Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

It’s the networks fault #15

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I’ve been crazy busy over the past five months and I’ve really slacked off writing content. So what better way to inspire myself than to highlight some of the great content already out there.

Avaya Takes an Elegant Approach with SPB by Paul Stewart – Paul gives his feedback around Avaya’s Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) and their presentation at Networking Field Day 7.

The New Linode Cloud: SSDs, Double RAM & much more – There have been some very exciting improvements made over at Linode quoting their blog, “Linode = SSDs + Insane network + Faster processors + Double the RAM + Hourly Billing”

Cybersecurity’s Maginot Line: A Real-world Assessment of the Defense-in-Depth Model  by FireEye and Mandiant. “Nearly all (97 percent) organizations had been breached, meaning at least one attacker had bypassed all layers of their defense-in depth architecture.” If you are involved in security the report is worth reading.

Configuration Management the Tail-f NCS Way by John Herbert – I enjoyed reading about Tail-f  and getting John’s opinion on the product. I’ve only used RANCID but I was interested enough that I’ll need to-do more research and reading regarding Tail-f.

Who’s against Net neutrality? Follow the money by Eric Knorr. With the proposed rules by the FCC I’m guessing the Internet will be going on strike again soon. You can read more on the subject at the Save The Internet website.

Cheers!

Hosting Provider – Digital Ocean (Part 2)

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Last week I published an article highlighting my move from Linode to Digital Ocean.

On Monday morning Linode reached out to me to ask if I would be interested in re-running some of my benchmarks on their new hardware. I accepted the offer and my Linode 2G was migrated from an older host with an Intel Xeon E5-2630L @ 2.00Ghz CPU to a new host with Intel Xeon E5-2670  @ 2.60Ghz CPU.

After the migration the Linode 2G posted a score of 335.2 (single thread) and 1059.1 (8 parallel threads).

I also re-ran the Droplet 2Gb and it posted a score of 499.9 (single thread) and 945.4 (2 parallel threads)

As with anything in life there are pros and cons to my move from Linode to Digital Ocean. There are a great many features available from Linode that aren’t (yet) available from Digital Ocean. One the the bigger missing pieces is IPv6 support. Hopefully that will be coming soon. Linode has been a very reliable hosting provider, as was RIMU Hosting prior to them. Let’s hope that Digital Ocean will stand the test of time.

Here are the results of those updated benchmarks;

Linode 2G

   BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)

   System: earth.michaelfmcnamara.com: GNU/Linux
   OS: GNU/Linux -- 3.11.6-x86-linode54 -- #1 SMP Wed Oct 23 15:22:49 EDT 2013
   Machine: i686 (i386)
   Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
   CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 3: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 4: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 5: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 6: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 7: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz (5200.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   11:18:25 up 14 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.03, 0.10, 0.11; runlevel 3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Mon Nov 11 2013 11:18:25 - 11:46:35
8 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       17372242.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     2433.0 MWIPS (10.1 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               1398.9 lps   (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         99492.5 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           26425.0 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        355684.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              131069.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                  19782.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               2465.6 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   2802.0 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                   1209.9 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                         421349.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   17372242.8   1488.6
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       2433.0    442.4
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       1398.9    325.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0      99492.5    251.2
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      26425.0    159.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     355684.4    613.2
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     131069.7    105.4
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0      19782.8     49.5
Process Creation                                126.0       2465.6    195.7
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       2802.0    660.9
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0       1209.9   2016.5
System Call Overhead                          15000.0     421349.8    280.9
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         335.2

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Mon Nov 11 2013 11:46:35 - 12:14:39
8 CPUs in system; running 8 parallel copies of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       96470696.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                    17546.6 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               7658.9 lps   (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        141618.0 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           34048.7 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        471267.7 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              239641.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                 114968.2 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                              11851.2 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                  11758.6 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                   1557.5 lpm   (60.2 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                        2838704.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   96470696.7   8266.6
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0      17546.6   3190.3
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       7658.9   1781.1
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     141618.0    357.6
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      34048.7    205.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     471267.7    812.5
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     239641.1    192.6
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     114968.2    287.4
Process Creation                                126.0      11851.2    940.6
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4      11758.6   2773.3
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0       1557.5   2595.9
System Call Overhead                          15000.0    2838704.7   1892.5
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                        1059.1

Droplet 2Gb

   BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)

   System: moon: GNU/Linux
   OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-358.6.2.el6.i686 -- #1 SMP Thu May 16 18:12:13 UTC 2013
   Machine: i686 (i386)
   Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
   CPU 0: QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (4600.0 bogomips)
          x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
   CPU 1: QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (4600.0 bogomips)
          x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
   13:35:59 up 4 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.45, 0.16, 0.05; runlevel 3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Mon Nov 11 2013 13:35:59 - 14:04:07
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       15544868.9 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     2522.3 MWIPS (9.0 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               1482.6 lps   (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        198073.0 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           55026.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        655344.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              298379.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                  80643.2 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               4082.1 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   2728.8 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    723.9 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                         759680.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   15544868.9   1332.0
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       2522.3    458.6
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       1482.6    344.8
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     198073.0    500.2
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      55026.4    332.5
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     655344.4   1129.9
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     298379.1    239.9
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0      80643.2    201.6
Process Creation                                126.0       4082.1    324.0
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       2728.8    643.6
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        723.9   1206.5
System Call Overhead                          15000.0     759680.8    506.5
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         499.9

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Mon Nov 11 2013 14:04:07 - 14:32:17
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       31253508.5 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     5029.9 MWIPS (9.4 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               4184.2 lps   (29.8 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        322543.5 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           81658.1 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks       1128127.3 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              579841.3 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                 178589.2 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                              11553.3 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   5516.4 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    734.0 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                        1350899.6 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   31253508.5   2678.1
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       5029.9    914.5
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       4184.2    973.1
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     322543.5    814.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      81658.1    493.4
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0    1128127.3   1945.0
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     579841.3    466.1
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     178589.2    446.5
Process Creation                                126.0      11553.3    916.9
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       5516.4   1301.0
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        734.0   1223.4
System Call Overhead                          15000.0    1350899.6    900.6
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         945.4

Cheers!

Linode Upgrades – Which hosting provider do you use?

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Linode_LogoThere are dozens if not hundreds of hosting providers out there these days so how do you go about choosing the right one for you?

In the early days of my foray into blogging I utilized Google’s Blogger for the first six months. I then decided to move to GoDaddy’s (shared) managed hosting which wasn’t as bad as some reviews would have you believe. A year later I decided to leave GoDaddy for RIMU Hosting. I left behind managed hosting for an un-managed CentOS Linux VPS (Virtual Private Server). While I was a former IBM AIX System Administrator and Linux enthusiast I wasn’t quite prepared for the effort required to setup and manage a simple Linux web server. While I enjoyed the challenge it took me quite sometime to get everything automated. As the traffic to my blog and the discussion forums grew I started running into the memory and bandwidth limitations of the plan I was using from RIMU so I decided to switch to Linode after reading some positive review (such as this one). I’m happy to say I’ve been using Linode for almost 18 months, since October 2011, and have never had any issues or problems.

There have been a number of significant upgrades at Linode over the past few months, so much so that I thought I would take a second to detail them here and shamelessly plug my referral link at the same time.

Linode NexGen: RAM Upgrade

Linode literally left the best for last since most virtual workloads are memory constrained. They are essentially bumping everyone up one level, a Linode 512 becomes a Linode 1G, a Linode 1024 becomes a Linode 2GB, so on and so forth. It should be noted that they are also increasing their pricing by $0.05 per month, example the Linode 1G is $20.00 and not $19.95.

PlanRAMDiskXFERCPUPrice
Linode 1G1 GB24 GB2 TB8 cores (1x priority)$20 / mo
Linode 2G2 GB48 GB4 TB8 cores (2x priority)$40 / mo
Linode 4G4 GB96 GB8 TB8 cores (4x priority)$80 / mo
Linode 8G8 GB192 GB16 TB8 cores (8x priority)$160 / mo
Linode 16G16 GB384 GB20 TB8 cores (16x priority)$320 / mo
Linode 24G24 GB576 GB20 TB8 cores (24x priority)$480 / mo
Linode 32G32 GB768 GB20 TB8 cores (32x priority)$640 / mo
Linode 40G40 GB960 GB20 TB8 cores (40x priority)$800 / mo

Linode NextGen: The Hardware

Linode has upgraded their hosts with two Intel Sandy Bridge E5-2670 processors. The E5-2670 is at the high end of the power-price-performance ratio and each E5-2670 enjoys 20 MB of cache and has 8 cores running at 2.6 GHz. There’s a lot of processing power behind that virtual server depending on your needs.

Linode Nextgen: The Network

Linode has deployed a new Cisco Nexus 7000 and 5000 topology (very similar to the topology that I personally use) in their data centers. “To top things off we’ve increased the amount of outbound transfer included with all plans by 1,000%.  That’s right, 10 times the included transfer!”

Linode 512 upgraded from 200GB to 2000GB (2TB)
Linode 1G upgraded from 400GB to 4000GB (4TB)
Linode 2G upgraded from 800GB to 8000GB (8TB)
Linode 4G upgraded from 1600GB to 16000GB (16TB)
Linode 8G upgraded from 2000GB to 20000GB (20TB)

Storage increased by 20%

Linode 512 goes from 20GB to 24GB
Linode 1GB goes from 40GB to 48GB
Linode 2GB goes from 80GB to 96GB
Linode 4GB goes from 160GB to 192GB
Linode 8GB goes from 320GB to 384GB
Linode 12GB goes from 480GB to 576GB
Linode 20GB goes from 800GB to 960GB

My Thoughts

There’s definitely been quite a few changes over at Linode so I wondered what those changes might have done to performance. At the surface it certainly appears that the average Linode customer is now getting more. We’re getting 100% more memory, 20% more storage, 1,000% more bandwidth. So how what percent of a performance increase can we expect in processing?

We’ll I decided to run some UnixBench tests and compare these new tests with some previous results I posted in an article entitled Linode VPS Hosting I posted back in October 2011.

I started writing this article back in April 2013. That was before the Linode Manager password reset, which was explained by the security breach that was disclosed shortly thereafter. Throughout that time I’ve struggle to get performance numbers anywhere near what I captured in October 2011. I even attempted to engage Linode support and while they were cordial they gave me the typical ‘we can move you to a new host’ response without really engaging in an in-depth discussion around the horrendous performance numbers. I would write four or five paragraphs to which they would respond with one or two liners.

October 2011 Hardware

System:li366-32: GNU/Linux
OS:GNU/Linux — 3.0.4-linode38 — #1 SMP Thu Sep 22 14:59:08 EDT 2011
Machine:i686: i386
Language:en_US.utf8 (charmap=”UTF-8″, collate=”UTF-8″)
CPUs:0:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
1:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
2:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
3:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
Uptime:11:06:54 up 14 min, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.04, 0.05; runlevel 3

May 2013 Hardware

System:earth.michaelfmcnamara.com: GNU/Linux
OS:GNU/Linux — 3.8.4-linode50 — #1 SMP Mon Mar 25 15:50:29 EDT 2013
Machine:i686: i386
Language:en_US.utf8 (charmap=”UTF-8″, collate=”UTF-8″)
CPUs:0:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
1:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
2:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
3:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
4:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
5:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
6:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
7:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
Uptime:21:42:19 up 9 days, 14:07, 1 user, load average: 0.18, 0.10, 0.06; runlevel 3

Here are the performance numbers of each side by side;

TestScoreUnitTimeIters.BaselineOct 2011May 2013
Dhrystone 2 using register variables16345243.3lps10.0 s7116700.01400.6827.5
Double-Precision Whetstone2455.5MWIPS10.1 s755.0446.5301.2
Execl Throughput1179.1lps30.0 s243.0274.2184.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks342283.0KBps30.0 s23960.0864.4139.6
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks87956.8KBps30.0 s21655.0531.591.9
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks958654.2KBps30.0 s25800.01652.9341.2
Pipe Throughput488607.7lps10.0 s712440.0392.858.3
Pipe-based Context Switching32606.8lps10.0 s74000.081.523.1
Process Creation2233.1lps30.0 s2126.0177.2108.3
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)2560.1lpm60.0 s242.4603.8402.4
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)970.0lpm60.0 s26.01616.71115.7
System Call Overhead451501.4lps10.0 s715000.0301.0185.4
System Benchmarks Index Score:495.1191.6

You can find the actual HTML results file online for October 2011 and May 2013.

It’s obvious that quite a few things have changed since I first tested Linode back in October 2011. The original testing was performed on a Linode 512 with 4 Intel Xeon L5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips). The most recent testing was performed on a Linode 2048 with 8 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips). While the original hardware configuration offered 4 cores the latest hardware offering provides 8 cores. I’ve been using the 1 parallel process testing numbers to help gauge the performance of a single core. The disk IO numbers look very poor but when I perform a basic disk IO test everything seems pretty good.

[root@earth ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=48k conv=fdatasync
49152+0 records in
49152+0 records out
3221225472 bytes (3.2 GB) copied, 45.4488 s, 70.9 MB/s

Perhaps the original data I collected in October 2011 was flawed, perhaps I was the only user on that physical server and now years later the Linode environment has become much more crowded – similar to Comcast Cable Modem Internet. It worked great the first few years but after everyone in the neighborhood started subscribing the performance really tanked.

I could probably use tools like Bonnie++ and Nbench to help validate my results but I wouldn’t be able to compare them against any previous results. I’d probably only use these tools if I was going to find a new hosting provider and wanted to benchmark their environments against what I have available today. I even went as far as to download UnixBench v5.1.3 and re-ran my tests only to score a 149.2 compared to the original result of 191.6.

With all that said the server and websites appear to be running fine.  The Web Page Performance tests for this site are pretty decent, 2.944 seconds (first view) and 1.623 seconds (second view). Perhaps the performance numbers will change when my server gets migrated to a host with the new Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPUs.

In summary I’m not sure what to say… I had thought this article would be an easy post to write but the performance numbers followed by the security incident have left me wondering if Linode is the hosting provider for me. Performance benchmarking within a virtual environment is really difficult given all the different components and the ever changing workloads.

Cheers!

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