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rkbright
Obsidian | Level 7

I recently migrated my organizations SAS production environment to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and although I particularly enjoy the flexibility cloud-based virtualization offer for OS and application management, the storage is something less desired. To be frank, AWS storage, whether gp2, io1, hdd, softnas, etc, are not suitable for SAS workload, or any application that required fast iops. So my question is directed to those who have made the jump to the cloud (speaking in board terms and not just AWS). What recommendations do you have regarding storage? Is there something suitable to test that will help get better throughput? I've spoken with AWS EBS developers (with one of my favorite SAS engineers - Margaret Crevar) and it seemed as if they don't have a solution in sight. I asked them for dedicated storage channels like ephemeral, but persistent. 

 

Thanks for any feedback!

 

 

10 REPLIES 10
Resa
Pyrite | Level 9
There has been a webinar on Shared File Systems of which the recording is available through the communities.

Personally I found that very informative due to the number of tips on storage and throughput, both in- and outside the cloud.
MargaretC
SAS Employee

The webinar is not applicable to Amazon. It is only applicable to on-premise hardware infrastructures.

rkbright
Obsidian | Level 7

Hi Margaret - thanks!

 

Have you heard anything back from Amazon? I also haven't heard if the ephemeral issue with the i3.* RHEL machines is fixed yet. 

MargaretC
SAS Employee

Yes, the ephermal issues with the AWS EC2 I3 have been resolved.  

 

You need to use RHEL 7.3 and apply yum update -security to get the fix.  Or you can use RHEL 7.4 which has the fix in it.

 

Resa
Pyrite | Level 9
Yes indeed that's the one I meant although I later realized you already been in touch with Margaret Crevar
RobP
Quartz | Level 8

Just going through this process myself and was curious if you ever found a satisfactory solution?  What kind of iops are you looking for?

JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

Hello @RobP,

 

since one year ago, there has been a huge development and testing at SAS, due to the high amount of customers going to the Cloud, being Margaret Crevar ( @MargaretC ) probably the first point of contact for all of those topics.

 

First of all, the main point to consider, indeed, is that Cloud solutions are based on ephemeral resources, which makes sense for many applications, but if you look for any application that requires high performance, you need to align well with your cloud provider and SAS, to get the best possible out there, no matter if AWS, Google, or Azure. Otherwise, having ephemeral  storage, it is impossible to know if you will get a storage volume that can provide 2000 MB/sec/core or 500 MB/sec/core throughput , as example. A huge difference.


To get the most basic and important concepts, you could start from those references:

 

https://communities.sas.com/t5/Administration-and-Deployment/Important-Performance-Considerations-Wh...

 

https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/en_us/doc/whitepaper1/sas-cloud-computing-105233.pdf

 

http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/Implementing-SAS9-4-Software-Cloud-Infrastructures.pdf

 

http://support.sas.com/rnd/scalability/grid/SGMonAWS.pdf

 

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Until-RHEL-is-supported-on-AWS-EC2-I3-Instanc...

 

 

For me, a possible and very simplified summary would be:

  • ensure "fixed" (not ephemeral) storage, that can ensure a fixed and calculated throughput, including calculation through the switched, and speed on RAM, cores, etc.
  • Preferable also non-Elastic IP, having fixed IPs as well
  • If you will create a VPN from your infra to the Cloud, calculate well the network speed and select an appropriate data center location.
  • The OS vs AWS instance: not all OS support completely every instance due to drivers. Last news I have is that, as Margaret mentioned, RHEL 7.3/7.4 with runing the yum update security, then RHEL can support the AWS EC2 I3 instance. However the current storage speed/throughput is not the best.

 

So, in short, for normal deployments, you should not have huge problems if you stick to some basic concepts. But if you look for high performance, you better get your Cloud provider and SAS technical teams aligned, in order to provide you the best advise at the moment of your question/requirement.

 

Edit: do not look for IOPS, but Throughput.

MargaretC
SAS Employee
Here is a link to my SAS Global Forum 2018 paper on SAS in public clouds.

* Important Performance Considerations When Moving SAS to a Public Cloud (https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2018/1866-2018.pdf)

Margaret
JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

Thank you@MargaretC, for the part that concerns to me.

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