“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs
For many Nutanix customers quality has become expected and, unlike hardware, software continues to appreciate as we upgrade. The following is a testament to that focus on quality mentioned by Steve Jobs above. We should be constantly outdoing ourselves with each new AOS release and 5.20 has done that well.
AOS 5.20 is the latest LTS (long term support) release that has just GA’d from Nutanix. Below I am using the free Nutanix tool “X-Ray“. X-Ray is essentially a performance/resiliency testing tool with a nice GUI and automation/reporting capabilities built on top of the open-sourced FIO performance load tester.
The Cluster Setup
For this bake off I am using a single node “cluster” running 5.15 LTS and 5.20 LTS each with the same overall hardware configuration below.
X-Ray Version – 3.10.1
AOS 5.15/AHV Nutanix 20170830.395
1 node cluster
3 node cluster
4 node clusterAOS 5.20/AHV Nutanix 20201105.1161 (1 node) AHV Nutanix 20201105.2030 (3-4 node)
1 node cluster
3 node cluster
4 node clusterThe Test
This X-ray test is a default test baked in called the “4 corners benchmark”. This gives a quick snapshot (20 mins) of how the cluster will perform by distributing workload generating VMs across each node in the cluster and running various Read/Write tests for us.
The Results
Random Read IOPS
1 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +11.65%
AOS 5.15=143,004 versus AOS 5.20=159,667 Random Read IOPsRun #2 >> +8.27%
AOS 5.15=152,903 versus AOS 5.20=165,551 Random Read IOPsRun #3 >> +13.48%
AOS 5.15=142,423 versus AOS 5.20=161,615 Random Read IOPs3 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +10.70%
AOS 5.15=433,057 versus AOS 5.20=477,171 Random Read IOPsRun #2 >> +5.31%
AOS 5.15=432,528 versus AOS 5.20=455,479 Random Read IOPsRun #3 >> +4.66%
AOS 5.15=423,946 versus AOS 5.20=443,704 Random Read IOPsNote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
4 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +7.16%
AOS 5.15=572,549 versus AOS 5.20=613,517 Random Read IOPsRun #2 >> +2.11%
AOS 5.15=580,997 versus AOS 5.20=593,238 Random Read IOPsRun #3 >> +9.14%
AOS 5.15=564,145 versus AOS 5.20=616,785 Random Read IOPsNote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
Sequential Read I/O Throughput
1 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +21.31%
AOS 5.15=3.17 GBps versus AOS 5.20=3.85 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #2 >> +35.89%
AOS 5.15=2.84 GBps versus AOS 5.20=3.85 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #3 >> +18.04%
AOS 5.15=3.13 GBps versus AOS 5.20=3.69 GBps Sequential Read I/O3 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +.94%
AOS 5.15=9.19 GBps versus AOS 5.20=9.27 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #2 >> +1.27%
AOS 5.15=9.19 GBps versus AOS 5.20=9.31 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #3 >> +.73%
AOS 5.15=8.99 GBps versus AOS 5.20=9.05 GBps Sequential Read I/ONote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
4 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> -1.03%
AOS 5.15=12.26 GBps versus AOS 5.20=12.13 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #2 >> +3.64%
AOS 5.15=12.04 GBps versus AOS 5.20=12.48 GBps Sequential Read I/ORun #3 >> +3.79
AOS 5.15=12.31 GBps versus AOS 5.20=12.78 GBps Sequential Read I/ONote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
Random Write IOPS
1 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +11.84%
AOS 5.15=95,872 versus AOS 5.20=107,219 Random Write IOPsRun #2 >> +10.34%
AOS 5.15=98,528 versus AOS 5.20=108,711 Random Write IOPsRun #3 >> +17.09%
AOS 5.15=89,948 versus AOS 5.20=105,323 Random Write IOPs3 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +6.02%
AOS 5.15=191,953 versus AOS 5.20=203,513 Random Write IOPsRun #2 >> +4.52%
AOS 5.15=190,817 versus AOS 5.20=199,451 Random Write IOPsRun #3 >> +4.97%
AOS 5.15=188,329 versus AOS 5.20=197,680 Random Write IOPsNote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
4 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +3.36%
AOS 5.15=259,405 versus AOS 5.20=268,116 Random Write IOPsRun #2 >> +4.31%
AOS 5.15=254,399 versus AOS 5.20=265,374 Random Write IOPsRun #3 >> +6.01%
AOS 5.15=255,787 versus AOS 5.20=271,159 Random Write IOPsNote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
Sequential Write I/O Throughput
1 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> -0.74%
AOS 5.15=2.39 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.37 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #2 >> -1.08%
AOS 5.15=2.39 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.37 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #3 >> -1.31%
AOS 5.15=2.36 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.33 GBps Sequential Write/IO3 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> +1.31%
AOS 5.15=2.73 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.76 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #2 >> -3.52%
AOS 5.15=2.8 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.7 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #3 >> -3.52%
AOS 5.15=2.77 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.67 GBps Sequential Write/IONote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
4 Node Cluster
Run #1 >> -6.05%
AOS 5.15=3.53 GBps versus AOS 5.20=3.32 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #2 >> -7.30%
AOS 5.15=3.18 GBps versus AOS 5.20=2.95 GBps Sequential Write/IORun #3 >> -4.98%
AOS 5.15=3.25 GBps versus AOS 5.20=3.09 GBps Sequential Write/IONote the colors for 5.15 and 5.20 switched in the Run #3 report
Results
1 Node Cluster
Random Reads +8.27% to +13.48% improvement
Sequential Read I/O Throughput +18.04% to +35.39% improvement
Random Write IOPS +10.34% to +17.09% improvement
Sequential Write I/O Throughput -0.74% to -1.31%
3 Node Cluster
Random Reads +4.66% to +10.70% improvement
Sequential Read I/O Throughput +.73 to +1.27% improvement
Random Write IOPS +4.52 to +6.02% improvement
Sequential Write I/O Throughput -3.52% to +1.31%
4 Node Cluster
Random Reads +2.11% to +9.14% improvement
Sequential Read I/O Throughput -1.03 to +3.79% improvement
Random Write IOPS +3.36% to +6.01% improvement
Sequential Write I/O Throughput -4.98% to -7.30%
