Using command line iSER DEMO to test iSER target performance

From the package of us, there are few demo utils to create a single pooled storage to demonstrate storage features and performance. Through the way, you can quick preview the favorite features in minutes.

For iSER target, you may run the following command to start:

/opt/flexsds/bin/flexsds -d iser spool 2 nvme://0000:04:00.0 nvme://0000:05:00.0
outputs are:
found 1 ib devices
device0: mlx5_0, uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband_verbs/uverbs0, /sys/class/infiniband/mlx5_0
copies: 2
create name space: iqn.2016-12.com.flexsds:testpool.volume0…done.
iSCSI over RDMA service is started.

Using built-in iSCSI / iSER initiator in Linux

 

Install the iscsi-initiator-utils package:

Cent OS: yum install -y iscsi-initiator-utils
Ubuntu: apt-get install iscsi-initiator-utils

Discover and connect:

#iscsiadm -m discovery -t sendtargets -p 192.168.80.101 -I iser
connect:
#iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.2016-12.com.flexsds:testpool.volume0 -l -I iser
After connected to the iSER target, you will see an additional drive in your system some like /dev/sdc
Then you can use vdbench, fio or similar software to test for performance.
Note: The virtual device is created by the Linux built-in kernel mode iSCSI initiator driver, the performance will be limited on this, will not represent to the server’s throughput.

Testing environment and results

CPU: E52680

Memory: 64G

NVMe: Intel NVMe 4610 * 2.

NIC:  Mellanox ConnectX-4 100GB

PERFORMANCE: around 745,000 IOPS in Read, 723,000 IOPS in Write.

Note: The above result can be concurrently tested in two client machines with same result.