Learn tips and techniques that will improve the performance of your applications and databases running on Amazon EC2 instance storage and/or Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS).  This advanced session discusses when to use HI1, HS1, and Amazon EBS.  We will share an "under the hood" view to tune the performance of your Elastic Block Store and best practices for running workloads on Amazon EBS, such as relational databases (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, postgres) and NoSQL data stores, such as MongoDB and Riak. 

1. © 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.© 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.
Maximizing EC2 and Elastic Block
Store Disk Performance
Todd Varland, Solutions Architect, AWS

2. What We’ll Cover
- Maximizing EC2 and Elastic Block Store
Performance – Best Practices
- As Measured by…
- Configuration Options
- Deployment Patterns
- Tips and Best Practices

3. So.. what storage workloads?

4. For most builders AWS is get in and go!

5. Other AWS choices we won’t cover

6. A “Normal” Hard Drive

7. EBS =

8. What is Amazon EBS?
• Very flexible service with lots of choice
– Used with Amazon EC2 instances
– Attach/detach/copy/delete volumes
– Point-in-time snapshots of volumes -> Amazon S3
– Automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to protect
from component failure
– Paying a low price for only what you provision

9. Key Pieces
Amazon
EC2
An I/O
Amazon
EBS
Network link

10. Measured by
1. Throughput:
2. Latency:
3. Cost:

11. Tools available for tuning
1. EC2 Instance:
2. EBS Optimized:
3. PIOPS:
4. Queue Depth:
5. Block Size:
6. Workload:

12. Amazon EBS Standard
Amazon EBS
• IOPS: ~100 IOPS steady-state, with best-effort bursts to hundreds
• Throughput: variable by workload, best effort to 10s of MB/s.
• Latency: Varies, reads typically <20 ms writes typically <10 ms
• Capacity: As provisioned, up to 1 TB

13. Amazon EBS PIOPS
Amazon EBS
• IOPS: Within 10% of up to 4000 IOPS,
99.9% of a given year, as provisioned.
• Throughput: 16 KB per I/O = up to 64 MB/s, as provisioned.
• Latency: low and consistent. Second/IOPS, at recommended QD
• Capacity: As provisioned, up to 1 TB
*
*

14. EC2 Instance: Architecting for Performance
• IOPS consistency requires EBS-
optimized instances
• Maximum throughput delivered by
Amazon EBS is limited by Amazon
EC2 bandwidth
• EBS throughput =
EBS IOPS × Block size
– Ex: 64 MB/s = 4000 IOPS × 16 KB
Instance vCPU
EBS
Optimized Max MB/s Max 16k IOPS
t1 micro 1 No 32MB/s 2000
m1.small 1 No 64MB/s 4000
m1.medium 1 No 64MB/s 4000
m1.large 2 Yes 64MB/s 4000
m1.xlarge 4 Yes 128MB/s 8000
m3.xlarge 4 Yes 64MB/s 4000
m3.2xlarge 8 Yes 128MB/s 8000
c1.medium 2 No 32MB/s 2000
c1.xlarge 8 Yes 128MB/s 8000
cc2.8xlarge 32 NA 800MB/s 50,000
m2.xlarge 2 No 64MB/s 4000
m2.2xlarge 4 Yes 64MB/s 4000
m2.4xlarge 8 Yes 128MB/s 8000
cr1.8xlarge 32 NA 800MB/s 50,000
hi1.4xlarge 16 NA 800MB/s 50,000
cg1.4xlarge 16 NA 800MB/s 50,000
Max 8k =
2x
Max 4k =
4x*
Max 2k =
 8x*
*Maximum IOPS is also limited to ~100,000 per 32 vCpu,
irrespective of block size/throughput.

15. EBS-Optimized
• EBS-optimized offers a “SAN-like” experience
• Network interference results:
No impact on IOPS or
Amazon EBS
throughput
Row Labels AvgBW AvgIOPs
m3.2xlarge (EBS-optimized)
no network load
random
read 57,542 3,596
write 61,713 3,857
rw (70/30) 66,997 4,186
sequential
read 61,708 3,856
write 61,651 3,853
rw (70/30) 66,996 4,187
with network load-test1
random
read 59,835 3,739
write 63,407 3,962
rw (70/30) 68,859 4,303
sequential
read 61,736 3,858
write 63,360 3,959
rw (70/30) 68,859 4,302
Network interference tests
No
Difference
In
Throughput

16. EC2 Instance
An I/O
Amazon
EBS
Just because Amazon EC2 sends more
work doesn’t mean there’s enough
bandwidth to handle it!
Amazon
EC2

17. EC2 Instance
An I/O
Without more bandwidth, more Amazon EBS
volumes or higher PIOPS won’t help!
Amazon
EC2

18. ❶ Select a new type of Provisioned IOPS volume
❸ Specify the number of I/O operations per
second your application needs, up to 4000
IOPS per volume. The volume will deliver the
specified I/O operations per second.
❷ Specify the volume capacity
Review: Provisioned IOPS Volumes
Minimum ratio of capacity to IOPS = 1:30
$aws ec2 create-volume --availability-zone us-east-1a --size 134 --volume-type io1 --iops 4000

19. EBS PIOPS
Amazon
EC2
An I/O
Amazon
EBS
16 KBytes

20. USE PIOPS + EBS-OPTIMIZED
PLEASE

21. I/O Characteristics
• I/O size
– 4 KB to 64 MB
• I/O pattern
– Sequential and random
• I/O type
– Read and write
• PIOPS always measures I/O in terms of
16 KB or smaller
• PIOPS delivers same number of IOPS for
sequential and random I/O
• PIOPS delivers same number of IOPS for
reads or writes
PIOPS is optimized for database workloads

22. PIOPS
an I/O
Amazon
EBS
Just because Amazon EC2 sends more
work, doesn’t mean there’s enough
IOPS to handle it!
Amazon
EC2

23. PIOPS
Amazon
EC2
An I/O
Amazon
EBS
Adding bandwidth alone
or increasing instance size won’t help!
EBS-optimized

24. Queue Depth
An I/O
Amazon
EBS
After it’s gone, it’s gone
Amazon
EC2

25. Amazon
EC2
Block Size
A bigger I/O
Amazon
EBS
>16 KB? = more than one I/O

26. Block Size
A smaller I/O
Amazon
EBS
< 16 KB? = no “bonus” random I/Os
Amazon
EC2

27. Architecture – What Else Uses Network?

28. Workload/
Software
Typical block
size
Random
/Seq?
Typical
correct
EBS type
Max EBS @
500 MB/s
Max EBS @
1 GB/s
Max EBS @ CC/H
Oracle DB Configurable:2 KB –
16 KB
Default 8 KB
random PIOPS RAID 0, 2 × 4000
PIOPS:
~7800 IOPS
RAID 0, 4 × 4000
PIOPS:
~15,600 IOPS
RAID 0, 24 × 4000 PIOPS:
~96,000 IOPS
Microsoft
SQL Server
8 KB w/ 64 KB
extents
random PIOPS RAID 0, 2 × 4000
PIOPS:
~7800 IOPS
RAID 0, 4 × 4000
PIOPS:
~15,600 IOPS
RAID 0, 20 × 4000 PIOPS:
~80,000 IOPS
MySQL 16 KB random PIOPS 1 x 4000 PIOPS:
~4000 IOPS
RAID 0, 2 × 4000
PIOPS:
~7,800 IOPS
RAID 0, 12 × 4000 PIOPS:
~48,000 IOPS
PostgreSQL 8 KB random PIOPS RAID 0, 2 × 4000
PIOPS:
~7,800 IOPS
RAID 0, 4 × 4000
PIOPS:
~15,600 IOPS
RAID 0, 24 × 4000 PIOPS:
~96,000 IOPS
MongoDB 4 KB serialized PIOPS RAID 0, 4 × 4000
PIOPS:
~15,600 IOPS
RAID 0, 8 × 4000
PIOPS:
~31,000 IOPS
RAID 0, 24 × 4000
PIOPS:
~96,000 IOPS
Cassandra 4 KB random PIOPS RAID 0, 4 × 4000
PIOPS:
~15,600 IOPS
RAID 0, 8 × 4000
PIOPS:
~31,000 IOPS
RAID 0, 24 × 4000
PIOPS:
~96,000 IOPS
GlusterFS 128 KB sequential PIOPS 1 × 4000
PIOPS:
~500 IOPS
RAID 0, 2 × 4000
PIOPS:
~1000 IOPS
RAID 0, 12 × 4000
PIOPS:
~6,000 IOPS
(768MB/s)
Cheat Sheet Sample! Storage Workloads on AWS

29. Smaller I/O (4 KB, 16 KB)
• Why are 4 KB I/O size in
sequential operations
driving greater than 4000
IOPS?
• Why is m1.large and
m3.xlarge IOPS at 16 KB
less than 4000 IOPS?
• Database needs 5000
ops/second. How many
IOPS do I need to
provision?
• What happens when
customers want to burst
beyond provisioned IOPS?
IOPS and BW
performance at QD
8
m1.large M3.xlarge m3.2xlarge
AvgIOPs
Avg BW
( KB) AvgIOPs
Avg BW
( KB) AvgIOPs
Avg
BW
( KB)
Write
sequential
4K 4146 16,587 5997 23,990 7767 31,068
16K 3712 59,402 4157 55,461 4153 60,332
Write random
4K 4082 16,329 4433 17,733 4178 16,712
16K 3713 59,422 3743 53,813 4153 60,332
Read
sequential
4K 5301 21,205 9232 36,929 13450 53,802
16K 3533 56,535 4796 56,824 4153 60,332
Read random
4K 4538 18,154 5864 23,457 4177 16,711
16K 3510 56,168 3583 51,246 4153 60,332
Results for 400 GB volume with 4000 IOPS at QD 8; EBS-optimized instances

30. Larger I/O (128 KB, 512 KB)
• Why am I seeing only 462
IOPS on a volume?
• Why there is no difference
in performance for
random and sequential
workloads?
• How should I configure
500 MB/s read or write
throughput using PIOPS
volumes
IOPS and BW
performance at QD 8
m1.large M3.xlarge m3.2xlarge
AvgIOPs
Avg
BW(KB) AvgIOPs
Avg
BW(KB) AvgIOPs
Avg
BW(KB)
Write sequential
128K 462 59,268 462 59,145 522 66,843
512K 115 59,292 115 59,278 130 66,804
Write random
128K 462 59,265 462 59,241 522 66,843
512K 115 59,291 115 59,272 130 66,843
Read sequential
128K 455 58,240 454 58,225 522 66,843
512K 113 58,003 114 58,589 130 66,843
Read random
128K 455 58,236 454 58,215 522 66,843
512K 113 57,960 114 58,496 130 66,805
4000, 16 KB read/write per second, or 2000 32
KB read/write per second, or 1000 64 KB
read/write per second…
Results for 400 GB volume with 4000 IOPS at QD 8

31. What about RAID?
Amazon EBS
Amazon EC2
Amazon EBS
Amazon EC2

32. Architecting for Performance: RAID
• Customers stripe number of
volumes to drive higher
IOPS and throughput
– RAID 0 or RAID 10
• How should customers think
about taking snapshots on a
striped volume?
– Quiesce file systems and
take snapshot
– Unmount file system and
take snapshot
– Use OS-specific tools
IO Pattern Block Sizes Thread Write IOPS Write BW (MB) Read IOPS Read BW (MB)
Sequential
4K 8 33,500 134 48,250 193
16K 8 13,875 222 48,063 769
1M 1 247 247 823 823
Random
4K 8 35,250 141 48,250 193
16K 8 13,875 222 42,125 674
1M 1 496 496 795 795
12×400 GB PIOPS volumes, pre-warmed,
RAID 0 LVM, Stripe size 64 KB, attached to
CR1 instance

33. • Leverage SSD instance type
(hi1.4xlarge)
o 2 × 1 TB SSD storage (ephemeral
storage)
o Perfect for replicas
• If replicas on SSD instance types, disable
integrity features such as fsync and
full_page_writes on those hosts to
improve performance
Performance – Extra-large Production Scale

34. Stable
Testing Random 4 KB Reads
EBS PIOPS+ SSD

35. Performance / Stability Tips
• Ext4 or XFS (understand journal impact!)
• nobarrier, noatime, noexec, nodiratime
• Raise file descriptor limits
• Set read-aheads low
• AWS business-level support – Trusted Advisor
• Amazon CloudWatch metrics in general
• SNAPSHOT SNAPSHOT SNAPSHOT

36. Pre-warming Amazon EBS volumes
• Typically 5%, extreme worst case of 50% performance
reduction in IOPS and latency when volumes are used without
pre-warming
– Performance is as provisioned when all the chunks are accessed
• Recommendation if testing or you have spare setup time:
– Write to every 4 MB block before using new volumes
• Linux: DD
• Windows: NTFS Full format
– Takes roughly an hour to pre-warm 1 TB 4 KB PIOPS volume
– Be warned, can take up to a day for a 1 TB standard Amazon EBS volume

37. Architecting for Performance: Latency
• Performance requirements may be driven by IOPS or latency
or both
• Recommendation is to start with queue depth of 4 and tune
based on IOPS and latency requirement
– Some customers may need lowest possible latency; this can be achieved at
queue depth of 1 or 2
• Very high queue depths ( >24) may decrease IOPS count as
well as increase latency

38. Write Latency
• Database applications care
about latency as much as IOPS
delivered
• There is an interdependency
among IOPS, queue depth, and
latency
• Current guidance is queue
depth of 1 for every 200 IOPS,
but if latency-bound and write-
heavy, 1:500 – 1:1000 is better.
1 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32
AvgIOPS ( Count) 845 4152 4153 4177 4152 4176 4177 4177 4151
AvgTP90 ( ms) 3.13 1.47 2.03 3.56 3.62 5.54 6.18 7.48 7.71
845
4152
3.13
1.47
2.03
3.56 3.62
5.54
6.18
7.48
7.71
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
WriteIOPS
16 KB random WRITE- M3.2Xlarge
EBS-optimized
L
a
t
e
n
c
y
QD

39. Read Latency
• Reads can take advantage of a
deeper queue
• Current guidance is queue
depth of 1 for every 250 IOPS
• EBS-optimized provides
predictable latency
1 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32
AvgIOPS ( Count) 1864 4153 4153 4177 4120 2800 1965 1213 1089
AvgTP90 ( ms) 0.68 1.46 2.15 3.43 3.88 5.18 91.14 93.18 93.70
1864
4153
4120
1965
0.68 1.46 2.15 3.43 3.88 5.18
91.14
93.18 93.70
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
ReadIOPS
16 KB random READ - M3.2Xlarge EBS-optimized
L
a
t
e
n
c
y
QD

40. What About Performance Cost?
cc2.8xlarge
24 @ 4 KB
PIOPS
VS.
hi1.4xlarge hi1.4xlarge
$11773 on-demand,
$10589 effective 3 YR reserved
$4538 on-demand,
$1539 effective 3 YR reserved
If >20 KB IOPS read, choose hi1
If 3 YR, and >8 KB IOPS, choose hi1If >10 KB write IOPS, TEST,
but probably choose PIOPS
On demand, If <20 KB read IOPS, choose PIOPS

41. What about Capacity Cost?
cc2.8xlarge
48x
1TB
EBS
VS.
hs1.8xlarge hs1.8xlarge
$7312 on-demand,
$6128 effective 3 YR reserved
$6734 on-demand,
$2408 effective 3 YR reserved
If >43TB, or > 800MB/s, choose hs1
If 3 year, and >18TB, choose hs1

42. Tools available for tuning
1. EC2 Instance:
2. EBS Optimized:
3. PIOPS:
4. Queue Depth:
5. Block Size:
6. Workload:

43. EBS-optimized
Oh, YEAH!!
Amazon
EC2
A “boatload” of I/O

44. From 1000 to 98,000: What does that mean?

45. So.. what storage workloads?

46. © 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.© 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.
Maximizing EC2 and Elastic Block
Store Disk Performance
Todd Varland, Solutions Architect, AWS
Thank you!

47. 1
EBS
RAID
A
ZFS
Volumes
PRIMARY
Controller
Availability Zone 1
SoftNAS Instance A
SECONDARY
Controller
Availability Zone 2
SoftNAS Instance B
EIP
NFS CIFS iSCSI
2 N
SnapReplicate
1
EBS
RAID
A
ZFS
Volumes
2 N… …
Block
Replication
SnapReplicate™
AWS Marketplace: Softnas.com
Snapshots of multiple Amazon EBS volumes in a RAID array
HA Monitor
Q1
2014