Joint Testing by Xinnor and ScaleFlux Demonstrates Performance RAID Software Solution for Latency-Sensitive Distributed Database Applications

Xinnor and ScaleFlux, Inc. jointly announced the completion of a feasibility study into the benefits of pairing Xinnor xiRAID with ScaleFlux CSD 3310 NVMe SSDs for latency-sensitive distributed database applications.

The results conclusively prove a software RAID solution capable of servicing high-performance workloads under all RAID operating states.

ScaleFlux CSD 3310 NVMe SSDs

For latency-sensitive applications, it is essential for increases in IO traffic due to reconstruction to not affect host IO performance. For this reason, a key consideration during the study was to evaluate the impact that degraded and reconstructing states would have on the performance of the RAID array. Combined, 2 features of the integrated solution ensured no performance penalty on the system. 1) xiRAID offers advanced control over the rate of array reconstruction, ensuring a predictable workload and minimizing contention with the host IO. 2) CSD 3310 SSDs use transparent inline compression, reducing the impact of intra-RAID reconstruction IO and enabling lower read latency profiles even during reconstruction.

To evaluate impact on IO performance, 4 conditions were studied:

1. Normal operation

2. Surprise removal of a drive from the array and continued operation in the degraded state

3. Adding an empty drive back into the array and operation in the reconstructing state

4. Normal operation after full reconstruction.

The test results consistently show RW throughputs of 5.4GB/s and 1.7GB/s, respectively, across all states (*) with only a slight decline during the array reconstruction phase. The tail latency remained low throughout all states, indicating the ability of the joint solution to maintain low-latency performance. In conclusion, the study proves that xiRAID fast software RAID and ScaleFlux NVMe SSDs with inline compression meet the demands of latency-sensitive distributed databases, such as Aerospike. ^(**)

(*) Test environment: a dual-socket Xeon Gold 6342 CPU with 48 physical cores and 512GB of DRAM, paired with 5×7.68TB ScaleFlux CSD 3310 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and Xinnor’s xiRAID in RAID-5. The OS was Ubuntu 22 with kernel version 5.15.0-70, and performance was evaluated using the Aerospike certification tool.
(**) Download the application note to learn more about the results.