jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sun Jun 28 11:56:03 CDT 2009
ROTFL. All home-built over several years. yea, it cost a bit but my client pays me a fair bit of money to get him results, and the faster I get him the results the happier he is. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com William Hindman wrote: > ...I was damn near drooling by the time I got through jc's post :) > > William > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Jim Lawrence" <accessd at shaw.ca> > Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:09 AM > To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'" > <accessd at databaseadvisors.com> > Subject: Re: [AccessD] Running four VMs on Windows 2003 Server > >> 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. >> >> -- >> John W. Colby >> www.ColbyConsulting.com >> -- >> AccessD mailing list >> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >> >> -- >> AccessD mailing list >> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >> >