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How to use ESXplot to read your ESXTop reports

Brian — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:38:59 +0000

By now everyone should know that esxtop is a great tool that you can use to find out what might be causing performance issues on your ESX host. I don’t plan on writing a post on how to use esxtop. You can refer to Duncan’s ESXtop post for details on thresholds or to VMwares esxtop bible for good base information.

This post is more of a starting point on what ESXplot is and how to install and use. By now most of you should know that ESXplot was born out of the mind of Geoff White of VMware. Geoff is a coworker of Scott Drummonds the well known ESX performance expert. Esxplot is a GUI application that lets you explore the data collected by esxtop in batch mode. The program takes a single command line argument which is the esxtop batch mode output file.

Why would you want to use esxplot? Well in the past your options to examine these files were to use Excel or Perfmon. Both options were very slow, sometimes taking hours to import the file before viewing. With esxplot your dump file will open within seconds usually. For more details you can read Scott’s post on version 1.0.

If you are using Windows to view your files you have 2 options. You can use the Windows binary file or run the python script. If you wish to run the python script you will need the following applications installed.
Python 2.6 or higher but not Python 3.x – Download
wxPython – Download
NumPy is also needed – Download

Once installed the application is very easy to use. First thing to do in capture some data from esxtop in batch mode using the command below. Then copy the file over to your workstation that you will run esxplot on. Open the app and the File ->Import->Dataset option from the menu to view your file. Then from the lower left section that will list your Hosts name open the tree to view all the captured values.

esxtop -b -d 2 -n 100> esxtopcapturefile.csv

You can download esxplot from here.

VMware vSphere Manage for Performance class coming soon

Brian — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:48:31 +0000

It has been suggested by many and is going to be available to the public very soon. Thanks to the hard work and persistence of Scott Drummonds the class is going through the Train the Trainer process currently. Once the trainers are up to speed the class will become available to the general public.

You can see the Course description, schedule and datasheet here.

Course Description: This hands-on training course explores the management of performance in a VMware vSphere™ environment. It provides the knowledge and skills necessary to make fundamental design decisions that enhance performance and to meet performance goals in an already-deployed vSphere installation. The course is based on VMware® ESX™ 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter™ Server 4.0.

Module Outline:
Module 1: Course Introduction
Module 2: Performance in a Virtualized Environment
•  Discuss the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology
•  Discuss software and hardware virtualization techniques and their impact on performance
•  Monitor performance using vCenter Server performance charts and the ESX/ESXi resxtop command
Module 3: CPU Performance
•  Discuss the CPU scheduler and other features that have an impact on CPU performance•  Monitor key CPU performance metrics
•  Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems
Module 4: Memory Performance
•  Discuss memory reclamation techniques and memory overcommitment
•  Monitor key memory performance metrics
•  Troubleshoot common memory performance problems
Module 5: Guidelines for DRS and Resource Controls•  Discuss performance guidelines for DRS clusters, resource pools, and resource allocation settings
Module 6: Network Performance
•  Discuss the performance features of modern network adapters
•  Monitor key network performance metrics•  Troubleshoot common network performance problems
Module 7: Storage Performance
•  Discuss how storage protocols, VMware vStorage VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance
•  Monitor key storage performance metrics
•  Troubleshoot common storage performance problems
Module 8: Virtual Machine Performance•  Discuss guidelines for configuring a virtual machine for optimal performance
Module 9: Application Performance
•  Discuss tools and guidelines for application performance

VMware ESX 3.5 general support will end in 90 days

Brian — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:25:42 +0000

I was surprised to see this today that general support for ESX 3.5 will end in late May. What this means is ESX 3.5 asnd ESXi 3.5 will be moved into extended support mode. I have explained the different support modes below. This should spur some people into getting those planned upgrades moving forward. This will also affect Virtual Center 2.5 so you should take a serious look at this and see if you have any risk. Get the full story directly from VMware here.

Here are the differences in the support modes.
General support mode: This means that the product is actively being tested and certified with new hardware from vendors and that it will support new Operating systems.

Extended support mode: This is kind of a keep the lights on mode. VMware will not be actively testing and certifying any new hardware for these releases. There will not be any new Operating Systems added to the compatibility unless there is great enough customer demand. And lastly they will only be issuing security patches and critical bug fixes. There will be no other development done.