Evaluation and Analysis of Hardware Sizing for a Mission Critical Enterprise Application
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Degree project Evaluation and Analysis of Hardware Sizing for a Mission Critical Enterprise Application Author: Premathas Somasekaram Supervisor: Anders Haggren Examiner: Anders Haggren Date: 2013-10-28 Course Code: 2ED13E Subject: Computer Engineering Level: Independent thesis Basic level Department Of Computer Science Abstract Hardware sizing has come to play an important role when designing and implementing business critical applications because it is crucial that the existing or defined business and application requirements are interpreted into an appropriate hardware configuration. If it is not done correctly, it may destabilize the environment which means interruptions and unplanned downtimes that in turn will cause business loosing not only vital revenue but also customer confidence in the process. This is one of the reasons for why hardware sizing has become a discipline of its own and as such, each combination of workload and hardware configuration is treated differently. Many application vendors have their own set of tools and recommendations to perform the sizing. Once the sizing is performed, the results can be mapped to hardware that is already benchmarked. This also means the hardware can be configured specially to support the application workload in question. It also implies that sizing is one of the major activities when creating a technical architecture where it is used to select the right hardware. The purpose of this document is to perform a complete sizing exercise based on the requirements for a mission critical business application and then translate them into an appropriate hardware configuration. Furthermore, a set of sizing methodologies and tools are analyzed in detail as well in order to give an as vendor neutral view as possible. Specific requirements such as high availability, scalability and other important areas are also taken into consideration when designing and creating the hardware architecture. Preface This thesis is sanctioned by the Swedish Armed Forces (henceforth called stakeholder) and it is based on their estimated requirements, which are used to perform the hardware sizing in a methodical and a phased way. This means the study starts with business requirements that are mapped to application requirements, which in turn result in technical requirements that are subsequently translated into a hardware configuration so that a technical architecture can be designed and implemented. The work started in week 24, which is beginning of June 2013, and completed in week 35, end of September under the guidance of Ross W. Tsagalidis who has been the external supervisor for the thesis. Various tools are used to perform the hardware sizing and the results are then mapped to a set of preferred hardware environment, so that an as authentic environment as possible can be created. Most tools are installed locally but other server based and centralized tools, which are proprietary to vendors, are also used. The study focuses on all aspects of hardware sizing and then presents a final architecture that is ultimately based on the sizing output. I would like to thank Swedish Armed Forces and Ross W. Tsagalidis for giving me the opportunity to do this work, which is a new area in many ways, and for their support throughout the project. I would also like to thank my supervisor and examiner Anders Haggren, Department of Computer Science at Linnæus University, for his advice and support. Stockholm, Sep 2013 Premathas Somasekaram 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 5 2 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................................. 7 2.1 PROBLEM DEFINITION .................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 LIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 7 3 METHOD ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 4 THEORY............................................................................................................................................................ 10 4.1 SIZING AS A PROCESS ................................................................................................................................... 10 4.2 SIZING METHODOLOGIES ............................................................................................................................. 11 4.2.1 User-based Sizing ................................................................................................................................... 12 4.2.2 Throughput-based Sizing ........................................................................................................................ 13 4.2.3 Customer Performance Test based sizing .............................................................................................. 15 4.3 SIZING OUTPUT ............................................................................................................................................ 15 4.4 FACTORS THAT MAY INFLUENCE HARDWARE SIZING ................................................................................... 15 4.5 FRONT-END NETWORK REQUIREMENTS ....................................................................................................... 16 4.6 BENCHMARK ............................................................................................................................................... 17 4.6.1 SAPS ....................................................................................................................................................... 17 4.6.2 TPC ........................................................................................................................................................ 18 4.6.3 SPEC ...................................................................................................................................................... 18 4.6.4 IBM rPerf and CPW ............................................................................................................................... 18 4.6.5 LINPACK ............................................................................................................................................... 18 4.6.6 STREAM ................................................................................................................................................. 19 4.6.7 Oracle Applications Standard Benchmark ............................................................................................. 19 4.7 SIZING TOOLS .............................................................................................................................................. 19 4.7.1 SAP Quick Sizer ..................................................................................................................................... 19 4.7.1.1 Algorithms of the QuickSizer ................................................................................................................................ 19 4.7.2 HP sizing tools ....................................................................................................................................... 20 4.7.3 IBM Sizing tools ..................................................................................................................................... 21 4.8 SYSTEM DESIGN .......................................................................................................................................... 21 4.8.1 High availability ..................................................................................................................................... 21 4.8.2 Scalability ............................................................................................................................................... 23 4.8.2.1 Scalability approach ............................................................................................................................................... 23 5 EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................................. 25 5.1 SIZING REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................................ 25 5.2 HARDWARE SIZING ..................................................................................................................................... 26 5.2.1 Load Factors .......................................................................................................................................... 26 5.2.2 CPU utilization ....................................................................................................................................... 26 5.2.3 Sizing guidelines ..................................................................................................................................... 27 5.2.4 The HP SAP Sizing Tool ......................................................................................................................... 27 5.2.5 IBM Sizing Questionnaire for SAP