Lars_Laursen Tracker

Re: Virtual machine memory usage

Lars_Laursen — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:57:19 GMT

Hi All

We are in the process of upgrading our ESX servers.

Take a look at this KB

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1013206

I will report back when we are finished with the upgrade.

Regards

Lars

Re: Virtual machine memory usage

Lars_Laursen — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:31:06 GMT

No this issue has not been solved yet.

We are still in the process of upgrading vmware tool on all vm's

Re: Virtual machine memory usage

Lars_Laursen — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:02:08 GMT

Hi Doug

I think I will try to do some more trouble shooting to see if I can find the reason why the VM are blocking out memory.

First I will upgrade all my VM to newest hardware/vmtools

After that I will definen new LUN's so my I/O load will be more balanced.

Then I will se it has made a difference to the VM.

Lars

Re: Virtual machine memory usage

Lars_Laursen — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:38:06 GMT

Hi Doug

Thanks for your reply.

I can see that my system is using alot of "System Cache" and the concepts you describe, with Windows not releasing memory is also clear.

What I do not understand is, that if I have a virtual machine which has 2 GB Ram and ths OS uses 500MB, and then 1.4 GB System cache.

Then the Active Guest memory in vCenter will display 1,9GB.

This will result in vCenter giving a alarm. (Red exclamationpoint)

If windows never releases the System Cache, then I will always see alarms on my VM's in vCenter.

If I give the VM 4 GB Ram, then over time the System Cache will grow to 3,4 GB and vCenter displays active guest memory as 3,9 GB and then the alarm is back!

What can I do so my environment will keep active guest memory for my VM's in a "normal" state ?

./Lars

Virtual machine memory usage

Lars_Laursen — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:55:03 GMT

I have a virtual machine running on vSphere 4.0.0, 164009

Guest OS = Windows Server 2008 R2

VM Version = 7

Memory = 4096 MB

When looking at the Resource Allocation tab in vcenter, I can see that it currently has 3,8 GB Active, this is generates an alarm "Virtual machine memory usage"

When I look in the OS, I can only see that the virtual machine is using around 1 GB RAM.

Why is my Active amount of RAM so high ?

Any explanation is apreciated.

Regards

Lars