Performance Summary:

Validation Errors:

•   No Validation Errors Found

Physical Configuration:

Virtual Configuration:

Notes:

Physical System Notes

• Firmware settings used:
•   IMM.ThermalModePolicy=Performance
•   Memory.MemoryMode=Independent
•   Memory.PatrolScrub=Disable
•   OperatingModes.ChooseOperatingMode=Maximum Performance
•   Power.PlatformControlledType=Maximum Performance
•   Processors.C1EnhancedMode=Disable
•   Processors.PackageACPIC-StateLimit=ACPI C2
•   Processors.ProcessorPerformanceStates=Disable

Storage Notes

• The System Under Test has 32 400GB internal SSDs configured as four RAID5 arrays with eight disks each.
• The first array contains 16 logical volumes for VM images and 1 logical volume for the hypervisor image. The remaining arrays contain 15 logical volumes for VM images.
• Each of the VM logical volumes has 6 partitions, 1 for each of the 6 VM types in a tile.

Virtualization Software Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline clocksource=tsc cgroup_disable=memory,blkio rdshell intel_iommu=on iommu=pt
• The following services are configured to be disabled during runlevel initialization:
•   abrtd, atd, cgconfig, cgred, crond, dnsmasq, ebtables, ip6tables, ipmi, ipmievd, iptables, irqbalance, ksm, ksmtuned, libvirt-guests, mdmonitor, netconsole, nfs, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, radvd, rdisc, restorecond, rngd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, winbind, ypbind
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   kernel.sched_min_granularity_ns = 10000000
•   kernel.sched_wakeup_granularity_ns = 10000000
•   kernel.sched_latency_ns = 32000000
•   kernen.sched_migration_cost = 250000
•   vm.dirty_background_ratio = 5
•   vm.dirty_ratio = 10
•   vm.swappiness = 0
• tuned was activated with the virtual-host profile.
• The following line was added to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
•   blacklist ixgbevf
• Network configuration is as follows:
•   Configuration file /etc/modprobe.d/ixgbe.conf includes:
•    options ixgbe max_vfs=24
•   315 virtual functions were used for all the VMs.
•   Ethernet devices eth2, eth3, eth4, eth5, eth6, eth7, eth8, eth9, eth10, eth11, eth12, eth13, eth14, eth15, eth16, and eth17 are the physical functions that are used by the host to provide physical transport for the virtual functions.
•   The IRQs for each virtual function PCI device are pinned to the CPUs on the socket to which the PCI device is routed.
•   Each VM is given a virtual function that is routed to the NUMA node to which the VM's VCPUs are pinned.
• VM configurations are as follows:
•   All VMs are managed with libvirt and created using the virsh utility.
•   All VMs are created with the following XML template (exceptions noted below template):
•    <domain type='kvm'>
•     <name>$vm_name</name>
•     <memory>$vm_memory</memory>
•     <currentMemory>$vm_memory</currentMemory>
•     <vcpu cpuset='$host-cpu-list'>$vm_vcpus</vcpu>
•     <os>
•      <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel6.5.0'>hvm</type>
•      <boot dev='hd'/>
•     </os>
•     <features>
•      <acpi/>
•      <apic/>
•      <pae/>
•     </features>
•     <cpu match='exact'>
•      <model>SandyBridge</model>
•      <feature policy='force' name='x2apic'/>
•     </cpu>
•     <clock offset='utc'>
•      <timer name='pit' tickpolicy='delay'/>
•     </clock>
•     <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
•     <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
•     <on_crash>restart</on_crash>
•     <devices>
•      <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
•      <disk type='block' device='disk'>
•       <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none' io='native'/>
•       <source dev='$vm_disk'/>
•       <target dev='vda' bus='virtio'/>
•      </disk>
•      <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='no'>
•       <source>
•        <address domain='0x0000' bus='$bus' slot='$slot' function='$function'/>
•       </source>
•      </hostdev>
•      <serial type='pty'>
•       <target port='0'/>
•      </serial>
•      <console type='pty'>
•       <target type='serial' port='0'/>
•      </console>
•      <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
•      <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes' keymap='en-us'/>
•      <memballoon model='none'/>
•     </devices>
•    </domain>
•    VMs are bound to host CPUs via their XML configuration in the following manner:
•     All VMs of tiles 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, and 50 are bound to NUMA node 0.
•     All VMs of tiles 1, 16, 23, 30, 37, 44, and 51 are bound to NUMA node 1.
•     All VMs of tiles 2, 9, 24, 31, 38, 45, and 52 are bound to NUMA node 2.
•     All VMs of tiles 3, 10, 17, 32, 39, 46, and 53 are bound to NUMA node 3.
•     All VMs of tiles 4, 11, 18, 25, 40, 47, and 54 are bound to NUMA node 4.
•     All VMs of tiles 5, 12, 19, 26, 33, 48, and 55 are bound to NUMA node 5.
•     All VMs of tiles 6, 13, 20, 27, 34, 41, and 56 are bound to NUMA node 6.
•     All VMs of tiles 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and 49 are bound to NUMA node 7.
•     Batch, Infra, and Web VMs of tile 57 are bound to NUMA node 0.
•     Batch, Infra, and Web VMs of tile 58 are bound to NUMA node 1.
•     App and Mail VMs of tile 57 are bound to NUMA node 2.
•     App and Mail VMs of tile 58 are bound to NUMA node 3.
•     Db VM of tile 57, and Batch, Infra, and Web VMs of tile 59 are bound to NUMA node 4.
•     Batch, Infra, and Web VMs of tile 60 are bound to NUMA node 5.
•     App and Mail VMs of tile 59 are bound to NUMA node 6.
•     App and Mail VMs of tile 60 are bound to NUMA node 7.
•   App VMs are reniced -19.
•   Db VMs are reniced -16.
•   Infra, Mail, and Batch VMs are reniced 19.

Web Server VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   abrt-ccpp, abrtd, atd, auditd, autofs, certmonger, cgconfig, cgred, crond, cups, haldaemon, htcacheclean, httpd, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalance, kdump, mcelogd, messagebus, netconsole, nfs, nfslock, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, svnserve, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
•   ixgbevf module option used: InterruptThrottleRate=2000
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• httpd.conf changes:
•   KeepAlive On
•   MaxKeepAliveRequests 0
•   KeepAliveTimeout 150
•   MinSpareServers 50 (for prefork)
•   MaxSpareServers 100 (for prefork)
•   ServerLimit 10240 (for prefork)
•   MaxClients 10240 (for prefork)
•   MaxRequestsPerChild 32000 (for prefork)
•   StartServers 8 (for worker)
•   MaxClients 10240 (for worker)
•   MaxRequestsPerChild 32000 (for worker)
•   LogLevel error
•   The following httpd language modules were disabled:
•    ca cs da de el en eo es et fr he hr it ja ko ltz nl nn no pl pt pt-BR ru sv zh-CN zh-TW
•   #LanguagePriority
•   #ForceLanguagePriority
•   #AddHandler type-map var
•   #AddType text/html .shtml
•   #AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml
•   #BrowserMatch "Mozilla/2" nokeepalive
•   #BrowserMatch "MSIE 4.0b2;" nokeepalive downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
•   #BrowserMatch "RealPlayer 4.0" force-response-1.0
•   #BrowserMatch "Java/1.0" force-response-1.0
•   #BrowserMatch "JDK/1.0" force-response-1.0
•   #BrowserMatch "Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "MS FrontPage" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "^WebDrive" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "^WebDAVFS/1.[0123]" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "^gnome-vfs/1.0" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "^XML Spy" redirect-carefully
•   #BrowserMatch "^Dreamweaver-WebDAV-SCM1" redirect-carefully
• ssl.conf changes:
•   #CustomLog
• Web VM used NFS to access files from infra VM.
• No options were specified in the NFS mount.
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• After the Infra VM is booted and its NFS service is up, the Web VM mounts the NFS file-system via test automation software.
• root file-system options: barrier=0,noatime
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   net.core.somaxconn = 81920
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 1500000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.tcp_tw_reuse=1
•   net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 120
•   net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl = 30
•   net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 0
•   vm.swappiness = 0
• The datastore is mounted on /var/log/httpd

Application Server VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   abrt-ccpp, abrtd, atd, auditd, autofs, certmonger, cgconfig, cgred, crond, cups, haldaemon, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalance, kdump, mcelogd, messagebus, netconsole, nfs, nfslock, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, svnserve, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
•   ixgbevf module option used: InterruptThrottleRate=2000
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• There are two WebSphere profiles, AppSrv01 for SPECjAppServer2004 and AppSrv02 for SPEC Emulator.
• Heap size for AppSrv01 has been changed to 3072 MB.
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• root file-system options: barrier=0
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   net.core.somaxconn = 8192
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 500000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1
•   vm.swappiness = 0
• The following changes were made to the defaults in run.properties:
•   runLO=4
•   warmUpStyle = 1
•   linearWarmUpPercentage = .60

Mail Server VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   abrt-ccpp, abrtd, atd, auditd, autofs, certmonger, cgconfig, cgred, crond, cups, haldaemon, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalance, kdump, mcelogd, messagebus, netconsole, nfs, nfslock, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, svnserve, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
•   ixgbevf module option used: InterruptThrottleRate=1000
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• Dovecot was compiled with default options, and the following dovecot.conf was used:
•   base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/
•   ssl = no
•   ssl_cert =
•   ssl_key =
•   disable_plaintext_auth = no
•   listen = *
•   log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
•   mail_debug = no
•   mail_location = dbox:/mailstore/dovecot/maildir/%u
•   mdbox_rotate_size = 2048
•   maildir_very_dirty_syncs = yes
•   mbox_very_dirty_syncs = yes
•   mbox_write_locks = fcntl
•   passdb {
•     args = scheme=plain /etc/passwd.dovecot
•     driver = passwd-file
•   }
•   protocols = imap
•   service auth {
•     user = root
•   }
•   service imap-login {
•     inet_listener imap {
•       port = 143
•     }
•     process_min_avail = 10
•     service_count = 0
•   }
•   service imap {
•     process_limit = 1024
•   }
•   userdb {
•     driver = passwd
•   }
•   dict {
•   }
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• root file-system options: barrier=0,data=writeback
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   net.core.somaxconn = 8192
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 500000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1

Database Server VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   atd, auditd, autofs, cgconfig, cgred, crond, htcacheclean, httpd, ip6tables, iptables, netconsole, nfs, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, svnserve, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
•   ixgbevf module option used: InterruptThrottleRate=1500
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• Database tuning options:
•   db2 update db cfg for specdb using DATABASE_MEMORY 7077888
•   db2set DB2_LARGE_PAGE_MEM=DB; db2set DB2_PINNED_BP=ON
•   alter bufferpool IBMDEFAULTBP size 6370099
•   alter tablespace roll_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace C_cust_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace C_supp_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace C_site_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace C_parts_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace C_custinv_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace M_parts_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace M_bom_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace M_wo_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace M_lo_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace M_inv_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace O_cust_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace O_ords_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace O_ordl_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace O_item_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace S_comp_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace S_sc_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace S_po_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace S_site_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace S_supp_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   alter tablespace U_space NO FILE SYSTEM CACHING
•   update database config for specdb using LOGFILSIZ 65536
•   update db cfg for specdb using logprimary 64 logsecond 4
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• 14336 2MB huge-pages were allocated prior to starting the database instance.
• root file-system options: barrier=0,data=writeback
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   kernel.sem = 500 64000 400 512
•   net.core.somaxconn = 32384
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 1000000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1
•   vm.swappiness = 0

Infraserver VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   abrtd, autofs, certmonger, crond, cups, haldaemon, htcacheclean, httpd, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalance, kdump, messagebus, netconsole, ntpd, ntpdate, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, tomcat6, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
•   ixgbevf module option used: InterruptThrottleRate=1000
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• httpd.conf changes:
•   Listen port to 81
•   ServerLimit 10240 (for prefork)
•   MaxClients 10240
• /etc/httpd/conf/fcgi.conf added:
•   LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so
•   ScriptAlias /fcgi-bin/ /var/www/fcgi-bin/
•   FastCgiIpcDir /etc/httpd/fastcgi
•   <Directory /var/www/fcgi-bin>
•    AllowOverride None
•    Options +ExecCGI -Includes
•    SetHandler fastcgi-script
•    Order allow,deny
•    Allow from all
•   </Directory>
•   AddHandler fastcgi-script fcgi
•   FastCgiServer /var/www/fcgi-bin/besim_fcgi.fcgi -processes 50
• Standard Linux NFS server is enabled to serve files to Web VM.
• /etc/exports file contains:
•   /support-download *(rw,no_subtree_check,crossmnt,no_root_squash)
• fcgi package was built from Fedora 14 source RPM, which includes patch to compile with GCC 4.4.
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• root file-system options: noatime,barrier=0,data=writeback
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   net.core.somaxconn = 81920
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 1500000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.tcp_tw_reuse=1
•   net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 120
•   net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl = 30
•   net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 0
•   net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries = 4
•   net.ipv4.tcp_retries2 = 7
•   vm.swappiness=0

Batch Server VM Notes

• The following boot options were used:
•   selinux=0 audit=0 elevator=deadline
• The following services are disabled:
•   abrt-ccpp, abrtd, atd, auditd, autofs, certmonger, cgconfig, cgred, crond, cups, haldaemon, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalance, kdump, mcelogd, messagebus, netconsole, nfs, nfslock, ntpd, ntpdate, numad, oddjobd, portreserve, postfix, psacct, quota_nld, rdisc, restorecond, rhnsd, rhsmcertd, rngd, rpcgssd, rpcsvcgssd, saslauthd, smartd, sssd, svnserve, winbind, ypbind
• The source code for the Intel kernel module ixgbevf version 2.14.2 was download from the official web site, built with the default configuration options, and installed.
• /etc/rc.local was modified to include:
•   echo tsc >/sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
• The tuned-0.2.19 package was installed and activated with virtual-guest profile.
• root file-system options: barrier=0
• The following items were added in /etc/sysctl.conf:
•   fs.file-max = 500000
•   net.core.somaxconn = 8192
•   net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 500000
•   net.ipv4.conf.default.arp_filter = 1
•   net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter = 1

Client Driver Notes

• The first five client systems (System x3550 M5) each host twelve prime client VMs using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6. One client system (IBM System x3550 M2) running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 is the prime controller.
• Each prime client VM has 4 VCPUs, 8196 MB memory, and a 16 GB disk. 1 ixgbevf device and 1 virtio_blk device are used in all client VMs.

Other Notes

• An external 10Gb Lenovo RackSwitch G8264 switch was used to connect the client systems to the system under test (SUT).
• The SUT used the eight dual-port 10Gb PCIe NICs for communication with the VMs.
• The SUT NICs and the external client systems are connected to the switch using 10Gb direct connect cables.
• An external 1Gb Lenovo RackSwitch G8052 switch was used to manage all the systems.
• All systems are connected to the 1Gb switch via a separate cable plugged into a 1Gb port on the system.

Performance Details: