|
Mike,
I currently use Xen 3.2.0 from SLES 10 SP2. I have several of these machines, backed by an FC SAN. My domUs all use file:-based access (loop devices, essentially) to access their disks. One of those systems (Dell PE1950, 2 x Quad-Core Xeon 2.66 Ghz, 16GB of RAM) runs 20-25 Windows XP SP3-based domUs with no performance issues at all. At initial boot, sometimes there's a good deal of CPU usage on dom0, but that only lasts for a little while, then things settle down. My domUs are (mostly) single vCPU with 384MB of RAM assigned to each domU. I have one that has 1GB of RAM and one that has two vCPUs.
On another machine (identical hardware), I also have a Windows Server 2003 domU running, with 2.5GB of RAM assigned and 2 vCPUs. All of the XP domUs and the Server 2k3 domU use the GPL PV drivers. I'll have to figure out which version - I don't remember the exact release off the top of my head.
I'm not sure what the performance of tap:aio is supposed to be, but loop (file) works fine for me. I can imagine that the software RAID would have a negative impact on performance. Since I'm using SAN-backed volumes for storing my domU files, I'm not running any software RAID inside the domUs or on the dom0s, so that's not an issue for me.
Hope that helps...
-Nick
>>> Mike Williams <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx> 2009/01/06 13:47 >>>
Hey all,
I've been lurking about for a few days now, and I'm already confused :)
At the moment we've got a dual quad-core Intel server running Xen 3.3.0 and 4
XP SP3 domUs, and the performance is horrible. Less than a fifth of the
performance of an XP install straight on a dual-core opteron.
The performance is probably due to the use of GPLPV 0.9.10 (shutdownmon didn't
work with 11), each domU having 2 VCPUs, and the use of tap:aio: over LVM to
get round a weird linux software raid10/LVM/HVM guest issue. It's also
unreliable, but that's a hardware issue.
So, we want to build another machine, and go with Windows 2003 R2 Server
(standard, SP3, I believe), it also won't use software raid10 so we can go
back to phy: (the work load does very little disk IO anyway). The hardware
will be exactly the same.
Could anyone advise me on the best means to install 2k3 R2, with 2 CPUs per
domU, and GPLPV, please?
Thanks
--
Mike Williams
This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient. If this email is not intended for you, or you are not responsible for the delivery of this message to the intended recipient, please note that this message may contain SEAKR Engineering (SEAKR) Privileged/Proprietary Information. In such a case, you are strictly prohibited from downloading, photocopying, distributing or otherwise using this message, its contents or attachments in any way. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the message from your mailbox. Information contained in this message that does not relate to the business of SEAKR is neither endorsed by nor attributable to SEAKR.
|
