How we overclocked a cluster for loaded Microsoft SQL databases and received the coveted 200,000 IOPS

In the past year, we actively took up the performance of large, heavy databases in our cloud. At first glance, it seemed that we only had 2 options: inexpensive storage systems with slow disks or very expensive storage systems with fast ones. 

We wanted to speed up the work of highly loaded Microsoft SQL databases and at the same time offer our clients a favorable cost of the service. As a result of the tests, we have assembled the " Cluster for loaded Microsoft SQL databases in the cloud " solution . Today we will take a look inside and add a little more technical introductory and specific numbers. 

The post does not claim to be deep dive and does not reveal all the technical nuances, but only demonstrates the results of our testing. I will show you on what hardware, software and network configuration we ran the database performance tests, how we tested it, and what results we got. 

Problem conditions: how to check the performance of the database

How the hardware was chosen for the cluster . At the start, we looked for servers with the following characteristics: 

• - 1U. - - 2U, "" . 1U : .  

  
  
  
  
  

• 10 U.2. NVM. , .  

  
  
  
  
  

• Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory . 

  
  
  
  
  

• Hardware compatibility list (HCL) Microsoft – .

  
  
  
  
  

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Supermicro 1029U-TN10RT:

, - 1U, 2 Intel Xeon Scalable. 

:

- – Ultra 1U SYS-1029U-TN10RT.

- CPU – 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 6246 (3.3GHz, 12C).

- Storage – 10 x Intel DC P4510 1TB NVMe SSD, 1DWPD.

- DRAM – 12 x 64GB DDR4-2666.

- Persistent Memory – 2 x 128GB DDR4-2666 Intel Optane DC PMMs.

- Network – 2 x 25GbE Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx.

2,5 NVMe: 10 U.2.

. Windows Server 2019 Storage Spaces Direct. RAID – . 

. . 3-way Mirroring, 3 . 

– StorageRack. , . , . 

. . . RDMA – . Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx c RoCEv2 (RDMA over Converged Ethernet).

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. VMFleet Microsoft, FIO.

. "" . 150 c "" 40 GB, 50 . – 4:1, CPU – 60%. – 3, 3 TB .

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. , , . 2:1 ( 25 ), CPU . : 100% 4 4 16 . .

FIO , .

DBaaS Microsoft SQL . 4 200 000 IOPS 1 100% 4k.

Windows Server 2019 Storage Spaces Direct. !