Re: [Xen-users] Xen and I/O Intensive Loads

[Daniel Mealha Cabrita <dancab@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

250 users normally is no big deal for an e-mail server, even a virtualized 
one, though I don't know how GroupWise behaves.

I suggest you to change your domU IO scheduler to minimize dom0-domU IO 
latency impact:

BLAH: your domU block device.
$ echo deadline > /sys/block/BLAH/queue/scheduler
And play with the settings inside /sys/block/BLAH/queue/


About dom0, I don't know about your storage and RAID setup so it might (or 
might not) be a good idea to try to reduce the latency between dom0-storage:

BLAH: your FC device paths (sda, sdb ... sdaa, sdab etc)
$ echo noop > /sys/block/BLAH/queue/scheduler


On Wednesday 26 August 2009 13:01:13 Nick Couchman wrote:
> Hi, folks,
> I'm attempting to run an e-mail server on Xen.  The e-mail system is Novell
> GroupWise, and it serves about 250 users.  The disk volume for the e-mail
> is on my SAN, and I've attached the FC LUN to my Xen host, then used the
> "phy:/dev..." method to forward the disk through to the domU.  I'm running
> into an issue with high I/O wait on the box (~250%) and large load averages
> (20-40 for the 1/5/15 minute average).  I was wondering if anyone has ideas
> on tuning the domU to handle this - is there a better way to forward the
> disk device through, should I try using an iSCSI software initiator in the
> domU, or is it just a bad idea to put an I/O load like this in a domU? 
> Unfortunately mapping the entire F/C card through to the domU isn't really
> an option - the FC card accesses other SAN volumes for the Xen host, so it
> needs to be present in dom0.
>
> I'm running Xen 3.2.0 on SLES 10 SP2, on a Dell PowerEdge R610 server.  The
> FC HBA is a QLE2462, dual-channel 4Gb FC card.  Any help, hints, etc., are
> greatly appreciated!
>
> -Nick
>
>
> --------
> 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.



-- 
 Daniel Mealha Cabrita
 Divisao de Suporte Tecnico
 AINFO / Reitoria / UTFPR
 http://www.utfpr.edu.br

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users