Book Image

vSphere High Performance Cookbook

Book Image

vSphere High Performance Cookbook

Overview of this book

VMware vSphere is the key virtualization technology in today's market. vSphere is a complex tool and incorrect design and deployment can create performance-related problems. vSphere High Performance Cookbook is focused on solving those problems as well as providing best practices and performance-enhancing techniques. vSphere High Performance Cookbook offers a comprehensive understanding of the different components of vSphere and the interaction of these components with the physical layer which includes the CPU, memory, network, and storage. If you want to improve or troubleshoot vSphere performance then this book is for you! vSphere High Performance Cookbook will teach you how to tune and grow a VMware vSphere 5 infrastructure. This book focuses on tuning, optimizing, and scaling the infrastructure using the vSphere Client graphical user interface. This book will enable the reader with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to build and run a high-performing VMware vSphere virtual infrastructure. You will learn how to configure and manage ESXi CPU, memory, networking, and storage for sophisticated, enterprise-scale environments. You will also learn how to manage changes to the vSphere environment and optimize the performance of all vSphere components. This book also focuses on high value and often overlooked performance-related topics such as NUMA Aware CPU Scheduler, VMM Scheduler, Core Sharing, the Virtual Memory Reclamation technique, Checksum offloading, VM DirectPath I/O, queuing on storage array, command queuing, vCenter Server design, and virtual machine and application tuning. By the end of this book you will be able to identify, diagnose, and troubleshoot operational faults and critical performance issues in vSphere.

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vSphere High Performance Cookbook
Jul, 2013 | 240 pages
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Table of Contents (15 chapters)
vSphere High Performance Cookbook
vSphere High Performance Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
CPU Performance Design
CPU Performance Design
Introduction
Critical performance consideration – VMM scheduler
CPU scheduler – processor topology/cache aware
Ready time – warning sign
Hyperthreaded core sharing
Spotting CPU overcommitment
Fighting guest CPU saturation in SMP VMs
Controlling CPU resources using resource settings
What is most important to monitor in CPU performance
CPU performance best practices
2
Memory Performance Design
Memory Performance Design
Introduction
Virtual memory reclamation techniques
Monitoring host-swapping activity
Monitoring host-ballooning activity
Keeping memory free for VMkernel
Key memory performance metrics to monitor
What metrics not to use
Identifying when memory is the problem
Analyzing host and VM memory
Memory performance best practices
3
Networking Performance Design
Networking Performance Design
Introduction
Designing a network for load balancing and failover for vSphere Standard Switch
Designing a network for load balancing and failover for vSphere Distributed Switch
What to know when offloading checksum
Selecting the correct virtual network adapter
Improving performance through VMDirectPath I/O
Improving performance through NetQueue
Improving network performance using the SplitRx mode for multicast traffic
Designing a multi-NIC vMotion
Improving network performance using network I/O control
Monitoring network capacity and performance matrix
4
DRS, SDRS, and Resource Control Design
DRS, SDRS, and Resource Control Design
Introduction
Using DRS algorithm guidelines
Using resource pool guidelines
Avoiding using resource pool as folder structure
Choosing the best SIOC latency threshold
Using storage capability and profile driven storage
Anti-affinity rules in the SDRS cluster
Avoiding the use of SDRS I/O Metric and array-based automatic tiering together
Using VMware SIOC and array-based automatic tiering together
5
vSphere Cluster Design
vSphere Cluster Design
Introduction
Trade-off factors while designing scale up and scale out clusters
Using VM Monitoring
vSphere Fault Tolerance design and its impact
DPM and its impact
Choosing the reserved cluster failover capacity
Rightly choosing the vSphere HA cluster size
6
Storage Performance Design
Storage Performance Design
Introduction
Designing the host for a highly available and high-performing storage
Designing a highly available and high-performance iSCSI SAN
Designing a highly available and high-performing FC storage
Performance impact of queuing on the storage array and host
Factors that affect storage performance
Using VAAI to boost storage performance
Selecting the right VM disk type
Monitoring command queuing
Identifying a severely overloaded storage
7
Designing vCenter and vCenter Database for Best Performance
Designing vCenter and vCenter Database for Best Performance
Introduction
vCenter Single Sign-On and its database preparation
vCenter Single Sign-On and its deployment
Things to bear in mind while designing the vCenter platform
Designing vCenter Server for redundancy
Designing a highly available vCenter database
vCenter database size and location affects performance
Considering vCenter Server Certificates to minimize security threats
Designing vCenter Server for Auto Deploy
8
Virtual Machine and Application Performance Design
Virtual Machine and Application Performance Design
Introduction
Setting the right time in Guest OS
vNUMA (Virtual NUMA) considerations
Choosing the SCSI controller for storage
Impact of VM swap file placement
Using large pages in virtual machines
Guest OS networking considerations
When you should or should not virtualize an application
Measuring the application's performance
Index
Index

Keeping memory free for VMkernel

The amount of memory the VMkernel will try to keep free can be achieved through the Mem.MemMinFreePct parameter. MemMinFreePct determines the amount of memory that the VMkernel should keep free. vSphere 4.1 introduced a dynamic threshold of the Soft, Hard, and Low state to set appropriate thresholds and prevent virtual machine performance issues, while protecting VMkernel. The different states, based on %pRAM which is still free, determines what type of memory reclamation techniques are being used.

For MemMinFreePct, using a default value of 6 percent can be inefficient when 256 gigabyte or 512 gigabyte systems are becoming more and more mainstream. A 6 percent threshold on a 512 gigabyte results in 30 gigabyte idling most of the time. However, not all customers use large systems; some prefer to scale out rather than to scale up. In this scenario, a 6 percent MemMinFreePct might be suitable. To have the best of both worlds, VMkernel uses a sliding scale to...

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