVM.The Tintri PowerShell API allows us to access the SyncVM commands on the TintriVMstore.Thesecommandscanbe included intoaDay-2activity torefresh thevDisksonanynumberofindividualdatabaseVMsfromasingleproductiondatabaseVM.For the sake of illustrating how the Tintri functionality works we have included GUIscreenshotstoshowhowvDisksfromoneVMcanberestoredtoanotherVM.Inthiscasethe action will refresh two vDisks (SCSI 0:1 and SCSI 0:2) in the VM titled“SQL_Child_DBaaS_001” to the vDisks and data contained in a snapshot of the VM titled“SQLMasterDB”.ThesefunctionscanalsobescriptedusingTintri’sRESTAPI.

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Figure10:TintriSyncVMScreen

WhencombinedwiththeDBaaSreferencearchitecture, the Tintri VMstore SyncVMtechnology makes Day 2 tasks nearlyinstantaneous, thus acceleratingapplication development and datarecovery. SyncVM can also be combinedwith ReplicateVM to synchronize vDisksin remote VMstores. SyncVM technologyis accessed via the Tintri VMstore UI, orautomatedviaPowerShellscriptsorRESTAPIs.

Figure11:SyncVMrefreshingmultipleVMsfromasinglemasterVM

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Conclusion:Databasesareanindispensablecomponentofbusinesscriticalapplicationinfrastructures.However,deployingjustonedatabasehasbeenacomplexoperationthatrequirestimeandresources from IT staff, storage administrators, and experienced DBAs. DeliveringDatabases-as-a-Service to create a self-service catalog allows end users to provisionmultiplecopiesofadatabasewithoutinvolvingITstafforotheradministrators. DBaaS gives us an opportunity to reduce operating expenses and improve the time toprovisionnewdatabaseinstances.TheDBaaSreferencearchitectureisonlyuseful ifend-users can deploy a catalog of VMs under varying conditions and workloads. These testresults highlight three accomplishments in the vRA DBaaS reference architecture withTintri.

1. VAAI enabledoffload allowed theTintri storage array cloning feature to drop theaveragetimetoprovision50VMsfrom17minutesto6minutes;a65%drop.

2. The DBaaS provisioning timeswere low and stable even as the load is increasedsignificantlyontheDBaaSsystems.

3. EvenwhenanextremeworkloadisappliedtotheTintriVMstorestoragearray,theDBaaSprovisioningtimeswereconsistentlylow.

ThelasttesthighlightstheTintriVMstore’sresistanceto“NoisyNeighbor”workloads,evenwhen an extreme load is applied to the system. This responsiveness under load is veryimportanttotheend-usersofaDBaaSsolution.In summary,we have shown that by deploying a DBaaS reference architecturewith theVMware vRealize Suite and the Tintri VMstore we can achieve remarkably shortprovisioning times, even under load. This shows that the DBaaS solution continues toperformwellevenwhenreal-worldworkloadsarealreadyrunningontheDBaaSserversandstorage.

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AppendixA-HardwareandSoftwareDetailsThissectiondetailstheequipmentusedintheDBaaSreferencearchitecture.

ServerHardwareandConfigurationManufacturer SupermicroModel H8DCT-HCPUCores 16CPUsx2.799GHzProcessorType AMDOpteron4280Memory 98,286MBOperatingSystem VMwarevSphere6EnterprisePlus

VMwareVMwarevSphere vSphere6.0.0EnterprisePlusVMwarevRealizeAutomation vRealizeAutomation6.2.1.0(2vCPU/8GMvRAM)vRAToolsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer2012(4vCPU/16GBvRAM)OracleDatabaseVM Oracle12c/RHEL6(1vCPU/2GBvRAM)SQLServerDatabaseVM MicrosoftSQLServer/WindowsServer2012(64-bit)(1

vCPU/512MBvRAM)

TintriVMstoreTintriOS OS3.2.1.4TintriVMstoreModel T880Hybrid-FlashVMDensity(max) 3,500VMsand10,000vDisksFlashCapacity 8.8TBTotalRawCapacity 78TBEffective Total Capacity (viaSpaceSavingstechnology)

100TB

Controllers Gen5DualController (active-standby)supportingTintriOS3.1andup

DataPorts 2x10GbE(10GBASE-SR/10GBASE-T)ManagementPorts 2x1GbE(RJ-45)OptionalSoftware Replication,EncryptionandSynchronizationDimensions 4RU,7”(178mm)x19”(483mm)x28.5”(724mm)

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Tintri®VMstore™FeaturesTintriAdvancedCloningEnables IT administrators to dramatically improve efficiency of virtual machine (VM)provisioning. IT operations teams can now create hundreds of clones to support virtualdesktop infrastructure(VDI), instantprovisioning,and test&developmentenvironmentsinminutesinsteadofhours.TintriSyncVM™BasedonSnapVM™snapshottechnology,theSyncVMtooldistributesvDisksnapshotsfromonemasterVM tomultiple childVMs. The vDisk granularitymeans that you can updatechildVMswithouthavingtotouchtheOSdiskorreconfigurethechildVM.Developerscancreateanewtest/devenvironment,oruseanexistingtest/devenvironment,anddistributeupdatesfromamasterdatabasetothechildVMsinminutesratherthanhours.SyncVM can be combined with ReplicateVM™ to update VMs in datacenters around thedatacenter or around the world. The SyncVM commands are accessed via the TintriVMstoreUI,PowerShellorRESTAPIs.TintriVAAIPlug-inTheTintriVMstoreprovidesfullIntegrationwithVMwareManagementToolsviavStorageAPIs forArray Integration (VAAI). Seamless integrationwithVMwaremanagement toolsmeans that IT operations teams issue VM clone commands from VMware vCenter™ orVMware vCloud™ Director to instantly create space efficient Tintri VM clones on theVMstoreappliances.ThecombinationofVAAIandCloneVM™significantlyreducedthevRAprovisioningtimeintheDBaaSreferencearchitecture.

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AppendixB:DBaaSProvisioningTestsandResultsResultsfromthefourperformancetestsaredocumentedhere.

Test1:BaselineTest–Provision50VMswithVAAIDisabledThefirsttestwasruntocreateabaselinesoastodocumenttheperformanceofthevRAdeployment architecture with no load on the servers, network, or storage. For a truebaselinewemustalsodisabletheVAAIplug-intopreventvCenterfromoffloadingtaskstotheTintristorage.Test 1Configuration

Description

VAAIstatus storageoffloaddisabledInfrastructureworkload

idle(noworkload)

Test UsevRACatalogtoprovision50OracleVMsVMTemplate OracleVMTemplate

(1vCPU,2GBvRAMand50GBstorage)Datacapture Capturethetotalamountoftimeneededtoprovisionandconfigure

all50OracleVMs.Result DBaaSworkflowtook17Minutestoprovision50OracleVMs

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Test2:Provision50OracleVMsThe second test documents the performance of the DBaaS system as it deploys 50moderately sized Oracle databases onto vSphere servers already running HammerDBdatabaseworkloads.TheHammerDBworkloadsareincreasedbeforeeachtestrunsothatwecanobservetheeffectupontheprovisioningworkflow.Test 2Configuration

Description

VAAIstatus Enabled-thetasksareoffloadedtotheTintristorageInfrastructureworkload

Create a large workload on all 7 vRA deployment servers usingHammerDB to drive database instances with a TPC-C “like”workload.

vRATest UsevRACatalogtoprovision50OracleVMsVMTemplate OracleVMTemplate

(1vCPU,512MBvRAMand1.04TBstorage)Datacapture Capturethetotalamountoftimeneededtoprovisionandconfigure

all 50 Oracle VMs, and capture the HammerDB TPM/NOPMperformanceoutput.

Results TheDBaaSworkflowtooklessthan6minutestoprovision50VMs.Thistimeincreasesslightlyastheworkloadonthestorageincreased.

HammerDBWorkload

(TPM) 440943 816846 1169855 1483902 1783713 2039850

TimetoProvisionfifty(50)VMs

(mins) 5 5 5 6 6 6

TimetoProvisionone(1)VM

(secs) 6 6 6 7.2 7.2 7.2

DBaaSResponseTime (msecs) 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

StorageLatency (msecs) 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.1 1.4

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Figure12:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithOracle

Thisgraphshowstestresultsgeneratedasweprovisioned50OracledatabaseVMsfromthevRealizeServiceCatalog.

• TheX-axisshows6separatetestruns:1-6• TheHammerDBworkloadincreasesfromlefttoright.• TheLHSY-axisshowsthetimetoprovision50OracledatabaseVMs,inminutes.• TheRHSY-axisshowsthestoragelatencyasreportedbytheTintriVMstore.

Notice that the time to provision 50 Oracle VMs increases slightly as we increase theHammerDBworkload from440,943TPM to 2,039,850TPM.This shows that the systemremainsresponsiveevenastheworkloadincreasessubstantially.

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Test3:Provision50SQLServerVMsThethirdtestdocumentstheperformanceoftheDBaaSsystemasitdeploys50largeSQLServerdatabasesonto vSphere servers already runningHammerDBdatabaseworkloads.TheHammerDBworkloadsareincreasedbeforeeachtestrunsothatwecanobservetheeffectupontheprovisioningworkflow.Test 3Configuration

Description

VAAIstatus Enabled-thetasksareoffloadedtotheTintristorageInfrastructureworkload

Create a large workload on all 7 vRA deployment servers usingHammerDB to drive database instances with a TPC-C “like”workload.

vRATest UsevRACatalogtoprovision50SQLServerVMsVMTemplate SQLServerVMTemplate

(1vCPU,512MBvRAMand1.04TBstorage)Datacapture Capturethetotalamountoftimeneededtoprovisionandconfigure

all 50 SQL Server VMs, and capture the HammerDB TPM/NOPMperformanceoutput.

Results TheDBaaSworkflowtooklessthan7minutestoprovision50VMs.This time increased slightly as the workload on the storageincreased.

HammerDBWorkload

(TPM) 428233 845794 1261867 1643178 1889421 2048988

TimetoProvision50VMs

(mins) 5 6 6 6 6 7

TimetoProvisionONEVM

(secs) 6 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 8.4

DBaaSResponseTime

(msecs) 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4

StorageLatency (msecs) 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.9 1.4 1.4

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Figure13:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithSQLServer

This graph shows test results generated asweprovisioned50 SQLServerVMs from thevRealizeServiceCatalog.

• TheX-axisshows6separatetestruns:1-6• TheHammerDBworkloadincreasesfromlefttoright.• TheLHSY-axisshowsthetimetoprovision50SQLServerVMs,inminutes.• TheRHSY-axisshowsthestoragelatencyasreportedbytheTintriVMstoreconsole.

Noticethatthetimetoprovision50SQLServerVMsincreasesslightlyasweincreasetheHammerDBworkload from428,233TPM to 2,048,988TPM.This shows that the systemremainsresponsiveevenastheworkloadincreasessubstantially.

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Test4:GenerateaHighIOPSWorkloadandProvision50DatabaseVMsThefourthtestdocumentstheperformanceoftheDBaaSsystemasitdeploys50largeSQLServerdatabasesontovSphereserversalreadyrunningamassiveIOPSworkload.TheIOPSworkloadsare increasedbeforeeach test runso thatwecanobserve theeffectupon theprovisioningworkflow.InthistestweranaTintristoragetoolthatisablegenerateaveryhighIOPSworkloadtostressthevSphereserversandthestorage.ThepurposeofthistoolistocreateahighIOPSand high latency in the DBaaS infrastructure. This level of latency is beyond what waspossibletocreatewiththeHammerDBworkloads.Test 4Configuration

Description

VAAIstatus Enabled-thetasksareoffloadedtotheTintristorageInfrastructureworkload

Create a massive IOPS-based workload on all 7 vRA deploymentserverstoforcethestorageintoahigh-latencysituation.

vRATest UsevRACatalogtoprovision50SQLServerVMsVMTemplate SQLServerVMTemplate

(1vCPU,512MBvRAMand1.04TBstorage)Datacapture Capturethetotalamountoftimeneededtoprovisionandconfigure

all50SQLServerVMs.Results The DBaaS workflow took 5-6 minutes to provision 50 VMs. This

time stayed consistent even as the IOPS-based workload on thestorageincreasedtheresponsetimeto72msecsoflatency.

StorageLatency (msecs) 1 2 4 7 7 13 21 31 47 62 72TimetoProvision50VMs (mins) 6 5 5 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 6

TimetoProvisionONEVM (secs) 7.2 6 6 7.2 7.2 7.2 6 6 6 6 7.2

DBaaSResponseTime (msecs) 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

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Figure14:DBaaSprovisioningtestwithhighlatency

This graph shows test results generated asweprovisioned50 SQLServerVMs from thevRealizeServiceCatalog.

• TheX-axisshows10separatetestruns:1-10• TheIOPSworkloadonserversandonthestorageincreasesfromlefttoright.• TheLHSY-axisshowsthetimetoprovision50SQLServerVMs,inminutes.• TheRHSY-axisshowsthestoragelatencyasreportedbytheTintriVMstore.

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AppendixC-ReferencesVMwarevRealizeAutomation6.2DocumentationCenter

http://pubs.vmware.com/vra-62/index.jsp#Welcome/welcome.htmlFoundationsandConcepts

http://pubs.vmware.com/vra-62/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vrealize-automation-62-foundations-and-concepts.pdf

VMwarevRealizeAutomationReferenceArchitectureVersion6.0orLater

http://pubs.vmware.com/vra-62/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vrealize-automation-62-reference-architecture.pdf

AdvancedServiceDesignvRealizeAutomation6.2

http://pubs.vmware.com/vra-62/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vrealize-automation-62-advanced-service-design.pdf