Hello, I am working on a xen platform and need to create an MSSQL server. My consultant who is doing the installation and setup is refusing to install on XEN because he says it will cause to much lag and performance issues with the system. Has anyone done an MSSQL+Xen install before and have you experienced any major performance problems? Would the community at large recommend a setup like this? Thanks. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hey Chris, Well, for one, consultants don''t refuse to do things. If this one is, you have a problem already. Beat him until he understands what he''s being paid to do. :) I''ve had MSSQL on XEN before, and it worked fine - but an answer to your questions is going to depend on a lot of things: Version of XEN XEN server/farm specs Storage Backend Load on the MSSQL server CPU for the MSSQL server instance Memory for the MSSQL server instance Plan to use PV drivers? Etc... You do have to accept some performance loss over bare metal, especially with HVM (fully virtualized) domains. I''ve found Virtuozzo (nonfree) to be generally a more effective Windows Server virtualization platform. That said, I use XEN for several major production deployments of Windows and Linux hosts. Best Regards Nathan Eisenberg Sr. Systems Administrator Atlas Networks, LLC support@atlasnetworks.us http://support.atlasnetworks.us/portal -----Original Message----- From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Chris Black Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 2:31 PM To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com Subject: [Xen-users] MSSQL and Xen performance Hello, I am working on a xen platform and need to create an MSSQL server. My consultant who is doing the installation and setup is refusing to install on XEN because he says it will cause to much lag and performance issues with the system. Has anyone done an MSSQL+Xen install before and have you experienced any major performance problems? Would the community at large recommend a setup like this? Thanks. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 4:30 AM, Chris Black <chrisb@gourmettrading.net> wrote:> Hello, > > I am working on a xen platform and need to create an MSSQL server. My > consultant who is doing the installation and setup is refusing to install on > XEN because he says it will cause to much lag and performance issues with > the system.At this point I would ask "how much trust you put in your consultant"? :P As Nathan pointed out, performance would depend on lots of things. In short, a virtualized environment would impose some performance penalty. How much the penalty is, depends on your setup. For Linux PV guests with LVM-backed device, the penalty is very litlle. For Windows HVM guests, the penalty could be HUGE. That''s because you get penalty from both CPU and disk/network I/O. To increase performance you can use PV Drivers (like James Harper''s GPLPV) which would reduce I/O performance penalty. Note that the same thing generally applies to other virtualization technology as well (Vmware, virtualbox, etc). You need specialized driver (or "guest additions") to reduce I/O performance penalty.> > Has anyone done an MSSQL+Xen install before and have you experienced any > major performance problems? Would the community at large recommend a setup > like this?I have several Windows 2003 HVM + GPLPV, LVM-backed storage, with MSSQL Express. They''re lightly-loaded though. Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having multiple). However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could be slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on the list. Regardless, some testing of your scenario options would be duly diligent. Dustin -----Original Message----- From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Fajar A. Nugraha Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 21:49 To: Chris Black Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com Subject: Re: [Xen-users] MSSQL and Xen performance On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 4:30 AM, Chris Black <chrisb@gourmettrading.net> wrote:> Hello, > > I am working on a xen platform and need to create an MSSQL server. My > consultant who is doing the installation and setup is refusing to installon> XEN because he says it will cause to much lag and performance issues with > the system.At this point I would ask "how much trust you put in your consultant"? :P As Nathan pointed out, performance would depend on lots of things. In short, a virtualized environment would impose some performance penalty. How much the penalty is, depends on your setup. For Linux PV guests with LVM-backed device, the penalty is very litlle. For Windows HVM guests, the penalty could be HUGE. That''s because you get penalty from both CPU and disk/network I/O. To increase performance you can use PV Drivers (like James Harper''s GPLPV) which would reduce I/O performance penalty. Note that the same thing generally applies to other virtualization technology as well (Vmware, virtualbox, etc). You need specialized driver (or "guest additions") to reduce I/O performance penalty.> > Has anyone done an MSSQL+Xen install before and have you experienced any > major performance problems? Would the community at large recommend a setup > like this?I have several Windows 2003 HVM + GPLPV, LVM-backed storage, with MSSQL Express. They''re lightly-loaded though. Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Thanks everyone for the tips! Unfortunately I didn''t get to "pick" the consultants, they came with the company that is doing our new ERP installation. So far I have not been happy with the way things are going. I am running: Xen 3.1.2-128.1.6.el5 CentOS 5.2 PowerEdge 2970 (2) Quad Core Opteron 2344HE, 4x512K Cache 1.7GHz, 1Ghz HyperTransport I have given 5 VCPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to the MSSQL Server, I was planning on increasing that within the next week. The storage backend is via iSCSI to an Equallogic PS5000. Since this is a brand new MSSQL installation (and we have never had one before), I do not know what the load will look like for us. I have been noticing some network performance issues in early testing and will be implementing some changes to the severs this weekend to see if those are resolved. I will also be looking into the GPLPV which have been suggested! Thanks again Dustin Henning wrote:> > Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: > I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss > with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having > one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having > multiple). > However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with > multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could > be > slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on > the list. Regardless, some testing of your scenario options would be duly > diligent. > Dustin >-- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/MSSQL-and-Xen-performance-tp23435695p23448294.html Sent from the Xen - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Damn you, Centos, for your old repository versions. I''d highly recommend looking at a newer version of XEN than 3.1 - there have been some major performance gains since then. Best Regards Nathan Eisenberg Sr. Systems Administrator Atlas Networks, LLC support@atlasnetworks.us http://support.atlasnetworks.us/portal -----Original Message----- From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of blackc2004 Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 8:47 AM To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com Subject: RE: [Xen-users] MSSQL and Xen performance Thanks everyone for the tips! Unfortunately I didn''t get to "pick" the consultants, they came with the company that is doing our new ERP installation. So far I have not been happy with the way things are going. I am running: Xen 3.1.2-128.1.6.el5 CentOS 5.2 PowerEdge 2970 (2) Quad Core Opteron 2344HE, 4x512K Cache 1.7GHz, 1Ghz HyperTransport I have given 5 VCPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to the MSSQL Server, I was planning on increasing that within the next week. The storage backend is via iSCSI to an Equallogic PS5000. Since this is a brand new MSSQL installation (and we have never had one before), I do not know what the load will look like for us. I have been noticing some network performance issues in early testing and will be implementing some changes to the severs this weekend to see if those are resolved. I will also be looking into the GPLPV which have been suggested! Thanks again Dustin Henning wrote:> > Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: > I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss > with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having > one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having > multiple). > However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with > multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could > be > slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on > the list. Regardless, some testing of your scenario options would be duly > diligent. > Dustin >-- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/MSSQL-and-Xen-performance-tp23435695p23448294.html Sent from the Xen - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Ah, Is there a suggested place for new repos or am I going to have to resort to building my own? Thanks! Nathan Eisenberg wrote:> > Damn you, Centos, for your old repository versions. I''d highly recommend > looking at a newer version of XEN than 3.1 - there have been some major > performance gains since then. > > Best Regards > Nathan Eisenberg > Sr. Systems Administrator > Atlas Networks, LLC > support@atlasnetworks.us > http://support.atlasnetworks.us/portal >-- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/MSSQL-and-Xen-performance-tp23435695p23450130.html Sent from the Xen - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:27 AM, blackc2004 <chrisb@gourmettrading.net> wrote:> > Ah, Is there a suggested place for new reposhttp://www.gitco.de/repo/ should work It has Xen 3.3.1. Don''t expect it to automagically make everything faster though :)> Nathan Eisenberg wrote: >> >> Damn you, Centos, for your old repository versions.You should complain to Redhat about that :) Centos (for the most part) simply clones what Redhat has. Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 10:46 PM, blackc2004 <chrisb@gourmettrading.net> wrote:> > Thanks everyone for the tips! > > Unfortunately I didn''t get to "pick" the consultants, they came with the > company that is doing our new ERP installation. So far I have not been happy > with the way things are going. > > I am running: > Xen 3.1.2-128.1.6.el5 > CentOS 5.2 > PowerEdge 2970 (2) Quad Core Opteron 2344HE, 4x512K Cache 1.7GHz, 1Ghz > HyperTransportSo you only have one server? And how do your consultant propose using it, putting everything on one OS? Using other virtualization technology? This might sound silly, but is it possible that your consultant fee is higher than the server price?> > I have given 5 VCPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to the MSSQL Server, I was planning > on increasing that within the next week.> Dustin Henning wrote: >> >> Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: >> I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss >> with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having >> one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having >> multiple). >> However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with >> multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could >> be >> slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on >> the list.Probably me :) http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-users/2009-05/msg00185.html Last performance testing I did was on 0.9.12-pre13. It is possible that the latest version perform better, so you should definitely do your own testing to find out what works best. Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:46:37AM -0700, blackc2004 wrote:> > Thanks everyone for the tips! > > Unfortunately I didn''t get to "pick" the consultants, they came with the > company that is doing our new ERP installation. So far I have not been happy > with the way things are going. > > I am running: > Xen 3.1.2-128.1.6.el5 > CentOS 5.2 > PowerEdge 2970 (2) Quad Core Opteron 2344HE, 4x512K Cache 1.7GHz, 1Ghz > HyperTransport > > I have given 5 VCPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to the MSSQL Server, I was planning > on increasing that within the next week. > > The storage backend is via iSCSI to an Equallogic PS5000. >You could also run MS iSCSI initiator in the Windows HVM guest.. to be able to use EQL snapshots for MSSQL etc. But you really need those paravirtualized (GPLPV) drivers for the virtual NICs :) -- Pasi> Since this is a brand new MSSQL installation (and we have never had one > before), I do not know what the load will look like for us. > > I have been noticing some network performance issues in early testing and > will be implementing some changes to the severs this weekend to see if those > are resolved. I will also be looking into the GPLPV which have been > suggested! > > Thanks again > > > Dustin Henning wrote: > > > > Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: > > I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss > > with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having > > one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having > > multiple). > > However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with > > multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could > > be > > slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on > > the list. Regardless, some testing of your scenario options would be duly > > diligent. > > Dustin > > >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 09:22:26AM -0700, Nathan Eisenberg wrote:> Damn you, Centos, for your old repository versions. > I''d highly recommend looking at a newer version of XEN than 3.1 - there have been some major performance gains since then.It''s not standard Xen 3.1. Redhat backported many patches from xen-unstable to Xen 3.1.2 in RHEL5/CentOS5. -- Pasi> > Best Regards > Nathan Eisenberg > Sr. Systems Administrator > Atlas Networks, LLC > support@atlasnetworks.us > http://support.atlasnetworks.us/portal > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of blackc2004 > Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 8:47 AM > To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com > Subject: RE: [Xen-users] MSSQL and Xen performance > > > Thanks everyone for the tips! > > Unfortunately I didn''t get to "pick" the consultants, they came with the > company that is doing our new ERP installation. So far I have not been happy > with the way things are going. > > I am running: > Xen 3.1.2-128.1.6.el5 > CentOS 5.2 > PowerEdge 2970 (2) Quad Core Opteron 2344HE, 4x512K Cache 1.7GHz, 1Ghz > HyperTransport > > I have given 5 VCPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to the MSSQL Server, I was planning > on increasing that within the next week. > > The storage backend is via iSCSI to an Equallogic PS5000. > > Since this is a brand new MSSQL installation (and we have never had one > before), I do not know what the load will look like for us. > > I have been noticing some network performance issues in early testing and > will be implementing some changes to the severs this weekend to see if those > are resolved. I will also be looking into the GPLPV which have been > suggested! > > Thanks again > > > Dustin Henning wrote: > > > > Another important note regarding using Windows on Xen: > > I am pretty sure that using multiple CPUs causes severe performance loss > > with the GPLPV drivers provided by James Harper (to the extent that having > > one VCPU with the drivers may net better performance than having > > multiple). > > However, I believe the GPLPV drivers still provide better performance with > > multiple vcpus than not having the drivers would. This information could > > be > > slightly dated, but I believe it was recently mentioned by someone else on > > the list. Regardless, some testing of your scenario options would be duly > > diligent. > > Dustin > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/MSSQL-and-Xen-performance-tp23435695p23448294.html > Sent from the Xen - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users