VMware vSphere Performance – Part Three: Optimizing ESXi Host CPU

In order to support ESXi on a host system you require a minimum of two CPU cores, but ultimately need to ensure that your host has sufficient CPU resources in order to satisfy CPU demand of the virtual machines and VMkernal. It is also recommended to use CPUs that leverage hardware assisted virtualization as the performance … More VMware vSphere Performance – Part Three: Optimizing ESXi Host CPU

VMware vSphere Performance – Part Two: Optimizing ESXi Host Networking

An ESXi host system requires a minimum of one network interface card (NIC), for redundancy a host system should be configured with a minimum of at least two NICs in order to satisfy VMkernal and virtual machine demand. For virtual machine communication on a host , these tasks will consume CPU resources and there for … More VMware vSphere Performance – Part Two: Optimizing ESXi Host Networking

VMware vSphere Performance – Part One: Optimizing ESXi Host Memory

Once you have have assessed the hardware requirements for ESXi host systems (requires a minimum of 2GB to install) to ensure sufficient memory resources are provided to satisfy the demand of the virtual machines, system overhead and the level of failure protection required, we shall look at various options for optimising ESXi host system memory. … More VMware vSphere Performance – Part One: Optimizing ESXi Host Memory

VMware vSphere Storage Concepts – Part Three: vCenter Server Storage Filters

In an environment managed by a vCenter Server System four storage filters are provided by vSphere that determine the affect the action of the vCenter Server when scanning storage. These filters by default prevent all storage that is currently in use being found which I think we can agree is a good practice by default. However, … More VMware vSphere Storage Concepts – Part Three: vCenter Server Storage Filters

VMware vSphere Storage Concepts – Part Two: Raw Device Mapping, N-Port ID Virtualization and VMware Direct Path I/O

We have previously discussed the concept for the most common approach VMFS, now we will consider Raw Device Mapping (RDM), N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) and VMware Direct Path I/O concepts. Raw Device Mapping  This option for virtual machine hard disks allows for guest to directly utilise the provisioned LUN on the storage array. This may … More VMware vSphere Storage Concepts – Part Two: Raw Device Mapping, N-Port ID Virtualization and VMware Direct Path I/O