Section 4.9. Solutions Fast Track

4.9. Solutions Fast Track

4.9.1.

4.9.1.1. Network Traffic Shaping

ESX Server controls three areas of outgoing network traffic: average bandwidth, peak bandwidth, and burst size.

To control network traffic, VMware allows you to control the bandwidth of your virtual machines. This is easily configured and simple to modify.

To enable network traffic shaping, open the details page of the virtual server you want to configure.

4.9.1.2. Disk Bandwidth

Disk bandwidth allows you to control disk access by your virtual machines. Based on proportional shares, you can manage the amount of time your machines have on disk.

VMware ESX Server uses an "allocation policy" based on proportional shares. The more shares a virtual machine has on a disk, the more access to the disk the virtual machine will have.

Shares can be set numericallysuch as 100, 200, and so onor by setting the share value to Low, Normal, or High.

4.9.1.3. CPU Management, Affinity

CPU Affinity allows you to control which CPU your virtual runs on. If your virtual machine needs its own CPU(s), VMware easily allows for this.

This CPU management is in the form of minimum and maximum percentage values as well as shares.

The Service Console is also configured with 2,000 shares. Shares represent a relative priority.

4.9.1.4. NUMA and Processor/Memory Affinity

ESX Server supports physical hosts that are of Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture.

NUMA and Processor/Memory Affinity allow for NUMA systems to be managed easily. ESX Server automatically balances resource allocation between NUMA nodes and allows you to manually control on which NUMA nodes your virtual machines live.

By default, ESX Server utilizes all NUMA nodes equally, balancing virtual machines between each node using local memory when possible for VMs running on the same node.

4.9.1.5. Raw Device Mapping

Raw device mapping lets you access a raw physical device such as a SAN LUN.

Raw device mapping allows for more reliable and easily configurable access to raw disks. Through the use of symbolic links, VMware has made the management and use of raw devices easier for the administrator.

A common use for mapping raw devices is to support Microsoft Cluster Service.

4.9.1.6. Clusters

Clusters provide a high-availability configuration between two or more servers working together as one.

VMware provides a number of ways to configure highly available and fault-tolerant virtual machines utilizing clustering technologies.

VMware allows for the deployment of parallelization clustering utilizing Microsoft's Network Load Balancing.