Re: Best practices for IDS on virtual machine?

Gee, that response looks awfully familliar!?!?! Art Art S. Kagel Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com) Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any other organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves. On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 4:40 AM, colin mcdermott < colinjamesmcdermott@gmail.com> wrote: > > - IBM's Hypervisor has the lowest overhead and highest IO rates. > - If you must use VMWare make sure you are using the vSphere > hypervisor, it's IO is about double the older hypervisors from VMWare or > running without one. > - Yes RAID10. > - As much as possible make sure you do not have competition for the > physical disks underneath your LUNS, ESPECIALLY not Windows Filesystems and > NEVER email stores. The access patterns are just too different from > database access patterns. > - EXT2 with DIRECT_IO, yes. > - Yes to separate dbspaces for high access data like rootdb, logical > logs, physical logs, high access tables and indexes. Informix assigns IO > resources per dbspace and per chunk depending on specifics. More dbspaces > and more chunks can lead to more total IO throughput. Keeping logical logs > on different LUNs from physical logs and from high IO data dbspaces will > take advantage of more physical resources like IO channels and spindles. > > > > On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 2:00 AM, <informix-list-request@iiug.org> wrote: > >> Send new Informix-list mailing list postings to >> informix-list@iiug.org >> >> If replying to a posting, the message number must appear on the >> Subject line. This will maintain the discussion thread. The message >> number is inside square brackets (e.g. [102]). You may edit the rest >> of the Subject line. >> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe log in to the Member Area of >> http://www.iiug.org and click on "Subscribe to E-mail Lists". >> >> You can reach the person managing the list at >> informix-list-owner@iiug.org >> >> >> Today's Topics: >> >> 1. Best practices for IDS on virtual machine? (R. Spitz) >> 2. Re: Best practices for IDS on virtual machine? (Nick Lello) >> 3. Re: Best practices for IDS on virtual machine? (Art Kagel) >> 4. Execution Plan (tuserxxx123@gmail.com) >> 5. Re: Execution Plan (Art Kagel) >> 6. Re: Execution Plan (tuserxxx123@gmail.com) >> 7. Re: Execution Plan (Art Kagel) >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: "R. Spitz" <rspitz.md@googlemail.com> >> To: informix-list@iiug.org >> Cc: >> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:05:29 -0700 (PDT) >> Subject: Best practices for IDS on virtual machine? >> Hi Informixers, >> >> I'm system and database admin for our departmental IDS server. Currently >> we are running IDS 11.50 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (32bit) >> on a 5 year old Xeon machine. Overall data and transaction volume is rather >> modest, total amount of data is about 3GB. Performance has never been an >> issue with the current hardware, but now its time to plan for a replacement >> server. >> >> Company policy dictates that dedicated server hardware for departmental >> servers is to be avoided, so it will have to be a virtual machine under >> VMWare ESX. OS will be SLES 11 64bit, and we will probably move to the >> latest IDS 12.10 version. >> >> I've always used raw devices on partitions in RAID1 configuration, but >> what is the best way to go in a virtual environment? I'm aware that IO >> performance might be rather poor compared to physical hardware, but I have >> no choice. The ESX admins promised me storage space on a RAID10 LUN, how >> should I configure this? >> >> Raw devices seem to be a thing of the past. Is ext2 with DIRECT_IO (if >> available in IDS Workgroup Edition) still the recommended file system type? >> I'm unsure about the number of chunks and dbspaces in the virtual >> Environment: Does it make sense to use separate chunks and dbspaces for >> rootdbs, data and logical logs, or should I put everything into one large >> rootdbs since I cannot influence the physical storage anyway? >> >> I'd appreciate any pointers to "best practices" in the virtual >> environment. >> >> Regards, Richard >> >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Nick Lello <nick.lello@rentrakmail.com> >> To: "R. Spitz" <rspitz.md@googlemail.com> >> Cc: informix-list@iiug.org >> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:14:11 +0100 >> Subject: Re: Best practices for IDS on virtual machine? >> ext2 with DIRECT_IO worked well for me under VMWare ESXi .... however get >> as much memory as possible assigned to the VM and make your buffers larger >> than normal. >> >> Expect slower than usual checkpoints and adjust to cater. >> >> Try to persuade the VMWare admins to give your VM higher than normal disk >> priority.. every little helps. >> >> >> >> On 11 April 2013 21:05, R. Spitz <rspitz.md@googlemail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Informixers, >>> >>> I'm system and database admin for our departmental IDS server. Currently >>> we are running IDS 11.50 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (32bit) >>> on a 5 year old Xeon machine. Overall data and transaction volume is rather >>> modest, total amount of data is about 3GB. Performance has never been an >>> issue with the current hardware, but now its time to plan for a replacement >>> server. >>> >>> Company policy dictates that dedicated server hardware for departmental >>> servers is to be avoided, so it will have to be a virtual machine under >>> VMWare ESX. OS will be SLES 11 64bit, and we will probably move to the >>> latest IDS 12.10 version. >>> >>> I've always used raw devices on partitions in RAID1 configuration, but >>> what is the best way to go in a virtual environment? I'm aware that IO >>> performance might be rather poor compared to physical hardware, but I have >>> no choice. The ESX admins promised me storage space on a RAID10 LUN, how >>> should I configure this? >>> >>> Raw devices seem to be a thing of the past. Is ext2 with DIRECT_IO (if >>> available in IDS Workgroup Edition) still the recommended file system type? >>> I'm unsure about the number of chunks and dbspaces in the virtual >>> Environment: Does it make sense to use separate chunks and dbspaces for >>> rootdbs, data and logical logs, or should I put everything into one large >>> rootdbs since I cannot influence the physical storage anyway? >>> >>> I'd appreciate any pointers to "best practices" in the virtual >>> environment. >>> >>> Regards, Richard >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Informix-list mailing list >>> Informix-list@iiug.org >>> http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> >> Nick Lello | Web Architect@@