vSphere Deepdive
Magnus Bergman
Joel Lindberg
Agenda
 VMware vCloud® Suites Launch Context and Product Set
 vSphere 5.0 Recap
 vSphere 5.1 Overview
• Compute, Storage, Network—Enhancements and Features
• Availability, Security, Automation—Enhancements and Features
• vCenter Server—Enhancements and Features
• Additional Features and Enhancements— “The Best of the Rest”
 Memory, CPU and Network Best Practises
2
VMware vCloud Suite
3
VMware vSphere 5.0
vCenter Server
New HA Architecture
• vMotion over
higher latency links
• ESXi Firewall
• Virtual Appliance
• Web Client
• 32 way SMP
• 1 TB VMs
Application
Services
Availability
Security
Scalability
Compute
Storage
Network
VMware vSphere 5
Infrastructure
Services
• ESXi Convergence
• Auto Deploy
• HW version 8
4
• Storage DRS
• Profile-Driven
Storage
• VMFS 5
• Storage I/O
Control (NFS)
• Network I/O Control
(per VM controls)
• Distributed Switch
(Netflow, SPAN, LLDP)
What’s New in vSphere 5.1?
• Single Sign On (vCD, vShield, vCenter)
• vSphere Web Client
vCenter Server 5.1
• Data Protection
• Replication
• vMotion w/o shared
storage
• 0 Downtime upgrades
of VMware Tools
• Enhanced vCenter Orchestrator
• vShield Endpoint
• Storage DRS and
Profile-Driven Storage
integration with VCD
• Enhanced Auto
Deploy
Availability
Security
Automation
Compute
Storage
Network
VMware
vSphere 5.1
• HW version 9
• 64 way SMP
1 TB VMs
5
• Storage Appliance
• Storage Space
Reclamation for VDI
• Enhanced
Distributed Switch
• SR-IOV support
Compute, Storage, Network—
Enhancements and Features
6
Auto Deploy
Overview
 Deploy and patch vSphere hosts in
vCenter Server
with Auto Deploy
minutes using a new “on the fly” model
 Coordination with vSphere Host Profiles
Image Profiles
Host Profiles
 2 new operating modes
Benefits
 Fast initial deployment and patching
vSphere
vSphere
vSphere
 Centralized host and image management
 Reduce manual deployment and
patch processes
 Continue deployment even when
a failure occurs
7
Distributed Switch
Overview
 Distributed Switch now delivers:
 Network Healthcheck
 Configuration Backup and Restore
 Roll Back and Recovery
 LACP Support
vSphere
vSphere
vSphere
Benefits
 Visibility into physical and virtual
network status
 Backup and recover network settings
 Fast recovery from lost connectivity
or incorrect configurations
8
vSphere Scales to Support Mission-Critical Applications
Overview
 Create virtual machines with up to:
 64 vCPU
 1 TB of vRAM
Benefits
2x
 2x size of previous vSphere versions
 Run even the largest applications in
vSphere, including very large databases
 Virtualize even more applications than
ever before (Tier 1 and 2)
9
Availability, Security, and Automation—
Enhancements and Features
10
vMotion (w/o Shared Storage)
Overview
 Live migration of a virtual machine
without the need for shared storage
 Extends VMware’s revolutionary
technology for automated virtual machine
movement
Benefits
 Zero downtime migration
 No dependency on shared storage
 Lower operating cost
 Helps meet service level and
performance SLAs
11
vSphere Data Protection
Overview
 New backup and recovery tool for the
vSphere platform
VDP
 Replaces vSphere Data Recovery
 Based on EMC Avamar
VMware vSphere
Benefits
 Use less disk space with deduplication
DATA DEDUPLICATED
AND STORED ON VDP
APPLIANCE
*All editions and kits with the exception of Essentials
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 Simple setup and management
 Proven technology
vSphere Replication
Overview
Site A (Primary)
 Virtual machine level replication by the
vSphere host
vSphere
 Included with vSphere*
vSphere
Replication
Benefits
Site B (Recovery)
 Low cost/efficient replication option
 Simple setup from within vCenter Server
vSphere
 Integration with SRM enables automated
DR process
*All editions and kits with the exception of Essentials
13
vShield Endpoint
Overview
 Secure your VMs with offloaded antivirus and anti-malware (AV) solutions
without the need of agents
 Included with vSphere*
Benefits
 Simplified AV administration
 Higher consolidation ratios by preventing
the possibility of AV storms
 Improved performance
*All editions and kits with the exception of Essentials
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vCenter Server—
Enhancements and Features
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Web Client
Object
Navigator
Inventory
Objects
Create Custom
Actions
Overview
 New, improved interface into
vSphere delivers:
 Browser-based experience
 Custom tagging
 Scalability
 Enhanced workflow management
Tabs
Benefits
 Platform independence
 Tag based on specific business cases
 Manage more objects and 3x more active
Portlets
Add right-click
extensions
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sessions than ever before
Sidebar
Extension
 Pause and resume even the most
complex workflow or task
vSphere Web Client Interface
Object Navigator
Tabs
Inventory Objects
Create Custom Actions
Sidebar Extension
Portlets
Add right-click extensions
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Web Client—Native Plug-In Support
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Single Sign-On
Overview
 Sign-on once rather than multiple times
in vCenter Server
Inventor
y Service
vCO
vCenter
vSphere
Web Client
vSphere Solutions
vSphere
Authoriza
tion
Authentication
(Single Sign On)
Auditing
Platform
Services
Active
Directory
Open
LDAP
NIS
Local
OS
Users
Customer
Benefits
 Faster operations
 Less complexity
 Support for multiple identity services
Identity Sources
 Future building block for other VMware
products and solutions
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Single Sign-On
vCenter
Inventory
Service
vCO
vSphere
Web Client
vSphere Solutions
vSphere
Authorization
Authentication
(Single Sign On)
Auditing
Platform
Services
Active
Directory
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Open
LDAP
NIS
Local OS
Users
Customer
Identity Sources
vCenter Orchestrator (vCO)
Overview
 Workflow Engine
 Enhancements:
 Web Client Integration
(launch workflows)
 New workflow design
 Simplified configuration
and installation
Benefits
 Execute workflows with a single interface
 Simplicity thru drag and drop
workflow creation
 Automatic configuration
 Deploy as a virtual appliance
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Additional Features and Enhancements
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The Best of the Rest
 Platform
 Storage
• ESXi Platform Updates
• VMFS File Sharing Limits
• New VM Features and Capabilities
• Space Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks
• Host Profiles
• 5 Node MSCS Cluster
 Network
• Port Mirroring Enhancements
• Scale
 OS Support
• Storage Protocol Enhancements
• Storage Resource Management
Enhancements
• VMware vCloud® Director™
Interoperability
• Windows 8 Server and Desktop
**Details on the new vSphere Storage Appliance 1.5
(which works in conjunction with vSphere 5.1)
are available in a separate customer overview
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MEMORY
© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved
Memory – Host Memory Management
Occurs when memory is under contention
 Transparent Page Sharing
 Ballooning
 Compression
 Swapping
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Memory – Transparent Page Sharing
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Memory – Ballooning
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Memory – Compression
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Memory – Swapping
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Memory – Swapping
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Memory – Ballooning vs. Swapping
 Ballooning is better than swapping
 Guest can surrender unused/free pages
 Guest chooses what to swap, can avoid swapping “hot” pages
 Idle memory tax uses ballooning
31
Memory – Rightsizing
 Generally, it is better to OVER-commit than UNDER-commit
 If the running VMs are consuming too much host/pool memory…
• Some VMs may not get physical memory
• Ballooning or host swapping
• Higher disk IO
• All VMs slow down
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Memory – Best Practices
 Avoid high active host memory over-commitment
• No host swapping occurs when total memory demand is less than the physical
memory (Assuming no limits)
 Right-size guest memory
• Avoid guest OS swapping
 Ensure there is enough vRAM to cover demand peaks
 Use a fully automated DRS cluster
• Test that vMotion works
• Use Resource Pools with High/Normal/Low shares
• Avoid using custom shares
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CPU
© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved
CPU – Overview
 Raw processing power of a given host or VM
• Hosts provide CPU resources
• VMs and Resource Pools consume CPU resources
 CPU cores/threads need to be shared between VMs
 Fair scheduling vCPU time
• Hardware interrupts for a VM
• Parallel processing for SMP VMs
• I/O
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CPU – vSMP
 Relaxed Co-Scheduling: vCPUs can run out-of-sync
 Idle vCPUs incur a scheduling penalty
• configure only as many vCPUs as needed
• Impose unnecessary scheduling constraints
 Use Uniprocessor VMs for single-threaded applications
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CPU– Scheduling
Over committing physical CPUs
VMkernel CPU Scheduler
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CPU– Scheduling
Over committing physical CPUs
X
VMkernel CPU Scheduler
38
X
CPU– Scheduling
Over committing physical CPUs
XX
XX
VMkernel CPU Scheduler
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CPU – Ready Time
 The percentage of time that a vCPU is ready to execute, but waiting
for physical CPU time
 Does not necessarily indicate a problem
• Indicates possible CPU contention or limits
40
CPU – NUMA nodes
 Non-Uniform Memory Access system architecture
 Each node consists of CPU cores and memory
 A CPU core in one NUMA node can access memory in another
node, but at a small performance cost
NUMA node 1
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NUMA node 2
CPU – NUMA nodes
 The VMkernel will try to keep a VM’s vCPUs local to its memory
• Internal NUMA migrations can occur to balance load
 Manual CPU affinity can affect performance
• vCPUs inadvertently spread across NUMA nodes
• Not possible with fully automated DRS
 VMs with more vCPUs than cores available in a single NUMA node
may see decreased performance
42
CPU – Troubleshooting
 vCPU to pCPU over allocation
• HyperThreading does not double CPU capacity!
 Limits or too many reservations
• can create artificial limits.
 Expecting the same consolidation ratios with different workloads
• Virtualizing “easy” systems first, then expanding to heavier systems
• Compare Apples to Apples
• Frequency, turbo, cache sizes, cache sharing, core count, instruction set…
43
CPU – Best Practices
 Right-size vSMP VMs
 Keep heavy-hitters separated
• Fully automated DRS should do this for you
• Use anti-affinity rules if necessary
 Use a fully automated DRS cluster
• Test that vMotion works
• Use Resource Pools with High/Normal/Low shares
• Avoid using custom shares
44
NETWORK
© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved
Network – Load Balancing
 Load balancing defines which uplink is used
• Route based on Port ID
• Route based on IP hash
• Route based on MAC hash
• Route based on NIC load
 Probability of high-bandwidth VMs being on the same physical NIC
 Traffic will stay on elected uplink until an event occurs
• NIC link state change, adding/removing NIC from a team, beacon probe
timeout…
46
Network – Troubleshooting
 Check counters for NICs and VMs
• Network load imbalance
• 10 Gbps NICs can incur a significant CPU load when running at 100%
 Ensure hardware supports TSO
• Use latest drivers and firmware for your NIC on the host
 For multi-tier VM applications, use DRS affinity rules to keep VMs
on same host
• Same vSwitch / VLAN, rules out physical network
 If using Jumbo Frames, ensure it is enabled end-to-end
47
Network – Best Practices
 Use the vmxnet3 virtual adapter
• Less CPU overhead
• 10 Gbps connection to vSwitch
 Use the latest driver/firmware for the NICs on the host
 Use network shares
• Requires Virtual Distributed Switch 4.1
 Isolate vMotion and iSCSI traffic from regular VM traffic
• Separate vSwitches with dedicated NIC(s)
• Most applicable with Gigabit NICs
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Key Takeaways – Performance Best Practices
 Understand your environment
• Hardware, storage, networking
• VMs & applications
 Advanced configuration values do not need to be tweaked or
modified
• In almost all situations
 Use fully automated DRS
 Use Paravirtual virtual hardware
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Tools – vCenter Operations
Slide 50
 Aggregates thousands of metrics into Workload, Capacity,
Health scores
 Self-learns “normal” conditions using patented analytics
 Smart alerts of impending performance and capacity degradation
 Identifies potential performance problems before they start
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Tools – vCenter Operations
Slide 51
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