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................................................................................... The Five Secrets Of VMware
...................................................................................
Executive Summary
VMware is a virtualization juggernaut with over 70% of the virtual- There are five proven aspects to VMware performance that will
ization market as of 2009; understanding and mastering VMware, aid in fully leveraging its virtualization capabilities. Each of the
then, is understanding virtualization. five covers a distinct area of performance; each aspect – on its
own – can greatly enhance the performance and reliability of your
There are five key benefits to virtualization. First, there is no longer
VMware enterprise.
a reason to believe in the dated model of one application, one
server. In fact, with virtualization one can extend the use of the This White Paper covers the five secrets of VMware; each of the
server to many different applications on many different platforms. five secrets addresses one of the fundamental optimizations that
Resources stretch further. delivers increased ROI for a virtualized environment. Executing on
Second, a datacenter is less expensive with less hardware, and all five will benefit any enterprise attempting to leverage fully the
less heat, and thus less air conditioning. Virtualization achieves benefits of virtualization.
that goal. Less expense equates to stronger ROI for infrastructure;
As will become apparent, Argent for VMware is a core enabling
one of Google’s greatest expenses is electricity.
component of both Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Service-
Third, availability is higher with virtualized applications. Restoring Level Agreements (SLAs) as they relate to Cloud computing. So
a backup image using VMware is many times faster than restoring is a well-built server. Adding the right hardware and supporting
a full backup of a physical server. Downtime is reduced and user software products makes all the difference.
satisfaction is improved.

Fourth, flexibility is much greater with virtualization. If you want

to architect out a server, the operating system is no longer a
restriction. Instead, servers act as true containers, rather than the
operating system as the container.

Fifth, it is easier to manage a virtualized desktop and secure it than

a standard desktop. In some contexts this can bring advantages
for support costs and hedge against security risks. Coupled with
availability, this can be a strong advantage.

To deliver these benefits, VMware offers multiple virtualization

solutions. Across these solutions, there are methods that deliver
the best performance. Argent’s new product, Argent for VMware,
is the first product to leverage the new virtualization paradigm and
to provide in a single and integrated product complete monitoring
of all aspects of VMware and the traditional monitoring of guest
operating systems: Windows, Linux, and UNIX.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 2

Introduction
IBM introduced the first virtual machine to the computing world No enterprise can survive in the current computing era without
in the 1960s with the IBM M44/44X system. VMware introduced leveraging the power of virtualization. 100 out of the Fortune
its first product in 1998, over 30 years later. The base conceptual 100 use virtualization in some form. As such, making virtu-
framework remains intact. alization architectural decisions has an impact both on the costs
and benefits of computing solutions but also on the vitality – and
Platform virtualization requires a host (control program) and one or
longevity – of the business model. Some of the secrets that are
more guests (virtual machines). The host arbitrates the features of
revealed within this White Paper have far-reaching implications.
the guests such that the guests run as though they were on a na-
The VMware-based Cloud is the next generation for lowering TCO
tive machine but with their features potentially constrained by the
and increasing ROI.
host. A guest may have its own operating system.
These secrets focus on VMware but they have a wider applica-
A virtual machine, or VM, is isolated from the operation of other
bility – performance tuning is performance tuning, be it on real
VMs. As far as a VM is concerned, its operation is autonomous
machines or virtual hosts and virtual guests.
– it alone is running on the hardware and it knows nothing of
other VMs. Therefore, one physical server could potentially house
multiple operating systems, each with server software, all operat-
ing with each other as though they were installed on distinct
machines.

Hardware is ultimately less flexible than software. VMs must

be compatible with the instruction set of the processor on host
hardware; this is one reason why VMware does not host iSeries
virtual machines. Hardware is a fixed cost that, once spent, can-
not be altered until replaced or otherwise augmented. Therefore,
software has a far greater ability for reuse, thus lowering long-term
costs. Additionally, hardware energy costs increase as the number
of devices and the amount of power per device increases – big
data centers are hot.

Hardware optimization, then, entails minimum hardware purchase,

coupled with maximum usage of any specific device. VMs
provide that benefit through allowing software to multi-function in
environments suited to their individual strengths without requiring
extensive hardware purchasing.

As with any hardware, performance is a critical component of

success. A machine that fails causes performance failure and
a machine that underperforms causes time and economic loss.
Performance is absolutely critical and even more so with VMs.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 3

Secret 1:
Good Memory Is Great Performance
The first secret is in relation to a metric that is very familiar to Figure 1: Exchange Server Disk I/O vs. Memory
non-virtualization discussions relating to performance. Random Performance
Access Memory (RAM) is a key factor in the performance of a VM.
It is also a solid parallel to principles that apply in server computing
architecture.

Modern enterprise systems comprise volatile and non-volatile

memory to provide an overall average access performance. At one
end of the memory spectrum is the CPU and at the other is a stor-
age device like a hard drive. Physical hardware is fastest at the
CPU/volatile end of the spectrum and slowest at the non-volatile,
storage end.

Volatile memory is a critical component of performance. CPUs

A hidden benefit of more RAM is better paging: the more pages
perform much faster than RAM as they have improved at a much
that can be held rather than backed to disk means fewer hard
faster pace over the past few decades. However, memory is
page faults where the process is suspended while the page is
catching up. Still, as memory is used it becomes a performance
brought in from disk. “Virtual systems should swap but not
bottleneck.
page” is the phrase expert performance tuners use.
Argent’s labs have conducted extensive studies and the conclu-
sions are the same: RAM is the single largest bottleneck for VM is a tool and like any tool, requires careful construction and
performance in a Virtualized environment. This is generally true of sharpening for maximum efficiency. Performance tuning is critical.
a physical server, too. Just to emphasize, memory impacts every aspect of VM perfor-
mance. As such, increasing it is critical, too. It should almost go
Exchange Server 2010, for example, is a resource-intensive server without stating that 64-bit processors are much more efficient at
application for managing messaging in an enterprise environment. memory employment than 32-bit systems.
Each version of Exchange Server requires more extensive server
resources than the prior version. Exchange Server uses memory Constant monitoring of the memory subsystem is essential for
and holds onto it. This is true both in a non-virtualized and a virtu- the continued efficient performance of a VMware environment.
alized environment, as the chart above right shows. Memory utilization – and memory overload – has the nasty habit
of changing very quickly; what was fine yesterday is overloaded
today.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 4

Figure 2: Average Response Time Mapped to Memory for
Exchange Server 2010 Virtualized

These figures demonstrate clearly that memory will improve

performance within a virtualized system. So, the first secret is
that memory powers performance. This leads to the next secret,
which also follows the standard path of non-virtualized systems:
processors.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 5

Secret 2:
Multiple Smaller Processors Are Better
Than One Large Processor
A single-core processor can only process a single instruction at Figure 3: VM Response for Exchange Server 2010 Mapped
a time. No matter how advanced the pipeline architecture, there Against CPU/RAM
is still a bottleneck that is impacted as several CPU-intensive ap-
plications vie for processing time. Multiple CPU cores alter that
formula.

In a multi-core environment, the proximity of the cores allows

performance at a much higher clock-rate. Programs that require
intensive operation can each leverage use of a different core. The
offloading of processing among cores allows for faster response
for CPU-intensive operation.

Context switching within a server’s address space can be expen-

sive. The overwhelming trend over the past 20 years has been to-
ward distribution of workload to create optimal processing. Google
spent the first few years of its existence perfecting the ability to
offload calculations to multiple processors in pursuit of optimal
performance. Those with long memories will recall Microsoft’s
decision to move application device drivers to the kernel level in NT
4.0. The reason? To save a few percent of CPU by not having to
do a full context switch. There are some who believe this move –
moving often questionable application device code to the heart of
the kernel – to be total madness, but, no doubt Microsoft is expert
at building stable and reliable products.
The larger the load, the more the interplay among components
drags the system down or enables stellar performance. In this
case, adding processors assists the VM in handling address space
and distributed load-balancing in a far superior manner. Although
a few milliseconds may seem trivial, as you increase the scale of
the load, the performance differentials provide for a much larger
impact.

Virtualization observes the same rules of physics. When you

consider the nature of a VM, you can apply similar lessons from
the normal computing world. Distributed processing is critical in
normal computing. It is even more true when managing resources
between virtual machines.

While the VM kernel has been greatly improved recently, it’s still
limited by those familiar laws of physics. The nature of the physi-
cal hardware limits performance. The following is an example of
those laws as applied to the same Exchange Server 2010 environ-
ment mentioned earlier:

The Five Secrets Of VMware 6

In a VM environment, each VM can access a full range of proces-
sor support. VM is optimized to handle multiple cores. However,
the more cores, the more the access is likely to leverage efficien-
cies. In VMware benchmarking, a Tile is a collection of six diverse
workloads concurrently executing specific software. Running on
one of two separate operating systems, each workload runs in
its own VM. In this example, Tiles are used to show virtualization
throughput, across multiple processors, improves with increased
core count, as seen here in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Performance Trends Mapped Against Processor

Count for Virtualization

As you might expect, more processors means more throughput.

And the biggest load on the VM kernel is switching from one virtual
machine to the next. Adding more processors assists with the load
distribution.

Overall, adding more cores assists in performance. It is the sec-

ond most important factor behind RAM usage. The cost of multiple
cores is also lessening and this should aid in lowering TCO for
virtualization performance returns.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 7

Secret 3:
Decrease Average Access Time through Your
Disk Subsystem
Non-volatile memory, as mentioned above, has an impact on VM Hard drives are most important when memory and CPU per-
performance. Your paging file faults and your average seek time formance is accounted for. This leads to the fourth secret, one
both can severely limit results. Overall, non-volatile memory takes that might surprise you. This has to do with the ability of VMs to
on a much more prominent role when RAM and CPU availability network with other systems.
are both maximized.

Access time is primarily a factor of rotational speed. Fast hard

drives can spin at 15,000 rotations per minute (rpm) while stan-
dard commercial drives normally perform at 7,200 rpm. Access
times have not kept up with other advances in hard drive technol-
ogy.

Seek time has reached times of below 3 milliseconds (ms) for very
fast storage devices. The seek time is a product of what it takes
for the storage device to access information accurately. Many
drives have a higher seek time.

Finally, the bus type is a third major determinant of speed. Serial

ATA (SATA) has the ability to process information as fast as 6 GB/s.
This is many times faster than traditional Parallel ATA drives (PATA).

Redundancy and RAID arrays can somewhat increase the burden

on storage.

Storage is a factor in performance that is much more important

as memory and processing performance become stressed. Then,
storage comes front and center as an arbiter of performance. This
is also true during backups and restores, assuming that the VMs
are archived for rapid recreation.

iSCSI over InfiniBand is the fastest current transfer rate for hard
disk drives at 40 Gbit/s. There are going to be advancements
coming over time, but this is the best current possible speed.
Obviously, if there is a latency of 200 nanoseconds, the transfer
channel will exceed the performance of the hard drive.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 8

Secret 4:
More NICs = Better Performance
A network interface card (NIC) sends and receives network traffic. Failover is another important performance enhancement with
A single physical device may have several NICs. Each NIC has the multiple NICs. If one NIC is lost, failover will allow guest VMs to
ability to carry network traffic independently. continue to operate. It is a byproduct of both teaming and load-
balancing and is no less true of virtualized than legacy hardware.
VMs treat physical operation much like their host. A guest may
have a network interface setup that is sharing a NIC with other This brings the discussion to the final secret, a non-obvious en-
guests or it may have access independently to a NIC. In the case hancement, which can make a tremendous difference in your ROI.
of network operation, a guest may be impeded if it is competing Performance will not matter very much if you have no awareness
with other guest VMs for network transmission. of the effectiveness of your systems and their current status. This
is where Argent for VMware shines.
Teaming is another area where adding additional NICs aids in virtu-
alization performance. Teaming refers to utilizing multiple NICs for
what is in effect load-balancing. Some guest VMs, like those for
web services, benefit from load-balancing in requests for service.

Teaming is also used to provide parallel performance, which is

not precisely load-balancing, but it is employing multiple NICs to
offload network operations to more than one interface. Interfaces
that distribute work can offer performance enhancements to guest
VMs. It may also aid in instances where guest VMs have different
applications in use.

VMware has run multiple performance tests using VMs enhanced

with additional NICs. The performance increases were substan-
tial. Adding additional NICs resulted in exponential performance
increases.

Just as load balancing and distribution enhance performance

through allowing parallel network processing, they also reduce
traffic and congestion. Incoming traffic may need to be routed to
several guest VMs. In that case, having additional NICs will provide
traffic reduction and may be linked directly to one or more of the
most critical VMs for network load distribution.

Archiving and backups are additional areas where performance

improves for virtualization with multiple NICs. Archiving and
backup can consume considerable network resources for a lengthy
time period depending upon the volume of data. This is another
area where allowing one NIC to dedicate bandwidth to these func-
tions may enhance performance.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 9

Secret 5:
Buy A Product Designed For VMware
Lord Calvin (19th century English physicist) said: Here are a few screenshots of the new Argent for VMware
product:
“To Measure Is To Know”
And this aphorism certainly applies to VMware hosts and guests.

But, most products are server-centric; old products, like Microsoft’s

SCOM and Argent’s Argent Guardian, by many experts’ assess-
ment, are now obsolete.

What is needed for the new VMware-based enterprise is a product

that handles both VM hosts and VM guests in one product.

The new Argent for VMware is just such a product – essentially

two products in one: total host monitoring, as well as complete
guest monitoring (the guest monitoring is based on Argent’s clas-
sic, award-winning Argent Guardian technology).

Instant Best Practices is essential – do you have time to investigate

the hundreds of settings for VM hosts? Or do you want a product
that comes with all these values preset, so you can be completely
monitoring in less than 15 minutes.

For every one of the hundreds of Argent for VMware’s host rules
there are five settings:

• Acceptable Operation
• Approaching Limit
• At Limit
• Exceeding Limit
• Major Overload

With these five settings, there is nothing for you to do – Argent has
done all the heavy lifting for you.

Conversely, if you want to spend months writing your own VMware

rules, here is a link you can use:

http://www.scom2k7.com/downloads/Monitoring%20
ESX%20on%20SCOM%202007%20v2.2.pdf

The Five Secrets Of VMware 10

Conclusion
Virtualization is a potent technology in use by every large enter-
prise. There are distinct advantages and VMware has a dominant
market share.

The first optimization is memory. Memory, or RAM, is a key driver

for allowing processing throughput for aiding in VMs that require
extensive power. Memory is a low-cost addition to a physical
device that yields high return.

Processing power is the second optimization. Leveraging dual,

quad, octo, and higher core counts will help to offload distributing
to the proper processor and improve response times. These are
also lessening in price and provide high value.

The third optimization is hard drive capability. Non-volatile stor-

age devices have advanced significantly, but there are still strong
bottlenecks. Purchasing higher rpm’s will help in reducing page
file latency and in working with modern high-capacity interfaces,
like iSCSI over InfiniBand.

Multiple network interface cards is the fourth optimization. Net-

work load-balancing is often overlooked in the physical hardware
architecture and yet it can really help when each VM is relying on
network connectivity and performance. Often, a TCP/IP packet can
consume the most performance cycles as a request times out due
to network congestion.

Finally, buy Argent for VMware. You need to monitor the entire VM
and for this you need a product like Argent for VMware that can
handle the job. You need actionable information to aid in decision-
making and for this Argent for VMware is optimized for a virtualized
environment.

For more information and to take the next step, please email
AutomateVMware@Argent.com or visit www.Argent.com.

Note: ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited has created this White Paper for informational purposes only. ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited makes no
warranties, express or implied, in this document. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings Limited
shall not be liable for any technical or editorial errors, or omissions contained in this document, nor for incidental, indirect or consequential damages resulting from the
furnishing, performance, or use of the material contained in this document, or the document itself. All views expressed are opinions of ArgSoft Intellectual Property Holdings
Limited. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

The Five Secrets Of VMware 11