Sean Crookston

Knowledge

· Explain DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules

· Identify required hardware components to support DPM

· Identify EVC requirements, baselines and components

· Understand the DRS slot-size algorithm and its impact on migration recommendations

Skills and Abilities

· Properly configure BIOS and management settings to support DPM

· Test DPM to verify proper configuration

· Configure appropriate DPM Threshold to meet business requirements

· Configure EVC using appropriate baseline

· Change the EVC mode on an existing DRS cluster

· Create DRS and DPM alarms

· Configure applicable power management settings for ESX Hosts

· Properly size virtual machines and clusters for optimal DRS efficiency

· Properly apply virtual machine automation levels based upon application requirements

Tools

· vSphere Resource Management Guide

· Product Documentation

· vSphere Client

· DRS Resource Distribution Chart

Notes

Explain DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules

· Specifies that two or more virtual machines are placed on the same host or on different hosts.

· When a conflict in rules occurs, the older rule takes precedence and the new rule is disabled.

· Disabled rules are then ignored.

· Higher precedence is given to preventing violations of anti-affinity rules then violations of affinity rules.

To check on affinity rule violations

1. Select the cluster in the inventory panel of the vSphere Client
2. Select the DRS tab, and click Faults
3. Any rule currently being violated has a corresponding fault on this page. Read the fault to determine why DRS is not able to satisfy the particular rule.

Identify required hardware components to support DPM

· Uses IPMI, iLO or WOL

· If one of those three is not supported, DPM can put the host in standby mode.

· If a host supports multiple protocols, the order of precedence is IPMI, iLO, WOL.

· For WOL make sure WOL is supported for physical NICs

Identify EVC requirements, baselines and components

· Configured at Cluster Level

· Helps to ensure VMotion compatibility for the hosts in a cluster by presenting the same CPU feature set to virtual machines.

· Must use same CPU vendors in cluster

· Verify CPU compatibility here http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003212

· Intel VT or AMD-V

· XD (Execute Disable) or NX (No Execute)

Properly configure BIOS and management settings to support DPM

· See some of the information above. You will want to make sure you properly configure IPMI/iLO as well as WOL if used. WOL will need to be configured and supported for the NIC.

Test DPM to verify proper configuration

· Manually put a host into standby

· Power off VM resources to let DPM take action based on the configured DPM Threshold

Configure appropriate DPM Threshold to meet business requirements

pg 63

· Similar to DRS, the DPM power on/off recommendations are assigned priorities ranging from1 to 5 stars.

· Priority 1 is mandatory while priority five will bring just a slight improvement.

· Configured per cluster under Power Management.

· You can override DPM on a host level, specifying particular hosts you would like to only manually involve or disable involvement entirely.

Configure EVC using appropriate baseline

This VMware KB covers this topic in depth. In it you can find what version of vSphere/ESX support what baselines and what CPUs support what baselines.

Change the EVC mode on an existing DRS cluster

· Cluster Settings—>VMware EVC

Create DRS and DPM alarms

Check out this spreadsheet for a complete list of DRS alarms.

http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/12145-1-35516/vSphere%20Alarms%20v2.xlsx;jsessionid=B696F778AA032D9AE6E36FBA38F1D98D

Specifically related to DPM

Your most common event to monitor for will be a failure to bring a server back online when it is needed again.

Exist Standby Error alarm  DrsExitStandbyModeFailedEvent

Additionally these other events exist

Entering Standby mode (about to power off host)                        DrsEnteringStandbyModeEvent
Successfully entered Standby mode (host power off succeeded)  DrsEnteredStandbyModeEvent
Exiting Standby mode (about to power on the host)                     DrsExitingStandbyModeEvent
Successfully exited Standby mode (power on succeeded)             DrsExitedStandbyModeEvent

Configure applicable power management settings for ESX Hosts

You can set advanced host attributes to manage power settings.

Power.CpuPolicy When you set this attribute to the default value of static, VMkernel does not
directly set CPU power management states and only responds to requests from
the BIOS. When you enable this policy (set to dynamic), VMkernel dynamically
selects appropriate power management states based on current usage. This can
save power without degrading performance. Enabling this option on systems that
do not support power management results in an error message.

Properly size virtual machines and clusters for optimal DRS efficiency

Realize how not properly sizing your virtual machines will affect the efficiency of DRS. If you give a system too much memory that is less memory available to other systems. Additionally remember the overhead for the system will be higher with a higher amount of configured memory. Ultimately this can result in a increased slot size.

One big mistake you can make is simply porting systems over with the same specs they had virtually, when they don’t need it. If you bring enough 4 core systems over you will see performance issues quickly.

Properly apply virtual machine automation levels based upon application requirements

· This will override the cluster settings for that virtual machine.

· Under Cluster Settings—> VMware DRS—>Virtual machine Options

· Fully Automated(default)

· Partially Automated

· Manual

· Disabled

Other Links

http://frankdenneman.nl/2010/03/drs-resource-distribution-chart/

http://www.virtualizationteam.com/uncategorized/vmware-evc-enhanced-vmotion-compatibility-enable-vmware-vmotion-across-cpu-generations.html

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/03/09/vm-powered-on-alarm/

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