Verifying hardware capabilities of a SteelHead-v
After you deploy a SteelHead-v, you might want to verify its optimization and disk usage performance before using it in a production environment. You can run tests that benchmark the SteelHead-v performance against that of other Riverbed products from the Reports > Diagnostics: Benchmarks page. Test results indicate the highest model SteelHead-v that can run on the hardware supporting the tested appliance.
This performance test appears only on SteelHead-v appliances.
A group is a collection of one or more tests. You can only select and run a group of tests but not individual tests. The tool provides two groups, one for benchmarking the storage devices (sequential writes, random reads), and one for benchmarking the RiOS optimization service (mixed traffic).
The Sequential Write or Random Read benchmark tests emulate common disk use on the storage devices. Running these tests clears all data from the RiOS data store.
For details on SteelHead-v, see the SteelHead (Virtual Edition) Installation Guide.
To verify hardware capabilities
1. Choose Reports > Diagnostics: Benchmarks.
2. If the optimization service is running, click Stop. Alternatively, you can stop the optimization service on the Administration > Maintenance: Reboot/Shutdown page.
3. Select the tests that you want to run.
4. Click Run Selected Tests.
The tool runs only one test at a time, and queues the others. When a test completes, the tool pulls the next test from the queue and starts it.
When every test in a group completes, you can put the group back into the queue immediately without having to wait for any running test from another group to complete.
While the test runs, you can freely navigate to another page and come back to view the test results. You can also start the tests using the CLI and then return to the Benchmarks page to monitor the results.
Viewing the test status and results
The Last Run column displays the time and date the last test was run. The Duration column displays how long, from start to finish, it took to run the test.
When the test starts, the Status column displays Running, and then Done. The test result appears in the Results column.
The Status column might also show Queued for test that will run according to their sequence in the queue, Error for tests that encountered an error while running, and Timed Out, which indicates the test was stopped before it completed.
The Results column displays a list of Riverbed product models that this appliance qualifies; that is, it matches or exceeds performance. The list sorts the qualified models in descending order (best to worst)
An empty list indicates that the hardware under performs all Riverbed models, and this message appears:
This appliance is out performed by all similar appliances in Riverbed's product line.