vSphere Deepdive

1. vSphereDeepdive Magnus Bergman Joel Lindberg

2. 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

3. VMware vCloud Suite

4. Application Services VMware vSphere 5.0 • Infrastructure Services • Virtual Appliance • Web Client • vCenter Server • vCenter Server • New HA Architecture • vMotion over • higher latency links • ESXi Firewall • 32 way SMP • 1 TB VMs Security Scalability Availability VMware vSphere 5 Network Compute Storage • ESXi Convergence • Auto Deploy • HW version 8 • Storage DRS • Profile-Driven Storage • VMFS 5 • Storage I/O Control (NFS) • Network I/O Control • (per VM controls) • Distributed Switch • (Netflow, SPAN, LLDP)

5. What’s New in vSphere 5.1? • Enhanced vCenter Orchestrator • 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 • vShieldEndpoint • Storage DRS and • Profile-Driven Storage • integration with VCD • Enhanced Auto • Deploy Security Automation Availability VMware vSphere 5.1 Network Compute Storage • Enhanced Distributed Switch • SR-IOV support • HW version 9 • 64 way SMP • 1 TB VMs • Storage Appliance • Storage Space Reclamation for VDI

6. Compute, Storage, Network—Enhancements and Features

7. Auto Deploy Overview vCenter Server with Auto Deploy • Deploy and patch vSphere hosts in minutes using a new “on the fly” model • Coordination with vSphere Host Profiles • 2 new operating modes vSphere vSphere Image Profiles Host Profiles Benefits • Fast initial deployment and patching • Centralized host and image management • Reduce manual deployment and patch processes • Continue deployment even when a failure occurs vSphere vSphere

8. 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

9. vSphere Scales to Support Mission-Critical Applications Overview • Create virtual machines with up to: • 64 vCPU • 1 TB of vRAM Benefits • 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) 2x

10. Availability, Security, and Automation— Enhancements and Features

11. 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

12. vSphere Data Protection Overview • New backup and recovery tool for the vSphere platform • Replaces vSphere Data Recovery • Based on EMC Avamar VDP VMware vSphere Benefits • Use less disk space with deduplication • Simple setup and management • Proven technology DATA DEDUPLICATED AND STORED ON VDP APPLIANCE *All editions and kits with the exception of Essentials

13. vSphere Replication Overview Site A (Primary) • Virtual machine level replication by the vSphere host • Included with vSphere* vSphere vSphere Replication Benefits Site B (Recovery) • Low cost/efficient replication option • Simple setup from within vCenter Server • Integration with SRM enables automated DR process vSphere *All editions and kits with the exception of Essentials

14. vShield Endpoint Overview • Secure your VMs with offloaded anti-virus 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

15. vCenter Server—Enhancements and Features

16. Web Client Overview Inventory Objects Create Custom Actions Object Navigator • 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 sessions than ever before • Pause and resume even the most complex workflow or task Portlets Add right-click extensions Sidebar Extension

17. vSphere Web Client Interface Object Navigator Tabs Inventory Objects Create Custom Actions Sidebar Extension Portlets Add right-click extensions

18. Web Client—Native Plug-In Support

19. Single Sign-On Overview • Sign-on once rather than multiple times in vCenter Server vSphere Solutions Benefits vCenter vCO Inventory Service vSphere Web Client • Faster operations • Less complexity • Support for multiple identity services • Future building block for other VMware products and solutions vSphere Platform Services Authentication (Single Sign On) Authorization Auditing Customer Identity Sources Active Directory Open LDAP NIS Local OS Users

20. Single Sign-On vSphere Solutions vCenter vCO Inventory Service vSphere Web Client vSphere Platform Services Authentication (Single Sign On) Authorization Auditing Customer Identity Sources Active Directory Open LDAP NIS Local OS Users

21. 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

22. Additional Features and Enhancements

23. The Best of the Rest • Platform • ESXi Platform Updates • New VM Features and Capabilities • Host Profiles • Network • Port Mirroring Enhancements • Scale • OS Support • Windows 8 Server and Desktop • Storage • VMFS File Sharing Limits • Space Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks • 5 Node MSCS Cluster • Storage Protocol Enhancements • Storage Resource Management Enhancements • VMware vCloud® Director™ Interoperability **Details on the new vSphere Storage Appliance 1.5 (which works in conjunction with vSphere 5.1) are available in a separate customer overview

24. MEMORY

25. Memory – Host Memory Management Occurs when memory is under contention • Transparent Page Sharing • Ballooning • Compression • Swapping

26. Memory – Transparent Page Sharing

27. Memory – Ballooning

28. Memory – Compression

29. Memory – Swapping

30. Memory – Swapping

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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

34. CPU

35. 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

36. 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

37. CPU– Scheduling Over committing physical CPUs VMkernel CPU Scheduler

38. CPU– Scheduling Over committing physical CPUs X X VMkernel CPU Scheduler

39. CPU– Scheduling Over committing physical CPUs X X X X VMkernel CPU Scheduler

40. 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

41. 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 2 NUMA node 1

42. 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

43. 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…

44. CPU – Best Practices • Right-size vSMPVMs • 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

45. NETWORK

46. 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…

47. 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

48. 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 vMotionand iSCSI traffic from regular VM traffic • Separate vSwitches with dedicated NIC(s) • Most applicable with Gigabit NICs

49. 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

50. 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