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erickmiller
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Enthusiast

ovftool import VM slow

Hi,

Am I the only one that gets about 10Mbps (Megabits/second), or about 1MB/sec (megabyte/sec) throughput when using the ovftool to import a VM on a 1Gbps LAN?  I would assume there is some type of throttle on the service console network interface, even though I haven't found any evidence from the forums that indicates this is true.  It's just a little strange that we're getting "exactly" 10Mbps.  This happens on multiple vCenter servers and ESX clusters so I'm assuming it's a throttle.  From the one machine I run the ovftool from, I can import to 2 different clusters and get 20Mbps (10Mbps on each).

This is on vCenter 4.0 Update 2 and ESX 4.0 Update 2 (not ESXi) as well as 4.1 versions of these.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Eric

Eric K. Miller, Genesis Hosting Solutions, LLC http://www.genesishosting.com/ - Lease part of our ESX cluster!
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erickmiller
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A couple things to add...  while using ovftool, if I upload ISO files, the throughput of the OVF import slows down.  I later started an import of 4 VMs using VMware Converter 4.3.0 (latest version) and have a total of 210 Megabits/sec throughput to the service console.  Does it use a different service/method on the ESX host's agent to perform its importing?

Eric

Eric K. Miller, Genesis Hosting Solutions, LLC http://www.genesishosting.com/ - Lease part of our ESX cluster!
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admin
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could be we are using a to small read/write buffer internally in ovftool.

We are all more or less on vacation until after new year. So I would have to get back to you there.

eske

Den 25/12/2010 kl. 20.31 skrev Eric K. Miller:

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ovftool import VM slow

reply from Eric K. Miller<http://communities.vmware.com/people/erickmiller> in Open Virtualization Format Tool - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1669160#1669160

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erickmiller
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Hi Eske!  Wow, I didn't expect a reply so soon, especially on Christmas. Smiley Happy  But thank you and I'll look forward to discussing what's happening after the new year.

One of the primary difficulties we're going to have soon is the automated import of 1,000's of VMs, and the only way I know of doing it is to script everything using the ovftool, at least for the most flexibility.  It could take "years" to do what we need to do if we had to live with the performance that we're getting so far. Smiley Happy

I'll post more details about the config soon.

Thanks!

Eric

Eric K. Miller, Genesis Hosting Solutions, LLC http://www.genesishosting.com/ - Lease part of our ESX cluster!
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erickmiller
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I hate to say it, but I found a port somewhere that was accidentally left configured to throttle to 10Mbps. Smiley Happy  Hate it when the technology does exactly what you tell it to do. Smiley Wink

Uploading to the datastore using vCenter is now upwards of 30MBytes/sec.  Much better. Smiley Happy

I'll test ovftool next, but I suspect it'll scream as well.  I'll post again if it doesn't.

Thanks!


Eric

Eric K. Miller, Genesis Hosting Solutions, LLC http://www.genesishosting.com/ - Lease part of our ESX cluster!
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Hehe. Good to hear that it works out. So it works now?

On the other hand I think I will create a option for ovftool to set the transfer speed in the next version. So users can control netuse better.

When you are done and everything works, we (as in the ovftool team) would be happy to hear what kind of setup you have and what problem you solve.

It would be nice to use this to plan ahead. PM me for direct email.

eske

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