Diskeeper boosts Oracle, IIS and Apache servers to ensure maximum real-time data performance and reliability at EDF Energy Networks

Transcription

1 Diskeeper boosts Oracle, IIS and Apache servers to ensure maximum real-time data performance and reliability at EDF Energy Networks Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Networks Case Study

2 Background Information EDF Energy Networks is one of the largest energy companies in the UK. With nearly 13,000 employees, it is the largest electricity supplier for London, the south east and the south west of England and supplies energy to around 7.8 million distribution customers. The company owns and manages the electricity distribution network covering the East of England, London and South East, operating coal-fired and gas-fired power stations, private CHP plants and wind farms. It is also one of the largest private network operators in the UK, having important contracts with BAA's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the London Underground and Canary Wharf. Diskeeper is deployed on the electricity distribution control systems Intel servers that cover multiple sites throughout the company s offices and control rooms. The Challenge EDF Energy Networks system infrastructure consists of core AIX and UNIX servers with Oracle and Web based application Intel servers. These core servers are clustered to form resilience and load balancing for application users. The web based servers are paired for redundancy so that a single point of failure will not affect the system stability and availability. Diskeeper has been deployed on Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Microsoft Windows Server Standard and Enterprise 2003 systems with the following mainstream applications running: Oracle, IIS and Apache. EDF Energy Networks uses a suite of applications within the control systems to form a real-time life cycle of data, such as incident management and real-time diagram management, presented to the end user in multiple formats. The real-time data within the control system environment consists of Oracle/file transactions being processed from user input, system updates, real-time SCADA data being sent in from real-time Telecontrol units as well as input from interfaces linked to other related systems within EDF Energy Networks. However, a real-time data environment is very likely to create a high level of fragmentation in a short period of time. The effects of file fragmentation on EDF Energy Networks systems were listed as follows: 1 Increased time taken to boot the Microsoft Windows servers 2 Increased login times when starting Microsoft Windows 3 Low disk space warnings and lack of contiguous free space 4 Increased time on processing Oracle Transaction Files 5 Slow response when upgrading software 6 Slow response on real-time data being read/written 7 Server lock ups/freezing 8 Slow response for remote support of the server 9 Increased unavailability of the system 10 Increased number of user problem reports 11 Decreased customer relationships due to poor system performance and reduced availability 12 Fragmented paging file The control system environment, a real-time operation and of safety critical nature, needs to run at optimal performance and reliability at all times. If the application servers do not perform and are not synchronised, users risk seeing different information from different servers. This could potentially lead to incorrect instructions being sent to a field engineer working on some substation equipment and could clearly put health and safety in jeopardy. Because of high levels of fragmentation, it was noticed that the application running on the server was no longer working in real-time; the system had to be replaced. The challenge for EDF Energy Networks and its control systems was to reverse the trend and insure that its system architecture was running at both peak performance and reliability. The Solution Diskeeper was introduced to Matthew Bates whilst he Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Networks Case Study 2

3 was part of the Server Management Team. He states: I have worked with Diskeeper for many years from its early stages through to Diskeeper A particular instance that prompted the purchase of Diskeeper was an Oracle Reporting Server with low disk drive space and no scheduled defragmentation of the internal disks. Its performance was degrading at a high rate over a short period of time. We installed Diskeeper to analyse its performance degradation and we found some shocking results. See below: He explained: In this particular example we had very little disk drive space free on either the C:\ or D:\ drives. The results spoke for themselves: a possible 76% improvement in read times of fragmented files; a 58% improvement in read times of all files on the C:\ drive; a 70% improvement in read times of fragmented files and a 40% improvement in read times of all files on the D:\ drive. It was obvious that EDF Energy Networks could benefit from Diskeeper. Reporting Server C:\ Drive (After Diskeeper Analysis) Reporting Server D:\ Drive (After Diskeeper Analysis) Reporting Server C:\ Drive Performance Reporting Server D:\ Drive Performance Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Networks Case Study 3

4 Mandy Regenass from Diskeeper Corporation Europe introduced Mr Bates to Diskeeper v9.0 and he decided to run tests on two of his development servers. The tests started with a full defragmentation of all drives on both servers. A defragmentation with Diskeeper was scheduled once a day at midnight on one of the servers, while the other server was not being defragmented at all. The test period lasted two weeks. The results of the tests showed the following: The Scheduled Defragmentation Server 1 2 Defragmentation each night only took around 3 to 10 minutes for two volumes Shorter start up times for starting and logging on to Microsoft Windows 3 Increased performance in processing Oracle Transactions 4 Very low amounts of fragmented files found on each volume after 24 hours of use 5 Increased I/O on the disks 6 Faster installs of software Diskeeper 2008 Standard Server on its Control System Servers. In addition Diskeeper is deployed and managed via Diskeeper Administrator Diskeeper Standard Server 2008 is set up in two different ways on the control server system because of the different roles that the servers play within the application environment. The two types are: Application/Web Application and Oracle Database Mr Bates describes: In order to fully optimise the performance of both types of server we have configured them differently: for the Application/Web Application servers all drives are set to have fully automatic defragmentation with I-FAAST TM configured for Diskeeper to enable and disable when beneficial. The Fully Automated Defragmentation has been set to run 24 hours per day, and as such is continuously monitoring the system disks and defragmenting when appropriate. The other added option that has been enabled with Diskeeper 2008 is the use of Frag Shield TM that prevents the MFTs from becoming fragmented and recommends optimal settings for the page file/s. The non-defragmented Server 1 Longer start up times for starting and logging on to Microsoft Windows 2 Decreased performance in processing Oracle Transactions 3 Increased amounts of fragmented files found on each volume after 24 hours of use 4 Decreased I/O on the disks 5 Slower Installs of software Mr Bates concludes from these results: This demonstrates the impact of fragmentation and how Diskeeper increased system performance and reliability. And because the disk head was performing less physical movements, it prolonged the life expectancy of the individual drives of the server. EDF Energy Networks has lately deployed 60 licences of Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Netwprks Case Study 4

5 Example: (Production System Web Application Server) The below screenshot shows Automatic Defragmentation and I-FAAST TM technologies enabled and the schedule at 24/7. The below screenshot shows a real time snapshot of file performance: The below screenshot shows a real-time snapshot of the file structure: The below screenshot shows volume health and recommendations with performance percentages gained from defragmentation; as you can see the volume is healthy with little or no fragments detected. The Fully Automated Defragmentation has been set to run 24 hours per day, and as such is continuously monitoring the system disks and defragmenting when appropriate. The other added option that has been enabled with Diskeeper 2008 is the use of Frag Shield TM that prevents the MFTs from becoming fragmented and recommends optimal settings for the page file/s. Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Networks Case Study 5

6 Example: (Production System Oracle Database Server) The benefits experienced by EDF Energy Networks after installing Diskeeper can be listed as follows: 1 Organised file systems 2 Performance increases 3 Sustained performance of the device that has the greatest bottleneck within a server system 4 No system lock-ups 5 Maximised Free Disk Space 6 Higher System Availability Fully automatic real-time defragmentation is crucial to keep the server disks operating at peak performance. As seen from the above examples the disk performance and file structure are optimised by the real-time defragmentation. Talking about Diskeeper s main features, Mr Bates continues: A particular feature that I find most useful in Diskeeper is the ability to defragment automatically in the background; the set-up can be very granular and flexible. Diskeeper operates using only idle resources and does not conflict with the performance of the server whilst it is defragmenting. The Benefits Our servers are faster and more reliable with Diskeeper. Consequently, our service to our customers greatly improved. This was in itself enough to approve the purchase of Diskeeper. 7 Improved Customer Relationships 8 System restarts are only done when security patches are applied or other maintenance processes require it 9 Low Maintenance 10 Easy Diskeeper deployment no restarts required to install Higher performance and reliability: lower maintenance costs - from a support perspective and from a physical perspective (i.e. higher disk life expectancy) - proved a real ROI for EDF Energy Networks. Mr Bates concludes: I would recommend Diskeeper as an absolute must when it comes to deploying new servers as well as enhancing existing server s performance Diskeeper Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Diskeeper, Maximising Performance and Reliability Automatically, InvisiTasking, I-FAAST, Frag Shield and the Diskeeper Corporation logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Diskeeper Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Diskeeper Corporation Europe Kings House, Cantelupe Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex +44 (0) Diskeeper Corporation Europe - EDF Energy Networks Case Study 6