vSphere High Performance Cookbook
()
About this ebook
Prasenjit Sarkar
Prasenjit Sarkar (@stretchcloud) is a senior member of technical staff at VMware Service Provider Cloud R&D, where he provides architectural oversight and technical guidance for designing, implementing, and testing VMware's Cloud datacenters. He is an author, R&D guy, and a blogger focusing on virtualization, Cloud computing, storage, networking, and other enterprise technologies. He has more than 10 years of expert knowledge in R&D, professional services, alliances, solution engineering, consulting, and technical sales with expertise in architecting and deploying virtualization solutions and rolling out new technologies and solution initiatives. His primary focus is on VMware vSphere Infrastructure and Public Cloud using VMware vCloud Suite. His aim is to own the entire life cycle of a VMware based IaaS (SDDC), especially vSphere, vCloud Director, vShield Manager, and vCenter Operations. He was one of the VMware vExperts of 2012 and is well known for his acclaimed virtualization blog http://stretch-cloud.info. He holds certifications from VMware, Cisco, Citrix, Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Exin. Prior to joining VMware, he served other fine organizations (such as Capgemini, HP, and GE) as a solution architect and infrastructure architect.
Read more from Prasenjit Sarkar
Implementing Cisco UCS Solutions - Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImplementing Cisco UCS Solutions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsvSphere High Performance Cookbook - Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to vSphere High Performance Cookbook
Related ebooks
VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook - Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVMware vCenter Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHyper-V 2016 Best Practices Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVMware vRealize Configuration Manager Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWindows Server 2012 R2 Administrator Cookbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5PostgreSQL High Performance Cookbook: Mastering query optimization, database monitoring, and performance-tuning for PostgreSQL Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGetting Started with VMware Virtual SAN Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCeph Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMicrosoft Exchange 2013 Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSystem Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKali Linux Web Penetration Testing Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsvSphere Virtual Machine Management Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMetasploit Penetration Testing Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWindows Server 2016 Hyper-V Cookbook - Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOracle Data Integrator 11g Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCisco UCS Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVMware vSphere Security Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVMware vRealize Orchestrator Cookbook - Second Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5VMware vSphere Troubleshooting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtending Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 Cookbook: Extend Dynamics NAV 2016 to win the business world Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLearning Hyper-V Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMicrosoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5VMware Performance and Capacity Management - Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKVM Virtualization Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCitrix® XenApp® 6.5 Expert Cookbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMariaDB High Performance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Computers For You
The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Awesome Builds: Minecraft® Secrets from the World's Greatest Crafters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Procreate for Beginners: Introduction to Procreate for Drawing and Illustrating on the iPad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5CompTIA IT Fundamentals (ITF+) Study Guide: Exam FC0-U61 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMastering ChatGPT: 21 Prompts Templates for Effortless Writing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncanny Valley: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excel 101: A Beginner's & Intermediate's Guide for Mastering the Quintessence of Microsoft Excel (2010-2019 & 365) in no time! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompTIA Security+ Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-701 Study Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SQL QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Managing, Analyzing, and Manipulating Data With SQL Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Make Your PC Stable and Fast: What Microsoft Forgot to Tell You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professional Voiceover Handbook: Voiceover training, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deep Search: How to Explore the Internet More Effectively Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ChatGPT Millionaire Handbook: Make Money Online With the Power of AI Technology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Remote/WebCam Notarization : Basic Understanding Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Create Cpn Numbers the Right way: A Step by Step Guide to Creating cpn Numbers Legally Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tor and the Dark Art of Anonymity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for vSphere High Performance Cookbook
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
vSphere High Performance Cookbook - Prasenjit Sarkar
Table of Contents
vSphere High Performance Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
Instant Updates on New Packt Books
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. CPU Performance Design
Introduction
Critical performance consideration – VMM scheduler
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
CPU scheduler – processor topology/cache aware
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Ready time – warning sign
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Hyperthreaded core sharing
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Spotting CPU overcommitment
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Fighting guest CPU saturation in SMP VMs
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Controlling CPU resources using resource settings
Getting ready
How to do it...
What is most important to monitor in CPU performance
Getting ready
How to do it...
CPU performance best practices
Getting ready
How to do it…
2. Memory Performance Design
Introduction
Virtual memory reclamation techniques
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Transparent page sharing
Memory ballooning
Monitoring host-swapping activity
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Monitoring host-ballooning activity
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Keeping memory free for VMkernel
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Key memory performance metrics to monitor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
What metrics not to use
Getting ready
How to do it...
Identifying when memory is the problem
Getting ready
How to do it...
Analyzing host and VM memory
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Memory performance best practices
How to do it…
3. Networking Performance Design
Introduction
Designing a network for load balancing and failover for vSphere Standard Switch
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID (default)
Route based on source MAC hash
Route based on IP hash
Link status only
Beacon probing
Designing a network for load balancing and failover for vSphere Distributed Switch
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
What to know when offloading checksum
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Selecting the correct virtual network adapter
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Improving performance through VMDirectPath I/O
Getting ready
How to do it...
Improving performance through NetQueue
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Improving network performance using the SplitRx mode for multicast traffic
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Designing a multi-NIC vMotion
Getting ready
How to do it…
Improving network performance using network I/O control
Getting ready
How to do it...
Monitoring network capacity and performance matrix
Getting ready
How to do it...
4. DRS, SDRS, and Resource Control Design
Introduction
Using DRS algorithm guidelines
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Using resource pool guidelines
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works...
Avoiding using resource pool as folder structure
How to do it...
How it works...
Choosing the best SIOC latency threshold
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Using storage capability and profile driven storage
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Anti-affinity rules in the SDRS cluster
Getting ready
How to do it...
Avoiding the use of SDRS I/O Metric and array-based automatic tiering together
Getting ready
How to do it...
Using VMware SIOC and array-based automatic tiering together
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
5. vSphere Cluster Design
Introduction
Trade-off factors while designing scale up and scale out clusters
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Using VM Monitoring
Getting ready
How to do it…
vSphere Fault Tolerance design and its impact
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
DPM and its impact
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Choosing the reserved cluster failover capacity
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Rightly choosing the vSphere HA cluster size
Getting ready
How to do it...
6. Storage Performance Design
Introduction
Designing the host for a highly available and high-performing storage
Getting ready
How to do it...
Designing a highly available and high-performance iSCSI SAN
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Jumbo frames
Pause frames
TCP delayed Ack
Designing a highly available and high-performing FC storage
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
RAIDlevel data protection
Performance impact of queuing on the storage array and host
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Factors that affect storage performance
Getting ready
How to do it...
Using VAAI to boost storage performance
Atomic test & set (ATS)
Clone blocks/full copy/XCOPY
Zero blocks/write same
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Selecting the right VM disk type
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Monitoring command queuing
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Identifying a severely overloaded storage
Getting ready
How to do it…
7. Designing vCenter and vCenter Database for Best Performance
Introduction
vCenter Single Sign-On and its database preparation
Getting ready
How to do it...
vCenter Single Sign-On and its deployment
Getting ready
How to do it...
Things to bear in mind while designing the vCenter platform
How to do it...
Designing vCenter Server for redundancy
How to do it…
Designing a highly available vCenter database
How to do it...
vCenter database size and location affects performance
How to do it...
Considering vCenter Server Certificates to minimize security threats
Getting ready
How to do it...
See also
Designing vCenter Server for Auto Deploy
Getting ready
How to do it...
8. Virtual Machine and Application Performance Design
Introduction
Setting the right time in Guest OS
Getting ready
How to do it...
See Also
vNUMA (Virtual NUMA) considerations
Getting ready
How to do it…
Choosing the SCSI controller for storage
Getting ready
How to do it...
Impact of VM swap file placement
Getting ready
How to do it...
Using large pages in virtual machines
Getting ready
How to do it...
Guest OS networking considerations
Getting ready
How to do it...
See Also
When you should or should not virtualize an application
Getting ready
How to do it...
Measuring the application's performance
Getting ready
How to do it...
Index
vSphere High Performance Cookbook
vSphere High Performance Cookbook
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2013
Production Reference: 1220713
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78217-000-6
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Francesco Langiulli (<langy86@gmail.com>)
Credits
Author
Prasenjit Sarkar
Reviewers
Andy Grant
Craig Risinger
Brian Wuchner
Acquisition Editors
Vinay Agrekar
Andrew Duckworth
Lead Technical Editor
Anila Vincent
Technical Editors
Arvind Koul
Saumya Kunder
Vaibhav Pawar
Larissa Pinto
Project Coordinator
Hardik Patel
Proofreader
Dirk Manuel
Indexer
Tejal Daruwale
Graphics
Disha Haria
Production Coordinator
Aditi Gajjar
Cover Work
Aditi Gajjar
About the Author
Prasenjit Sarkar (@stretchcloud) is a senior member of the technical staff in VMware Service Provider Cloud R&D, where he provides architectural oversight and technical guidance for the design, implementation, and testing of VMware's Cloud datacenters.
He is an author, R&D guy, and a blogger, focusing on Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Storage, Networking, and other enterprise technologies.
He has more than 10 years of expert knowledge in R&D/Professional Services/Alliances/Solution Engineering/Consulting, and Technical Sales, with expertise in Architecting and Deploying Virtualization Solutions, and rolling out new technology and solution initiatives.
His primary focus is on VMware vSphere Infrastructure and Public Cloud, using VMware vCloud Suite.One of his other focuses is to own the entire life cycle of a VMware based IaaS (SDDC), specially, vSphere, vCloud Director, vShield Manager, and vCenter Operations. He is one of the VMware vExperts in 2012 and 2013 as well, and is well known for his acclaimed Virtualization Blog http://stretch-cloud.info.
He holds certifications from VMware, Cisco, Citrix, RedHat, Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Exin.
Prior to joining VMware, Prasenjit has served in other fine organizations (such as Capgemini, HP, and GE.) as Solution Architect and Infrastructure Architect.
I would like to thank and dedicate this book to my family, my mom, dad, and my lovely wife Lipika. Without their endless and untiring support, this book would not have been possible.
About the Reviewers
Andy Grant is a Technical Consultant for HP Enterprise Services. His primary focus is on datacenter infrastructure and virtualization projects across a number of industries, including government, healthcare, forestry, financial, gas and oil, and international contracting. He currently holds a number of technical certifications including VCAP4/5-DCA/DCD, VCP4/5, MCITP: EA, MCSE, CCNA, Security+, A+ and ASE HP BladeSystem. Outside of work, Andy enjoys hiking, action pistol sports, and spending time adventuring with his son.
Craig Risinger is a consulting architect and VCDX #006, who has been with VMware since 2004. His previous experience includes running help desks and small-shop, all-around, IT system administration. With VMware, he has helped to design virtualization infrastructures and operations for everything from small shops to defense contractors to Fortune 50 financial enterprises. His particular interests include performance management, storage design, and delivering clear and precise technical writing and training. He has had the pleasure of helping to review several books written by his colleagues, including those by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman, John Arrasjid, and Mostafa Khalil.
Brian Wuchner is a senior systems administrator for a government agency. He has over 10 years of industry experience, with specialties in infrastructure automation, directory services, and data center virtualization. Brian holds the VCP 5 certification, and was awarded the vExpert title from VMware in 2011 and 2012. He can be contacted on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/bwuch), Twitter (@bwuch) or through his blog at http://enterpriseadmins.org.
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com, and as a print book customer you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library. Here, you can access, read, and search across Packt's entire library of books.
Why Subscribe?
Fully searchable across every book published by Packt
Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content
On demand and accessible via a web browser
Free Access for Packt account holders
If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for immediate access.
Instant Updates on New Packt Books
Get notified! Find out when new books are published by following @PacktEnterprise on Twitter, or the Packt Enterprise Facebook page.
I would like to thank and dedicate this book to my mom and dad. Without their endless and untiring support, this book would not have been possible.
Preface
Welcome to vSphere High Performance Cookbook. In this book, we will teach you how to tune and grow a VMware vSphere 5 Infrastructure. This book will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to build and run a high-performing VMware vSphere virtual infrastructure. Also, we will look at the detailed, step-by-step coverage, with screenshots that are usually not available in product manuals.
You will learn how to configure and manage ESXi CPU, memory, networking, and storage for sophisticated, enterprise-scale environments. Also, you will learn how to manage changes to the vSphere environment, and optimize the performance of all vSphere components.
This book 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.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, CPU Performance Design, covers VMM Scheduler, Cache aware CPU Scheduler, Hyperthreaded Core Sharing, Ready Time (%RDY), and so on.
Chapter 2, Memory Performance Design, covers virtual memory reclamation technique, how to rightly size a VM's memory, monitoring host ballooning, swapping activity, and so on.
Chapter 3, Networking Performance Design, covers different vSwitch load balancing, options consideration for checksum offloading, VMDirectPath I/O, NetQueue, SplitRx mode for multicast traffic, Multi NIC vMotion, NIOC, and so on.
Chapter 4, DRS, SDRS, and Resource Control Design, covers the DRS algorithm, resource pool guidelines, SIOC threshold considerations, profile driven storage, SDRS and its affinity/anti-affinity rules, and so on.
Chapter 5, vSphere Cluster Design, covers considerations for scale up and scale out cluster design, FT and its caveats, application monitoring, DPM, Host affinity/anti-affinity rules, and so on.
Chapter 6, Storage Performance Design, covers how to design vSphere storage based on various workloads, how you design iSCSI, FC storage for best performance, considerations for VAAI, and so on.
Chapter 7, Designing vCenter and vCenter Database for Best Performance, covers what platform to choose when designing your vCenter Server, redundant vCenter design, vCenter design for highly-available Auto Deploy, vCenter SSO and its deployment, and so on.
Chapter 8, Virtual Machine and Application Performance Design, covers how to select the best time synchronization in virtual machines, considerations for Virtual NUMA, VM swapfile placement best practices and its impact, and so on.
What you need for this book
You need VMware vSphere 5.1, which includes, VMware vSphere ESXi, vCenter Server, any SSH Client (Putty), and vSphere Client.
Who this book is for
This book is a valuable addition for technical professionals with system administration skills and some VMware experience who wish to learn about advanced optimization and the configuration features and functions of vSphere 5.1.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information.
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen
.
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <feedback@packtpub.com>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on