[THIN] Re: VMWare ESX Server
- From: "Ron Oglesby" <Roglesby@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 16:26:39 -0600
Well (sorry Joe jumping in)
Lets hit each of these:
>Are you using the vmxnet or vlance driver?
This is the nework driver / NIC type for the VM you can see this in the VM
config within the web interface or in the VMX file. VMXNET is a better
performing driver
> Did you disable the COM ports in the BIOS of the citrix server?
Common fix to speed some things up can be done in the bios at boot of the
VM, just like a normal machine
>
> Are you using the buslogic or lsilogic scsi driver?
LSI better performing SCSI Virtual device, again can be seen in the VM
config in the web interface
>
> Have you setup vmkusage?
Basically a graphical historical interface to ESXTOP, kinda a lite perfmon
in a webpage that is not setup by default SNIP BELOW all this text on
setting it up
> Are you running 2.1.2? older version? vSMP and/or Hyperthreading?
Version of ESX installed. Are you using Virtual SMP (two procs in the VMs
can cause over head if not needed check out your VM config) Hyperthreading
in older versions caused perf problems. If you have an 8way or 4 way just
check out the webinterface and see how many procs you are reporting.
> Are you over subscribing the Host memory? If so, are you seeing a lot of
> disk i/o relating to swap file?
Newer version you can look at the amount of swap being used and determine
how much memory is over allocated. If over allocating back off and over
allocate less to the VMs
> Are you backending the VM to a SAN? Or are the .dsk/.vmdk files on the
> blade?
DSK files are the "drives" for the VMs. If they are on a SAN and you have
tons of VMs on lets say a single GB HBA you could have issues etc etc
>
> Have you configures shares, mins and max for resources?
These are configured in the VM properties again in the web interface (or in
virtual center) give higher priority to the guests that need it most,
>
> Have you evaluate the workloads for each VM on the host? Are they a good
> fit for that host? Are there HIGH CPU, memory or Disk apps running on the
servers, High number of System calls etc.
SNIP for VMKUSAGE
. Installing vmkusage - The vmkusage packages are installed during the
ESX install process, but are not enabled by default. In order to properly
configure vmkusage to start gathering information and generating graphs, the
following commands must be entered:
vmkusagectl install - This will set up the proper cron job to run every
minute to collect the data. It is important to wait for virtual machine
data to generate before proceeding, which could take up to 5 minutes.
Modify /etc/cron.d/vmkusage-cron.sh - This is a one-line script that must be
modified to collect statistical data for a monthly interval. The original
file contains the following line:
*/1 * * * * root /usr/bin/vmkusage > /dev/null 2>&1
It must be modified with the monthly switch as follows:
*/1 * * * * root /usr/bin/vmkusage -monthly > /dev/null 2>&1
vmkusage -regroove - This will clear the databases and begin to collect the
monthly data specified by the previous step.
. Accessing the data - To view vmkusage data, all you need to do is
point your web browser to the following URL: http://servername/vmkusage
Ron Oglesby
Director of Technical Architecture
RapidApp, Chicago
Office: 312 372 7188
Mobile: 815 325 7618
email: roglesby@xxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of George Yobst
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 4:02 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: VMWare ESX Server
Joe,
For us novice ESX users, would you please expand on your questions
and give us a preferred way or device (I know, sometimes depends on
HW), and a brief why? I've only got one now too. -George
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 21:18:07 -0700, Joe Shonk <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
>
>
> Are you using the vmxnet or vlance driver?
>
> Did you disable the COM ports in the BIOS of the citrix server?
>
> Are you using the buslogic or lsilogic scsi driver?
>
> Have you setup vmkusage?
>
> Are you running 2.1.2? older version? vSMP and/or Hyperthreading?
>
> Are you over subscribing the Host memory? If so, are you seeing a lot of
> disk i/o relating to swap file?
>
> Are you backending the VM to a SAN? Or are the .dsk/.vmdk files on the
> blade?
>
> Have you configures shares, mins and max for resources?
>
> Have you evaluate the workloads for each VM on the host? Are they a good
> fit for that host?
>
> Have the servers been optimized? Tweaked?
>
>
>
> I've run into skepticism of running on VM. This is generally because it's
> an unknown technology to them. Just because they don't understand it
doesn't
> mean it doesn't work.. Just like Citrix.
>
>
>
> Could the failures be because the servers are misconfigured or setup
poorly?
>
>
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
> From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
> Of Jennifer Hooper
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 10:23 AM
> To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: [THIN] VMWare ESX Server
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Guys -
>
>
>
>
>
> Here's the situation. We are about 1/4th of the way through
converting
> our production data center (full of old, out of warranty Compaq servers)
to
> IBM BladeCenters running VMWare ESX Server 2.0 (I think... whatever the
> latest version is). We use Platespin to convert the physical server to
the
> VMWare image and move it over to the Blade it's going to live on. Right
> now, we have an average 5 servers per blade planned, and several have
> already moved over, because the hardware failed that they were on.
However,
> some of the application folks are uncomfortable with this solution, not so
> much the Blade technology, as the VM technology. Needless to say, we're
> already experiencing failures, and stuff not running right - performance
> issues, network issues, etc. (Can you believe that they are going to run
> our Root Domain Controllers on this?) I have already experienced a drag
on
> one of my Citrix servers that moved to virtual space, and can't fix it up.
>
>
>
>
>
> So what I would like to do before things get too much more hairy, is
to
> try to find out what the success rate of running something like this in
> production, and if there are a lot of people out there doing this. Feel
> free to share with me any nightmare stories too! :)
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks much!
>
>
>
>
>
> Jen
>
>
>
>
> Jennifer Hooper
> Peregrine Systems, Inc.
> Sr. Network Engineer
>
> mailto:jennifer.hooper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Yobst, Library Technology Analyst phone: 503.723.4890
Library Information Network of Clackamas County fax: 503.794.8238
16239 SE McLoughlin Blvd, Suite 208 web: http://www.lincc.lib.or.us
Oak Grove, OR 97267-4654 email: george.yobst@xxxxxxxxx
"...it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn
what he thinks he already knows." - Epictetus
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