{"id":26673,"date":"2013-04-02T10:15:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T10:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.open-e.com\/?p=26673"},"modified":"2025-07-07T11:16:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T11:16:26","slug":"get-the-most-out-of-your-storage-with-an-active-active-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open-e.com\/blog\/get-the-most-out-of-your-storage-with-an-active-active-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Get the most out of your storage with an Active-Active setup!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tRecent test comparison<\/a> of Open-E DSS V7 iSCSI Active-Active and Active-Passive Failover proved, how beneficial for the storage system can be to apply the Active-Active configuration. Better throughput and faster switching time were among the main conclusions from the tests.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no room for complacency though, while our developers make their progress in improving our product for you, our testers evaluate it under new environments using different scenarios.<\/p>\n

Wait, how fast?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fresh test results delivered by Open-E QA Team, showed very promising results. It appears that in the specific environments, the Active-Active configuration can outperform the Active-Passive configuration even further.
\nThe tests made with Iometer were conducted with higher number of volumes per node (4 targets and 4 logical volumes per target). Additionally, each Iometer worker was testing the separate volume of the storage (see test topology below).<\/p>\n

\"Active-Active<\/a><\/center>What did the results show?<\/p>\n

In the iSCSI Active-Active Failover configuration, read operations<\/strong> were performed 5-6 times faster<\/strong> with smaller block sizes (4-32 KB) and up to 2 times faster with bigger block sizes, reaching the maximum of 622 MB\/s with 64 KB block size (to 306 MB\/s with Active-Passive setup) (see table below).<\/p>\n

\"Active-Active<\/center>As for the write operations<\/strong>, the results were better in general; apart from the smallest block sizes, the Active-Active cluster consistently performed up to 3 times faster than Active-Passive, reaching the maximum of 789 MB\/s (to 247 MB\/s with Active-Passive setup) (see table and a chart below).<\/p>\n

\"Active-Active<\/center> <\/p>\n

\"Active-Active<\/center><\/p>\n

Faster, better ..<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What makes the difference with the Active-Active cluster? The main reason behind it, is the way the Active-Active Load Balancing Cluster works, utilizing 100% of your storage resources.
\nIn the popular failover configuration represented by Active-Passive setup, one node may sometimes become a bottleneck, so its performance is reduced. This may happen in very demanding environments, where the data is more complex and causing greater I\/O rates.<\/p>\n

Balancing the workload not only prevents the storage overload, so the quality of service does not deteriorate, but also allows to achieve the maximum performance, so the cluster can process a high number of read and write operations even faster.<\/p>\n

Such benefits provided by Active-Active setup makes it ideal for demanding virtualization environments, database applications or video surveillance systems. Among other criteria, those environments require:<\/p>\n