Poor Performance | VM Install

P2V – Step by Step Removing Physical Hardware

It’s been a while since I had to P2V a Windows server but recently I found myself on a project doing P2Vs of business critical servers, again.

FYI: The new version of VMware VM Converter works great for converting a physical Windows and Lunux server into a virtual server.

Once the conversion is completed, the new VM is online, VMtools are installed and video acceleration is set, here’s a couple more steps I learned about at a VMUG meeting that I recommend doing to finish the P2V job.

First – Remove Old Physical Hardware from the New Windows VM (picture shows “grayed” disk drives)

Step 1 - Log into the VM

Step 2 - Open a command prompt
-    Start > Run
-    CMD
-    Enter

Step 3 – At the prompt type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
-    Enter
-    Type: start devmgmt.msc
-    Enter

Step 4 – Wait for the Device Manager to open, then click on View > Show Hidden Devices
- Expand each category and search for “grayed” hardware
- Right click and click uninstall when “grayed” hardware is located
- Don’t worry about the System Devices category
- When all the hardware devices are gone, close the Device Manager and reboot

Second – Uninstall Old Hardware Specific Software

Step 1 – Log into the VM

Step 2- Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs

Step 3 – Carefully find and uninstall programs from IBM/Dell/HP/other that are used for drive arrays, networking, ILO or any other similar application that is specific to the physical hardware.

Note: These items are not required now that the server hardware has been virtualized.

Done – When all the applications have been uninstalled, close the Control Panel and reboot

Q: Why do this?

A: The reason I do these steps is because over the years I’ve had to troubleshoot VMs that I found were P2V’d by someone else and not cleaned up. This normally causes poor performance and issues with ghost hardware that conflict with the virtual hardware devices, more specific – network adapters.

There – now all you need to do is make sure all your best practices are applied to the VM and it’s ready for production.

Originally posted 2009-09-19 07:22:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Best Fit Virtualization Criteria Checklist

Finding servers which are the “Best Fit” canadates for virtualization can be tricky. I have put together the following criteria checklist to help determine whether a new server provision or a P2V should use virtualization.

The Best Fit checklist uses my own criteria and weight recommendations but it can be modified with more liberal values. However, remeber the “Best Fit” for virtualizing a server should always consider the user’s experience, too liberal will produce poor performance and complaining users.

The “Best Fit” file has been attached for you to use it as-is or you can make your own. Open file: best-fit-virtualization-criteria-checklist-vminstall

Best Fit Virtualization Criteria Checklist

Requestor: ____________________________________________ Date: ___________________

Server Name: __________________________ Server Role: ______________________________

Primary Application: ______________________________ Database: ______________________

Purpose:

The purpose of this checklist is to evaluate new server provisions for server virtualization. The checklist criteria are designed to only allow “Best Fit” usage for virtualization. A weight of 3 or more will waive the server’s provision for virtualization.

Instructions:

Each item has a weight assigned. While going down the checklist place the weight value on the line to the left of the items that apply. Once you are complete, total the weights.

Checklist:

____	1. Is the primary application supported when hosted on a VMware VM? Yes/No (If no add 3 Pt.) Self explanatory.
____	2. If this is a database server will clustering be required? Yes/No (If yes add 3 Pt.) Caveat: If clustering is required, high availability is hindered on the host server.
____	3. Is this server considered a fail-over for a physical server? Yes/No (If yes add 3 Pt.) Caveat: Fail-over servers should be provisioned on an equivalent platform.
____	4. Can recommended system requirements be scaled back (CPU/Memory)? Yes/No (If no then use items 5 and 6 to calculate weight.
____	5. Will memory requirement be greater than 2 GB? Yes/No (If yes add 1 and .5 for each additional 512 MB)
____	6. Will disk requirements grow beyond a 20 GB (C: or Root disk) and 50 GB of combined additional disk space. Yes/No (If yes add 1 and .5 for each additional 50 GB) How much? _____GB
____	7. Will this be a temporary installation/deployment? Yes/No How many months? _____ (If yes can Lab Manager be used?) (0 Pt.)
____	8. Will a database be hosted on the server (SQL/MySQL/Oracle)? Yes/No Other ___________ (If yes add 1 Pt.)
____	9. _______________________________________________________
____	10. ______________________________________________________

( ) A server with a total 3 and greater should not be virtualized.

Evaluation Summary: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Originally posted 2009-02-21 09:54:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

VMWorld 2009 was Really a Storage Conference

I’ve mentioned this in a few of my blog posts over the years and here it is again – “Storage has been a major oversight by most companies deploying VMware Virtual Infrastructure”. News Flash! This was confirmed at the recent 2009 VMWorld …

What I’ve heard and read about VMWorld 2009 is that it was really a storage conference. Every storage vendor and his brother were there displaying and promoting storage products to help build better VI environments. And, from many of the emails I get, most visitors were really just interested in finding out what they can do to fix their main storage issue: poor performance.

A year ago I had a talk with my VMware support engineer and I explained to him then that I thought there was going to be a huge market for solutions for improving storage performance coming. I also explained how most VMware deployments are similar to boiling a frog. If a frog is thrown into hot water it will jump out, however, if the water temperature is turned up slowly the frog won’t realize it until it is too late. Likewise, if VMware sales representatives told every new customer they would need a new storage array within a year, nobody except those already planning to buy new storage would virtualize. However, if nothing is said and VMs are built one at a time over a 6 -12 month period on existing shared storage, nobody will notice performance degradation until one day when the main business application database crashes because it shares the same SAN as VMware but then VMware won’t be to blame, storage will. I suspect many companies using VMware are at this point today with their environments?

You have two options for your problem: 1) Buy more storage or 2) Re-carve your existing storage. My gut tells me most SAN Admins reading this post will argue with option 2 because that would take a lot of work and they most likely don’t believe it will help. I suggest for those that just don’t agree because they know better that they get re-educated on carving SAN for VMware.

No disrespect intended but it’s a hard one to digest. Think about this, you’re used to carving one 100GB LUN for one server with many users and dedicated HBA ports, right? Now consider for a moment that for VMware you are carving (8 – 16), 300GB, 400GB or 500GB LUNs for 8 – 16 ESX hosts with 160 – 240 virtual servers all accessing the LUN through the same HBA port, or path and – all at the same time. If I was lucky enough to get your attention then I won’t even try to insult you by trying to explain how each SAN is different – but – I will recommend calling your VMware and SAN support and speaking only with someone who works on storage for VMware.

Furthermore for both options mentioned, many storage vendors have the ability to do a form of what is known as wide-striping (HDS term) and it also requires a special license that will cost you. HDS, 3par, EMC and HP all can have 100s of drives in a single disk pool (RAID/parity group) this is, with the proper licensed features. NetApp will have a similar feature in OnTapp 8.4 from what I’ve been told.

I hope this has been helpful for someone trying to understand why the frog keeps dying. So, the next time you have a VM that starts croaking, I’d have a look at storage option 2.

Originally posted 2009-09-15 15:48:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

VM Install

P2V – Step by Step Removing Physical Hardware

Best Fit Virtualization Criteria Checklist

VMWorld 2009 was Really a Storage Conference

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VM Install

P2V – Step by Step Removing Physical Hardware

Best Fit Virtualization Criteria Checklist

VMWorld 2009 was Really a Storage Conference

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Recent Posts

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