Vmware - cpu affinity and hyperthreading
Hello,
I have been using VMware 3.5 Infrastructure for about a year. I have a virtual machine that is running an accounting program that is very cpu intensive. I have been getting cpu alerts from this VM and am looking at the best way to apporach it.
The ESX (HP Proliant DL160 G5) that the VM is running on has more than enough CPU power (2 physical, 8 logical processors) as the usage never goes above 20% and the 3 other machines never approach the warning threshold.
My assumption was that the ESX would automatically divert CPU resources to the problem VM when the warning levels were tripped, but this is not happening. I called VM support and was told that I should find out which VMs are assigned to which logical processors and then set the CPU affinity of the problem VM to a free logical processor.
I also looked into whether hyperthreading may be an answer but it turns out that hyperthreading is "not required" on the G5 models: (http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=3580694&prodTypeId=15351&objectID=c00793902)
My question is, shouldn't the ESX server automatically adjust free CPU resources to a CPU intensive machine? CPU affinity semes to have some drawbacks so I wanted to get some advice.
Thanks
Todd
I have been using VMware 3.5 Infrastructure for about a year. I have a virtual machine that is running an accounting program that is very cpu intensive. I have been getting cpu alerts from this VM and am looking at the best way to apporach it.
The ESX (HP Proliant DL160 G5) that the VM is running on has more than enough CPU power (2 physical, 8 logical processors) as the usage never goes above 20% and the 3 other machines never approach the warning threshold.
My assumption was that the ESX would automatically divert CPU resources to the problem VM when the warning levels were tripped, but this is not happening. I called VM support and was told that I should find out which VMs are assigned to which logical processors and then set the CPU affinity of the problem VM to a free logical processor.
I also looked into whether hyperthreading may be an answer but it turns out that hyperthreading is "not required" on the G5 models: (http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=3580694&prodTypeId=15351&objectID=c00793902)
My question is, shouldn't the ESX server automatically adjust free CPU resources to a CPU intensive machine? CPU affinity semes to have some drawbacks so I wanted to get some advice.
Thanks
Todd
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JohnLo
Todd, How many Virtual CPU's are allocated to the VM?
ASKER
Hi Robocat and John,
Thanks for the responses. I should clarify a couple of points. Users of the accounting software are accessing it through terminal services. The software is running on Server 2008. Currently there are 4 VMs in total on that ESX server (2 more Server 2003 standards, and one CentOS). Users of the accounting program are complaining about the speed, specifically when reports are run the cpu resources shoot up to 100%. I have set the resource allocation of the Shares to "High. The program seems to be more responsive (I am going to double check with the accounting staff), but when reports are run (specifically when reports are displayed on the screen) the cpu utilization again goes to 100%.
I was reading another, similar issue in which the problem was the antivirus software. (It also suggested 2 vCPUs for 2008).
(https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/24883738/High-CPU-usage-in-VMs-host-CPU-usage-low-ESXi-4-0.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+affin+cpu+vmware)
The other thing I guess is that the accounting program is not suitable for this environment (TS and VM).
Any Thoughts?
Cheers,
Todd
Thanks for the responses. I should clarify a couple of points. Users of the accounting software are accessing it through terminal services. The software is running on Server 2008. Currently there are 4 VMs in total on that ESX server (2 more Server 2003 standards, and one CentOS). Users of the accounting program are complaining about the speed, specifically when reports are run the cpu resources shoot up to 100%. I have set the resource allocation of the Shares to "High. The program seems to be more responsive (I am going to double check with the accounting staff), but when reports are run (specifically when reports are displayed on the screen) the cpu utilization again goes to 100%.
I was reading another, similar issue in which the problem was the antivirus software. (It also suggested 2 vCPUs for 2008).
(https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/24883738/High-CPU-usage-in-VMs-host-CPU-usage-low-ESXi-4-0.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+affin+cpu+vmware)
The other thing I guess is that the accounting program is not suitable for this environment (TS and VM).
Any Thoughts?
Cheers,
Todd
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Allocating 2 vCPU shouldn't hurt anything and chances are that the accounting program uses some kind of database that is multithreaded.
ASKER
Thanks everyone.
I was a little nervous about the warning about increasing the # or processors to a VM but I found a quick how to guide (changing the device properties to support multiple processors)
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/94854
Cheers,
Todd
I was a little nervous about the warning about increasing the # or processors to a VM but I found a quick how to guide (changing the device properties to support multiple processors)
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/94854
Cheers,
Todd