vSphere Flash Read Cache (vFRC) is a new solution to enhance storage I/O performance in vSphere 5.5. vFRC lets you use flash devices (SSD or PCIe cards) as a read cache for VM I/Os and therefore improve performance. vFRC can improve performance for read-intensive workloads that have a high percentage of data locality. Such workloads are generated by database warehousing applications and enterprise server applications such as Web proxy servers and monitoring servers.
A recent technical white paper studies the performance of vFRC with respect to the following workloads:
- A decision support system (DSS) database workload running with Oracle 11g R2
- A DVD store workload running with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
- Enterprise server-level I/O traces that are used extensively in storage research
The results are presented in the paper, along with performance best practices when using vFRC. The paper also gives an overview of the vFRC architecture. To learn more, read Performance of vSphere Flash Read Cache in VMware vSphere 5.5.