Planning a P2V

[leclercc]

Hi,

We're in the process of virtualizing a bunch of our physical servers and I'd like to be sure about this particular one!

Here's the specs:

HP DL360G5 - 2x DualCore 3MHz - 4GB ram - OS is netware 6.5 sp5

It's connected to an HP EVA5000

7 LUN's = 2.6TB (Ideas on migrating that please! I want to go RDM but I think it means backup/restore?)

CPU = Avg/15%, Peak/50%

Mem Used = 3GB

Disk IOPS = Avg/3000, Peak/6500

DiskTransfer rate = Avg/8MB, Peak/21MB

LAN pkts/sec = Avg/23000, Peak/52000

Network Transfer rate = Avg/14MB, Peak/77MB

This server provides home drive to 24000 users and is an application repository for the same amount of users. It sees around Avg/4000ConcurrentUsers

I used the HP sizer and it seems to be saying that a DL360G5 QuadCore and 6GB ram should do it, but I'd like your opinions on that!

Tnx,

Chuck

[mcowger]

Thats a TON of packets per second. I think its doable, but its not low hanging fruit.

--Matt

[Rodos]

Chuck, are you trying to work out what virtual hardware to give it (RAM, number of vCPUs) or are you after a spec for the ESX host. The spec for the ESX host will be dependant on how many other VM's you will be running on that host. Do you already have a cluster of other ESX hosts? If so you will want to consider CPU compatibility for VMotion. How much spare capacity is their in your current cluster?

I have normally not needed to do it but for that number of connected users you may want to leave that particular VM out of DRS and let all of the other machines move around it. Just something to consider.

Considering awarding points if this is of use

[leclercc]

I'm more on the quest to find out if I should at all virtualize it. Based on the numbers I gave what do you guys think? I'm really not sure that it's a good candidate.

As far as the cluster is concerned I would not iclude this server in any DRS (like my SQL servers - "planned").

Chuck

[Rodos]

I can't see any reason why not. The resources are not massive. For the disks you can use RDM to attach to the existing luns. You already know the machine has enough grunt and the overhead of ESX should not cause a problem. The problem will be if you oversubscribe the host its on. Also ensure you OS is on the guest compatibility list.

Also figure out your fail back strategy. If you use RDMs can you give it a go and if there is a problem shutdown the VM, reconnect to LUNs to the physical box and continue on (will be dependant on your systems).

[leclercc]

I don't suppose you have netware experience!

It's a netware 6.5 sp5 server

Tnx for the help though.

[Rodos]

No.

But I can make jokes.

+I went looking for someone who had netware experience, but I ran out of fuel.

+I have had lots of experiences with netware, none were pleasant.

Okay, so I am no good at jokes either!

[stvkpln · Accepted solution]

I'm actually more concerned about the CPU utilization on the box than anything else.. 35%-50% of 2x dual-core isn't something I'd necessarily say is a big deal in a virtualized world, but with Novell, the rules aren't the same as with Windows and Linux. Keep in mind that any Novell VM's you setup will only be capable of having 1 vCPU. There's no way to change this to 2 vCPU's in any release of ESX I know of... and I just checked both to make sure that didn't change in 3.5, and it hasn't... The network numbers are high, but doable, but I'd be worried you're going to be pegging a single vCPU and causing performance degradation for users.

[leclercc]

Very funny! :smileysilly:

It's just to bad that I like Novell, so I can't really understand these kinds of jokes....

Thanks for your help...kind of....

[dmorgan]

I am relatively new to the VM world, and have some related questions. If he is using around a 50% load on two proc's, but can only use a single virtual proc in VM, wouldn't he still be able to assign a higher reservation to this VM in MHz? So, even though he wont be running two virtual proc's, he would still then be able to utilize more physical processor than that single virtual proc. would be running if it were physical? Does that make sense?

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[leclercc]

To me, your answer makes complete sense, I could probably even lock the vm to a certain number of vcpu and exclude these vcpu from the other vm's, couldn't I?

[dmorgan]

Exactly what I was thinking of. There have been many threads here I have read regarding better performance on some systems by assigning a single vcpu rather than multople vcpu's, because of the VM having to wait for multiple time-slices on multiple physical proc's. Thus, trying the machine to solely utilize one or more physical proc's., and also guaranteeing it a MHz level from the total pool high enough to handle the load, you may be able to achieve what you are looking for. I would love to hear some thoughts from some of the VM guru's out there on this. I have been wondering about how to possibly switch some of our high-load machines, like our Exchange Server, over to a VM, and have been confused as to the best way to configure the vcpu's for this type of machine.

Don

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[leclercc]

You might want to look at this thread http://communities.vmware.com/message/695065

It won't help you on cpu config's but it's nice to know what people in the field are really using esx for!

A lot are running Exchange and SQL 2000/2005

Chuck

[ssmichel]

I like Netware , works fine for me