recommended vmware settings for OES11

[tfe]

Are there any recommendations for virtualizing OES11 with vmware vsphere (ESXi 4.1 or 5)?

1. While installation (near at the beginning) there is a choice for the virtualization type.
The relevant choices are "physical Computer" or "paravirtualized Computer"
Is "physical" really the best choice for vmware, because thats also the setting for fully virtualized guests.

2. SLES11 SP1 support paravitualized drivers for harddisks and usually that is a big performance boost on a suitable server (RAID Controller, SAS Drives, etc.)
What's with OES11 here even if using NSS Volumes?

thanks
Tobi

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[Marcel_Cox]

TFe wrote:

>2. SLES11 SP1 support paravitualized drivers for harddisks and usually
>that is a big performance boost on a suitable server (RAID Controller,
>SAS Drives, etc.)
>What's with OES11 here even if using NSS Volumes?

Well, given that noo one gave you a definite reply to your post, I will
try with some general thoughs:

NSS in OES11 is just a file system. It uses the underlying storage
architecture of SLES 11 SP1. As such, any driver working in SLES 11 SP1
should also work in OES11. However I suggest you do a test installation
and play around a bit with it to see how it works.

--
Marcel Cox
http://support.novell.com/forums
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marcel Cox's Profile: http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=8

[magic31]

TFe;2163217 wrote:
Are there any recommendations for virtualizing OES11 with vmware vsphere (ESXi 4.1 or 5)?

1. While installation (near at the beginning) there is a choice for the virtualization type.
The relevant choices are "physical Computer" or "paravirtualized Computer"
Is "physical" really the best choice for vmware, because thats also the setting for fully virtualized guests.

2. SLES11 SP1 support paravitualized drivers for harddisks and usually that is a big performance boost on a suitable server (RAID Controller, SAS Drives, etc.)
What's with OES11 here even if using NSS Volumes?

thanks
Tobi

Hi Tobi,

No official word on it yet that I've seen, but the way I'm setting up and which is looking good:

1) Install SLES 11 using the installers virtualization type option for : Physical Computer

2) After having installed OES11;
- install the latest VMware tools
- remove the eth0 entry in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules (assuming single nic setup)
- shutdown the VM and configure the Vm's SCSI controller to run in paravirtual mode (pvscsi) and also remove net nic and readd as VMXnet3.

Boot back up again and network and disk drivers should be running as optimal as possible.

As a note, for SLES 11 SP1 and up this is a good idea... for SLES 10.OES2 (that uses an older kernel) this is not such a hot idea.
Also make sure you are either running the latest vSphere 4.1 code or 5.

Cheers,
Willem

[Anonymous_User]

The bit about the removing and readding the NIC as VMXNET3 is unnecessary:
SLES 11.1 distribution includes a VMXNET3 driver, so you can create the VM
with a VMXNET3 NIC to begin with and have it seen during installation and
before the tools are added.

Can't say I bother with pvscsi. You only see benefits under very high I/O
load. This is outweighed for me by the nuisance value of having disk
drivers that may fail after a kernel upgrade. VMware tools are not very
robust in this respect I find.

regards
Martin

"magic31" <magic31@no-mx.forums.novell.com> wrote in message
news:magic31.55gj8n@no-mx.forums.novell.com...
>
> TFe;2163217 Wrote:
>> Are there any recommendations for virtualizing OES11 with vmware vsphere
>> (ESXi 4.1 or 5)?
>>
>> 1. While installation (near at the beginning) there is a choice for the
>> virtualization type.
>> The relevant choices are "physical Computer" or "paravirtualized
>> Computer"
>> Is "physical" really the best choice for vmware, because thats also
>> the setting for fully virtualized guests.
>>
>> 2. SLES11 SP1 support paravitualized drivers for harddisks and usually
>> that is a big performance boost on a suitable server (RAID Controller,
>> SAS Drives, etc.)
>> What's with OES11 here even if using NSS Volumes?
>>
>> thanks
>> Tobi
>
> Hi Tobi,
>
> No official word on it yet that I've seen, but the way I'm setting up
> and which is looking good:
>
> 1) Install SLES 11 using the installers virtualization type option for
> : Physical Computer
>
> 2) After having installed OES11;
> - install the latest VMware tools
> - remove the eth0 entry in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
> (assuming single nic setup)
> - shutdown the VM and configure the Vm's SCSI controller to run in
> paravirtual mode (pvscsi) and also remove net nic and readd as VMXnet3.
>
> Boot back up again and network and disk drivers should be running as
> optimal as possible.
>
> As a note, for SLES 11 SP1 and up this is a good idea... for SLES
> 10.OES2 (that uses an older kernel) this is not such a hot idea.
> Also make sure you are either running the latest vSphere 4.1 code or
> 5.
>
> Cheers,
> Willem
>
>
> --
> Novell Knowledge Partner (voluntary sysop)
>
> It ain't anything like Harry Potter.. but you gotta love the magic IT
> can bring to this world
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> magic31's Profile: http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=2303
> View this thread: http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=449924
>

[Binnewies]

The performance of my fileserver OES11-1on a vmfs 5 storage is very poor (only 10-20 MB/s )
i have a boot volume with ext3 and 2 2TB nss volumes for Data
Network card is VMXnet3 with 10 GBSe-T uplink and Storage controller is a SCSI LSI parallel

On a windows machine with ntfs on the same datastorage i get up to 100 MB/s

1. What can i do to get more performance?

2. Can i change the scsi adapter type from lsi Logic parallel to PVSCSI without data loss on a vmware guest with SLES11 / OES11 SP1 (The vmware tools are installed) ?