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natewilson
Contributor
Contributor
‎06-05-2009 02:29 PM

10 Gigabit VM Networking Questions.

I am lab testing Intel Dual Port 10 Gigabit NICs ( Intel Corporation 82598EB 10-Gigabit AT CX4 ) to assess the performance and whether I can virtualize some network dependent servers. It is working, but I am not confident I have it all working as well as it could. Some questions I have are:

- Is an individual VM throttled to 1Gbps? I get throughput to an individual VM at ~1Gbps. But, if I connect to more than one, all connected via the same 10Gig Ethernet NIC, I get several Gbps. Is there a rate limiting going on (No, I don't have any QoS defined in the vSwitch).

- In ESX3.5, you had to manually configure NetQueue, is it enabled by default in vSphere, or do I need to manually enable it? Can I view the status of the NIC features anywhere?

- Similar to the NetQueue enabling, is there a process for enabling Jumbo Frames?

Any other tips or documents for a 10Gig setup?

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RenaudL
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎06-05-2009 02:52 PM 

- Is an individual VM throttled to 1Gbps?  I get throughput to an individual VM at ~1Gbps.  But, if I connect to more than one, all connected via the same 10Gig Ethernet NIC, I get several Gbps.    Is there a rate limiting going on (No, I don't have any QoS defined in the vSwitch).
No, the VMs can push as fast as they have CPU for (unless you use traffic shaping, obviously). The link speed shown in a guest is a dummy one.
- In ESX3.5, you had to manually configure NetQueue,  is it enabled by default in vSphere, or do I need to manually enable it?  Can I view the status of the NIC features anywhere?
it should be on by default I believe.
- Similar to the NetQueue enabling,   is there a process for enabling Jumbo Frames?
Change the MTU of the vSwitch, change the MTU of the guest, and you're good to go.
Any other tips or documents for a 10Gig setup?
Not really, except that we recommend using paravirtualized adapters like Enhanced Vmxnet or Vmxnet3 for maximum performance.
We can easily drive mutliple Gb/s with a single VM with our setups, so there's probably a lot of room for improvement in yours.

					
				
			
			
				
			
			
			
			
			
			
			
		

		
		
	

	
	


	
				
		
			
		
			
		
			
					
			
		
				
		
			
					
		
	
				
		
			
					
		
	
				
		
			
					
		
	
				
		
			
					
		
	
				
		
			
					
		
	
				
		
	
	


		

	

		

			

	
		
			
					
				
		
			
		
			
					
		
		
	
				
		
			
					
				
		
			
					

	
			

				
		
			
		
			
				

					
						
	
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