HP System Dimensioning Guide, CEE R6
Cloud Execution Environment

Contents

1Introduction
1.1Target Group
1.2System Characteristics

2

CEE System
2.1System Configurations
2.1.1Reference Configurations
2.1.2Certified Configuration

3

HW Requirements
3.1Summary of Blade Configuration
3.2Network Configuration
3.2.1Network Requirements for Distributed Storage, ScaleIO
3.3Firewall Requirement
3.4CPU Configuration
3.4.1Compute Host
3.4.2ScaleIO Host
3.5RAM Configuration
3.5.1Introduction
3.5.2Compute Server without vCIC and vFuel
3.5.3Compute Server with vCIC
3.5.4Compute Server with vFuel
3.5.5Compute Server with vCIC and vFuel
3.5.6ScaleIO Server with MDM/TB and SDS
3.6Storage Configuration
3.6.1Centralized Storage
3.6.2Local Storage Disk Space
3.6.3Disk Requirements for Atlas
3.6.4Disk Requirements for Nova Snapshots
3.6.5Disk Requirements for Distributed Storage (ScaleIO)

4

Characteristics
4.1General System Limits
4.2Orchestration Interface
4.3Tenant Execution Environment
4.3.1Performance
4.3.2Resiliency
4.4Network
4.4.1Performance
4.4.2Resiliency
4.4.3Tenant Network Limitations
4.5Storage
4.5.1Limitations When Using Local Storage
4.5.2VM Migration with NoMigration Policy Set
4.5.3Resiliency
4.5.4Centralized Storage Limits
4.5.5Distributed Storage, ScaleIO
4.6In-Service Performance

5

System Limitations
5.1OpenStack Deviations
5.2SW Configurations and Options
5.2.1Allocation of Memory
5.2.2Allocation of vCPU
5.2.3Collocation of vCIC, vFuel, and Atlas
5.2.4Number of Parallel Root Volume Operations
5.3Not Supported
5.3.1Dashboard Does Not Support Internet Explorer
5.4Limitations and Workarounds
5.5Update Limitations

Reference List

1   Introduction

This document describes the characteristics of Cloud Execution Environment (CEE) to enable dimensioning and understanding the limitations of CEE. It also describes requirements on HW combinations required for running CEE. The application can have additional requirements.

Storage is measured in gibibyte (GiB), tebibyte (TiB), and mebibyte (MiB) in this document.
1 GiB is equivalent to 1.074 GB.

The following words are used in this document with the meaning specified below:

vNIC A virtual network interface card (vNIC) provides connectivity between the Cloud SDN Switch (CSS) and a VM. A configuration can provide several vNICs to a VM.
Interface A network interface. Can be either a physical NIC (PHY) providing CSS with board external connectivity, or a virtual NIC connecting CSS to a VM.
PMD thread CSS uses a Poll Mode Driver (PMD) technique that continuously polls incoming packets from the NICs, that is, interrupts are not used. To be able to reliably handle all incoming packets, a software continuously polls the NIC queues for packets to be handled. This software is executing in one or more threads that are called PMD threads. The execution environment for the PMD threads is isolated from the Linux scheduler to be able to reliably handle a high sustained packet flow without interrupts or delays caused by being scheduled out.
vCIC host A host running Compute and vCIC. There are three vCIC hosts in Multi-Server deployments of CEE.
Compute host A host running Compute without vCIC

1.1   Target Group

Cloud Infrastructure providers and application designers.

1.2   System Characteristics

The characteristic features of CEE are the following:

For information on system limitations, see Section 5.

2   CEE System

This section describes CEE system configurations and capabilities.

2.1   System Configurations

CEE is a scalable system used with HW products from different vendors. CEE offers a set of configurations.

2.1.1   Reference Configurations

Reference configurations, as shown in Table 1, offer the possibility to build and scale a cloud system on specified HW, such as servers, switches, and storage.

In CEE R6, HP c7000 HW can scale depending on the switch configuration used:

Table 1    HP Reference Configurations

Scaling

Number of Blades

Number of Enclosures

Small Configuration

24

2

Medium Configuration

47

3

Large Configuration

80

5

2.1.2   Certified Configuration

Certified configurations are a subset of reference configurations. Certified CEE configurations have been documented and tested by the Ericsson Cloud organization.

The certified configuration for CEE R6 consists of the following HW components:

3   HW Requirements

This section describes generic hardware and firmware requirements for CEE, based on the certified Ericsson CEE R6 HW.

Complying with the outlined HW requirements does not in any way imply Ericsson CEE certification. HW deployment outside the already certified ones requires system integration work.

The server, switching, and optional storage components of the HW environment are shown in the figures below. Two storage options are available:

The two different storage solutions cannot be combined. Only one of them can be used in the same CEE system.

Figure 0   CEE Hardware Environment with Optional VNX Storage

Figure 1   CEE Hardware Environment with Optional VNX Storage

Figure 1   CEE Hardware Environment with Optional ScaleIO Storage

Figure 2   CEE Hardware Environment with Optional ScaleIO Storage

The supported HW is listed below:

Table 2    Supported HP HW

Item

Status

Blades

HP C7000 BL460c Gen8

Reference

HP C7000 BL460c Gen9

Certified

Networking

Extreme x670V

Reference

Extreme x770

Certified

Extreme x460

Certified

Storage

EMC VNX 5400

Certified

Other EMC VNX® series 2 models

Reference

RAID-0 for local disk(1)

Certified

RAID-1 for local disk

Certified

(1)  The use of RAID-1 is recommended.


3.1   Summary of Blade Configuration

This section describes HW requirements for blades.

Table 3    HW Configuration Example, Blade

Aspect

Requirement

Limitation

CPU(1)

2x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2680 v3 (12 cores per processor, 2 Hyperthreads per core), 48 Hyperthreads available

Max 21 VMs/2HTs
non-oversubscribed NFVs

RAM

At least 64 GiB.
Recommended 128 GiB or more, up to maximum capacity.

 

NIC

4*10GE Intel Niantic and 2*1GE unspecified (Management)(2)

 

Onboard Disk

At least 600 GB (558 GiB) SSD or HDD

 

Management
Interace

HP iLO/OA

 

(1)  3 cores, 6 HTs used for infrastructure, additional cores used by VMs. Requirement depends on application.

(2)  Additional NICs are needed if SR-IOV is used.


Note:  
SR-IOV is not supported for HP HW.

3.2   Network Configuration

This section describes HW configuration for networking.

Table 4    HW Configuration, Network

Aspect

Requirement

Limitation

LAN/SAN Switch(1)

4 × X770, use for up to 80 blades

HW allows up to 80 blades to be connected.

4 × X670V, use for up to 47 blades

 

2 × X670V where LAN and SAN are mixed in each switch, use for up to 24 blades

 

DC Firewall

See Section 3.3 for information about selecting the DC Firewall

 

Border Gateway

BGW is essentially a router with the following HW and SW requirements:


  • Two BGW units for redundancy

  • At least four 10 GE or one 40 GE interface for the configuration

  • Support of Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) v3

 

(1)   Bandwidth requirements towards BGw and storage influences switching configuration and number of blades that can be connected. Required and foreseen expansion scenarios must be considered because reconfiguration means a rebuild of the switch solution.


3.2.1   Network Requirements for Distributed Storage, ScaleIO

The following requirements must be fulfilled:

Network:

Parameters and configuration in ScaleIO that will affect dimensioning:

3.3   Firewall Requirement

During test of the CEE Certified Configuration, a Juniper EX 4550 has been used as BGW and a Juniper SRX 3400 as Firewall.

All Juniper SRX High-End series Firewalls provide a similar set of features. SRX can be equipped with a flexible number of Services Processing Cards (SPC), I/O Cards (IOC), and Network Processing Cards (NPC), allowing the system configuration to support a balance of performance and port density. Suitable firewall HW setup depends on expected traffic volumes and sessions. More information can be found in supplier datasheets, on the Juniper Networks homepage, Reference [1].

3.4   CPU Configuration

Refer to the Configuration File Guide for more information about the configuration procedure.

The number of available CPU IDs depends on the CPU model.

3.4.1   Compute Host

The allocation examples below are valid for HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 processor.

If the number of cores in the used processor type differs from the number of cores in this example, the number of cores allocated to the VMs must be adjusted.

The examples describe the CPU allocation at a server that runs vCIC and vFuel. If vCIC or vFuel are not used on the server, their CPUs are allocated for the tenant VMs.

Table 5    Automatic CPU Allocation on HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 Processor for VMs, OVS, vCIC, and vFuel in a Compute Host

CPU Owner

Allocated CPU ID

Tenant VM

8,32, 9,33, 10,34, 11,35, 12,36, 13,37, 14,38, 15,39, 16,40, 17,41, 18,42, 19,43, 20,44, 21,45, 22,46

OVS(1)(2)

1,25, 23,47(3)

OVS control process(4)

0 (4)

vCIC(5)

4,28, 5,29, 6,30, 7,31

vFuel

3,27

Host OS(6)

0,24, 2,26

If ScaleIO is installed, then 1–5 CPU threads are used for SDC.

(1)  OVS configuration requires at least one PMD thread on each NUMA node with a physical interface, and at least one PMD thread on the NUMA node where the control threads are located.

(2)  To achieve a more predictable performance, allocate only one CPU per core for OVS. See Section 3.4.1.1 for more information.

(3)  The allocation of CPU 23 and 47 must be manually changed from OVS to Tenant VM since Numa 1 has no NICs for tenant traffic.

(4)  The process does not get a CPU for its exclusive use. A configuration parameter specifies one of the host OS CPUs to be used by the OVS control process.

(5)  The vCIC can be allocated on cores that are over allocated and shared with the application. In such cases, it must be ensured that the application sharing resources with the vCIC dont exhaust the vCIC resources.

(6)  In some use-cases only one core is allocated to the host OS as explained in Section 3.4.1.2.


Figure 2   Automatic CPU Allocation of the Respective Resource Owner per NUMA Node on HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 Processor for VMs, OVS, vCIC, and vFuel in a Compute Host

Figure 3   Automatic CPU Allocation of the Respective Resource Owner per NUMA Node on HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 Processor for VMs, OVS, vCIC, and vFuel in a Compute Host

Figure 3   Manually Adjusted CPU Allocation of the Respective Resource Owner per NUMA Node on HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 Processor for VMs, OVS, vCIC, and vFuel in a Compute Host

Figure 4   Manually Adjusted CPU Allocation of the Respective Resource Owner per NUMA Node on HP BL460c G9 with Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 Processor for VMs, OVS, vCIC, and vFuel in a Compute Host

3.4.1.1   Allocating Single CPUs for OVS

To achieve a more predictable OVS performance, only a single CPU must be allocated to OVS from each CPU core reserved for OVS PMD threads. The other CPU on the same core, also called hyper-thread sibling, must be isolated, that is, not used by the host OS process scheduler, and is free from any extra load that can negatively influence the OVS performance.

To achieve the described allocation, the following settings must be performed:

3.4.1.2   Allocating One Core to the Host OS

However the recommended CPU allocation to the host OS is two cores for each Compute host, for some use-cases, where a single or very few VMs are used on each Compute host, it can be possible to reduce the host OS allocation to one core.
Having a single core allocated for the host OS can impact the characteristics of the system. For example, actions such as starting, stopping, and migrating VMs can become slower, and it can also impact the performance of other VMs on the same host. Before using a system with a single core allocated to the Host OS in a production environment, sufficient testing must be performed. Beside other checks, this testing must include the capacity and performance test of the VM during the time of performing life cycle management operations for other VMs running on the same host. While performing such test, the processor load for the host OS must be monitored carefully for deviation from a steady state.

3.4.2   ScaleIO Host

Table 6 shows the minimum number of cores to be allocated to the CPU owners in a ScaleIO host.

Table 6    Minimum Number of Allocated Cores in a ScaleIO Host

CPU Owner

Minimum Number of Allocated Cores

Host OS

2

Meta Data Manager/Tie-Breaker (MDM/TB)

1

SDS

2–4

3.5   RAM Configuration

This section describes the optimal RAM configuration for the CEE.

Refer to the Configuration File Guide for more information about the configuration procedure.

Each Neutron network created consumes RAM in the vCIC, and it influences the maximum number of virtual tenant networks. See Section 4.4.3 for more information.

The minimal RAM size is 128 GiB.

Running vCIC, vFuel, or both on the server modifies the optimal memory allocation. The subsections below describe the possible cases for 128 GiB memory. If the system contains more than 128 GiB RAM, the extra memory goes to the tenant VMs.

See the following cases:

Section 3.5.1 provides general information about RAM configuration in CEE.

3.5.1   Introduction

The default configuration for the Host OS on Compute nodes is 8 GiB. More memory can be reserved for the Host OS by setting the relevant configuration parameters. The needed amount of memory depends on the values of a number of other parameters as described below.

The memory used for the VMs is allocated to huge pages. This is the memory visible from the inside of the VMs. The 1 GiB huge pages are referred to as Tenant VM in the RAM reservation tables of the upcoming sections. In addition to the 1 GiB huge pages, the VMs need memory allocated from the host OS. This memory is used, for example, to emulate devices used by the virtual machine. It is hard to predict the amount of host OS memory used by the emulator since, for example, it depends on the type and number of the used devices. A small VM consumes less than 100 MiB, while it can grow to several hundred MiB in specific cases. About 300 MiB host OS memory would be enough for each virtual machine but we must double it and calculate with 600 MiB as explained below.

In a system using the NUMA architecture, the NUMA location of VMs must be considered. The available memory, that is, the huge pages and the Host OS memory, are evenly distributed between the NUMA nodes. By design, OpenStack Nova allocates VMs on the first NUMA node that fits the VM. Apart from the VMs running on both NUMA nodes, the VMs allocate memory from the NUMA node on which they are running. In a worst case scenario where all VMs are allocated on the same NUMA node, all the memory for the VMs will be allocated from the same NUMA node. In such a scenario most of the memory on the other NUMA node will be unused, and half of the memory on the Compute node will be free. To be on the safe side in a dual socket system, the 300 MiB host OS memory per VM must be doubled to cover the case where all VMs are allocated on the same NUMA node.

The host OS memory usage for processes other than the VMs depends on the CPU reservations. The host OS uses the unreserved CPUs. By default, CEE allocates two cores to the host OS on NUMA node 0. This means that most of the memory used by the Host OS will be allocated from NUMA node 0. In some scenarios it is preferred to run the host OS on both NUMA nodes. It can be achieved by modifying the CPU reservation.

Note:  
In order to allocate as little memory for the host OS as possible, memory profiling of the host OS for the specific scenario is recommended.

3.5.2   Compute Server without vCIC and vFuel

Table 7 specifies the volumes allocated to the resource owners. Host Operating System (OS) is not included, so the table contains 120 GiB.

Table 8 contains the total memory sizes.

Table 7    Memory Allocation for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Hugepage size (MiB)

Number of Hugepages


(Count)

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

1024

118

118

OVS

2

1024

2

vCIC

-

-

-

vFuel

-

-

-

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.


Table 8    Total Memory Sizes for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

118

OVS

2

vCIC

-

vFuel

-

Host OS(2)

8 (2)

Total (with host OS)

128

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.

(2)  If ScaleIO is installed, SDC uses 0.05 GiB of the RAM configured for the host OS.


3.5.3   Compute Server with vCIC

Table 9 specifies the volumes allocated to the resource owners. Host OS is not included, so the table contains 114 GiB.

Table 10 contains the total memory sizes.

Table 9    Memory Allocation for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Hugepage size (MiB)

Number of Hugepages


(Count)

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

1024

82

82

OVS

2

1024

2

vCIC

1024

30

30

vFuel

-

-

-

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.


Table 10    Total Memory Sizes for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

82

OVS

2

vCIC

30

vFuel

-

Host OS(2)

14 (2)

Total (with host OS)

128

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.

(2)  If ScaleIO is installed, SDC uses 0.05 GiB of the RAM configured for the host OS.


3.5.4   Compute Server with vFuel

Table 11 specifies the volumes allocated to the resource owners. Host OS is not included, so the table contains 120 GiB.

Table 12 contains the total memory sizes.

Table 11    Memory Allocation for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Hugepage size (MiB)

Number of Hugepages


(Count)

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

1024

115

115

OVS

2

1024

2

vCIC

-

-

-

vFuel

1024

3

3

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.


Table 12    Total Memory Sizes for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

115

OVS

2

vCIC

-

vFuel

3

Host OS(2)

8 (2)

Total (with host OS)

128

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.

(2)  If ScaleIO is installed, SDC uses 0.05 GiB of the RAM configured for the host OS.


3.5.5   Compute Server with vCIC and vFuel

Table 13 specifyspecifies the volumes allocated to the resource owners. Host OS is not included, so the table contains 114 GiB

Table 14 contains the total memory sizes.

Table 13    Memory Allocation for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Hugepage size (MiB)

Number of Hugepages


(Count)

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

1024

79

79

OVS

2

1024

2

vCIC

1024

30

30

vFuel

1024

3

3

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.


Table 14    Total Memory Sizes for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Total Size (GiB)

Tenant VM(1)

79

OVS

2

vCIC

30

vFuel

3

Host OS(2)

14 (2)

Total (with host OS)

128

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.

(2)  If ScaleIO is installed, SDC uses 0.05 GiB of the RAM configured for the host OS.


3.5.6   ScaleIO Server with MDM/TB and SDS

Table 15 specifies the volumes allocated to the resource owners.

Table 16 contains the total memory sizes.

Table 15    Memory Allocation for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Hugepage size (MiB)

Number of Hugepages


(Count)

Total Size (GiB)

MDM/TB

   

0.5

SDS

   

0.5

Table 16    Total Memory Sizes for System with 128 GiB RAM

RAM Resource Owner

Total Size (GiB)

MDM/TB

0.5

SDS

0.5

Host OS

8

Total (with host OS)

9

3.6   Storage Configuration

This section describes centralized, local, and distributed storage implementations, and disk requirements.

3.6.1   Centralized Storage

Centralized Storage can be used as the back end for Cinder.

Table 17    HW Configuration, Centralized Storage

Aspect

Requirement

Storage System Enclosure

EMC2 VNX series 2 model,
for example, VNX 5400

Disk drive configuration
(for example, SSDs or rotating disks)

Dimensioning needed

 
 

iSCSI IO Module Pairs

1–2

Storage system dimensioning needs separate design work, for more information refer to the EMC homepage, Reference [2].

3.6.2   Local Storage Disk Space

in Table 18 and Table 19.

This section lists requirements on disk space in Table 18 and Table 19.

Table 18    vCIC Host and Compute Host Disk Allocation

Use

vCIC Host

Compute Host

Note

Root partition (host OS)

50 GiB

50 GiB

 

Logs and core/crash dumps

40 GiB

40 GiB

When 40 GiB is allocated to log partition, 10 GiB is allocated to logs and 30 GiB is allocated to core/crash dumps.

vCIC total

240–320 GiB + additional space for Glance

-

vCIC backup is not included.


See Table 3.

vCIC backup

52 GiB

-

 

Host total without vFuel and Atlas

382–462 GiB

90 GiB

 

vFuel

50 GiB

50 GiB

vFuel can be run on any Compute host and it uses disk from the ephemeral storage.


Limitation: Only two of the following can be run on the same Compute host:


Atlas

130 GiB

130 GiB

Atlas can be run on any Compute host and it uses disk from the ephemeral storage. The disk for Atlas is allocated by the CEE.


Limitation: Only two of the following can be run on the same Compute host:


Remaining storage is for ephemeral storage for tenant VMs.

Dimensioned depending on application need.

Dimensioned depending on application need.

Valid for boot from image.


Calculated from total disk reduced by used space.

Table 19    vCIC Disk Allocation

Use

vCIC

Note

Root partition (host OS)

50 GiB

 

Logs and crash dumps

40 GiB

 

Database for OpenStack and Zabbix (MySQL)

40–120

The size needs to be adjusted to the storage needs of Zabbix. The database size depends on several factors, for example, the number of blades and the number of vNICs. For most installations, allow 1 to 1.5 GiB per host, plus at least 10 GiB margin to the total. For example, allow at least 60 GiB for a 47 blade deployment and between 90 and 130 GiB for an 80 blade deployment.

Database for Ceilometer (MongoDB)

70 GiB

The size needs to be adjusted to the storage needs for Ceilometer.

Glance repository in Swift

> 40 GiB(1)

The size needs to be adjusted depending on the amount and size of images stored in Glance.

vCIC sum

240–320 GiB + additional
space for Glance

 

(1)  Dimensioned depending on application need.


3.6.3   Disk Requirements for Atlas

When Virtual Machine (VM) images are loaded to Atlas as part of an .ova file, the image is temporarily stored in ephemeral storage in Atlas. To support loading of large images, the recommendation is to use 120 GiB for the Atlas ephemeral storage.

In case the local disk is used as ephemeral storage (no centralized storage), the Atlas VM occupies 120 GiB of the local disk on the compute node where it is running.

To reduce the disk allocated to Atlas, the size of the ephemeral disk can be reduced from 120 GiB to a minimum of 10 GiB. Since 30% of the ephemeral disk in Altas is used as temporary storage for .ova files, the size of the ephemeral disk needs to be adjusted according to the size of .ova files to be loaded. Using a reduced disk size of 10 GiB implies that it can be impossible to load .ova files that contain images larger than 3 GiB.

3.6.4   Disk Requirements for Nova Snapshots

Nova snapshots are stored in the /var/lib/glance partition of CIC nodes.

There are certain disk requirements for the Nova snapshots to work. Depending on the requirements and frequency on Nova snapshots, the system must be dimensioned with free disk space, according to the following guidelines:

3.6.5   Disk Requirements for Distributed Storage (ScaleIO)

Distributed Storage is optional. It can be used as the back end for Cinder.

The following requirements must be fulfilled:

4   Characteristics

This section describes the system characteristics of CEE.

4.1   General System Limits

For the list of system limits, see Table 20.

Table 20    General System Limits

Slogan

Limit

RAM used by the infrastructure(1)


See Section 3.5 for more information.

Compute Host:


  • Host OS: 8 GiB

  • OVS: 2 GiB

  • vFuel (if present): 3 GiB

vCIC Host:


Number of hosts (blades)

The maximum blade configuration within a CEE region is 80 blades.


CEE supports 3–80 blades.

Number of cores occupied by infrastructure

CEE infrastructure uses the following on all Compute hosts (including vCIC and vFuel hosts):



In addition to allocation to the Compute host running vCIC and vFUel, one vCIC and one vFuel instance can be combined on one Compute host configured for such usage:


  • vCIC uses 4 cores in the certified configuration. Three instances of vCIC are needed, and each of these must run on a separate Compute host that is configured as a vCIC host.(3)

  • vFUel uses 1 core. Two instances of vFuel must be allocated.

(1)  If Atlas is used, it runs at one of the hosts, and it uses 4 GiB of the RAM configured for the tenant VMs.

(2)  The certified configuration use 2 cores for the host OS. Depending on the load generated and the characteristics required by the VNF, this can be reduced to 1 core. Careful load measurements are needed for such tuning, and the instructions for performing such measurements are outside the scope of this document.

(3)  The capacity and characteristics for a vCIC using 4 cores have not been verified. Depending on the characteristics needed by the CEE infrastructure and the size of the CEE region, the vCIC can require more resources (cores).


4.2   Orchestration Interface

The system limits for orchestration are listed in Table 21.

Table 21    Orchestration Limits

Slogan

Limits

Number of tenants

The maximum number of supported tenants is 50.

4.3   Tenant Execution Environment

This section describes the tenant-related limits on the environment.

4.3.1   Performance

Performance limits are listed in Table 22.

Table 22    Tenant Execution Performance

Slogan

Limits

Oversubscription

CPU, memory, and disk overcommit are not supported.

4.3.2   Resiliency

Resiliency-related tenant limits are listed in Table 23.

Table 23    Tenant Execution Resiliency

Slogan

Limits

Execution environment resiliency

The execution environment resiliency is relying on VM evacuation. States not conserved in storage are lost.


Each hypervisor instance is not redundant, and, apart from attached storage, assumed to be a knock-out unit.

4.4   Network

This section lists the limits on the network.

Neutron with VLAN segmentation is used.

4.4.1   Performance

The virtual switch (vSwitch) performance is measured by the packet rate (packets per second). The packet size has a very limited impact on the packet rate.

Note:  
Therefore, the forwarded amount of data (bit per second) increases if the packet size is increased.

The CSS executes a configurable number of threads running in endless loops, called PMD threads. Each PMD thread polls interfaces that are automatically assigned to it, processes the incoming packets, and puts them into a queue to be transmitted. The VM interfaces are polled by PMD threads located on the same NUMA node as their OVS control thread.

If the VM and the PMD thread polling the VM are located on different NUMA nodes, the maximum performance (packets per second) decreases since the packets must cross the NUMA border, and it increases the time for accessing the memory. A similar traffic capacity drop occurs if the interfaces are located on different NUMA nodes, since all the traffic must cross the NUMA border.

Table 24 shows the throughput for PHY to VM traffic cases, and Table 25 for VM to VM cases. Table 26 provides dimensioning guidelines for specifying the amount of capacity that is safe to use. Table 27 describes vSwitch capacity for bandwidth-based scheduling.

Table 24    Measured Per Host Forwarding Capacity, 64 Byte Frames, PHY to VM

Slogan

Limits

Bidirectional traffic
from PHY on NUMA 0
to VM on NUMA 1

One PMD core is allocated to CSS. One HT is used by CSS, the other is idle. Value = 3.35 Mpps

One PMD core is allocated to CSS. Both HTs are used by CSS. This allocation is used if auto is set as value for core allocation for OVS.
Value = 4.28 Mpps. This is the capacity expected from the auto configuration.

Two PMD cores allocated to CSS. One HT in each core is used by CSS, the other is idle. Value = 5.65 Mpps

Two PMD cores are allocated to CSS. CSS uses both HTs in each core. Value = 4.11 Mpps

Four cores are allocated to CSS. One HT in each core is used by CSS, the other is idle. Value = 5.69 Mpps

Table 25    Measured Guest VM Delivery Forwarding Capacity, 64 Byte Frames, VM to VM Intrahost Traffic

Slogan

Limits

Bidirectional traffic
from VM on NUMA 0
to VM on NUMA 1

One PMD core is allocated to CSS on each NUMA node. One HT in each core is used by CSS, the other is idle. Value = 2.35 Mpps

One PMD core is allocated to CSS on NUMA node 0, and one core is allocated on NUMA node 1. CSS uses both HTs on NUMA node 0, and one HT on NUMA node 1, the other HT on NUMA node 1 is idle. Value = 3.70 Mpps

Two PMD cores are allocated to CSS on NUMA node 0, and one core is allocated on NUMA node 1. One HT in each core is used by CSS, the other is idle. Value = 4.27 Mpps

Two PMD cores are allocated to CSS on NUMA node 0, and one core is allocated on NUMA node 1. CSS uses both HTs of each core on NUMA node 0, and one HT on NUMA node 1, the other HT on NUMA node 1 is idle. One vNIC per VM. Value = 3.52 Mpps

Four cores are allocated to CSS on NUMA node 0, and one core is allocated on NUMA node 1. One HT in each core is used by CSS, the other is idle. One vNIC per VM. Value = 5.69 Mpps

Table 26    Dimensioning Capacity (Bidirectional Traffic)

Slogan

Limits

Total vSwitch capacity
(bidirectional traffic)

The total vSwitch capacity to be used for dimensioning is 80% of the per host forwarding value above for the number of allocated cores for OVS PMD threads on NUMA node 0.


It is different from the value of the "Per Host Forwarding Capacity", in order to take into account external effects impacting the deterministic behavior of the vSwitch. The user can use a different value tuned for a specific system configuration, preferably based on measurements.

Per interface
vSwitch capacity
(bidirectional traffic)

The maximum dimensioning limit per interface is 80% of the per host forwarding value for one PMD core allocated to OVS, when the HT functionality is not used. If HT is used on the cores hosting OVS PMD threads, the value is 50% of the per host forwarding value.


If the number of interfaces is not bigger than the number of PMD threads, the 2 core values can be used as base, but this is not a likely scenario.


If more interfaces are configured than OVS-assigned PMD threads, the maximum dimensioning limit per interface is reduced by an additional factor: the number of interfaces divided by the number of PMD threads, rounding any fraction to the next higher integer. Two examples: 7 interfaces and 3 PMD threads => 7/3 = 2.33, round up => dividend is 3, which means that the capacity figure should be divided by 3; 9 interfaces and 3 PMD threads => 9/3 = 3, there is no fraction so no round up => dividend is 3, which means that the capacity figure should be divided by 3.


It is not recommended to change the per interface limit, even if measurements indicate that it is possible, as the behavior is highly dependent on the automatic distribution of the interfaces over the PMD threads.

Table 27    Virtual Switch Capacity for Bandwidth-Based Scheduling

Slogan

Limits

vSwitch capacity for bandwidth-based scheduling

The value is used as maximum threshold for the vSwitch bidirectional throughput per host. It is used to configure bandwidth-based scheduling per host when installing CEE. It must be below or, at most, equal to "Total vSwitch capacity (bidirectional traffic)" detailed in Table 26.

4.4.2   Resiliency

Network resiliency is listed in Table 28.

Table 28    Network Resiliency

Slogan

Limits

Self-healing network

The network solution is self-healing, including network fault detection and automated failover.

4.4.3   Tenant Network Limitations

Limitations of the tenant network are listed in Table 29.

Table 29    Tenant Network Limitations

Slogan

Limits

Number of virtual networks

The theoretical aggregated maximum number of virtual tenant networks per CEE region is 4050. Since each Neutron network created consumes RAM in the vCIC, this theoretical maximum cannot be reached. The default configuration of RAM for vCIC allows 1000 networks. Additional memory is needed if more Neutron Networks are created.


For rough estimations, consider that 100 Neutron networks with 1 subnet and 1 port for each cost about 2 GiB memory.

Number of virtual L3 routing instances

The aggregated maximum number of virtual tenant L3 routing instances per CEE Region is 190.

Number of IPv4 routes per CEE region

The maximum aggregated number of IPv4 per CEE region is 16K.

Number of routes per ECMP group

CEE supports up to 32 routes per ECMP group.

Number of vNICs per guest VM

The maximum number of vNICs per guest VM is 10 (+ 1 Trunk vNIC).

Number of Trunk vNIC attached vLANs

The number of Trunk vNIC attached vLANs is limited to 100.

Number of vNICs per blade

CSS supports up to 128 vNICs per Compute host.

L2 Packet MTU

The L2 packet MTU size is 2140 bytes. Setting the L2 packet MTU size to a value larger than 2140 bytes for forwarding is unsupported.

Supported routing types

Static routing is supported.
Dynamic routing is not supported.

Number of static routes

The default maximum number of static routes is 1000. It is specified by the ext_max_routes value in the neutron.conf file.


4.5   Storage

This section describes CEE characteristics on storage.

4.5.1   Limitations When Using Local Storage

For tenants, ephemeral storage (non-persistent block storage) is supported on local disks of the compute hosts. Persistent block storage is supported on centralized storage only.

There is no support for any shared file system in CEE. For distributed storage, see separate sections.

The CEE storage architecture supports persistent block storage through OpenStack Cinder and object storage through OpenStack Swift. Swift uses the Local Storage. Object storage is only used for the CEE infrastructure.

Management of VM images is supported by the OpenStack image service.

The following deployment options are available:

Option 1 Local Storage only
Option 2 Local Storage and Centralized Storage with local Swift Storage
Option 3 Local Storage and Distributed Storage with local Swift Storage

For Local Storage, only "boot from image" is supported.
With additional Centralized Storage, "boot from image" and "boot from volume" are supported.

Table 30 shows where data is stored for both deployment options.

Table 30    Storage Locations

Data

Storage Location

CEE infrastructure backups (incl. Fuel backups)

On local disks of vCIC hosts(1)

Ephemeral storage

On local disks of Compute hosts (1)

vCIC storage (OpenStack infrastructure)

On local disks of vCIC hosts (1)

Core/crash dumps, logs

On local disks of all hosts

(1)  Local storage is limited by the local, non-scalable disk capacity.


If data is stored on a local disk, it is erased in case of disk failure or rollback from a failed update, meaning that the VM disappears. The application must be designed accordingly.

4.5.2   VM Migration with NoMigration Policy Set

When a VM has No Migration policy set and is booted from local storage, it will not be started again after a rollback since the /var/lib/nova partition is not preserved.

The ephemeral disk for the VM is stored on local disk of the compute node. If the compute node must be replaced (because of, for instance, HW failure), any change in the VM is lost.

Boot from Volume is only available when centralized storage is used (Cinder volume stored on centralized storage).

4.5.3   Resiliency

Storage resiliency characteristics are listed in Table 31.

Table 31    Storage Resiliency

Slogan

Characteristics

Centralized storage resiliency

All components of the centralized storage array are redundant.

4.5.4   Centralized Storage Limits

Storage resiliency characteristics are listed in Table 32.

Table 32    Centralized Storage Limits

Slogan

Characteristics

Max number of LUNs (Pool)

The total maximum number of LUNs is 1000.

4.5.5   Distributed Storage, ScaleIO

Distributed Storage Limits are listed in Table 33.

Table 33    Distributed Storage Limits

Slogan

Characteristics

Maximum device size

8 TB

Maximum capacity per SDS

64 TB

Maximum number of devices per SDS

64

4.6   In-Service Performance

This section lists the characteristics on in-service performance.

Table 34    In-Service Performance

Slogan

Characteristics

Guest execution retainability

Guest execution is not interrupted at a virtual Infrastructure management cluster restart or update.

Update availability

When the update is running, OpenStack API is unavailable for about a minute for each CIC node. During rollback, negative response is occasionally returned.

Restart availability

It is not possible to connect to the API during the restart. The applications are designed to handle this and will not time out during restart.

5   System Limitations

This section describes the system limitations in R6.

5.1   OpenStack Deviations

The major deviations from the OpenStack SW are:

See relevant API descriptions for more information about limitations.

Limitations, Listed in API Documents

See the following API documents for more information on limitations:

5.2   SW Configurations and Options

This section describes SW configurations and options.

5.2.1   Allocation of Memory

CEE supports flavors that allocate VM memory aligned to n × 1 GiB memory when hugepages are enabled. There is a Nova patch that makes Nova aware of this. The hugepages are in chunks of 1 GiB memory, all of which is reserved to the VM even if less memory is asked for.

Each Neutron network created consumes RAM in the vCIC, and it influences the maximum number of virtual tenant networks. See Section 4.4.3 for more information.

5.2.2   Allocation of vCPU

The vCPU is limited to even number of vCPUs, see Section 4.1.

5.2.3   Collocation of vCIC, vFuel, and Atlas

Only two of the following can be run on the same Compute host: vCIC, vFuel, Atlas.

5.2.4   Number of Parallel Root Volume Operations

Nova in CEE supports about 500 parallel stop/detach root volume operations.

5.3   Not Supported

This section describes functionalities that are not supported. These are included here because they are not related to any specific configurations.

5.3.1   Dashboard Does Not Support Internet Explorer

The Dashboard does not support Internet Explorer because of the Ericsson Graphical User Interface (GUI) Software Development Kit (SDK).

5.4   Limitations and Workarounds

CM-HA operates in active-passive mode. If a Compute host containing a vCIC that runs the active CM-HA restars, the VM evacuation will not start within one minute. The evacuation only starts when the CM-HA process is moved to another vCIC by Corosync, and the Compute unavailability is detected by the CM-HA.

5.5   Update Limitations

OpenStack API is not always available during update and rollback. When the update is running, the OpenStack API is unavailable for about a minute for each CIC node. During rollback, a negative response is occasionally returned. For more information, see Section 4.6.


Reference List

[1] Juniper Networks homepage, www.juniper.net
[2] EMC homepage, www.emc.com


Copyright

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Disclaimer

The contents of this document are subject to revision without notice due to continued progress in methodology, design and manufacturing. Ericsson shall have no liability for any error or damage of any kind resulting from the use of this document.

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