Eric Sloof

VMware vSphere is the industry's most widely deployed virtualization solution. However, performance problems are inevitable and require an in-depth understanding of the interaction and relationship between software and hardware. Aimed at VMware administrators and engineers and written by a team of VMware experts, this resource provides guidance on common CPU, memory, storage, and network-related problems. Plus, step-by-step instructions walk you through techniques for solving problems and shed light on possible causes behind the problems Divulges troubleshooting methodologies, performance monitoring tools, and techniques and tools for isolating performance problems. Details the necessary steps for handling CPU, memory, storage, and network-related problems. Offers understanding on the interactions between VMware vSphere and CPU, memory, storage, and network. VMware vSphere X Performance is the resource you need to diagnose and handle VMware vSphere performance problems.

This paper provides a deep look at the performance implications of the live storage migration of a VM running a large SQL Server database workload. Performance of the workload when migrating different components of the database (data, index, and log) was measured and compared against the steady state performance (when there was no migration). Experiments discussed in this paper also show the impact of I/O characteristics of the database components on the migration time of the virtual disk containing them. Based on the knowledge gained from the experiments, a few best practices are suggested for the live migration of the storage of the virtual machines (VMs) with minimal impact to the performance of applications running in them.

Live storage migration is the missing piece in liberating VMs and their associated files completely from the physical hardware on which they reside. Predictable migration times—with minimal impact on the performance of the application accessing the virtual disk that is migrated—are expected from the vSphere’s storage vMotion feature. This paper offers a deeper look at the interaction of svMotion with a large, active SQL database workload. The study includes application behavior when migrating individual virtual disks used by the database and the impact application I/O traffic had on the svMotion of a particular virtual disk. The study showed consistent and predictable disk migration time that largely depended on the capabilities of the source and the destination arrays. svMotion increased the CPU consumption of the VM running the test workload from 5% to 22% depending on the load conditions. The I/O patterns of the SQL database workload had noticeable impact on svMotion throughput (and the disk migration time).

 Storage vMotion of a Virtualized SQL Server Database

PowerShell is a scripting language Microsoft developed to help administrators manage the Windows environment. Third parties can write their own snap-ins (dynamic linked libraries) to implement new commands, which are called cmdlets. With VDSPowerCli, users can use the cmdlets provided by PowerCLI to manage vSphere Distributed Switch(VDS). VDSPowerCli gives you the ability to manage:

• VMware vSphere Distributed Switch
• Distributed Port Group
• Distributed Port

Download and try out VDSPowerCli

VMware is working on the completion of a fully renewed vSphere 5 Fast-Track. This training course will look a little bit like the old VI3 Fast-Track (Install, Configure and Manage plus the Deploy Secure and Analyze) training we had in the old days.  Here’s a short overview:

This intensive, extended-hours training course focuses on installing, configuring, and managing VMware vSphere 5. It combines the content of the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage course with advanced tasks and skills for configuring a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure. The course is based on VMware ESXi 5.0 and VMware vCenter Server 5.0. Completion of this course satisfies the prerequisite for taking the VMware Certified Professional 5 exam.

The objectives are:

- Configure and manage ESXi networking and storage.
- Create, configure, migrate, manage, convert, and monitor virtual machines and virtual appliances.
- Manage user access to the virtual infrastructure.
- Use vCenter Server to monitor resource usage.
- Scale the vSphere virtual infrastructure.
- Implement business continuity solutions.
- Manage changes to the vSphere environment.
- Use a command-line interface to manage vSphere.
- Install and configure ESXi and vCenter Server.
- Use vSphere Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts.

This course is designed for experienced system administrators and system integrators willing to work hard to achieve superior vSphere skills with minimal time away from the office. The prerequisites are the willingness to participate in a demanding, high-intensity training experience. And you must be comfortable with system administration using command-line interfaces.

This book is the culmination of 7 years of experience in running Java on VMware vSphere both internally at VMware and at VMware customer sites. In fact many of VMware's customers run critical enterprise Java applications on VMware vSphere where they have achieved better TCO, and SLAs. This book covers high level architecture and implementation details, such as design and sizing, high availability designs, automation of deployments, best practices, tuning, and troubleshooting techniques.