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champi0n
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Web Server on ESXi dreadfully slow! same fresh install works uber fast on a single physical server!

I've created a VM and allocated 4gig of ram, 2 cpu's and no limit on cpu usage.

Freshly installed centos5 and LAMP. Installed joomla with default content.

Browsing the site is DREADFULLY slow... i'm talking molassas.

Now before people start blaming joomla, I've done the exact same fresh install on a physical server with less specs (only 1gb ram and 1 cpu) and it's lightning fast.

Both are on the exact same network. And the ESXi server only has a PBX VM running other then the webserver. I have hordes of resources left and available on the ESXi server.

I can't quite figure out what the problem is or could be. It obviously has the resources avaiable, and doesn't have a million processes waiting to go thru to the server. My network adapters (2) are set up in tandum (i guess nic teaming?) this shouldnt be a problem?

Is it just the way the esxi handles incoming/outgoing traffic? Is this to be expected? The only thing I can narrow it down to is 1)the way esxi itself works. 2)the way esxi is handling my network adapters and or traffic

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weinstein5
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What are the specs of the ESX Server - Hardware and CPU? Are there other VMs running on the ESX Server? Have you tried running the VM with a single virtual CPU? It is best practice to start with a single vCPU and add vCPUs only if it is needed or you have emperical evidence that it is needed - this has to do with the way the virtual cPUs are scheduled -

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NTurnbull
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Hi, have you installed VMware Tools on the vm?

Also, what is the hardware on the physical box and what resources have been allocated to the other vm on the box?

Thanks,

Neil

Thanks, Neil
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champi0n
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No I haven't installed vmware tools on any of the VM's. What exactally does vmware tools do?

I have 2x quad core cpu's with 8gigs of ram.

the other VM is capped at 512ram, 1cpu @ 1ghz processing power

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NTurnbull
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"VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. Although the guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, you lose important functionality and convenience"

Above taken from this VMware KB and have a look at page 80 in the Guest OS Guide for more info on the tools install.

The hardware and resource allocation are fine

Thanks,

Neil

Thanks, Neil
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weinstein5
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What are the specs of the ESX Server - Hardware and CPU? Are there other VMs running on the ESX Server? Have you tried running the VM with a single virtual CPU? It is best practice to start with a single vCPU and add vCPUs only if it is needed or you have emperical evidence that it is needed - this has to do with the way the virtual cPUs are scheduled -

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weinstein5
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VMware tools replaces device drivers that are for physical devices with device drivers designed for the virtual environemnt enhancing perfomance particualrly for disk performance, network performance and mouse/video performance.

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Junior6621
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I agree. Take theVM down. Remove a vCPU, power it on. Then install VMware Tools.

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champi0n
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My Esxi Server is a dual quad core machine with 8gigs of ram.

only 2 VM's are currently running, maybe using about 600mb ram between them.

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champi0n
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Ok wow, shut down the server, made it into 1 cpu... and it's running quite fast now.

So how does esxi handle the multiple virtual processors? I would assume 2 is better then 1 - but perhaps not the case?

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weinstein5
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The vmkernel schedules the virtual CPUs simultaneously - so if it can not schedule both vCPUs it will schedule neither of them -

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champi0n
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OK, maybe this isn't exactly fixed.... Changing to 1vcpu may have only fixed the problem due to a complete reboot? VMware tools installed... server has been up and running a few days.... average time to load page over the local network, 45-60 seconds. Quickest is about 6-10 seconds.

I've changed my network interfaces from teaming to 1 with the other on standby... no change in performance.

I'll try to re-install as a 32 bit guest, but I can't see any reason this is going so dreadfully slow other then there is something wrong with esxi. Is the free version capped in performance or something so you have to pay for it to work normal? I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone can use this in a production environment.... its as slow as a single core 4 gig server that's getting 50,000 requests at one time... yet the only request is me... on a local network....

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