Need Hyper-v Help - Windows 2008 r2

[AutomationRocks]

Can someone please help me understand why my 6 hyper-v VMs are constantly getting maxxed out on CPU usage but my host PC is like 1 to 10% CPU usage max...

This has, become a big headache for me. They all have enough dynamic RAM, and I assigned all 24 virtual cores to all 6 VMs.

Running on a Dell Poweredge r900 server
Running bots on it

 

[1etherer]

what CPU do you have and how much RAM?

Have you tried rebooting the vm?

Have you tried creating another vm to test?

 

[AutomationRocks]

what CPU do you have and how much RAM?

Have you tried rebooting the vm?

Have you tried creating another vm to test?

I have (4) Intel 6 core Xeon processors so a total of 24 CPUs and 128 GB of DDR2 ram. I have tried rebooting the VMs multiple times... when they get overloaded like this, it is actually impossible to go through the regular shutdown procedure and i have to kill power to or "Turn Off" the VMs. Restarting the server has been done several times as well but i get the same result each time I should note that all of these VMs were created recently, all using a windows 7 ultimate OS. the host is running windows server 2008 r2. I was not having this problem when bots were running on only 2 VMs, but now that I have 6 it has become a bottleneck. What I do not understand too well is this "virtual processors" setting. i set them to 24 for EACH VM by modifying the XML files. My hope is that each VM would have full usage of my 24 intel cores after this change...but obviously this is not the case. Please let me know if you have more questions. I would really appreciate any help i can get on here. Should i go past the number of cores i have on my physical hardware for the processor # on each VM?

 

[carnageX]

i set them to 24 for EACH VM by modifying the XML files. My hope is that each VM would have full usage of my 24 intel cores after this change...but obviously this is not the case. Please let me know if you have more questions. I would really appreciate any help i can get on here. Should i go past the number of cores i have on my physical hardware for the processor # on each VM?

Give each VM it's own set of virtual CPU's to use from your physical CPU cores.

Giving all VM's access to all cores means they will more often than not just fight for resources.

Don't go past the # of physical cores you have. You'll need to limit the core count per VM to physical cores / VM count.

 

[AutomationRocks]

Give each VM it's own set of virtual CPU's to use from your physical CPU cores.

Giving all VM's access to all cores means they will more often than not just fight for resources.

Don't go past the # of physical cores you have. You'll need to limit the core count per VM to physical cores / VM count.

Thanks, I will give that a shot. I think it is possible that virtual machines really are not the right solution for what I am trying to do. I tried to make SQL instances on my server as well, but to no avail. Instead of running everything in the native OS, I would like to simply have separate instances or "desktops" running. Maybe i am adding too much CPU usage by running all these virtual machines.

 

[carnageX]

Thanks, I will give that a shot. I think it is possible that virtual machines really are not the right solution for what I am trying to do. I tried to make SQL instances on my server as well, but to no avail. Instead of running everything in the native OS, I would like to simply have separate instances or "desktops" running. Maybe i am adding too much CPU usage by running all these virtual machines.

That is actually the proper mindset to have (dedicated "box" for each service).

 

[AutomationRocks]

So here is where i got the idea of over-assigning the processor:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768529(v=bts.10).aspx

I noticed people are stating that running a VM causes ~10-15% CPU losses due to the extra operating systems running, so i have also been exploring SQL instances. I have created both a default and named instance, and managed to start those instances. But i cannot for the life of me figure out how to access them! do you have any idea how to get into the "desktop" of an SQL instance?

 

[carnageX]

Not sure what you mean by ' go to the desktop of a SQL instance' ? You have a copy of Windows installed in each VM, or just the application in a VM?

Usually you need a management tool such as SQL Server Management Studio to connect to it and manage it from there.

 

[AutomationRocks]

Well i was exploring the opportunity of ditching hyper-v completely and using SQL Instances instead. I dont know that it needs to be an SQL instance either. I wonder if there is another, simpler way to make an instance. I wonder if i could just add logins to the Host server windows, and just have both logged in users running simultaneously??? My bots launcher application only runs on windows, and runs best on windows 7.