Re: ESX 4.0 Performance issues

marktbreaux · ‎08-07-2009

I know this probably has been mulled over quite a bit and I bet if I went into the forum about 10 or 20 pages I could find some help but I also realize that logs are always different. My ESX server is working and my users get to their stuff but why does my server always show up at 50% or more utilization? I have HP DL360 G5 with two Xeon 5160 dual core 3ghz processors. I have 16 gb in this server. In fact both my servers are identical. I am running on a 1GB iSCSI IBM DS3300 SAN. I have jumbo frames and flow control turned on a dedicated HP Procurve 2900-24g. I am running all VMs on a RAID 10 with 12 500GB SATA drives. We have 40 employees. We don't need SAS but I realize my drives could be the issue.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated and will be rewarded with points.

P.S. There are a ton of logs. Any help with which log to post would also be beneficial.

RParker · ‎08-07-2009

Xeon 5160 dual core 3ghz processors

OK, we start at the top. Dual Core are not Quad Core. Quad Cores are much more efficient much faster. Also you said 50% more utilization than what? The other identical server running ESX? Is that CPU? VM's running on Dual Core tend to run a higher utilization I have found. Also not all VM's are created equal. VM's on one box (which may be designed the same) will not run the same, depending on load software and services.

I have jumbo frames and flow control turned on a dedicated HP Procurve 2900-24g

iSCSI initiator using ESX software is a higher utilization as well...

I am running all VMs on a RAID 10 with 12 500GB SATA drives. We have 40 employees. We don't need SAS but I realize my drives could be the issue.

Yes SAS much better, although in this case I am not sure that's ALL of your problem, it does contribute. Drives do make up the lien share of slow performance on the VM, but ESX host shouldn't be affected by this.

But I don't see the performance problem, are your VM's running slow? What part of the performance is slow?

azn2kew · ‎08-07-2009

what types of servers and applications are you running on these hosts? Have you check out esxtop command to see anything weird at all? It will gives you general details how performance and latencies work within your virtual environment. If you have high I/O databases like SQL, Oracle, Exchange servers performance problems, than 90% is the storage problems and you can check it using /lib/vmware/bin/vscsiStats -s command hopefully that's the right location path. 50% CPU is pretty normal nothing to shock especialy using dual core. Any of the users complaining at all? Just keep an eye on it and monitor the CPU/RAM and generate alerts/alarm if something out of ordinary and have plans in place for contingencies. SAS drives are always faster and provide much better in performance for SATA that could be minor culprit to performance. Are you using VMware Software iSCSI or hardware iSCSI HBAs?

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA

marktbreaux · ‎08-07-2009

Not 50% more, 50% OR more utilization on the CPU inside the VM. I apologize for not being too clear on this.

I am using iSCSI SW initiator. Yes this particular server is running Exchange database and SQL database but the SQL database is not in production. I do have both separated on different LUNs. I plan on moving one of them to another ESX server once I have the software installed on my other server..

Do you guys really think Quad Core makes that big of a difference? I have not heard any users complaining yet but I tend to err on the side of caution before someone complains.

@azn2kew: that lib command didn't work. I will try esxtop though.

azn2kew · ‎08-07-2009

You can see the procedures how to analyze performance with vscsiStats here http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10095 I forgot the /usr/ in the front of the path. Give it a try and if it should give you general ideas about your performance stats.