Swims like a mainframe.

I love the duck test. If a bird looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck.

HP's new 8-way DL785 G5 looks like a mainframe wannabe.

Replace the mainframe OS ($$$$) and replace it with ESX ($$). Then replace mainframe workloads with virtual machines - basically VM workloads - both are consumers of disk, memory, cpu, network.

Mainframes try to run continuously at over 70% busy. A 90% figure is more typical, and modern mainframes could see sustained periods of 100% CPU utilization. You're going to need a capacity tool.

Typically, a mainframe is repaired without being shut down. Also, memory, storage and processor modules of chips could be added or hot swapped without being shut down. It is not unusual for a mainframe to be continuously switched on for 6 months at a stretch.

So maybe if it runs CPU like a mainframe, and has uptime like a mainframe, is it a mainframe??

Check out the numbers:

8 sockets (up to 32 cores)
64 DIMM slots, (Up to 256 GB of RAM - 4 GB max per slot)
11 PCI-e expansion slots (3 x16 slots, 3 x8 slots and 5 x4 slots)
2.3 terabytes of internal storage

When the 8 GB DIMMs ship - this could be 512 GB of RAM.

HP is aiming these behemoths are two roles:

1) Very Large Database Systems (VLDBS)

Very large database servers with massive data buffer caches.

2) Very Large Virtualization System (VLVS)

These are going to push capacity and virtual machine counts to new historic levels.

A huge issue with these massive systems into production is finding better/smarter management tools that can help you identify potential capacity bottlenecks and gather capacity and performance data. Oh and don't forget about VM chargeback.

The key to these beasts looks like the Opteron chipset - no shared memory bus - each processor has its own memory and I/O bus. Sun's Sun Fire X4600's also running's eight sockets and Opteron's. I can't imagine Intel is going to stand for that - new word of the week - octal core.

The mainframe folks are seeing a return to shared processing of the very large systems, so it may not be a mainframe per se, but this system sure quacks and swims like one. Except it csts like a server.

Want awesome performance in VMWARE ESX?

Of course! we all do! So let's talk about how to get there. To achieve stellar VMware ESX performance you have to remove ALL bottlenecks in your environment. Remember your performance will only be as fast as the slowest "link" in your performance equation.

Here is the list to start removing performance bottlenecks:

1. Make sure that all of your hosts have sufficient RAM and do not over commit on memory utilization. If your workloads force the host to start swapping memory to disk, kiss your performance goodbye. There is a huge difference in speed between accessing memory internally and doing physical i/o to disk!

2. Make sure your CPU is not over utilized. Checks the processor ready queue to see how long threads are waiting to run. Extended period of time indicates a problem. Also check the overall processor utilization over a week or a month. Keep the overall utilization under 80%

3. As you scale up your ESX environment you will run into disk i/o bottlenecks. Make sure that you places your most mission critical VMs on the fastest storage available to you

4. Understand the timing of your workloads to identify when or if constraints develop in memory utilization, cpu, and disk i/o. Spread out the workloads by changing when they run i.e timing or move workloads to different hosts to mix it up.