Deployment for AWS EC2
Deployment / Deployment for AWS EC2

This topic covers the virtual machine requirements, including memory and data storage, for the deployment of the Delphix Engine on Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) or EC2 on GovCloud.

This section covers the following topics:

  • Instance Types
  • Network Configuration
  • EBS Configuration
  • General Storage Configuration
  • Additional AWS Configuration Notes

Once you understand the requirements listed on this page, you should view the next pages on AWS EC2 deployment:

Instance Types

The following is a list of instance types that are supported to deploy Delphix on AWS EC2. Delphix periodically certifies new instance types, which will be added to the list here.

Requirements

Notes

Large Memory Instances (preferred)

  • r4.2xlarge
  • r4.4xlarge
  • r4.8xlarge
  • r3.2xlarge
  • r3.4xlarge
  • r3.8xlarge

High I/O Instances 

  • i3.2xlarge
  • i3.4xlarge
  • i3.8xlarge
  • The Delphix Engine most closely resembles a storage appliance and performs best when provisioned using a storage-optimized instance type.
  • Larger instance types provide more CPU, which can prevent resource shortfalls under high I/O throughput conditions.
  • Larger instances also provide more memory, which the Delphix Engine uses to cache database blocks. More memory will provide better read performance.

Network Configuration

Requirements

Notes

Virtual Private Cloud

  • You must deploy the Delphix Engine and all of the source and target environments in a VPC network to ensure that private IP addresses are static and do not change when you restart instances.
  • When adding environments to the Delphix Engine, you must use the host's VPC (static private) IP addresses.

Static Public IP

  • The EC2 Delphix instance must be launched with a static IP address; however, the default behavior for VPC instances is to launch with a dynamic public IP address – which can change whenever you restart the instance. If you're using a public IP address for your Delphix Engine, static IP addresses can only be achieved by using assigned AWS Elastic IP Addresses.

Security Group Configuration

Enhanced NetworkingIt is recommended to enable Enhanced Networking, for more information view Enhanced Networking on Linux.

EBS Configuration

Deploying Delphix on AWS EC2 requires EBS provisioned IOPS volumes. Since EBS volumes are connected to EC2 instances via the network, other network activity on the instance can affect throughput to EBS volumes. EBS optimized instances provide guaranteed throughput to EBS volumes and are required to provide consistent and predictable storage performance.

Requirements

Notes

EBS Provisioned IOPS Volumes

Note: All attached storage devices must be EBS volumes

  • Delphix does not support the use of instance store volumes.
  • Use EBS volumes with provisioned IOPs in order to provide consistent and predictable performance. The number of provisioned IOPs depends on the estimated IO workload on the Delphix Engine. 
  • Provisioned IOPs volumes must be configured with a volume size of at least 30 GiB times the number of provisioned IOPs. For example, for a provisioned volume of 3000 IOPs, you would need at least 100 GiB since the volume required is at least thirty times the provisioned IOP.
  • I/O requests of up to 256 kilobytes (KB) are counted as a single I/O operation (IOP) for provisioned IOPs volumes. Each volume can be configured for up to 4,000 IOPs.

General Storage Configuration

Requirements

Notes

  • Allocate initial storage equal to the size of the physical source database storage.
  • Add storage when storage capacity approaches 30% free.
  • For high redo rates and/or high DB change rates, allocate an additional 10-20 %.
  • Add new storage by provisioning new volumes of the same size.
  • This enables the Delphix File System (DxFS) to make sure that its file systems are always consistent on disk without additional serialization. This also enables the Delphix Engine to achieve higher I/O rates by queueing more I/O operations to its storage.

EBS Volume Size and Count

  • Keep all EBS volumes the same size. Maximize Delphix Engine RAM for a larger system cache to service reads
  • Use at least 4 EBS volumes to maximize performance.
This enables the Delphix File System (DxFS) to make sure that its file systems are always consistent on disk without additional serialization. This also enables the Delphix Engine to achieve higher I/O rates by queueing more I/O operations to its storage.

Additional AWS Configuration Notes

  • Using storage other than EBS is not supported.
  • Limits on the number of volumes are dictated by the EBS instance type, and is generally advised that over 40 can be expected to cause issue on Linux VMs. More information can be found in the AWS Volume Limits and AWS Volume Constraints articles. The maximum device limit imposed by AWS can be handled by the Delphix Engine.
  • The use of the local SSDs attached to i2 instance types is not supported.
  • Using fast storage for EBS volumes is supported and recommended, including (in order of decreasing speed):
    • Provisioned IOPS (io1) volumes (recommended)
    • General Purpose SSD (gp2) volumes (supported)
    • Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volumes (supported)
    • Cold HDD (sc1) volumes (not supported due to poor performance)
    • Magnetic (standard) volumes (supported, but use st1 instead where possible)
  • Use of EBS volumes encrypted at creation is supported (during initial deployment from AMI, as well as storage devices added post-deployment), but can have negative performance consequences. Conversion of existing EBS volumes is possible in AWS but is not supported in Delphix at this time.

Procedure to Install an AMI

Use the Delphix-supplied AMI file to install the Delphix Engine.

  1. On the Delphix download site, click the AMI you would like to share and accept the Delphix License agreement. Alternatively, follow a link given by your Delphix solutions architect.
  2. On the Amazon Web Services Account Details form presented:
    1. Enter your AWS Account Identifier, which can be found here: https://console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home?#/account. If you want to use the GovCloud AWS Region, be sure to enter the ID for the AWS Account which has GovCloud enabled.
    2. Select which AWS Region you would like the AMI to be shared in. If you would like the AMI shared in a different region, contact your Delphix account representative to make the proper arrangements.
  3. Click Share.
    The Delphix Engine will appear in your list of AMIs in AWS momentarily.

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