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8 Replies Last post: Jul 25, 2008 11:55 AM by dagterberg
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VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly

Feb 14, 2008 4:44 AM

Click to view Vliegenmepper's profile Master Vliegenmepper 1,511 posts since
May 10, 2006

Hi,

I've got several VC2.5 servers (different sites) that are running as a VM with a local SQL instance. All of these servers experience slow performance while connecting to it with the VC Client.

Slow performance as in:

  • Slow startup's, after entering credentials, it can take up to 30 seconds for the GUI to load and display everything

  • Slow rebuidling of the screen while clicking through the server list and displaying different tabs.

Memory isn't the bottleneck in this scenario and adding an extra VCPU doesn't help the system as well (RDY times also good)

Then I've tested with CPU affinity and this seems to make a difference in perofmance (I know that SQL loves CPU affinity because of the caching behaviour of SQL)

My question now is, do other people who are running VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL instance experience these same problems?

Some other things that I can check to boost performance some more?

Thanks in advance,

Kenneth


Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Feb 20, 2008 7:10 AM
Click to view khenry567's profile Enthusiast khenry567 69 posts since
Sep 1, 2006

Hey Vliegenmepper,

Just wanted you to know that I have a setup just like you described and it is horribly slow. I did not have this problem with 2.0.2, but once I changed to 2.5 the performace just crashed. If I am working within my local subnet it is fast enough to be tolerable. If I am working remotely it is intorerable to the point of unusable. If I am working remotely the only way I can function is to remote desktop into the VC server and open VC client locally on it. Even then it is very slow and yesterday I tried to open a vm console and it bogged my rmd down so bad that I had to shut it down. Tried this twice and gave up the remote stuff. Now the only way I can work with the VC client at a resonable speed is to come into the office.

Have you found any solutions?

Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Feb 20, 2008 7:17 AM
in response to: khenry567
Click to view obpa's profile Novice obpa 20 posts since
Oct 17, 2007

Dittos. No problems on 2.0.2. Did a 2.5 install (local sql 2005 db) and performance is terrible. VC Client logins take 30sec from a workstation on the same subnet. The VC server is a dual proc, 4gb mem box w/ nothing else on it.
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Feb 20, 2008 11:17 AM
in response to: khenry567
Click to view Vliegenmepper's profile Master Vliegenmepper 1,511 posts since
May 10, 2006
Well I tried several things, at some sites adding a vCPU and some memory increased the system performance
and in my own test environment I'm running with the CPU affinity set, apparently VC25 interacts much more with SQL and SQL loves the affinity set.

I'm curious if this increases your overall speed as well?

Cheers,
Kenneth
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Mar 7, 2008 12:28 AM
in response to: Vliegenmepper
Click to view dagterberg's profile Enthusiast dagterberg 28 posts since
Jul 13, 2007
I had the same problem (VC as a VM with local SQL 2005, 1 vCPU and 3 GB RAM) but I resolved it differently. Did some tuning and it performs great now. Here's what I did:

First (this one is important)
Configure "Server Optimization" for "Maximize data throughput for network applications". (Control Panel => Network Connections => Properties Networkcard => Doubleclick File and Print sharing for MS networks)

Second
Dit some tuning in SQL. Set memory to min 512 and max 2048. Then I set growing for the TEMPDB and the VirtualCenter DB to 100 MB intially with a grow of 10 MB at a time

Hope this is helps

Regards,

Dennis
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Mar 7, 2008 12:32 AM
in response to: dagterberg
Click to view Vliegenmepper's profile Master Vliegenmepper 1,511 posts since
May 10, 2006
You just received some points with the first remark you made.

Strangely enough SQL Express didn't changed this value itself like it should do.
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Mar 7, 2008 12:35 AM
in response to: Vliegenmepper
Click to view dagterberg's profile Enthusiast dagterberg 28 posts since
Jul 13, 2007
I have SQL 2005 Standard and it also didn't change this value as I assumed it would do.
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Jul 9, 2008 5:52 AM
in response to: dagterberg
Click to view Vliegenmepper's profile Master Vliegenmepper 1,511 posts since
May 10, 2006
Hi Guys, well I'm sort of going to re-open this thread.

I've currently got two virtual VC servers in small deployments (local SQL 2005 express) who both suffer from extreme slowness.
I've tested some stuff to reveal the local performance of the system and I noticed that the read/write performance to disk is very bad.

For example,

VC server: 2.9 MB writes per second (1000 MB total in chuncks of 1024 MB) It starts very fast completely collapses after a few seconds
Another server: ~ 50.0 MB writes per second (1000 MB total in chuncks of 1024 MB) It starts and stays very fast.

Both VM's are running on the same ESX Host and same Datastore.
I've connected the VC .vmdk to another server and written to this to make sure the .vmdk isn't corrupted, this wasn't the case.

So the real conclusion is: Windows is messing things up. I've uninstalled SQL server from the VC to test if this brings back the speed but unfortunately this didn't help.

Obviously I can reinstall my VC but actually I want to find out what is causing Windows to do this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Kenneth
Reply Re: VC2.5 as a VM with local SQL Instance performs badly Jul 25, 2008 11:55 AM
in response to: Vliegenmepper
Click to view dagterberg's profile Enthusiast dagterberg 28 posts since
Jul 13, 2007
Ey Kenneth,

Does your problem still exists?

If you still have the problem even when SQL is uninstalled, then we can assume SQL is not the problem. Can you tell us more about the configuration?

Are the VC VM's the only VM's on the ESX server(s) or are there more VM's. Are they too having disk performance problems?

Regards,

Dennis
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