Installation guide

Table 22-9. Networking Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued)
# Resolution
5 Use separate physical NICs to handle the different traffic streams, such as network packets generated by virtual
machines, iSCSI protocols, VMotion tasks, and service console activities.
6 Ensure that the physical NIC capacity is large enough to handle the network traffic on that vSwitch. If the capacity
is not enough, consider using a high-bandwidth physical NIC (10Gbps) or moving some virtual machines to a vSwitch
with a lighter load or to a new vSwitch.
7 If packets are being dropped at the vSwitch port, increase the virtual network driver ring buffers where applicable.
8 Verify that the reported speed and duplex settings for the physical NIC match the hardware expectations and that
the hardware is configured to run at its maximum capability. For example, verify that NICs with 1Gbps are not reset
to 100Mbps because they are connected to an older switch.
9 Verify that all NICs are running in full duplex mode. Hardware connectivity issues might result in a NIC resetting
itself to a lower speed or half duplex mode.
10 Use vNICs that are TSO-capable, and verify that TSO-Jumbo Frames are enabled where possible.
Storage Performance
Use the vSphere Client datastore performance charts to monitor datastore usage. Use the guidelines below to
identify and correct problems with datastore performance.
NOTE The datastore charts are available only in the overview performance charts.
The datastore is at full capacity when the used space is equal to the capacity. Allocated space can be larger
than datastore capacity, for example, when you have snapshots and thin-provisioned disks. You can provision
more space to the datastore if possible, or you can add disks to the datastore or use shared datastores.
If snapshot files are consuming a lot of datastore space, consider consolidating them to the virtual disk when
they are no longer needed. Consolidating the snapshots deletes the redo log files and removes the snapshots
from the vSphere Client user interface. For information on consolidating the datacenter, see the vSphere Client
Help.
Chapter 22 Working with Performance Statistics
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