Microsoft Azure Capacity Planning

For more information about disk and memory sizing, see Capacity planning guide.

The two most common use-cases for Aerospike are:

An in-memory cache with no persistence
A fast persistent data store

We will look at how to implement these cases on the Azure platform. For more information about storage options, see Configure namespace storage.

Aerospike as a Hybrid-Memory Store

Aerospike has developed a simple-to-run Cloud Qualification Process that demonstrates the capabilities of untuned instances. By default it tests our hybrid-memory configuration. This can help determine which instance family is more suited to your needs.

Aerospike as In-Memory with no Persistence

The Data In-Memory without Persistence storage engine is ideal for a cache based use-case.

Aerospike as a Fast Persistent Data Store

The storage engine suited for this use case is the SSD Storage Engine.

Azure provides SSD storage in the form of Premium Storage. These are network attached to virtual machine instances.

Local SSDs Backed by Premium Storage Persistence

This is the recommended storage engine in cloud environments.

Pros:

RAM requirement is same as persistence model only.
Provides persistence offered by Storage Disks while surpassing the performance bottleneck by making use of local SSDs performance as caching layer.
Provides the best of performance and persistence possible by using local SSD as RAM alternative along with Storage Disks for persistence storage.

Cons:

More operational overhead than any other storage models.
Need to use instances supporting the required amount of local SSD instance storage volumes.

Instance Types

Presently, we recommend using the Lsv2 instances. These support Premium Storage, which are SSD-based network storage, as well as having local SSDs. See Certifying Flash Devices (SSDs).

Instance families with ‘S’ in their designation have Premium Storage (SSD) support. If no persistence is required, non-’s’ families can be used.

Disk Caching

Azure provides a unique disk caching feature that accelerates disk access for both local and persisted disks.

If your access pattern is predominately read based, it would be advisable to configure the Disk Caching to ReadOnly. ReadOnly caching also benefits access patterns that are less random or uniform and more concentrated (eg: zipfian, last-access, hotspot distributions)