So Say SMEs and CoStop Performance Counter

This week on So Say SMEs, Kong and I discuss what the costop or %costop performance counter means and how you can use it to resolve performance issues on your vSphere / ESXi environment.  You can view costop in esxtop on the main CPU screen that comes up by default.

Intro to CPU Ready Time in ESXTOP

This week in our So Say SMEs episode we have a quick discussion about the CPU Ready time performance counter in esxtop.  This has been covered by some other great blogs and esxtop performance guides.  Here we have a quick intro conversation and also talk about the Super Bowl - because we have to talk about the Super Bowl.

So Say SMEs Returns for Third Season

Kong and I have returned for a third season of So Say SMEs.  We have a few changes for season 3, but we will continue to talk cloud and virtualization with some geek and sports talk too.  In terms of changes - Kong has moved over to SolarWinds and we going to focus a bit more on performance when we get the chance.

 My voice is still not 100% in this video, but that is a story for another day!

Flash Cache at Chuy's

As Kong continues his job search we found a place that was hiring for this week's episode of  So Say SMEs. Chuy's is of course the perfect place to discuss the new vSphere Flash Read Cache feature aka vFRC.



I decided to wear a vintage work shirt this week - from a company that no longer exists.  Anybody remember Altiris?

Let The TPC-VMS Benchmark Wars Begin

In the benchmark world, the Transaction Processing Performance Council (aka TPC) has long been the owners of the premier performance benchmark.  I'm referring to the TPC-C database performance benchmark where millions have been spent to prove performance excellence.

A new benchmark from TPC that is designed to focus on the performance of virtualized databases was created called TPC-VMS.  And very recently the first TPC-VMS result was published by HP using vSphere 5.5.

This means that the HP and VMware vSphere solution has the "Leadership" position for the TPC-VMS benchmark - as of right now.

What happens next will be interesting.

The first published result establishes the target for everybody else.  Will there be a bunch of publications over the coming months?  Each a little bit better.  Or will it take some time for anybody to be able to surpass this initial publication?

It is also of course possible that nobody else will ever publish a TPC-VMS result.  Sometimes new benchmarks just never get established.  If this is the case, then vSphere would hold the number one position forever.  But this isn't what we want.

Ideally the healthy competition of a benchmark fosters innovation, software and hardware improve, costs come down, and customers benefit.

VMworld and Fantasy Football 2013

Bringing together VMworld and Fantasy football for 2013.  I also answer some of our critics with a bold statement.  We are not only about enterprise solutions and football.

ESXTOP in The Hands On Labs At VMworld 2013

I'm one of the captains for the performance module of the Hands on Labs at VMworld this year.  This means that I got to really geek out and create a new module that focuses on using esxtop.  For really in depth performance analysis on ESXi - esxtop is my favorite.  Come by the Hands On Labs in Moscone South this week take SDC-1304 Optimizing for Performance.  All of the modules are great - but my new esxtop module is number six.  Skip straight to it by using the table of contents once the lab has started.

The labs are currently only available onsite at VMworld, but will be made available through the public Hands on Labs portal at some point after the conference ends.  So if you couldn't make it to VMworld this year - don't despair, you will be able to get to the new labs in the future.