Windows 2008 on VMWare ESX 3.5

Xinn · 19 Mar 2009 at 14:42

Is anyone running Server 2008 and ESX 3.5 and getting terrible performance?

There are a few similar cases on the VMWare forums but nobody seems to have a reason why?

Formatting disks is taking hours. 10+ mins for 18Gb disk, I daren't even start the 330Gb one going.

iaind · 19 Mar 2009 at 14:46

I've run it a few time on ESX and ESXi with no problems. Whats the hardware spec of the host and allocated guest hardware? Have you got the VMware tools installed, or have you not got that far yet?

Xinn · 19 Mar 2009 at 14:59

Host spec is: 2x 2.7 Dual Core Xeons, 48Gb memory

Ofcourse running several other VM's.

Guest is set to 1vCPU and 4Gb memory, it is running VMware tools.

Teledude · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:00

3.5 u3 solved our performance issues with 2008

Xinn · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:02

Teledude said:
3.5 u3 solved our performance issues with 2008

I'll vmotion it onto another host, we updated one host to u3 last week, will see if that helps.

iaind · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:33

Definitely worth trying on a U3 host. It only became supported in U2 so if your host is U1 or release, then it wont be supported.

Are the performance counters in VC showing anything out of the ordinary - high CPU ready time etc?

Xinn · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:41

It would seem I can't migrate it to the box with U3 on because some clever person decided to turn off x64 on that host *claps*

The other hosts are all on u2.

Damn this Exchange Pilot!

iaind · 19 Mar 2009 at 16:16

R34P3R said:
It would seem I can't migrate it to the box with U3 on because some clever person decided to turn off x64 on that host *claps*

The other hosts are all on u2.

Damn this Exchange Pilot!

Exchange 07? Chuck it on 2003 isntead

Xinn · 19 Mar 2009 at 17:15

iaind said:
Exchange 07? Chuck it on 2003 isntead

Not my decision unfortunately, local Govt and they want an excuse to try out 2008

the_chicco said:
No problems here. Running 8 x 2008 (4 x 32bit DC's, 4 x 64bit Exchange instances) VM's.

ESX 3.5 U2 (rel 110181) on Dell R900's. 4 x Quad, 128GB RAM.

We have a couple of brand new R900 due sometime next week same spec as that which these 4x 2008 VM's will likely end up on so hopefully we won't have any problems once we stick them on there.

BoomAM · 22 Mar 2009 at 00:45

the_chicco said:
No problems here. Running 8 x 2008 (4 x 32bit DC's, 4 x 64bit Exchange instances) VM's.

ESX 3.5 U2 (rel 110181) on Dell R900's. 4 x Quad, 128GB RAM.

You have exchange in a VM?
Production systems and/or all the roles or just mailbox role?

oddjob62 · 22 Mar 2009 at 08:56

BoomAM said:
You have exchange in a VM?
Production systems and/or all the roles or just mailbox role?

I've got Exchange 2007 on Win2k8 as a VM but just HT and CA roles. Mailbox role is geocluster on dedicated boxes.

BoomAM · 22 Mar 2009 at 12:39

oddjob62 said:
I've got Exchange 2007 on Win2k8 as a VM but just HT and CA roles. Mailbox role is geocluster on dedicated boxes.

Ah, was gonna say, always heard a lot of bad press about having Exchange completely VMed.

iaind · 24 Mar 2009 at 13:05

4 different machines for less than 100 users? Is that not overkill? We're running about 100 on a single physical box ATM, apart from a slight lack of memory it's performing fine - I plan to move it to a single VM when my new hardware arrives too...

iaind · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:23

the_chicco said:
Edge transport has to sit on its own box (or VM), and the other roles are on the remaining server.

I havent seen any reccomendations along this line - can you point me in the right direction? A full combined setup is supported, but I havent seen anything VMware specific...

iaind · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:30

Ignore me, I'm being stupid, getting confused between Edge and Hub transport

What was wrong with the 2003 terminology

iaind · 25 Mar 2009 at 11:06

the_chicco said:
We have all of our Exchange 2007 boxes on virtual machines. The Edge Transports across 2 VM's, all other roles on 2 other VM's.

Been running production for a couple of months now, not had any issues whatsoever. We have less than 100 users so I/O is relatively low.

I'm guessing (as this was the point of the whole thread) that these are 2008 machines?

Just noticed that MS only support Exchange 07 in virtual environments when 2008 is used, I was hoping to stick with 2003, cant see any benefit of upgrading...

wasc · 25 Mar 2009 at 16:17

the_chicco said:
No problems here. Running 8 x 2008 (4 x 32bit DC's, 4 x 64bit Exchange instances) VM's.

ESX 3.5 U2 (rel 110181) on Dell R900's. 4 x Quad, 128GB RAM.

Hi,

Out of curiosity, what disk system are you using for that? Internal hard drives in the R900's, or SAN e.t.c?

Also you using raid 10 or another raid level?

morfmedia · 26 Mar 2009 at 20:06

BoomAM said:
Ah, was gonna say, always heard a lot of bad press about having Exchange completely VMed.

Pretty sure it's Plymouth uni that has their entire Exchange 2007 infrastructure on VM, 15,000 mailboxes and I bet student's don't go easy on them.

So long as it's well specced, VM is fine, it just highlights any weaknesses in design (poor SAN config etc etc)

/Edit: Just googled and it's 50,000 mailboxes!!!

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/customers/08Q2_isv_vmw_univ_plymouth_english.pdf

m4cc45 · 27 Mar 2009 at 11:56

Just saw a patch for ESX 3.5 that fixes issues with Windows 2008. Can't hurt to try it.

M.

fonzee · 30 Mar 2009 at 13:04

morfmedia said:
Pretty sure it's Plymouth uni that has their entire Exchange 2007 infrastructure on VM, 15,000 mailboxes and I bet student's don't go easy on them.

So long as it's well specced, VM is fine, it just highlights any weaknesses in design (poor SAN config etc etc)

/Edit: Just googled and it's 50,000 mailboxes!!!

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/customers/08Q2_isv_vmw_univ_plymouth_english.pdf

never knew this. impressive.