Virtualization Specifications

Objective

The virtualization of the maestro* application is supported. However, like the network infrastructure, the virtualization infrastructure itself is not supported by Maestro Technologies.

The CPU/RAM and hard drive specifications remain the same whether your server is virtualized or not. Network and disk (I/O) latencies are two factors limiting maestro* performance; care should be taken to not accentuate these latencies in virtual environments.

The maestro* application has been tested with VMWare ESX: The VMWare 3D acceleration must be turned off, as it is incompatible with WPF.

 

Summary

 

1.0 Virtualization Considerations

A virtualized server should meet the same specifications (memory, disk, etc.) as a physical SQL server. Refer to the maestro* 3.05 MS SQL technical specifications for more information.

Any virtualized server with the same performance and features as a server meeting the specifications in this document will be able to run maestro*, both the client application and an RDP/Citrix server.

1.1 Virtual Server

Obtain a dedicated virtual server for maestro*, including the disk space where the database will be stored.

  • 2vCPU, with a guaranteed 3 GHz locked availability, AUTO or NON HT affinity.
  • VM8 minimum.

1.2 Drive

250 GB capacity drive at minimum. This drive must be formatted when installed/mounted at its definitive size; the drive size should not be changed thereafter. Thin provisioning can be used but best performance is obtained using full provisioning.

  • The drive must be in vmWare PARAVIRTUAL mode for best performance .
  • Resources must be set to HIGH.
  • Minimum 1000 IOPS available

NOTE: A distinct drive of network folder is recommended for “dump” backups.

1.3 Network Card

The VMware network card must be Vmxnet 3.

1.4 VM

Journaling should be disabled on the VM.

 

2.0 Observations and Recommandations for the Virtual Machine

2.1 Servers

  • There should be no pending updates on the servers.
  • The server power profile should be set to Performance; hibernation features should be deactivated using the command POWERCFG –H OFF .
  • Network monitoring tools such as WinPcap should not be installed on the server.
  • The VMWare network card must be Vmxnet 3, remove the INTEL E1000 card.

2.2 Protocols, services, and options to disable

  • Unused network protocols should be removed: QoS, Link LayerMapper, IPv6, WINS and LMHOST can all be removed or deactivated.
  • « Distributed Link Tracking » and « Superfetch » can be deactivated.
  • The Windows disk indexation service should be disabled.
  • Journaling should be disabled on the VM.

2.3 Other Validations

  • Network IP, DNS, gateway and subnet need to be set accordingly to your network.
  • The swap file should be set to automatic.
  • There should be no scheduled disk defragmentation.
  • There should be no mounted .ISO, unless they are in use.

 

3.0 Observations and Recommandations for the Host Machine

3.1 Servers

  • The server power profile should be set to Performance.

3.2 Snapshots

  • Monitor the VM snapshots: unused or old snapshots should be deleted.

3.3 VMware

  • It may be necessary to deploy monitoring tools to detect excessive resource usage in the VMware farm, either for memory, IOPS or CPU.

3.4 Datastore

  • The DATASTORE must be dedicated to VMware, meaning they should not be used for other purposes such as backup storage or file server. A consolidation may be necessary as old deleted VMs are sometimes still present in the DATASTORE.
  • Do not mount unneeded DATASTORES.

3.5 Other Validations

  • If the host has Hyper Threading CPUs, it is essential to allocate physical cores for the maestro* VM servers.
  • Network IP, DNS, gateway and subnet need to be set accordingly to your network.

 

See Also

 

Last modification: September 19, 2024