Any problems with VMware Paravirtual Controller?

[dchunt]

Based on some performance tests I have done on vSphere 4 patch 1, it looks like for a Win 2008 VM, the best disk controller is the VMware Paravirtual controller. Since this is a new controller and just with patch 1 can you use it as the boot controller, I was wondering if there are any 'gotchas' with using it? IE are there times where even though the Paravirtual adapter is faster, you would not use it because of other issues?

Thanks,

Dan

[mcowger]

The major gotcha would be deployments - given thats taken care of, should be fine. Only other issue would be that its 'new', and therefore 'scary'.

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

[AndreTheGiant]

See the last notes in

Andre

[dchunt]

Andre, thanks for the links. That is exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately they are all before the release of vSphere 4.0 Update 1. In that update VMware fixed things so that the SCSI Paravirtual driver would work with the boot volume of a server (and I have tested this - it works). I was wondering if Update 1 had addressed the issue of paravirtual drivers not working with VMware FT as well??

We don't plan to use the FT features in our environment. As long as vMotion and Storage vMotion will work with the paravirtual drivers, that should be good enough.

I was wondering if anyone had run into any other compatibility problems than the issue with VMware FT.

Thanks,

Dan

[AndreTheGiant]

I was wondering if Update 1 had addressed the issue of paravirtual drivers not working with VMware FT as well??

Not yet.

See the release notes:

http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_esx40_u1_rel_notes.html

Andre

[crnkyadmin]

I'm wondering if anyone knows why booting from a paravirtual HBA isn't supported in Linux. I did it and it seems to work fine. In fact, it was easier to do than getting Windows 2008 (I'm running ESX 4.1) to boot using the paravirtual HBA.

[dchunt]

Actually it looks like it is supported. See this KB 1021346.

Dan