For more information on Virtualization Manager, visit: http://www.solarwinds.com/virtualization-manager.aspx Watch this webcast: http://www.solarwinds.com/resources/webcasts/performance-management-and-capacity-planning-in-vmware%C2%AE-and-hyper-v%C2%AE-environments.html Watch this webinar with Scott Lowe, Founder and Managing Consultant at The 1610 Group, and SolarWinds virtualization expert Brian Radovich. You'll learn about “Performance Management and Capacity Planning in VMware® and Hyper-V® environments”. Implementing a management solution that is designed specifically for VMware and Hyper-V environments is critical to ensure that you are monitoring the metrics and issues unique to virtual environments. In this presentation, we will discuss: • How virtualization affects each of the 4 traditional hardware resource areas • The top areas you should be looking at when choosing a management solution for your virtual environment • The reasons why you need to use management solutions that are designed specifically for virtualization.

1. © 2012 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2. About the Speakers
Scott Lowe
• Founder and Managing Consultant, The 1610 Group
• 18 years experience in the IT industry
• Prolific author of thousands of articles and 3 books
• Top virtualization blogger and vExpert
Follow me on Twitter @otherscottlowe
Brian Radovich
• SolarWinds, Senior Manager of Product Management
• 12 years of experience in IT industry
• Expert in Storage and Virtualization
- Slide 2 -

3. Agenda
 Virtual environments unique challenges
 How virtualization affects each of the 4 traditional hardware
resource areas
 Why you need a virtual management solution for a virtual
environment
 Best Practices
» Performance Management
» Capacity Planning & Management
» Managing Storage I/O bottlenecks
 Identify the 5 key areas a virtualization management solution
should cover
 Learn how SolarWinds can provide you the tools you need to
properly manage your virtual environment
- Slide 3 -

4. Virtualization is just another layer
 Regardless of the
hypervisor, Virtualization is
just another layer in the
computing stack
 OS is encapsulated and
becomes a virtual guest
on a physical host server
 A virtual machine becomes
a set of files that reside on
a host datastore
 Virtualization layer is
designed to be invisible
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5. Virtualization – a game of smoke & mirrors
 VMkernel handles access
to physical resources
 VMM emulates hardware
and maps virtual to
physical hardware
 Guest OSs are not
designed to share
hardware
 Hypervisor tricks VMs
into thinking they have
exclusive hardware access
- Slide 5 -

6. How resources differ in virtualization
CPU Resources
 VMs only see vCPUs assigned
regardless of physical host CPUs
 Hypervisor utilizes CPU scheduler
for to allocate physical CPU time
 Proportional share-based scheduling
algorithm prioritizes requests
 Scheduling can cause delays as
hypervisor searches for available CPU
 Delays grow as hypervisor
struggles to keep up
- Slide 6 -

7. How resources differ in virtualization
Memory Resources
 Hypervisor maps virtual memory
(vRAM) to the physical memory
 Possible to overcommit physical RAM
to VMs (thin-provisioning)
 Page sharing & ballooning used
conserve physical RAM
 Swap file when physical RAM
exhausted
 Swapping to disk significantly
impacts performance
 Memory statistics can be very
confusing - Slide 7 -

8. How resources differ in virtualization
Disk Resources
 Virtual disks exist as a single file on a
datastore
 Virtual storage controllers share the
physical storage controller
 VMs are unaware of underlying
storage
 Disk I/O requests queued for each
VM – can lead to a delay on busy hosts
 Disk is the slowest resource –
excessive disk I/O can severely impact
performance
- Slide 8 -

9. How resources differ in virtualization
Network Resources
 Host runs virtual network similar to a
physical network
 Virtual NICs, switches & firewalls connect to
physical network through physical uplinks
 Virtual network traffic is not always
visible on physical network
 Virtual network components exist in host’s
memory
 Physical network tools cannot see all
VM traffic
- Slide 9 -

10. Virtual environments have unique challenges
 VMs cannot be managed like physical
servers
» Can’t see virtualization layer using tools that monitor
guest OS layer
» Guest OS stats don’t reflect actual host stats, causing
management and monitoring challenges
» Must shift monitoring & management to
virtualization layer using virtualization-aware tools
 Must focus on managing virtual environment as
a whole
 Relationships between resources, VMs
and hosts can be difficult to understand
 Virtual environments are dynamic
 Small things can have big ripple effects
 Proper management tool ensures you can
make informed decisions
- Slide 10 -

11. Capacity Planning
 Maintaining both sufficient capacity and planning for
future growth is a non-stop job in a virtual environment
 With shared resources, capacity planning can be tricky
 Need to think of environment as a whole to ensure you
add the right type and amount of resources where needed
SolarWinds can help you:
 Understand when you will run out of resources and automatically notify
you if you have a pending resource shortage
 Help you with your host failover capacity planning to ensure that you
always have enough spare capacity to handle host failures
 Enable you to do advanced what-if analysis so you can create models of
scenarios that will impact your resource availability
- Slide 11 -

12. Performance Management
 Nothing can kill a virtual environment faster than not having
adequate performance for all the VMs running in it
 VMs are all fighting for limited host resources, need to
ensure that they are getting the resources they need
 If you don’t stay on top of performance in a virtual
environment you’re asking for trouble
SolarWinds can help you:
 Identify problem areas through dashboards, automated alerts and
reports targeting the key areas that can impact performance
 Proactively monitor virtualization-specific performance problems
 Troubleshoot application and workload issues in context of discovered
virtual dependencies
- Slide 12 -

13. Storage I/O Bottlenecks
 Storage I/O bottleneck is one of the biggest threats to
performance in a virtual environment
 Also one of the more challenging issues to identify and
resolve
 Bottlenecks can happen as the result of many things such
as configuration settings, improper architecture designs and
poorly managed resources
SolarWinds can help you:
 Get detailed visibility into your storage subsystem so you can identify
bottlenecks and deal with them
 See detailed storage metrics such as latency, throughput and IOPs so you
can see how your storage is performing and exactly what areas need to
be addressed
 Deeply analyze storage I/O problems
- Slide 13 -

14. 5 important areas for virtualization mgmt
The 5 key areas that you should ensure that your
virtualization management solution addresses are:
- Slide 14 -

15. SolarWinds® Virtualization Manager
- Slide 15 -

16. Summary
 Virtual environments have unique challenges & issues that require
the proper tools
 If you are going to invest in virtualization, you should invest in the proper
management tools as well
 Virtualization has enormous benefits and is a key enabler of cloud
computing and disaster recovery
 If not managed properly there is potential for creating problems
that can easily erase all the benefits
 SolarWinds Virtualization Manager can help you properly manage
your virtual environment by covering the 5 key areas that can make
or break your virtual deployment
 Virtualization Manager manages both VMware® and Microsoft®
Hyper-V® environments in a single pane of glass.
- Slide 16 -

17. © 2012 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.