Eric Sloof

VMware Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) enhances the scope of VMware vSphere vMotion by making VMware ESXi hosts with different CPU technologies compatible for vMotion. It does this by making available a common CPU feature set through the use of a baseline. With a baseline in place for older processors, application performance becomes important. Do the applications running in the virtual machines with an older CPU presented perform as well as they do on virtual machines that have access to feature sets available in newer generation processors? In this paper, VMware will quantify the performance impact of EVC mode on a diverse set of applications.

VMware has studied workloads from database, Java, multimedia, and encryption categories and report the results. Test results show that almost all workloads perform well even when the virtual machine presents an EVC mode that corresponds to an older processor generation. The EVC mode setting had varying impact on workload performance based on the ESXi hosts’ CPU instruction set features made available and their relevance to the workloads. One workload, AES-Encryption, didn’t fare as well due to a dependence on special-purpose instruction sets only available in younger processor generations.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMware-vSphere-EVC-Perf.pdf

VMware vCloud Director enables users to build a private cloud–based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering within their organization. By providing a secure, on-demand ability for end users to deploy workloads, companies can realize a level of agility previously thought impossible.

Resource design for vCloud Director involves examining requirements to determine how best to partition and organize resources. With the commoditization of infrastructure resources, the ability to scale them becomes increasingly important. When designing for vCloud Director, keep in mind that the ultimate consumers of the product are the end users of the system.

Taking a top-down approach to vCloud Director design necessitates an understanding of the new abstractions introduced in the vCloud API and how they map to traditional VMware vSphere® objects. This paper was developed to provide additional insight and information as to how vCloud Director allocation models relate to vSphere resource management. The paper written by Frank Denneman and Chris Colotti reviews and discusses various design considerations and operational procedures.

VKernel is running a "Free VM Tool" competition. Those who come up with the BEST ideas for free tool features—functionality that is good enough to build into their free tools—win cool hi-tech gadgetry.

 

This session will cover recommendations for using VMware vSphere High Availability (vSphere HA) to create a resilient software defined data center. We will start with an update on recent enhancements to vSphere HA. From there, we will move on to the recommendations for networking, storage, heartbeat datastores, isolation response, and admission control. Additional topics include: vSphere HA advanced settings, VM guest OS monitoring, options for protecting applications, and vSphere HA in Auto Deploy and Metro Cluster environments. The session will conclude with a sneak peak at the future of vSphere HA.

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 5.1, provides performance tips that cover the most performance-critical areas of VMware vSphere 5.1. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide for planning and configuring your deployments.

• Chapter 1, “Hardware for Use with VMware vSphere,” provides guidance on selecting hardware for use with vSphere.
• Chapter 2, “ESXi and Virtual Machines,” provides guidance regarding VMware ESXi software and the virtual machines that run in it.
• Chapter 3, “Guest Operating Systems,” provides guidance regarding the guest operating systems running in vSphere virtual machines.
• Chapter 4, “Virtual Infrastructure Management,” provides guidance regarding infrastructure management best practices.

This book is intended for system administrators who are planning a VMware vSphere 5.1 deployment and want to maximize its performance. The book assumes the reader is already familiar with VMware vSphere concepts and terminology.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.1.pdf