Evaluation and Analysis of Harware Sizing

7/25/2019 Evaluation and Analysis of Harware Sizing

1/54

Degree project

Evaluation and Analysis

of Hardware Sizing for aMission Critical

Enterprise Application

Author: Premathas Somasekaram

Supervisor: Anders Haggren

Examiner: Anders Haggren

Date: 2013-10-28Course Code: 2ED13E

Subject: Computer Engineering

Level: Independent thesis Basic level

Department Of Computer Science

7/25/2019 Evaluation and Analysis of Harware Sizing

2/54

A

Hardware sizing has come to play an important role when designing and implementing business

critical applications because it is crucial that the existing or defined business and application

requirements are interpreted into an appropriate hardware configuration. If it is not donecorrectly, it may destabilize the environment which means interruptions and unplanned

downtimes that in turn will cause business loosing not only vital revenue but also customer

confidence in the process. This is one of the reasons for why hardware sizing has become a

discipline of its own and as such, each combination of workload and hardware configuration is

treated differently. Many application vendors have their own set of tools and recommendations to

perform the sizing. Once the sizing is performed, the results can be mapped to hardware that isalready benchmarked. This also means the hardware can be configured specially to support the

application workload in question. It also implies that sizing is one of the major activities when

creating a technical architecture where it is used to select the right hardware.

The purpose of this document is to perform a complete sizing exercise based on the requirementsfor a mission critical business application and then translate them into an appropriate hardware

configuration. Furthermore, a set of sizing methodologies and tools are analyzed in detail as wellin order to give an as vendor neutral view as possible. Specific requirements such as high

availability, scalability and other important areas are also taken into consideration when

designing and creating the hardware architecture.

This thesis is sanctioned by the Swedish Armed Forces (henceforth called stakeholder) and it is

based on their estimated requirements, which are used to perform the hardware sizing in amethodical and a phased way. This means the study starts with business requirements that are

mapped to application requirements, which in turn result in technical requirements that are

subsequently translated into a hardware configuration so that a technical architecture can be

designed and implemented.The work started in week 24, which is beginning of June 2013, and completed in week 35,

end of September under the guidance of Ross W. Tsagalidis who has been the external supervisorfor the thesis.

Various tools are used to perform the hardware sizing and the results are then mapped to a

set of preferred hardware environment, so that an as authentic environment as possible can be

created. Most tools are installed locally but other server based and centralized tools, which are

proprietary to vendors, are also used.The study focuses on all aspects of hardware sizing and then presents a final architecturethat is ultimately based on the sizing output.

I would like to thank Swedish Armed Forces and Ross W. Tsagalidis for giving me the

opportunity to do this work, which is a new area in many ways, and for their support throughout

the project. I would also like to thank my supervisor and examiner Anders Haggren, Department

of Computer Science at Linnus University, for his advice and support.

Stockholm, Sep 2013Premathas Somasekaram

7/25/2019 Evaluation and Analysis of Harware Sizing

3/54

2

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 5

2 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................................. 7

2.1 PROBLEM DEFINITION .................................................................................................................................... 72.2 LIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 7

3 METHOD ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

4 THEORY............................................................................................................................................................ 10

4.1 SIZING AS A PROCESS ................................................................................................................................... 104.2 SIZING METHODOLOGIES ............................................................................................................................. 11

4.2.1 User-based Sizing ................................................................................................................................... 124.2.2 Throughput-based Sizing ........................................................................................................................ 134.2.3 Customer Performance Test based sizing .............................................................................................. 15

4.3 SIZING OUTPUT ............................................................................................................................................ 154.4 FACTORS THAT MAY INFLUENCE HARDWARE SIZING ................................................................................... 154.5 FRONT-END NETWORK REQUIREMENTS ....................................................................................................... 16

4.6 BENCHMARK ............................................................................................................................................... 174.6.1 SAPS ....................................................................................................................................................... 174.6.2 TPC ........................................................................................................................................................ 184.6.3 SPEC ...................................................................................................................................................... 184.6.4 IBM rPerf and CPW .......... ........... ......... ........... .......... ........... .......... .......... .......... ........... .......... .......... .... 184.6.5 LINPACK .............. .......... ........... .......... .......... ........... .......... ........... ......... ........... ......... ............ ......... ...... 184.6.6 STREAM ................................................................................................................................................. 194.6.7 Oracle Applications Standard Benchmark ............................................................................................. 19

4.7 SIZING TOOLS .............................................................................................................................................. 194.7.1 SAP Quick Sizer ..................................................................................................................................... 19

4.7.1.1 Algorithms of the QuickSizer ................................................................................................................................ 194.7.2 HP sizing tools ........... ........... ......... ............ ......... ........... .......... .......... .......... ........... .......... .......... ........... 204.7.3 IBM Sizing tools ............... ............ ......... ........... .......... ........... .......... .......... .......... ........... .......... .......... .... 21

4.8 SYSTEM DESIGN .......................................................................................................................................... 214.8.1 High availability ........... ......... ........... ........... .......... ........... ......... ............ ........... .......... .......... ........... ....... 214.8.2 Scalability ............................................................................................................................................... 23

4.8.2.1 Scalability approach ............................................................................................................................................... 23

5 EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................................. 25

5.1 SIZING REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................................ 255.2 HARDWARE SIZING ..................................................................................................................................... 26

5.2.1 Load Factors ........... ......... ............ ......... ........... .......... ........... .......... .......... .......... ........... .......... .......... .... 265.2.2 CPU utilization ....................................................................................................................................... 265.2.3 Sizing guidelines ........................................................................................................................