Technical information

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0
52 VMware, Inc.
file system partitions
alignment 26
Floppy drives 17
FT (Fault Tolerance) 41
H
HA (High Availability) 40
HAL
UP vs. SMP 20
hardware
BIOS settings 15
minimum configuration 11
hardware compatibility list 11
hardware version 7 18, 33
and VMotion 37
hardware virtualization 21
hardware-assisted CPU virtualization 21
hardware-assisted MMU virtualization 11, 21
configuring ESX for 22
HBAs
multiple 13
High Availability 40
high-memory DMA 14
HV (hardware virtualization) 21
hyper-threading 15, 20
CPU numbers 20
I
I/O block sizes 32
IBM X-Architecture 21
independent nonpersistent virtual disks 26
independent persistent virtual disks 26
Intel E1000 device 33
Intel Nehalem 21
Intel SpeedStep 15
Intel VT-x 15, 21
iSCSI
and Ethernet 13
software-initiated
network protocol processing 13
ISO images 17
J
jumbo frames 14, 33
K
kernel
UP vs. SMP 20
knowledge base
accessing 8
L
large pages 25
lazy-zeroed disks 26
limits
and DRS 39
LPT ports 17
LSILogic virtual storage adapter 32
M
memory
ballooning 23
large pages 25
overcommitment 24
overhead 23
page sharing 23
reclamation 24
reservation 24
sizing 23
swapping 23, 24
testing 11
memory management unit virtualization 11
hardware-assisted 11
memory swapping
using reservations to avoid 24
MMU virtualization 11
hardware-assisted 11
MTU size 33
N
NAS
network protocol processing 13
Nehalem 21
nested page tables 11
NetQueue 14
network throughput
and CPU utilization 28
NFS
and Ethernet 13
NIC team 14
NICs
autonegotiation 14
duplex 14
server class 14
speed 14
NO_HZ kernels 30, 31
node interleaving 15, 21
non-uniform memory access 21
NPT (nested page tables) 11
NTP 29
NUMA (non-uniform memory access) 21
O
Optical drives 17
overhead
CPU 19