Hi,
what is the correct way to troubleshoot Networking Performance Problems on a Windows 2008r2 sp1 Server.
The vsphere Server 5.0 Build 623860, the Windows w2k8r2sp1 Driver has the Version 1.2.24.0 (date 22.11.2011).
What is the best way to update?
- extract from a newer VMtools.iso (vsphere5.5) the Driver (vmxnet3 1.3.11.0 - 28.08.2012)and update?
- Using the MS patch vmxnet3 Windows 7 SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2550978
or both?
- shoud I disable this VMNXT 3 “Receive Server Side Scaling” disabled
MS wrote also this:
General
Server Virtualization Guidelines
- Over provisioning and Balloon
Drivers: when over provisioning on a VM Host Server the server can begin to
de-allocate memory to the individual VM’s via the Balloon Memory Drivers. This
cause a drastic decrease in overall system performance, we recommend you either
disable the Balloon Drivers or monitor its utilization. - Synthetic Device Drivers: The
biggest issue we see with Virtualized servers is that the customer is not
running the correct or most updated synthetic drivers for such things as Disk
and Network Interface Cards. Please verify with VMware that all drivers are
correct and up to date - Server Side Scaling:
Receive-side network processing in
multi-core computers is conventionally bottlenecked by the fact that a single
CPU services all the interrupts from a network adapter. Receive-side scaling
solves this problem by enabling a network adapter to distribute its network processing
load across multiple CPUs in multi-core computers. To achieve scalability,
receive-side scaling must be enabled in the operating system, which has a
global impact on all network adapters, as well as for individual network
adapters through the advanced properties of the network adapter.
With the older version of VMware ESX server the synthetic NIC driver
VMNXT 3 has “Receive Server Side Scaling” disabled. We recommend that you
verify that this is enabled on all NICs on all VM regardless of the driver.
If the VMWare servers are using the VMNXT 3 NIC you can check if RSS is enabled
by running the following at the command prompt:
netsh int tcp show global
Thanks!