VMware Communities: Message List - Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

oreeh — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:38:09 GMT

Two docs from Scott Drummonds with some info on SMP:

VMkernel Scheduler
Co-scheduling SMP VMs in VMware ESX Server

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

etung — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:02:06 GMT

But it is to specific for Mac as host - if we show that to Windows or Linux-users they will ignore it.

While it's written for Fusion, nearly all of it applies to other products. It's meant as a general "here's how to determine reasonable settings if you don't like the defaults".

Also the section on smp should go more into the details - for example it should mention why AMD Quad Cores work better than Intel Quad Cores and so on.

The doc should also have a comparison of SMP-features and their different behaviour on ESX and hosted platforms

So you want more of a whitepaper for developers/technical folk? For the common case of a user confused about performance, I don't think that level of detail is needed or appropriate. I don't know it either, so would be interested in discussion links .

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

continuum — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:29:19 GMT

Hi Eric - I like your efforts in the Fusion-forum - I haven't seen this one yet. Good work

But it is to specific for Mac as host - if we show that to Windows or Linux-users they will ignore it.
Also the section on smp should go more into the details - for example it should mention why AMD Quad Cores work better than Intel Quad Cores and so on.

The doc should also have a comparison of SMP-features and their different behaviour on ESX and hosted platforms

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

etung — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:48:35 GMT

New users usually are very disapointed when they find out that a VM with 2 CPUs is slower than the same VM with one CPU only. We have to explain the issues over and over again.

I explain it a bit in Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings. Are there things you think I should add?

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

continuum — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:49:13 GMT

I guess it would be more useful if you kindly ask someone like jmattson to write a doc on this issue.

We need an explanation on the technical background that we can present to disapointed users - we sure don't need another hi-color advertising article

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Re: Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

RDellimmagine — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:54:05 GMT

I've forwarded this thread to the product manager for vSMP. - Robert

Robert Dell'Immagine, Director of VMware Communities

Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms

continuum — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:45:40 GMT

New users usually are very disapointed when they find out that a VM with 2 CPUs is slower than the same VM with one CPU only.
We have to explain the issues over and over again.

For experienced users this behaviour comes expected - for new users this looks like a bug.

Please create a website or a doc that explains this in some depth.

Please also review the advertising of this feature.

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html