Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Top tips for managing Hyper-V capacity


My top tips for managing Hyper-V capacity.
 
The key to success is getting the right data. 
 
WMI access directly to the host provides a view on physical and partition usage but crucially misses the wider cluster view and lacks application/process information.


SCOM/SCVMM potentially provides a wider view of performance; however the default metrics are still light from a performance and capacity viewpoint.

Hyper-V can capture from Windows and Linux information, so you’ll need to understand the different types of metrics coming back and what they mean on different operating systems.  In essence, capturing across the enterprise is key.

Key to monitoring Hyper-V (and any virtualization platform) is understanding the different levels e.g. Cluster, Host, Guest etc

In Hyper-V the cluster is less clear than vmware with less data available and different ways of implementing it.  You can have individual application clusters for highly resilient systems, so you have one or more physical boxes created as a Windows cluster and then you enable Hyper-V or you may have a particular set of servers ring fenced for key applications or services. 
 
You could also group business units, departments, locations etc into notional “cluster containers” that your Hyper-V admins may have little interest in, but may provide a valuable source of information for capacity management. 
 
Ultimately, you need to be able to answer questions such as are my hosts balanced? how much capacity do I have left in the cluster? etc. 

Understanding how the host is performing and how much capacity is available, look at how the physical counters are being used and remember to use the Hyper-V aware counters as well.

For the guests, understanding their resource consumption when compared to the overall host/cluster is important and being able to monitor at the process level from within the guest should assist in application capacity planning and ensuring adequate performance.
 
Feel free to ask me questions and come along to my webinar Performance and Capacity Management for Hyper-V 2012 June 20 http://www.metron-athene.com/services/training/webinars/index.html
 
Rob Ford
Principal Consultant

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