I can tell Brett needs a little more sugar ;) One other question to add to that: are you using AV software and if so, are you using any exclusions? Both in the VM guest and on the host?
Just curiuos. And bored. AV is a common piece to look at with jet technology and may apply here. Al <no disclaimer so far, but let's just let the same ones apply> -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brett Shirley Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 2:41 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in Virtual Se rver 2005 - whitepaper) Oh I missed that nme == Noah. Sorry, Noah, this is your thread... ;) Fill in Your Name. ;) But you are changing your scenario if you're talking about RAID IDE. That's not fair, I can't seperate the issues if you never directly answer questions, and change the basis for the questions at the same time. IDE RAID makes it sound like you have basic hardware issues ... if you can't trust your disk subsystem then that is seperate from VM. Was the BSOD you mention on the host or guest? The thread seriously splintered ... ugh ... You asked about defrag, and I didn't say that a defrag would have little impact on the system, I don't even think I implied it ... I am saying that corruption should not result from running AD or Exchange in a VM with or without SCSI disks ... at least without extenuating circumstances. I'll go further, and say with proper configuration (SCSI disks, turn off write cache on host (difficult to do, don't believe that check box)) extentenuating circumstances should be reduced to the normal set of extenuating circumstances of storing data on pretty much the only moving part of the computer. Someone suggested raw disk mapping of some sort (don't know about this option, but I can imagine what it does pretty easily, it's probably even a good idea) but I'd be careful about defragging that setup, you'd need to test that. I could imagine something like this not surviving a defrag (and causing corruption), but I don't really know ... Basically I'm interested in understanding the extenuating circumstances: Were there power failures/hard reboots, or virtual hard reboots on hosts or guests under which AD / Exch was running in some form? Did you defrag a "raw disk mapped disk" from a VM? Did you experience lockups as Aric suggested? Also What VM software are you using? I am looking forward to the corruption events. Thanks. Thanks, BrettSh Dev <the AS IS and no rights stuff in previous post still applies> On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Brett Shirley wrote: > NME, > > Is that a VM environment? If not what does it have to do with this > thread? Get your own thread. Just kidding. > > Go find the latest jetstress, and pound your disk subsystem, it does > several pieces of validation, checksums data, timely disk response, > and usually can keep a high I/O rate. > > Cheers, > BrettSh > Dev > > <the AS IS and no rights stuff in previous post still applies> > > > On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Your Name wrote: > > > Well, I am now onsite and the host machine seems to have completely > > melted down with a BSOD: config_initialization_failed. I have tried > > various recovery tricks, all to no avail. Reformatting now. > > > > I am curious, though, how I can prevent this in the future. I am > > looking at the IDE RAID card as a potential culprit. > > > > -- nme > > > > > Noah, > > > > > > Just as a point of comparison, I have two Exchange 2003 Servers > > running > > > in VMs as well as some domain controllers. Originally they ran > > > under VMWare GSX for about 9 months and now under VS2005 for about 6 months. > > > The only problems I have ever had (aside from performance) > > > occurred during the move from GSX to VS2005. Originally I had set > > > up the > > VS2005 > > > systems with Virtual SCSI disks, per the white paper. > > > Unfortunately I experienced VM lockups a dozen times during the > > > first week. In the troubleshooting effort I switched to Virtual > > > IDE disks and have not > > had > > > a problem since. > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > Aric > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Noah > > > Eiger > > > Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 8:20 AM > > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in > > Virtual > > > Se rver 2005 - whitepaper) > > > > > > I believe the disks are fixed size. (I will check when I get to > > > the > > > office) > > > I will also look a the logs to see the specific errors. > > > > > > Brett, does that mean that defragging the underlying OS will have > > little > > > impact on the virtual environment? Should I defrag the virtual > > > disks from within the virtual machine? And, does anyone know if > > > the 3rd part > > tools > > > are > > > supported in the virtual environment? > > > > > > -- nme > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Myrick, Todd (NIH/CIT) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 3:34 AM > > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in > > Virtual > > > Se > > > rver 2005 - whitepaper) > > > > > > Man this sucks, I didn't know this White Paper existed. I have > > > been working on documenting AD on VM's for both VS2005 and VMware > > > ESX. > > > > > > You might be experiencing the fragmentation due to using the > > > feature that dynamically expands the volume as it uses disk space. > > > You might try just mapping raw disk space. > > > > > > Todd > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Brett Shirley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 9:38 PM > > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in > > Virtual > > > Server 2005 - whitepaper) > > > > > > Noah, > > > > > > You've piqued my curiousity ... > > > > > > What VM software were you using? > > > > > > Did you "hard" reboot the VMs? > > > > > > You were experiencing actual corruption issues? I guess I'm a > > > little skeptical. > > > > > > Do you remember the nature of the corruptions? Were there AD JET > > level > > > recovery issues? If you still have any of the event logs, I'd be > > > curious to know what JET and AD events you felt indicated > > > corruption, and the cause of the non-booting DC, get this via > > > event log in DSRM (DS > > Restore > > > Mode). > > > > > > I ask, because correctness (i.e. no corruption) should not be > > sacraficed > > > b/c the underlying host has a fragmented FS. It should just be > > slow ... > > > > > > Cheers, > > > Brett Shirley > > > Dev > > > > > > Wooo hoo, I happened upon the actual thingy I'm supposed to put at > > > the bottom of my mail! Here: > > > This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers > > > no > > > rights. > > > > > > > > > On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Noah Eiger wrote: > > > > > > > A little bit of a tangent: I had built an entire virtual network > > with > > > DCs > > > > and an Exchange server. I started getting tons of serious > > > > corruption > > > errors > > > > in the logs and soon DC2 would just not boot. It turns out that > > > > the > > > host > > > > machine was horribly fragmented. > > > > > > > > Is the presence of Exchange a likely culprit? If so, is the > > > > solution > > > to > > > run > > > > Exchange on a physical box patched in via a physical extension > > > > of > > that > > > > virtual network? > > > > > > > > -- nme > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 1:44 PM > > > > To: [email protected] > > > > Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in > > > Virtual > > > > Server 2005 - whitepaper) > > > > > > > > It's not support in any emulated environment. > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris > > > > Lynch > > > > Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 3:14 PM > > > > To: [email protected] > > > > Subject: RE: Exchange in VM (was RE: [ActiveDir] Running DCs in > > > Virtual > > > > Server 2005 - whitepaper) > > > > > > > > > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > > > > > Because VS2005 wasn't designed for intensive I/O, CPU or RAM > > systems. > > > > VS2005 has on average a 35-45% overhead on the host machine, > > because > > > of > > > > the Host OS. Also, all VM's are running in Emulated Mode on the > > CPU. > > > > VMware would be better suited for your need of Exchange running > > within > > > a > > > > VM. > > > > > > > > VS2005 doesn't offer the same performance enhancements VMware > > > > ESX > > > server > > > > can, and GSX server for that matter. Ok, GSX doesn't offer CPU > > > resource > > > > throttling, like VS2005. But, I would rather spend the extra > > > > money > > > for > > > > GSX, and have a more stable virtualization platform than VS/VPC > > 2005. > > > > > > > > Chris > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > > > List archive: > > > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > > > > > > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > > List archive: > > > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > > List archive: > > > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > > > > > > > > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > > List archive: > > > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > > List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir% > > 40mail.activedir.org/ > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > > List archive: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm > List archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
