swolfersberger
asked on
VMWare Environment Very Unstable
Wow, where to start.
I'm inheriting a network that is running VMWare ESX on three physical HP Proliant DL380 Servers.
Server one has dual 3.6 Ghz Intel Xeon processors with 12 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 with Microsoft Exchange 2003 Standard Edition. As well as 4 instances of Windows XP Pro for remote salespeople to access the Made2Manage client.
Server two has dual 3.2 Ghz Intel Xeon processors with 12 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2000 SP4 and is used exclusively for the Made2Manage database and SQL engine.
Server three has dual 3.6 Ghz Intel Xeon process with 4 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 and handles all data storage and printing for the network. It also has 1 instance of Windows XP Pro for the timeclock application.
As an added bonus we have an HP Modular Storage Array with (12) 750Gb drives. All three server use the SAN for the data drives with the third server having a full terrabyte for storage.
Here's the problem. The first and third servers go down almost every day. They crash and when they try to come back up the give VMWare kernel errors. After I reboot them each half a dozen times they will finally boot, but then they are super slow for the next 6 hours after they come back up.
I'm very experience with networks and servers, but I've never dealt with production servers running VMWare ESX and I'm not sure where to start to even look for a solution. The admin that was here before told them that the SAN that he spec'd and purchased was not completely compatible with VMWare, but he had been telling them that for the past 4 months.
This company is experiencing daily downtime of 1 to 4 hours and I need to get this to stop urgently. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
I'm inheriting a network that is running VMWare ESX on three physical HP Proliant DL380 Servers.
Server one has dual 3.6 Ghz Intel Xeon processors with 12 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 with Microsoft Exchange 2003 Standard Edition. As well as 4 instances of Windows XP Pro for remote salespeople to access the Made2Manage client.
Server two has dual 3.2 Ghz Intel Xeon processors with 12 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2000 SP4 and is used exclusively for the Made2Manage database and SQL engine.
Server three has dual 3.6 Ghz Intel Xeon process with 4 Gb of RAM. It's running 1 instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 and handles all data storage and printing for the network. It also has 1 instance of Windows XP Pro for the timeclock application.
As an added bonus we have an HP Modular Storage Array with (12) 750Gb drives. All three server use the SAN for the data drives with the third server having a full terrabyte for storage.
Here's the problem. The first and third servers go down almost every day. They crash and when they try to come back up the give VMWare kernel errors. After I reboot them each half a dozen times they will finally boot, but then they are super slow for the next 6 hours after they come back up.
I'm very experience with networks and servers, but I've never dealt with production servers running VMWare ESX and I'm not sure where to start to even look for a solution. The admin that was here before told them that the SAN that he spec'd and purchased was not completely compatible with VMWare, but he had been telling them that for the past 4 months.
This company is experiencing daily downtime of 1 to 4 hours and I need to get this to stop urgently. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
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ASKER
The version is 3.5.0, 82663
The MSA is an HP MSA 1500 CS with SATA drives and it is accessed with iSCSI.
The MSA is an HP MSA 1500 CS with SATA drives and it is accessed with iSCSI.
ASKER
My only concern with rebuilding the environment is my lack of experience with the VMWare product. You're correct that it would be a clean install, but I don't like to have my first installation happen in a production environment. I would hate to make it worse.
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ASKER
If what the previous guy said about the MSA being incompatible with VMWare is true, then would it make the most sense to remove the VMWare?
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ASKER
The memory on server three may be my issue. It only has 4 Gb of RAM and according to the Infrastructure Manager it's running at around 92% memory utilization.
Is there a good resource that give me a good understanding of what takes place when you migrate a virtual machine?
I just want to get a good feel for how long it takes and if I have to have everyone off of the system.
Is there a good resource that give me a good understanding of what takes place when you migrate a virtual machine?
I just want to get a good feel for how long it takes and if I have to have everyone off of the system.
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ASKER
Two virtuals on server 3 (one server and one workstation) with 3.50Gb out of 3.75Gb in use.
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ASKER
Basically, I was able to stabilize the system by changing how the vm's were allocated and by removing the vm's connectionsfrom one LUN in particular. It appears that the MSA 1510i is not compatible with ESX 3.5 and HP is going to RMA it and swap us out to a different SAN. Thanks for all your help.
Actually the MSA 1510i is fully compatible with ESX 3.5. I have installed several of these, just finished one yesterday. There are some things that you need to be aware of such as no support for dual controllers with MPIO (hopefully to be resolved in firmware release update) but otherwise it works just fine.
My $.02
My $.02
ASKER
I'm not sure what you're looking for in regards to allocation. Could you be more specific (or maybe point me in the right direction for the answer)?
iSCSI