Table of Contents
Introduction xix
Chapter 1 • Performance Design 1
Starting Simple 2
Determine Parameters 2
Architect for the Application 3
Assess Physical Performance 3
Start with Defaults 3
Establishing a Baseline 4
Baseline CPU Infrastructure 4
Memory 6
Network 7
Storage 9
Architecting for the Application 11
Considering Licensing Requirements 12
Integrating Virtual Machines 13
Virtual Machine Scalability 13
vMotion 13
Distributed Resource Scheduler 15
High Availability 16
Understanding Design Considerations 16
Choosing a Server 16
Summary 18
Chapter 2 • Building Your Toolbox 21
Capacity Planning Tools 21
VMware Capacity Planner 21
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 22
Using Capacity Planning Tools 22
Ongoing Capacity Management 23
Performance Analysis Tools 26
esxtop 26
vscsiStats 31
Performance Benchmarking Tools 34
VMmark 34
vBenchmark 35
Performance Simulation Tools 36
CPU/Memory 36
Storage 38
Network 41
Summary 42
Chapter 3 • The Test Lab 45
Why Build a Test Lab? 45
Test Changes before Applying in Production 46
Test New Applications and Patches. 47
Re-Create Production Problems 48
Simulate Performance Problems for Troubleshooting 50
Benchmark New Hardware 51
Learn about Virtualization 51
Strategies for a Successful Test Lab 55
Build a Realistic Environment 55
Building the Lab 56
Use Proper Tools for Measurement 58
How to Build Your Lab 58
Test Objective 58
Lab Summary 58
Provisioning the Lab 60
Defining the Workload and Configuration of IOmeter 60
Lab Postmortem 60
Summary 61
Chapter 4 • CPU 63
Getting to Know the Basics of CPU Virtualization 63
Understanding CPU Protected Mode in the x86 Architecture 64
Defining the Types of CPU Virtualization 65
Distinguishing between Physical CPUs and Virtual CPUs 68
Understanding vCPU States 68
Introducing the ESXi CPU Scheduler 69
Understanding the Proportional Share-Based Algorithm 69
Understanding CPU Co-Scheduling 72
The CPU Scheduler Cell 73
Understanding CPU Topology-Aware Load Balancing 74
Multicore-Aware Load Balancing 82
Sizing CPU for Virtual Machines 84
Considerations for vSMP 85
Considerations for NUMA and vNUMA 86
Hot Plug of CPU Resources 86
Understanding CPU Resource Management 86
Understanding CPU Reservations 87
Understanding CPU Limits 88
Configuring CPU Reservations and Limits 88
Understanding Resource Pools 88
Troubleshooting CPU Performance Problems 91
Using esxtop to Diagnose CPU Performance Issues 91
High CPU Ready Time 93
High ESXi Host CPU Utilization 93
High Guest CPU Utilization 95
Summary 95
Chapter 5 • Memory 97
Getting to Know ESXi Memory Management 97
Memory Virtualization 98
Memory Management in ESXi 99
Hardware-Assisted MMU Virtualization 101
Reclaiming Memory from VMs 101
Transparent Page Sharing 102
Ballooning 103
Memory Compression 108
Hypervisor Swapping 111
Host SSD Cache Swapping 112
Host Memory Reclamation 114
Idle Page Reclamation 114
Managing Virtual Machine Memory Allocation 115
Working Set Size 116
Proportional Share-Based Algorithm 116
Sizing Memory for Virtual Machines 121
Memory Overhead 122
Memory Overcommitment 123
Troubleshooting Memory Performance Problems 123
Using esxtop to Diagnose Memory Performance Issues 124
High VM Consumed Memory 127
High Memory Ballooning 127
Hypervisor Swapping 128
Guest Operating System Swapping 129
Summary 130
Chapter 6 • Network 131
Creating a Network Design 131
Designing Your Physical Network 132
Choosing a Virtual Switch 133
Considering the Standard vSwitch 134
Considering the vSphere Distributed Switch 135
Considering the Cisco Nexus 1000V dvSwitch 138
Which Virtual Switch Do I Choose? 138
Selecting Host Hardware 139
Host Server Type 139
Network Adapters 141
Designing for Performance 142
ESXi Host-Level Performance 142
Virtual Machine Performance 150
Troubleshooting Networking Issues 155
Slow Virtual Machine Networking Performance 155
Summary 165
Chapter 7 • Storage 167
Choosing Your Storage Platform 167
Storage Area Networks 168
Network File System 170
Virtual SAN 171
Designing Physical Storage 172
Determine Your Requirements 172
RAID Levels 175
Flash Infrastructure Layer 180
Networking for IP Storage 180
Designing vSphere Storage 183
Why Is Storage So Important? 183
VAAI 184
Storage I/O Control 187
Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler191
Profile-Driven Storage 194
Datastore Size 199
vFlash Read Cache 200
Virtual SAN 209
Jumbo Frames for IP Storage 213
Optimizing Virtual Machine Performance 215
Raw Device Mapping vs. VMDK Files 215
Virtual Disk Type 216
Virtual SCSI Adapter 217
Guest OS Disk Alignment 220
Troubleshooting Storage Performance Issues 222
Storage Latency 223
Misconfi gured Storage for Your Applications 227
Storage Queues 228
End-to-End Networking 230
Summary 231
Index 233
