Deploying the VMware I/O Analyzer Fling

VMware I/O Analyzer is a virtual appliance designed to provide storage performance in a virtual environment. It is offered as a SUSE appliance that provides a web GUI to interact with.

I deployed I/O Analyzer in my vSphere 6.0 environment to see the performance of VSAN 6 compared to my Synology NAS. With this post you should be able to deploy I/O Analyzer in its simplest form and perform performance testing on your storage.

Deploying the I/O Analyzer Appliance:

When you download the appliance and extract the .ZIP there will be a .OVA file.

Using the vSphere Thick Client, go to File -> Deploy OVA. Browse to where you extracted the .OVA files. Click Next:

You can rename the appliance or leave it default You can also pick the inventory location. Click Next:

Pick the host/cluster. Click Next:

Pick the datastore the appliance will be installed on. Click Next:

Pick your disk format. For best performance use Thick Eager Zeroed. Click Next:

Give the appliance a port group. I am using a DHCP network, if you want to give the appliance a static IP address you can. Once the appliance is deployed you can login and set a IP address manually. Click Next:

Look over the summary, if you are satisfied click Finish:

Login to the Appliance:

Now the appliance is deployed it can be powered on. Open a console, once it has booted login using the default credentials:

Username: root

Password: vmware

A terminal windows will start. This window must remain open in order for the web GUI to work! Take note of the IP address and open a web browser: (I/O Analyzer recommends using Chrome or Firefox)

Accessing the appliance by entering the IP address in a browser brings up the I/O Analyzer web GUI! Now we are ready to start a performance test!

Setup a Performance Test:

The task that runs to gather performance metrics is called a Workload. To create a job click on Workload Configuration:

First enter the IP address (or DNS name) of the host your I/O Analyzer Appliance is running on. You can add multiple hosts but at least need the host the appliance is on.

VM: Next select the appliance in the drop down menu. If it is not there then the host the appliance is on isn’t added.

Test Type: You have two different types of test, I am going to use iometer.

Workload: There are multiple preconfigured workloads to use. For a quick test I used the Max_IOPS.icf.

Enter the duration in seconds you want the test to run.  You have the option to save this workload as a config for future use. Click Run Now to start the test.

Note: Whatever storage the I/O Analyzer appliance is what the workload will test!

Now a workload job is running to see the progress click on the Home button then Test Scheduler:

On this screen you will see the job that was just submitted. It will start out in Pending then change to Running.

Once the job completed click Results.

You can also view Workload results by clicking Home -> View Test Results

On the drop down menu there workloads that have completed. Below that you can see charts and statistics of the workload results.

My Synology DS411 Slim ran at 4,171 IOPS on my quick test

VSAN Specific Performance Profile:

On the VMware Community forums for I/O Analyzer there are profiles that can be loaded to specifically test VSAN. Posted by vmMarkA they can be accessed here:

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-28439

To make it easy getting the files onto the appliance access the website from the I/O Analyzer Appliance console using Firefox. Once downloaded extract the .ZIP files and place the .ICF files into the “/var/www/configs/” directory. Once the files are in the directory a reboot is required in order for them to show up as testing options:

If the .ICF files were placed in the correct directory and the appliance rebooted you should now have two new VSAN workload options:

Another post coming soon with a performance breakdown of my VSAN environment!