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VMware virtual machine acceleration method is what, many novices are not very clear about this, in order to help you solve this problem, the following editor will explain for you in detail, people with this need can come to learn, I hope you can gain something.

First move: upgrade to the latest version

Of course, this applies if you are originally running the version of VMware ESX Server 2.x. If you are a new user of VMware, you can skip this move directly.

VI3 is the latest enterprise virtualization product of VMware. Compared with the older version, VMware optimizes many components of ESX Server. For example, virtual machines in VI3 start to use PAE memory and can access 16GB memory, while the original version has up to 3.6GB of available memory. Virtual network performance in VI3 is also greatly improved. VMFS3 is a new member of the VMFS family, not only a simple upgrade, but also improved performance and scalability; virtual machines rely less on the service console; ESX 3.0 hosts can support up to 20 Broadcom network cards and up to 32 Intel e1000 network cards. For specific hardware maximum support capabilities, please refer to the VMware support list, which can be downloaded from.

The second trick: upgrade the server's CPU and memory

This is a key consideration when purchasing new hardware. It turns out that when purchasing a server, it mostly depends on the requirements put forward by the application department. After the deployment of virtualization, it is recommended that users buy high-end servers as much as possible, which can easily improve the utilization of the entire resources and provide resource scheduling flexibility. Of course, the so-called high-end server mainly refers to the high-end configuration of CPU and memory.

When making CPU selection, we should consider the efficiency of CPU. The efficient operation of CPU is an important prerequisite for the efficiency of virtual architecture. Sometimes, excessive fever will lead to a sharp decline in CPU performance. If possible, try to configure multiple cores and multiple CPU.

Of course, the performance of memory is also important. VMware recommends that ESX Server at least configure 8GB memory, and the more the better, each ESX Server can support up to 64GB memory. When configuring virtual machines, avoid memory overload as much as possible, although VMware can handle overload, but memory overload can cause swapping between memory and hard disk, which can seriously affect system performance.

The third trick: improve the storage of the server

Improving storage performance can obviously improve the performance of many systems, and external storage is recommended if possible, which avoids bottlenecks caused by built-in storage performance.

You can install multiple disk controllers or as many disks as possible to improve system performance, and of course, when planning virtual machines, you should also consider the distribution of virtual file storage, especially for virtual machines with high Imax O. Of course, the specific configuration of VMware O needs to be based on the application. In fact, VMware and our partners provide a lot of best practices for configuration of IWeiO. You can download the relevant documentation from VMware's website for reference.

Fourth trick: optimize the network of the server

In a virtual environment, try to configure gigabit Ethernet cards to ensure performance. Gigabit Ethernet is the recommended configuration of VMware ESX Server virtual architecture. When configuring a physical network card, the rate and mode of operation should be consistent with the configuration of the switch port. If only 100Mbps's fast Ethernet network is available, it is recommended that the rate / mode of the network card and switch port be set to 100 / full duplex. When configuring a Gigabit Ethernet network, it is recommended that the switch port and Nic mode be configured to be adaptive.

When configuring multiple network cards, we should use the teaming function, which encapsulates multiple network cards as a virtual network card, which not only increases the bandwidth, but also improves the reliability and simplifies the management. If a gigabit network card is configured, it is recommended to use vmxnet or e1000 virtual network card, as far as possible not to use vlance network card.

Fifth trick: properly distribute virtual machines on servers in the VMware ESX 2.x version, you can manually combine virtual machines with different loads and distribute them to different servers according to your own judgment on the load of virtual machines, to ensure load balancing, which is a manual process, and it is often difficult to determine accurately. And, because virtual machines are easy to create, some virtual machines may often be created but not used, and forget to delete unused virtual machines. If the unused virtual machine is also enabled, it still takes up resources. Therefore, it is necessary to shut down the virtual machines that do not need to run in time, thus saving resources.

After upgrading to VI3, the distribution of virtual machines can be fully automated, and DRS can help administrators complete the load distribution of virtual machines, ensuring that each server has a reasonable load running, which can greatly reduce the administrator's workload, and as a result of automation, the load distribution will be very uniform. In a VI3 environment with DRS configured, you no longer need to specify a specific ESX Server when configuring a virtual machine, but specify a resource pool, and DRS automatically moves the virtual machine to the appropriate ESX Server. DRS automatically manages the load of all ESX Server when virtual machines are added, shut down, or deleted.

If a virtual machine does not have enough resources to run, DRS automatically balances the virtual machine resources in the resource pool to ensure that all virtual machines run. If the resource pool resources have been used up, you can simply add ESX Server to the resource pool without downtime.

The VI3's DRS function is based on VMotion, and VMotion can migrate a virtual machine online from one physical server to another without downtime, which actually improves the performance of the virtual architecture and maximizes the utilization of different physical server resources, rather than load unbalanced configuration.

Sixth trick: use remote access console cautiously

Sometimes shutting down the unused VMware remote console will greatly improve the performance of the virtual machine, although you may think that this operation has little impact on performance. In fact, each remote console (VMRC) process consumes valuable CPU resources in the ESX Server service console directly. It is recommended that you do not connect to virtual machines through VMRC as much as possible. VMRC is a standard remote access technology without any optimization. It is recommended that you turn off VMRC unless you need to make some specific configuration and you must use VMRC.

To optimize performance, you can use third-party remote control software, such as Citrix ICA client, Microsoft Terminal Service or RDP, Telnet, SSH, etc., to connect to the remote ESX Server service console. Of course, some remote access methods are not the same, VNC may consume more resources than the above-mentioned access methods, but still consume less resources than VMRC.

Seventh move: virtual machine CPU and memory configuration optimization

Increasing the number of CPU and extra memory on physical servers will undoubtedly improve the performance of operating systems and applications, as well as in virtual environments. However, multiple CPU and memory sharing can increase the load on ESX Server, which should be avoided as much as possible. If you see that the virtual machine is running slowly, check the CPU utilization to see how much idle time each CPU has, and also check the CPU utilization of the entire system through the VMware management interface.

Using VMware SMP to increase the number of CPU of virtual machines sometimes does not solve the performance problems of virtual machines because some applications cannot take advantage of the advantages of multi-CPU. Before enabling SMP, analyze whether the operating system and applications can take advantage of SMP to improve performance. If the application is not multi-threaded or multi-process, enabling virtual SMP only consumes physical CPU resources and does not improve the performance of the virtual machine itself.

To use Virtual SMP frugally, virtual machines perform best when running on a single virtual CPU in most cases. Of course, the specific situation can only be treated separately, if necessary, you can test the situation of each virtual machine.

If the poor performance is not caused by CPU, you need to check memory usage. The most important thing is to see if the guest operating system is using swapped memory, and if so, correct it in time. There are many ways to determine whether swapping memory is being used. On Linux guest operating systems, you can use the vmstat command to view it; on Windows platforms, you can use the performance tool under Administrative tools to check the number of memory pages per second. If a virtual machine has a high memory page error, such as 1000 pages per second, you can increase its minimum memory to avoid frequent page swapping. If the minimum memory size is fast approaching the maximum memory, you need to increase the resource setting.

You only need to configure the required amount of memory for the virtual machine, too much memory for the virtual machine will not improve performance, and this configuration will waste your valuable memory resources.

Changing the minimum and maximum CPU resource allocation values for virtual machines is another way to optimize performance. In order to avoid competition for CPU resources, configure the minimum share of CPU to be an appropriate value instead of setting it to zero. Conversely, to prevent low-priority virtual machines from consuming too much CPU resources, you can set the maximum CPU share for that virtual machine, such as 50%, to ensure that other high-priority virtual machines can utilize as many CPU resources as possible.

Of course, you can also define which CPU each virtual machine uses, which configuration is called "CPU affinity" (Processor Affinity). This parameter is off by default, which is the recommended configuration in most cases. This option needs to be turned on only if it is really necessary.

If a virtual machine is particularly resource-intensive, you may need to set CPU affinity to isolate the virtual machine to ensure its performance. Of course, this configuration can also protect other virtual machines on the server, but virtual machines configured with CPU affinity cannot perform dynamic DRS, so pay special attention to the use of this configuration.

The eighth trick: delete unwanted virtual hardware

Adding or removing hardware from the physical server is time-consuming and laborious, and the extra hardware not used on the physical server generally does not affect the performance of the system, but the environment of the virtual machine is completely different. A good way to increase virtual machine performance when removing or shutting down virtual hardware may of course have little impact on performance, but a small performance optimization for each virtual machine can significantly improve the performance of the entire server.

If a virtual machine does not need a CD/DVD ROM drive, floppy drive, network card, or serial / parallel port, then unceremoniously delete or close it. If needed later, it can be easily opened or added at any time, and the addition of virtual hardware is quite convenient and fast.

The ninth move: upgrade VMware Tools

After ESX Server upgrades or installs patches, update VMware Tools installed in the guest operating system in a timely manner. Sometimes, it is important to protect VMware Tools updates in the patch pack, and to update the VMware Tools in the virtual machine in a timely manner.

If you migrate virtual machines from other VMware platforms, remember to update the VMware Tools in the virtual machines after migration. The version of VMware Tools varies with different VMware products.

In VMware Tools, to ensure that the time of the ESX Server host and virtual machine is synchronized, running multiple different clocks at the same time will cause a lot of unnecessary trouble. Of course, if VMware Tools is used for time synchronization, do not use other time synchronization methods, such as NTP clients. If you have to use other time synchronization mechanisms, you must turn off time synchronization in VMware Tools. This occurs on member virtual machines of the Windows active Directory, which must synchronize time with the domain controller.

In order to ensure the good display performance of the Windows virtual machine, you can enable the Windows Display Properties- > "Settings"-> "Advanced"-> "Troubleshoot"-> "Hardware acceleration" function in the Windows virtual machine, which can make the mouse movement of VMRC more smooth. The specific configuration is shown in the following figure.

The tenth trick: optimize the Windows guest operating system

Defragmentation of the virtual disk of the virtual machine can improve the performance of Imax O, and the organizational structure of the disk can be more reasonable through the third-party server-based disk defragmentation tool. Of course, it is necessary to run the disk defragmenter reasonably to ensure that it is carried out during the idle time of the system, thus reducing the impact on the production business.

Note: if the virtual machine runs with fallback logs, this will not work.

Shutting down some unnecessary services and background processes can also save resources in the virtual machine system. Of course, be careful when disabling certain services and make sure that the services you want to disable do not affect the operation of your system. If you are not sure whether a service is necessary, consult your system administrator for confirmation, or create a clone of a virtual machine and test the impact of disabling the service.

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