Managing throughput capacity

FSx for ONTAP configures throughput capacity when you create the file system. You can modify your scale-up file system's throughput capacity at any time, but you can't modify the throughput capacity of your scale-out file system. Keep in mind that your file system requires a specific configuration to achieve the maximum amount of throughput capacity. For example, to provision 4 GBps of throughput capacity for a scale-up file system, your file system requires a configuration with a minimum of 5,120 GiB of SSD storage capacity and 160,000 SSD IOPS. For more information, see Impact of throughput capacity on performance.

Throughput capacity is one factor that determines the speed at which the file server that's hosting the file system can serve the file data. Higher levels of throughput capacity come with higher levels of network, disk read I/O operations per second (IOPS), and data caching capacity on the file server. For more information, see Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP performance.

When you modify your file system's throughput capacity, Amazon FSx switches out the file server that's powering your file system. Both Single-AZ and Multi-AZ file systems experience an automatic failover and failback during this process, which typically takes a few minutes to complete. The failover and failback processes are transparent to NFS (Network File Sharing), SMB (Server Message Block), and iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) clients, allowing your workloads to continue running without interruption or manual intervention. You are billed for the new amount of throughput capacity once it's available to your file system.

Note

To ensure data integrity during maintenance activity, FSx for ONTAP closes all opportunistic locks and completes any pending write operations to the underlying storage volumes that are hosting your file system before maintenance begins. During a scheduled file system maintenance window, system modifications (such as modifications to your throughput capacity) may be delayed. System maintenance can cause these changes to queue up until they are processed. For more information, see Optimizing performance with Amazon FSx maintenance windows.

When to modify throughput capacity

Amazon FSx integrates with Amazon CloudWatch, which helps you to monitor your file system's ongoing throughput usage levels. The throughput and IOPS performance that you can drive through your file system depends on your specific workload’s characteristics, in addition to your file system’s throughput capacity. As a rule, you should provision enough throughput capacity to support your workload's read throughput plus twice your workload's write throughput. You can use CloudWatch metrics to determine which of these dimensions to change to improve performance. For more information, see How to use FSx for ONTAP CloudWatch metrics.

Note

You can't modify the throughput capacity for scale-out file systems.

How concurrent throughput and storage scaling requests are handled

You can request a throughput capacity update just before an SSD storage capacity and provisioned IOPS update workflow begins or while it is in progress. The sequence of how Amazon FSx handles the two requests is as follows:

• If you submit an SSD/IOPS update and throughput capacity update at the same time, both requests are accepted. The SSD/IOPS update is prioritized before the throughput capacity update.

• If you submit a throughput capacity update while an SSD/IOPS update is in progress, the throughput capacity update request is accepted and queued to occur after the SSD/IOPS update. The throughput capacity update starts after SSD/IOPS is updated (new values are available) and during the optimization step. This typically takes less than 10 minutes.

• If you submit a SSD/IOPS update while a throughput capacity update is in progress, the SSD/IOPS storage update request is accepted and queued to start after the throughput capacity update has completed (new throughput capacity is available). This typically takes 20 minutes.

For more information on SSD storage and provisioned IOPS updates, see Managing storage capacity.

How to modify throughput capacity

You can modify a file system's throughput capacity using the Amazon FSx console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or the Amazon FSx API.

To modify a file system's throughput capacity (console)

1. Open the Amazon FSx console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/fsx/.

2. Navigate to File systems, and choose the ONTAP file system that you want to increase the throughput capacity for.

3. For Actions, choose Update throughput capacity. Or, in the Summary panel, choose Update next to the file system's Throughput capacity.

4. Choose the new value for Throughput capacity from the list.

   Note

   You can change the throughput capacity for any FSx for ONTAP file system. However, only file systems created on or after December 9, 2021 can support a throughput capacity of 128 MB/s or 256 MB/s.

5. Choose Update to initiate the throughput capacity update.

6. You can monitor the update progress on the File systems detail page, on the Updates tab.

   You can monitor the progress of the update by using the Amazon FSx console, the AWS CLI, and the API. For more information, see Monitoring throughput capacity changes.

To modify a file system's throughput capacity (CLI)

To modify a file system's throughput capacity, use the AWS CLI command update-file-system. Set the following parameters:

• --file-system-id to the ID of the file system that you are updating.

• ThroughputCapacity to the desired value to update the file system to.

You can monitor the progress of the update by using the Amazon FSx console, the AWS CLI, and the API. For more information, see Monitoring throughput capacity changes.

Monitoring throughput capacity changes

You can monitor the progress of a throughput capacity modification using the Amazon FSx console, the API, and the AWS CLI.

Monitoring throughput capacity changes in the console

On the Updates tab in the File system details window, you can view the 10 most recent update actions for each update action type.

For throughput capacity update actions, you can view the following information.

Update type

Supported types are Throughput capacity, Storage capacity, and Storage optimization.

Target value

The desired value to change the file system's throughput capacity to.

Status

The current status of the update. For throughput capacity updates, the possible values are as follows:

• Pending – Amazon FSx has received the update request, but has not started processing it.

• In progress – Amazon FSx is processing the update request.

• Completed – The throughput capacity update completed successfully.

• Failed – The throughput capacity update failed. Choose the question mark (?) to see details on why the throughput update failed.

Request time

The time when Amazon FSx received the update request.

Monitoring changes with the AWS CLI and API

You can view and monitor file system throughput capacity modification requests using the describe-file-systems CLI command and the DescribeFileSystems API action. The AdministrativeActions array lists the 10 most recent update actions for each administrative action type. When you modify a file system's throughput capacity, a FILE_SYSTEM_UPDATE administrative action is generated.

The following example shows the response excerpt of a describe-file-systems CLI command. The file system has a throughput capacity of 128 MB/s, and a target throughput capacity of 256 MB/s.

.
.
.
    "ThroughputCapacity": 128,
"AdministrativeActions": [
    {
        "AdministrativeActionType": "FILE_SYSTEM_UPDATE",
        "RequestTime": 1581694764.757,
        "Status": "PENDING",
        "TargetFileSystemValues": {
          "OntapConfiguration": {
            "ThroughputCapacity": 256
          }
        }
    }
]

When Amazon FSx processes the action successfully, the status changes to COMPLETED. The new throughput capacity is then available to the file system, and shows in the ThroughputCapacity property. This is shown in the following response excerpt of a describe-file-systems CLI command.

.
.
.
    "ThroughputCapacity": 256,
"AdministrativeActions": [
    {
        "AdministrativeActionType": "FILE_SYSTEM_UPDATE",
        "RequestTime": 1581694764.757,
        "Status": "COMPLETED",
        "TargetFileSystemValues": {
          "OntapConfiguration": {
            "ThroughputCapacity": 256
          }
        }
    }
]

If the throughput capacity modification fails, the status changes to FAILED, and the FailureDetails property provides information about the failure.