What processor for a home VMware server?

Non-Technical Threads Chatting over the Back Fence
41

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No no, I meant the filesystem cache, not the disk cache. 64 MB… bleh,
who cares? If I build a server it’s going to have 32+ GB RAM and that
cache will make the hard drive cache seem to be nothing… because
really, that’s what it is. 64 MB is a lightweight phone application
(okay, I’m being a little facetious there), and while I’m sure that can
help I don’t use programs, especially on servers, that are going to
benefit much from that when the OS is already caching gigabytes for me
regardless of the availability of the hard drive’s cache. For example
on my laptop:

Mem: 16337156 16183628 153528 0 223452 8786316

Yea! 8 GB of cache helping me out. If my hard drive was wasting time
caching that what benefit would it be? If my box was too busy to cache
and I had to use a hard drive cache, would it really help? I don’t
know… I’m a skeptic.

Good luck.
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42

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:59:25 +0000, George wrote:
[color=blue]

The other concern is portability. Sometimes you can’t successfully move
a VM from a host with a Intel CPU to say one with AMD and vice versa.[/color]

I’ve only found that to be an issue if the VM is suspended when moved (or
doing a live migration). Though I see to recall Windows might actually
care about the CPU. :slight_smile:
[color=blue]

Also I used a lot of AMD CPUs in the past but they are imploding. It
sure would be nice to have robust competition to Intel as in the past
but AMD got stuck in the mud with some serious design flaws on I forget
which architecture and never got back up to speed.[/color]

My oldest machine currently is a dual-core AMD 64 system. I added a quad-
core i7 (8 cores with hyperthreading) laptop and a quad-core AMD
system. I’ve been happier with the laptop, overall, but both get the
job done pretty well.

Jim

Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

43

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:36:15 +0000, Massimo Rosen wrote:
[color=blue]

On 08.12.2012 20:53, Jim Henderson wrote:[color=green]

Though I notice it uses AMD - I have been thinking Intel because my
experience with Intel has been pretty good (I’ve currently got two of
each) - but in terms of performance for virtualization, I’m honestly
not clear on which CPU has the biggest performance advantage.[/color]

CPU performance is usually your least concern on a VMWare host. It’s all
about I/O performance first, especially I/O per second (less so
sequential I/O).[/color]

True, that is where the bottlenecks come up first if you don’t do
something to manage it. One of the products I worked with in my contract
work is a product that can throttle/manage block device I/O (Linux hosts
here) so things can balance out - and I’m probably going to run that on
the host and see how it affects virtualization performance.

But I know, for example, that Access Manager performance can be severely
hampered by using virtualized MAGs (or is it LAGs, I don’t remember now)
and for that product, it’s recommended that under a heavy load it not be
virtualized for that very reason.

Thanks for reminding me of that, because I had forgotten that
discussion. :slight_smile:
[color=blue]

I’m running 5 Servers at home (one Netware, 4 OES running a two node
lcuster and ZCM in there) on an oldish 3GHz quad-core AMD. Whenever I
notice a performance decrease, it’s always I/O (running 4 SATA drives
in the 1TB range). The combined cpus hardly ever reach 50% load, unless
one of the guests has a real problem (i.e hangs).[/color]

I guess it also depends on whether you’re running CPU-intensive programs,
too. I may pick up my raytracing software again, and that’ll tend to
drive more CPU than I/O. :slight_smile:

Jim

Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

44

On 12/9/2012 12:47 PM, Haitch wrote:[color=blue]

On 12/9/2012 10:59 AM, George wrote:
[color=green]

The other concern is portability. Sometimes you can’t successfully move
a VM from a host with a Intel CPU to say one with AMD and vice versa.
[/color]

You can’t vmotion a running VM from Intel to AMD, or the other way, but
I’ve never had a problem cold migrating from one to the other.

H.[/color]

And I recently found a MS reference regarding Server 2012 Hyper-V. They
say you can’t move (any method) a VM from an Intel CPU host to a AMD CPU
host and vice versa.

45

On 12/10/2012 7:53 AM, George wrote:
[color=blue]

And I recently found a MS reference regarding Server 2012 Hyper-V. They
say you can’t move (any method) a VM from an Intel CPU host to a AMD CPU
host and vice versa.[/color]

Do you have a link to that? Live migration will not work, but I’ve
(cold) migrated plenty of VM’s from AMD to Intel and back again under
VMware and never had an issue. I’d be surprised if it failed under Hyper-V.

H.

46

On 12/10/2012 9:18 AM, Hamish wrote:[color=blue]

On 12/10/2012 7:53 AM, George wrote:
[color=green]

And I recently found a MS reference regarding Server 2012 Hyper-V. They
say you can’t move (any method) a VM from an Intel CPU host to a AMD CPU
host and vice versa.[/color]

Do you have a link to that? Live migration will not work, but I’ve
(cold) migrated plenty of VM’s from AMD to Intel and back again under
VMware and never had an issue. I’d be surprised if it failed under Hyper-V.

H.
[/color]
I don’t remember exactly but it was an explicit warning about not being
able to do it. I will not try to remember where so likely it will come
back to me later.

47

Hamish wrote:
[color=blue]

I’d be surprised if it failed under
Hyper-V.[/color]

I’d be surprised if virtualization worked at all under Hyper-V. :slight_smile:

–
Does this washcloth smell like chloroform?

48

Hi.
[color=blue]

I’ve only found that to be an issue if the VM is suspended when moved
(or doing a live migration). Though I see to recall Windows might
actually care about the CPU. :)[/color]

You can even do a “live” vmotion of running machines, IF you use the
“CPU ID Masking”, (VM guest, properties, tab options, CPU ID Mask,
advanced) down to a level, that both CPUs, AMD and Intel will support.
That might end up in cutting down the CPU capabilities to almost
“nothing” ;-))

Regards, Rudi.

49

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:51:27 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

Ah, I see.

Part of my goal is to minimize space as well, but I don’t know if that’s
worth an extra $400 or so.

Jim[/color]

You want small?
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/
next-unit-computing-introduction.html

50

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:37:53 +0000, Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=blue]

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:51:27 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

[color=green]

Ah, I see.

Part of my goal is to minimize space as well, but I don’t know if
that’s worth an extra $400 or so.

Jim[/color]

You want small?
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-[/color]
motherboards/[color=blue]
next-unit-computing-introduction.html[/color]

Nice, but only i3 processors and 16 GB of RAM. :slight_smile:

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

51

Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=blue]

You want small?[/color]

Since when did that become a good thing?

–
Does this washcloth smell like chloroform?

52

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:46:03 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:37:53 +0000, Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=green]

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:51:27 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:

[color=darkred]

Ah, I see.

Part of my goal is to minimize space as well, but I don’t know if
that’s worth an extra $400 or so.

Jim[/color]

You want small?
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-[/color]
motherboards/[color=green]
next-unit-computing-introduction.html[/color]

Nice, but only i3 processors and 16 GB of RAM. :slight_smile:

Jim[/color]

There is an i5 model also.

My workstation only has 16 GB of RAM. It works well with 3 sometimes 4
VMs (VMware Workstation v9) running (One was ZoneMinder with 3 cameras).
I was also spreading sheets, processing words, Groupwise, Firefox, remote
sessions and Folding at Home. Well, I had to give up Folding. ZoneMinder
moved to it’s own box after we added 6 more cameras.

53

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:01:29 +0000, Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=blue]

There is an i5 model also.

My workstation only has 16 GB of RAM. It works well with 3 sometimes 4
VMs (VMware Workstation v9) running (One was ZoneMinder with 3 cameras).
I was also spreading sheets, processing words, Groupwise, Firefox,
remote sessions and Folding at Home. Well, I had to give up Folding.
ZoneMinder moved to it’s own box after we added 6 more cameras.[/color]

I’m wanting to do an i7 and at least 32 GB of memory - not just trying to
build something for today’s usage, but something that has some “future-
proofing” in it for lab work I may be doing down the road. I tend to buy
things (in general) with a long view, trying to get more than 5 years out
of it if I can. :slight_smile:

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

54

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:36:56 +0000, Joseph Marton wrote:
[color=blue]

Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=green]

You want small?[/color]

Since when did that become a good thing?[/color]

Since physical space is at a premium (we’re looking to move within the
next year, and I want small for the move and to not take a lot of space
in the new place we want to move to, since it’s a much smaller space).

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

55

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:06:39 +0000, Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:36:56 +0000, Joseph Marton wrote:
[color=green]

Bob Crandell wrote:
[color=darkred]

You want small?[/color]

Since when did that become a good thing?[/color]

Since physical space is at a premium (we’re looking to move within the
next year, and I want small for the move and to not take a lot of space
in the new place we want to move to, since it’s a much smaller space).

Jim[/color]

So finally convinced SWMBO to move to Oregon?

56

Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue]

I’m wanting to do an i7 and at least 32 GB of memory[/color]

As pointed out previously, processor utilisation is generally not an
issue in a virtual environment while memory limitations are.

I have not seen any pricing for these new Intel PC’s but I imagine they
are relatively inexpensive. If that is the case, it may be possible to
provide inexpensive shared iSCSI storage and deploy several of these
devices adding additional units as needed for increased capacity.

Sometimes, when new technology becomes available, we need to rethink
our traditional solutions.

–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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show your appreciation and click on the star below…

57

Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]

You want small?[/color]

Since when did that become a good thing?[/color]

Since physical space is at a premium (we’re looking to move within
the next year, and I want small for the move and to not take a lot of
space in the new place we want to move to, since it’s a much smaller
space).[/color]

Sorry, I was thinking of something else where the opposite is better.

–
Does this washcloth smell like chloroform?

58

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:47:32 +0000, Joseph Marton wrote:
[color=blue]

Sorry, I was thinking of something else where the opposite is better.[/color]

–
Does this washcloth smell like chloroform?

I’m getting woozy.

59

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:44:54 +0000, KBOYLE wrote:
[color=blue]

Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=green]

I’m wanting to do an i7 and at least 32 GB of memory[/color]

As pointed out previously, processor utilisation is generally not an
issue in a virtual environment while memory limitations are.[/color]

As I mentioned previously, it depends on whether the processes are I/O
bound or CPU bound, and I will likely have some of both. :slight_smile:
[color=blue]

I have not seen any pricing for these new Intel PC’s but I imagine they
are relatively inexpensive. If that is the case, it may be possible to
provide inexpensive shared iSCSI storage and deploy several of these
devices adding additional units as needed for increased capacity.

Sometimes, when new technology becomes available, we need to rethink our
traditional solutions.[/color]

Sure, and if it were a business use case, I’d probably be looking for
something like that. But it’s a home lab, probably will be fronted with
a SUSE Studio Onsite instance so I can do custom openSUSE/SLE builds for
stuff I’m working on.

Jim

Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner

60

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:47:32 +0000, Joseph Marton wrote:
[color=blue]

Jim Henderson wrote:
[color=green][color=darkred]

You want small?

Since when did that become a good thing?[/color]

Since physical space is at a premium (we’re looking to move within the
next year, and I want small for the move and to not take a lot of space
in the new place we want to move to, since it’s a much smaller space).[/color]

Sorry, I was thinking of something else where the opposite is better.[/color]

I figured that was probably the case after the fact. :wink:

Jim

–
Jim Henderson, CNA6, CDE, CNI, LPIC-1, CLA10, CLP10
Novell Knowledge Partner