Centmin Mod Nginx Installer + Secured Cloud a Marriage Made in Heaven
Centmin Mod project has grown alot in the past 16 months with 100s of users (based on amount of email and other feedback I get) and with Centmin Mod v1.2.3 base coming soon to improve speed of installation and ready the code base to support additional features, I needed an additional test server environment besides my local VirtualBox guest servers and the live official Centmin Mod web site. Couple of days ago I found PhoenixNap’s Secured Cloud hosting service and tested out the service and did some quick benchmark tests which I will outline below.
Background
I have tested Centmin Mod on various cloud hosting providers which offer hourly billing so I could do quick tests. I’ve tried Rackspace Cloud and Amazon EC2 directly and through Rightscale.com.
Amazon EC2 has too many hoops to jump through to setup Amazon EC2 instances and their bandwidth pricing is expensive at US$0.12/GB up to 10TB and only when you hit 350TB due bandwidth costs drop to US$0.05/GB.
Rackspace Cloud was definitely easier to setup but their server processors were outdated or older AMD based processors when I tested Rackspace Cloud. Rackspace Cloud also cap limit their private and public network throughput tied to the size of their server instance sizes and bandwidth costs are very high at US$0.18/GB.
Recently, I found a new contender which has risen to the top of my short list, PhoenixNap’s Secured Cloud services which are VMWare based. They have one of the easiest VM instance creation and cloning process I’ve come across and hourly costs for memory, disk, and cpu mix are one of the cheapest I’ve seen. A CentOS 6.3 64bit 512MB, 16GB storage 1 cpu VM instance comes in around US$0.027 per hour and bandwidth costs are comparatively cheaper at US$0.05/GB when compared to Amazon EC2 and Rackspace Cloud. They also use the latest and fastest cpu processors to date, Intel Xeon E5-2620 Sandy Bridge-EP based Hexa Cores which each have 6 physical cpu cores + 6 virtual Hyperthreaded cpu cores = 12 cpu threads.
Icing on the cake is that PhoenixNap’s Secured Cloud has a free US$50 usage credit on new sign ups which they apply to your invoice/billing within their Portal client area. So you can try out their service at no cost.
PhoenixNap’s Secured Cloud benchmarks:
I setup my first Secured Cloud VM instance and did a test install of Centmin Mod v1.2.2-eva2000.20. And did a few benchmarks which I’ll outline below.
- CentOS 6.3 64bit
- 2 CPUs
- 2GB Memory
- 25GB Hard Disk storage
- 1 Public IP
- Node region: Auburn
Secured Cloud VM setup tip: To make your Centmin Mod install web accessible on Secured Cloud VMs, they have their own firewall enabled in Secured Cloud VM customer admin area that only allows port 22 and 3389 by default. For Centmin Mod installs, you can disable Secured Cloud VM’s firewall and let Centmin Mod CSF firewall take over.
Creating the Secured Cloud VM instance
Pretty straight forward in that you
- Choose to either create a VM from scratch or from your own previously preconfigured configuration.
- Then select from one of three node regions Amsterdam, Auburn or Phoenix.
- Name your VM instance, seems the name also prepopulates to the hostname of your VM instance so i tend to enter in Name of VM field the intended hostname of the VM instance.
- Select OS and Version – CentOS 64bit, Red Hat EL 64bit, Ubuntu 64bit, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008.
- Assign VM Admin username and password.
- Select number of virtual cpus from 1 to 8.
- Select amount of memory from 512MB to 64GB.
- Select Storage size in Gigabytes
- Whether you want Private and/or Public IPs
- You can visually group VMs assigning to a Group
- Description
- Choose whether to have VM instance on of off after creation
- Save the VM configuration as a template for future selection.
Intel Xeon E5-2620 Sandy Bridge-EP based processors
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 1999.999 cache size : 15360 KB fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc aperfmperf unfair_spinlock pni pclmulqdq ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes hypervisor lahf_lm ida arat epb pln pts dts bogomips : 3999.99 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 1999.999 cache size : 15360 KB fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc aperfmperf unfair_spinlock pni pclmulqdq ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes hypervisor lahf_lm ida arat epb pln pts dts bogomips : 3999.99 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: |
Memory allocation
free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1877 251 1626 0 15 126 -/+ buffers/cache: 109 1768 Swap: 991 0 991 |
Disk info – EXT4 partitions
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root 24G 1.6G 21G 8% / tmpfs 939M 0 939M 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 485M 183M 277M 40% /boot |
df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root ext4 24287856 1633896 21424880 8% / tmpfs tmpfs 961312 0 961312 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 ext4 495844 186862 283382 40% /boot |
Disk performance
dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync && rm -rf test 16384+0 records in 16384+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 3.57712 s, 300 MB/s |
dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync && rm -rf test 16384+0 records in 16384+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 3.86079 s, 278 MB/s |
ioping random disk I/O performance
Very nice performance with average seek rate at 0.6 milliseconds and sequential speeds between 260-300MB/s
*************************************************** ioping code.google.com/p/ioping/ ioping.sh 0.9.8 shell wrapper script by George Liu (eva2000) http://vbtechsupport.com *************************************************** *************************************************** Disk Schedulers & Read Ahead (Queue Size x 2): *************************************************** [/dev/sda] - Read Ahead: 256 noop anticipatory deadline [cfq] ---------------------------------- *************************************************** ********************************** dd (sequential disk speed test)... ********************************** dd if=/dev/zero of=testfilex bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync 16384+0 records in 16384+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 4.032 s, 266 MB/s ************************ starting ioping tests... *************************************************** ioping disk I/O test (default 1MB working set) *************************************************** disk I/O: /dev/sda --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5 requests completed in 4006.6 ms, 847 iops, 3.3 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.5/1.2/3.4/1.1 ms ********************************************** seek rate test (default 1MB working set) ********************************************** seek rate: /dev/sda --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 3476 requests completed in 3000.2 ms, 1548 iops, 6.0 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.2/0.6/14.6/1.5 ms ********************************************** sequential test (default 1MB working set) ********************************************** ----------------------- sequential: /dev/sda --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 2778 requests completed in 3000.5 ms, 1184 iops, 296.0 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.7/0.8/4.1/0.3 ms ----------------------- sequential cached I/O: /dev/sda --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5039 requests completed in 3000.3 ms, 2762 iops, 690.5 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.4/14.1/0.5 ms |
ioping random disk I/O performance extended tests
Custom request sizes at 4KB, 32KB, 64KB and 256KB.
----------------------------------------- ioping.sh 0.9.8 - http://vbtechsupport.com by George Liu (eva2000) ----------------------------------------- ioping.sh 0.9.8 MENU ----------------------------------------- 1. Install ioping 2. Re-install ioping 3. Run ioping default tests 4. Run ioping custom tests 5. Exit ----------------------------------------- Enter option [ 1 - 5 ] 4 ----------------------------------------- Run custom request size 4 32 64 256 (KB) test ? [y/n]: y ################################ ioping disk I/O test (custom 4 32 64 256 (KB) request size) ################################ *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping disk I/O test: 4K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5 requests completed in 4003.1 ms, 2058 iops, 8.0 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.4/0.5/0.6/0.1 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping disk I/O test: 32K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5 requests completed in 4009.2 ms, 580 iops, 18.1 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.6/1.7/3.0/1.0 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping disk I/O test: 64K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5 requests completed in 4008.1 ms, 671 iops, 42.0 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.8/1.5/2.7/0.8 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping disk I/O test: 256K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 5 requests completed in 4019.0 ms, 272 iops, 67.9 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 1.4/3.7/9.9/3.2 ms ################################ ioping seek rate test (custom 4 32 64 256 (KB) request size) ################################ *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping seek rate test: 4K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 3247 requests completed in 3000.1 ms, 1419 iops, 5.5 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.2/0.7/14.1/1.6 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping seek rate test: 32K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 2521 requests completed in 3000.2 ms, 1059 iops, 33.1 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.3/0.9/15.8/1.7 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping seek rate test: 64K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 2488 requests completed in 3000.5 ms, 1037 iops, 64.8 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.3/1.0/16.2/1.6 ms *************************************** [/dev/sda] ioping seek rate test: 256K test *************************************** --- /dev/sda (device 25.0 Gb) ioping statistics --- 1507 requests completed in 3004.0 ms, 571 iops, 142.6 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.7/1.8/21.0/2.5 ms |
Network speed tests
Testing both single threaded connection speeds via wget and multiple thread connections via axel download accelerator to really maximise network throughput speed.
wget
./speedtest.sh ------------------------------------------------------------- Download speed from Wiredtree.com: 49.5MB/s Download speed from ioflood.com: 13.7MB/s Download speed from bitcable.com: 54.6MB/s |
axel
./speedtest.sh axel ------------------------------------------------------------- Download speed from Wiredtree.com: 42.80 MB/s Download speed from ioflood.com: 42.86 MB/s Download speed from bitcable.com: 64.14 MB/s |
wget
./speedtest.sh speedtest ------------------------------------------------------------- Download speed from CacheFly: 30.4MB/s Download speed from Linode, Atlanta GA: 8.72MB/s Download speed from Linode, Dallas, TX: 8.42MB/s Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 1.99MB/s Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 13.2MB/s Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 11.8MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 5.57MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 7.05MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 19.3MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 103MB/s |
axel
./speedtest.sh speedtestaxel ------------------------------------------------------------- Download speed from CacheFly: 92.42 MB/s Download speed from Linode, Atlanta GA: 29.45 MB/s Download speed from Linode, Dallas, TX: 19.24 MB/s Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 6.31 MB/s Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 20.89 MB/s Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 19.86 MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 8.47 MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 13.67 MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 29.04 MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 98.74 MB/s |
