Doing some speed tests of IP based storage gave me some good results. First I enabled Jumbo frames on my dedicated IP storage Ethernet card, then I set the MTU on the vSwitch and the VMKnic to 9000 (Scott Lowe has a great write-up on doing this on his website). I then mounted a NFS volume as Datastore and did a copy of a VMDK file which currently resides on a 7200rpm SATA 3 drive to the mounted NFS volume.

I copied the 8GB file in under 2 minutes and my average MbTX/s was around 525Mb (65MBps) - keep in mind, this was a copy from a local SATA disk (low IOPS) and I was able to get around 65MBps — not bad!

The biggest thing to remember, VMDK access needs low latency…not high throughput — this is why NFS has become so popular for VMDK storage.

Posted under Networking, Storage

I got about 20 hours until I take the VCDX Design Exam, and you know what…I’m not that nervous.  I was lot more nervous about the Enterprise Administration Exam.  Perhaps it was the $200 discount I received on this test, or maybe I’m just confident because of everything I’ve heard about it?

From what I hear the only real thing you need for this exam is true experience. You need to know how to design a full virtual infrastructure from front to back. I’ve done so many that perhaps it is just second nature for me.  Still doesn’t hurt to study what you can though!

I’ve been reading the VCDX Design Exam Blueprint as well as some guides on VMware Partner Central;

• VMware Business Continuity Jumpstart
• VMware Plan and Design
• VMware Virtualization Assessment
• VMware Operational Readiness Accelerator Kit

Thanks to VirtualTroll.com for providing the above suggestion. I really believe this exam covers the true details of creating a robust, reliable and redundant virtual infrastructure….anyone with thorough systems architecture and virtualization experience should not have a problem with this exam…but only time will tell for me!

I will be sure to publish my thoughts on the test as soon as I complete it.  Wish me luck!

Posted under Certification