[AccessD] SPAM-LOW: Re: Running four VMs on Windows 2003 Server

All home-built for a fairly "reasonable" price, over several years.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Jim Lawrence wrote:
> Impressive John... all those nice new toys as well... I hope I do not sound
> too jealous. ;-) ...but there is many medium companies who do not have the
> hardware you do.
> 
> Jim
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
> Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 8:10 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: [AccessD] Running four VMs on Windows 2003 Server
> 
> I finally got around to fixing the issue I was having running multiple VMs
> on my Windows 2003 X64 
> servers, now running 16 gigs of ram.  The first problem I was having which
> was a real b****to solve 
> was that the VMs simply would not connect to the network.  It turns out that
> I had Hamachi installed 
> on the server.  Apparently what happens is that hamachi installs a new NIC
> and all that stuff and 
> now when the VMs fire up they grab the Hamachi NIC instead of the physical
> NIC.  As soon as I 
> uninstalled Hamachi that problem went away.  BTW I have been googling this
> problem for MONTHS and 
> finally found this tip as the very last post in one of the threads about VMs
> not connecting.
> 
> So... I now have four VMs running, each VM with three gigs of ram.
> 
> I run a specific software package which does address validation.  A couple
> of weeks ago I bought a 
> new Vertex Solid State Disk:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227393
> 
> I create four partitions on that and then assign one of the partitions to
> each virtual machine.  I 
> then copy all of the database files that Accuzip uses for the address
> processing.  These files are 
> read-only BTW.
> 
> I used to use an iRam (hardware) RAM disk with 4 gigs total, and do the same
> thing, partition it 
> into four 1 gb partitions and give each VM a partition.  That worked for one
> VM but the performance 
> was awful for any more than that.  The iRam has a total bandwidth of about
> 125 gbytes / sec (it was 
> SATA I) and it just wasn't up to the job.
> 
> Just as a benchmark, I was getting about 1 million records / hour running on
> a raid 6 disk array, so 
> even the iRam was a big improvement, at least for one instance.  At any
> rate, I would get about 2.5 
> million records / hour processing in my one VM using the iRam.  Using the
> new SSD I get about 4.1 
> million records per hour, and I am getting that in FOUR virtual machines
> running simultaneously!
> 
> I upgraded one of my servers to the new AMD Phenom II X4:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471
> 
> And on that machine, running only one VM (and using that SSD) I achieved
> about 6.4 million records / 
> hour.  That processor is about 40% faster so it makes sense that I would get
> a much higher records / 
> hour.  I am going to order a new processor for the server that I am setting
> up as my VM server and 
> see if I can jack the four VMS up to something close to that rate as well.
> 'Twould be nice if that 
> happens!
> 
> I originally had SQL Server running on this machine and had assigned 7 gigs
> to it.  With four VMs 
> trying to use 3 gigs each, performance on the VMs slowed to worse than a
> crawl.  Once I remembered 
> that SQL Server was there, I stopped the service, stopped all of the VMs,
> closed the VM host 
> software, reopened the host and reopened all of the VMS and the performance
> is stellar.
> 
> The thing to understand is that I often have to validate tens of millions of
> records.  My total 
> processing time for a two million record chunk was about 40 minutes on the
> faster machine so to do 
> 50 million records (25 files) would take most of a 24 hour day.  If I can
> split those 25 files out 
> over four machines I will drop the total turnaround down to a more
> reasonable 6 hours or so, 
> especially if I can get the faster processor going on the VM server.
> 
> I will be a happy camper.
>