zfs discuss - Mar 2007 - ZFS and Solaris as a VMWare guest

What issues, if any, are likely to surface with using Solaris
inside vmware as a guest os, if I choose to use ZFS?

I''m assuming that ZFS''s ability to maintain data integrity
will prevail and protect me from any problems that the
addition of vmware might introduce.

Are there likely to be any issues with disk drive IO
performance?

The concern here is with comments on how ZFS likes to
"own spindles" so that it can properly schedule I/O and
maximise performance.

Any other gotchas, such as the extra vmware layer doing
buffering that ZFS isn''t aware of, etc?

If there are problems, are they likely to be any better/different
when using ZFS and Solaris as a Xen domU?

Darren

On 3/12/07, Darren.Reed at sun.com <Darren.Reed at sun.com>
wrote:
>
> What issues, if any, are likely to surface with using Solaris
> inside vmware as a guest os, if I choose to use ZFS?

works great in vmware server, IO rates suck.

I''m assuming that ZFS''s ability to maintain data
integrity
> will prevail and protect me from any problems that the
> addition of vmware might introduce.

no problems so far, created two  virtual disks and  concat, its just a
toy/test bed for nexenta, only problem I have with nexenta is that the 64bit
mode crashes on boot. b55  may be fixed who knows.

Are there likely to be any issues with disk drive IO
> performance?

i''m getting  11MB/s on bonnie++, the disks are backed by sata drives on
a
ultra 20 2.6ghz and has  512MB allocated.


not exactly a speed demon it would get about 130MB/s on the raw hardware.


James Dickens
uadmin.blogspot.com




The concern here is with comments on how ZFS likes to
> "own spindles" so that it can properly schedule I/O and
> maximise performance.
>
> Any other gotchas, such as the extra vmware layer doing
> buffering that ZFS isn''t aware of, etc?
>
> If there are problems, are they likely to be any better/different
> when using ZFS and Solaris as a Xen domU?
>
> Darren
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>
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On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 20:53 -0600, James Dickens wrote:
> 
> 
> On 3/12/07, Darren.Reed at sun.com <Darren.Reed at sun.com> wrote: 
>         What issues, if any, are likely to surface with using Solaris
>         inside vmware as a guest os, if I choose to use ZFS?
> 
> works great in vmware server, IO rates suck. 
> 
> 
>         I''m assuming that ZFS''s ability to maintain data
integrity
>         will prevail and protect me from any problems that the
>         addition of vmware might introduce.
> 
> no problems so far, created two  virtual disks and  concat, its just a
> toy/test bed for nexenta, only problem I have with nexenta is that the
> 64bit mode crashes on boot. b55  may be fixed who knows. 
its ae driver. Murayama fixed it recently in unstable branch.
If you don''t want to upgrade to latest, you could change your vmware
settings to use e1000g driver instead. Or just upgrade myamanet-ae from
unstable like:

$ sudo apt-get install myamanet-ae
> 
>         Are there likely to be any issues with disk drive IO
>         performance?
> 
> i''m getting  11MB/s on bonnie++, the disks are backed by sata
drives
> on a  ultra 20 2.6ghz and has  512MB allocated. 
> 
> 
> not exactly a speed demon it would get about 130MB/s on the raw
> hardware. 
> 
> 
> James Dickens
> uadmin.blogspot.com
> 
> 
>  
> 
>         The concern here is with comments on how ZFS likes to
>         "own spindles" so that it can properly schedule I/O and
>         maximise performance.
>         
>         Any other gotchas, such as the extra vmware layer doing
>         buffering that ZFS isn''t aware of, etc? 
>         
>         If there are problems, are they likely to be any
>         better/different
>         when using ZFS and Solaris as a Xen domU?
>         
>         Darren
>         
>         _______________________________________________
>         zfs-discuss mailing list
>         zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
>         http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
> 
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
-- 
Erast

On 3/12/07, Erast Benson <erast at gnusolaris.org>
wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 20:53 -0600, James Dickens wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 3/12/07, Darren.Reed at sun.com <Darren.Reed at sun.com>
wrote:
> >         What issues, if any, are likely to surface with using Solaris
> >         inside vmware as a guest os, if I choose to use ZFS?
> >
> > works great in vmware server, IO rates suck.
> >
> >
> >         I''m assuming that ZFS''s ability to maintain
data integrity
> >         will prevail and protect me from any problems that the
> >         addition of vmware might introduce.
> >
> > no problems so far, created two  virtual disks and  concat, its just a
> > toy/test bed for nexenta, only problem I have with nexenta is that the
> > 64bit mode crashes on boot. b55  may be fixed who knows.
>
> its ae driver. Murayama fixed it recently in unstable branch.
> If you don''t want to upgrade to latest, you could change your
vmware
> settings to use e1000g driver instead. Or just upgrade myamanet-ae from
> unstable like:
>
> $ sudo apt-get install myamanet-ae

thanks works great now.

James

>
> >         Are there likely to be any issues with disk drive IO
> >         performance?
> >
> > i''m getting  11MB/s on bonnie++, the disks are backed by sata
drives
> > on a  ultra 20 2.6ghz and has  512MB allocated.
> >
> >
> > not exactly a speed demon it would get about 130MB/s on the raw
> > hardware.
> >
> >
> > James Dickens
> > uadmin.blogspot.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         The concern here is with comments on how ZFS likes to
> >         "own spindles" so that it can properly schedule I/O
and
> >         maximise performance.
> >
> >         Any other gotchas, such as the extra vmware layer doing
> >         buffering that ZFS isn''t aware of, etc?
> >
> >         If there are problems, are they likely to be any
> >         better/different
> >         when using ZFS and Solaris as a Xen domU?
> >
> >         Darren
> >
> >         _______________________________________________
> >         zfs-discuss mailing list
> >         zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> >         http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > zfs-discuss mailing list
> > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
> --
> Erast
>
>
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James Dickens wrote:
>
>
> On 3/12/07, *Darren.Reed at sun.com <mailto:Darren.Reed at sun.com>* 
> <Darren.Reed at sun.com <mailto:Darren.Reed at sun.com>> wrote:
>
>     What issues, if any, are likely to surface with using Solaris
>     inside vmware as a guest os, if I choose to use ZFS? 
>
>
> works great in vmware server, IO rates suck.
>
>     I''m assuming that ZFS''s ability to maintain data
integrity
>     will prevail and protect me from any problems that the
>     addition of vmware might introduce.
>
>
> no problems so far, created two  virtual disks and  concat, its just a 
> toy/test bed for nexenta, only problem I have with nexenta is that the 
> 64bit mode crashes on boot. b55  may be fixed who knows.

There are known issues with 64bit operation under vmware due
to it not fully emulating a 64bit cpu.

>     Are there likely to be any issues with disk drive IO
>     performance?
>
>
> i''m getting  11MB/s on bonnie++, the disks are backed by sata
drives
> on a  ultra 20 2.6ghz and has  512MB allocated.
>
>
> not exactly a speed demon it would get about 130MB/s on the raw hardware.

It''s not the speed I want, it''s the data reliability..
to be a CVS server at home :)

Darren