This is just a post to make it easier finding these excellent articles/threads on VMTN about measuring storage performance:
- Scott Drummonds – Storage System Performance Analysis with Iometer
- VMTN Unofficial Storage Perf Thread I – http://communities.vmware.com/thread/73745
- VMTN Unofficial Storage Perf Thread II – http://communities.vmware.com/thread/19784
All these have one “requirement” and that is that Iometer is used.
Another one that I wanted to point out are these excellent scripts that Clinton Kitson created which collects and processes vscsistats data. That by itself is cool, but what is planned for the next update is even cooler. Live plotted 3d graphs. Can’t wait for that one to be released!
Also very interesting is the following test
http://thebackroomtech.com/2008/09/10/perfomance-test-windows-server-2003-r2-partition-alignment-on-an-emc-san/
Another storage performance tool that looks very promising is IOblazer http://labs.vmware.com/flings/ioblazer . It has the ability to capture and play back vscsistats traces, to perfectly recreate the IO profile of a VM. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but look forward to trying it out soon.