Here it is—the last Virtualization Short Take of 2009! This is just a small collection of various virtualization-related links and articles that I’ve gathered over the last few weeks (OK, maybe more than a few weeks).

  • Scott Drummonds posted a good article with a performance comparison of thick provisioned disks vs. thin provisioned disks. This is good information and helps to clear up a lot of misinformation about the behavior of thin provisioned disks.
  • Interested in using the software iSCSI initiator with a dvSwitch and multiple paths? This article can give you the information you need to get started.
  • Frank Denneman has a great article providing some details on memory reservations and memory usage. It’s definitely worth a read, as is this post on the impact of guest OS type mismatch. See, there is a reason why it’s important to make sure you select the correct guest OS type when creating VMs.
  • I’ve written about the paravirtualized SCSI (PVSCSI) driver before, but Scott Sauer over at Virtual Insanity has a great two-part series on PVSCSI that is definitely worth a read (part 1 and part 2).
  • Although a bit dated now, Dave Lawrence has a great review of some of November’s technical white papers. He references the thin provisioning performance paper that’s also referenced in Scott Drummond’s post above, as well as a white paper on optimizing SRM performance. Thanks for bringing our attention to these documents, Dave!
  • The release of VMware View 4 brings with it PCoIP, which is supposed to bring enhanced performance over older display protocols. Unfortunately, everything I was hearing was that PCoIP was incompatible with many WAN acceleration solutions. So I was quite puzzled at this press release. Reading the press release a bit more closely, though, it would seem that Expand’s solution doesn’t actually optimize or accelerate PCoIP; rather, it enables it to be tunneled and applies Quality of Service (QoS). Something is better than nothing, I guess.
  • Rick Scherer describes a strange issue with vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1 and VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 1. Rick was seeing a number of strange symptoms, including ESXi hosts suddenly disconnecting from vCenter Server. Last time I checked Rick still hadn’t identified the root cause, although the symptoms he was seeing have since disappeared.
  • Stu provides a thorough explanation of why VMware is recommending not to install vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1 when managing VMware ESXi 4.0 hosts.
  • Need to install the HP Management Agents on VMware ESX 4.0? Here are some helpful instructions.
  • Nigel Poulton has started a great series on rack area networks (RANs), of which a key component is I/O virtualization. So far, Nigel has published part 1 (introducing the concept of a RAN), part 2 (IOV’s role in a RAN), and part 3 (IOV and hairpin turns). Part 2, in particular, has a good discussion of SR-IOV and MR-IOV. Nigel’s discussion of SR-IOV is a good complement to my own.
  • Greg Schulz also has a lengthy article on I/O virtualization.
  • Curious to know why NUMA is important with vSphere? Network Computing blogger Jake McTigue (with whom I had the honor of participating on a recent virtual networking webcast) has a good overview of NUMA and what it means for virtualized environments. It’s worth a read if you’re not already familiar with NUMA.
  • Need more information on storage alignment and VMFS block sizes? Check out this VIOPS document.

I also have a whole list of other links that I haven’t had the chance to read yet but that look like they might be interesting or useful:

A handy new addition to the Command Line Tool for View 4
Whats what in VMware View and VDI Land
How to get PCoIP with View 4 to work every time!
Revisiting the Components of the Cisco Nexus 1000v
File Virtualization… The short primer
Is Your Blade Ready for Virtualization? A Math Lesson
RSA SecureBook for VMware View hardening now publicly available!

I guess that’s enough for now. If you have any other useful, unique, or interesting virtualization-related links, feel free to share them in the comments. Thanks for reading!

This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.

Virtualization Short Take #32

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