[THIN] Some VMWare ideas for Toni
- From: "Alexander Danilychev" <teknica@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 14:35:27 -0800
Tony,
There are many fancy options that you currently get with VMWare ESX 2.0.1
(SMP, VMotion etc.)?
If you are just starting I will recommend these steps:
1. Consider running one guest OS (VMware terminology) per physical CPU.
Note, that hyper threading is not supported.
2. If you plan to use your virtual (guest OS) machines for Office users, you
probably do not need SMP option.
3. 4 GB of physical ram is a good choice
4. Change from mirrored discs to RAID 5 with 1 hot spare (on DL380 you will
have space for 6, right?). Explanations "why" will come later. VMs on SAN
($AN?) are always best though (in that case your mirror is good + you might
go with HP Blades! ;)
5. Try to stick with default installation (obviously fix the time and time
zone and use the static IP address).
6. Allocate 384 MB of ram for VMware (gives you a chance to run up to 32 vms
in case you decide in the future). Well, you can allocate less. This is how
I do it.
7. Use VMFS for your VMs! Do not use Linux native partitions!
8. Use NIC teaming. We get DL380s with at least 3 NICs - 1 for VMware,
others for VMs. Depending on your vlan configuration you might team or split
NICs between different vlans.
9. LightsOut -- since you are already on DL380, use LightsOut capabilities!
You will be able to rebuild your VM hosts (not just guest VMs!) remotely,
while seating in you pajamas and not rushing to the datacenter.
Why RAID 5?
A. VMWare allows the use of virtual CDs based on ISA images, so it is
recommend allocating some space for that (Windows installation CD, Service
packs combined into a single ISO, Office CDs). Again, store everything (with
exception of VM config files that naturally fall into users folders) on
VMFS!
B. You can keep VM backup images or suspended copies of your guest OS
environments as long as you are not running out of space!
Regarding how many VMs and users:
As I have mentioned, one guest OS per CPU will give you the best
performance. 4 guest OSes will work fine as well. We run about 8 guest OSes
per box (DL380s ;), however not for the same purpose as you -- so, 2 to 4
guest OSes will be good in your case.
Regarding user count:
Depending on what your MS Office users do, you can expect 20 users per vm.
So your user count per one physical box will be about 40 (well, you can get
it as high as 80 but, most likely, your users will not like it). Note: I am
quoting DL380s with 2.8MHz Xeons (512k not 1024k).
A few words on DR:
As I have mentioned, make use of everything virtual -- ISO images for CDs,
virtual floppies, etc. For DR we use Ghost and, if possible, are packaging
images as ISO. It takes about 4-8 minutes to "unghost" vm. VMware recommends
a tool to contain DOS CPU utilization ? dosidle.exe. Obviously, you can keep
a complete vm duplicate that is suspended on the hard drive, so it will take
you 1-2 minutes to recover. Ghost images are more portable and take less
space though.
Note: since all your volatile data (with exception of VMware guest configs,
which you can backup separately, or redo by hand) is on VMFS, in case your
VMware host system goes South (i.e. expires), you can rebuild VMware from
your installation CD (do not forget patches) by wiping Linux partitions and
no touching VMFS!
Scripting:
Historically VMware provided Perl scripting support that you can create your
custom solutions for system monitoring, building, etc. Starting with GSX
server and now with ESX, COM APIs are also available.
PS. I am interested to here about your experience :)
ALEX
>From: "Tony Lyne" <Tony.Lyne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [THIN] VMWare Server Sizing
>Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:03:45 +1300
>
>Guys,
>
>
>Im in the middle of designing a Citrix farm for a client and it seems
>the VMWare subject has been thrashed around here quite a bit. But one
>thing I can find is the number is VMware sessions that should be run per
>server before serious performance issues are hit.
>
>
>
>The farm will be running Linux then Vmware on that which will be
>launching multiple VMWare Win2k3 server sessions with MFXPa/e.
>
>
>
>If they will only be doing the basic work like MS Office and other
>office applications, typically from experience how many VMware sessions
>would people expect to get per server before they notices a performance
>hit?
>
>
>
>The server kit will be DL360G3's with 4GB RAM and mirrored disks.
>
>
>
>I was expecting to start with each server running 2 VMware sessions each
>and see how that goes.
>
>There will most likely be vertical application servers as well.
>
>
>
>Tony Lyne
>
>Senior Systems Engineer
>
>Computerland Central
>
>P O Box 1470
>
>PALMERSTON NORTH
>
>Telephone (+64) 06 3537300
>
>Facsimile (+64) 06 3566800
>
>Mobile (+64) 0274 720696
>
>E-mail Tony.Lyne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>Internet http://www.computerland.co.nz <http://www.computerland.co.nz/>
>
>CAUTION: This e-mail message and accompanying data may contain
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