Control and Data memory

[ianc1990]

Hi Guys,

New to the forum so HELLO ALL!

We have a 7400 at our primary site with 120+ VMS (VMware ESX 5.5) and a few DBs backed onto it. AO with an SSD tier and the rest is SAS disk.

We have recently experienced a few issues, primarily with he ESX host/VM performance and VMware fails things like DRS because it doesn't map the VMDK properly, which points towards a storage issue.

My 'Control Memory' and 'Data Memory' seem very high.

Control memory is at 80% and data memory is 95% but this is a quiet day - not managed to check it when under load yet.

In terms of the disk, I/O seems normal for the speed the disks are rated at, if not a little low (thanks to AO/the SSDs!).

Is this something we should be worried about and is there any way to identify if this could be our issue?

Thanks for your help!
Ian

[Cleanur]

It's normal the 3PAR uses a dynamic caching mechanism, but it will try to keep both as fully populated as possible at all times. Nothing to worry about.

[ianc1990]

Thanks for your reply!

We have an issue where when we turn AV on, everything dies. I have just tested turning AV back on (at global level) and whilst the CPU percentage goes up ever so slightly, the Interrupts/s goes from under 5,000 to over 50,000 - same with the Switches/s. From under 5,000, to over 40,000.

Cache performance is also affected, from under 1000 counts/s, to over 10,000 with AV on.

Anyone got any experience with this and can perhaps recommend anything?

[spencer.ryan]

No idea about the context switches, but un-used RAM is wasted RAM, especially when it is a cache. Pretty much every modern OS tries to keep RAM as full as possible. This isn't an issue.

[Cleanur]

What do you mean by AV, host based antivirus ?

[Josh26]

Thanks for your reply!

We have an issue where when we turn AV on, everything dies.

I just had nearly an identical situation yesterday. Are you by chance using McAfee MOVE?

[ianc1990]

Indeed - McAfee MOVE it was
Avoid it at all costs IMO.

I have now installed TrendMicro Deep security 9.0. Not only have the issues disappeared, but WHAT A DIFFERENCE to McAfee in terms of installation and also management. Documentation is also a pleasure to follow and read - so well written.

An amazing product and I cannot recommend it enough. (just make sure you go for Patch2 as it includes VMware 5.5 support amongst other things)

Drop me a message if you need any help with it

Ian