[ngw] GW in Vm environment

Tue Jul 4 14:11:49 UTC 2017

Thys,

Hi there.  Years ago I wrote an article on GW and VMWare and followed up with presentations at Brainshare. Since that time not much has changed so here is what is out there.  Mind you some things might be old and of no need but mostly its all good.

https://www.novell.com/communities/coolsolutions/consultants-corner-quick-tip-tuning-tips-for-sles11-on-vmware-running-groupwise/

Here is some other info -dates back to 2011 but still mostly relevant:

NSS Tuning:
In a Terminal, type 'nsscon'
Then type the following as shown and for those places where VOL is listed place the NSS volume where GroupWise will exist. Remember NSS volumes are in all capital case.
/NoSalvage=VOL
/NoATime=VOL
/FlushFilesImmediately=VOL
/ImmediatePurgeOfDeletedFiles

Setting Cross Protocol Locks: See TID 7004594 
Edit /etc/opt/novell/ncpserv.conf file
At the very end, type "CROSS_PROTOCOL_LOCKS 1" without quotes
At the very end, type "OPLOCK_SUPPORT_LEVEL 0 without quotes
Save the file
Type "rcndsd restart" and press Enter

###End

Now to your question about Independent and such:

From a ESX/Vsphere or non-virtual server perspective more disk, RAM and Processor may be added.  A recommendation of 4-6GB of RAM and additional disk space for GroupWise data is suggested.  The additional disk space can be VMDK or RAW for GroupWise.  The consideration is whether vMotion or Storage vMotion will be used. (VMWare FT is another consideration.)  The OS will be fine running on VMDK and multiple VMDK's can be on 1 single SAN LUN for the OS.  However, for GroupWise, especially post offices, a single SAN LUN with a single VMDK are recommended.  Just consider the failure of 1 SAN LUN running multiple VMDK's could be a complete outage unless Storage vMotion is used. Disk i/o must be tested to ensure proper performance.  In the Novell Linux world the tool used is the TSATEST. In the Linux world HDPARM is used.

Note: Setup 2 processors when building the VM. Then you can take it down to 1 afterward. This will allow for processor growth in the VM.  Also, in the case of disk in VMWare enviroment, its best to set them as 'persistent'. However, setting 'persistent' does not lend itself to snapshotting or certain backup solutions.

Independent Persistent Disk Information
From VMWAre Performance Tuning and Benchmark Guidelines:
"Independent virtual disks may be either persistent or nonpersistent . With persistent disks, changes are immediately and permanently written to the disk. All changes to a persistent disk remain, even if a snapshot is reverted. With nonpersistent disks, changes to the disk are discarded when you power-off or revert to a snapshot. Independent, persistent disks have the highest performance and are recommended for most workloads. You can configure a virtual machine for independent persistent disks as follows:

With the virtual machine opened but powered off:
1. Choose the VMware Workstation VM menu, then choose Settings > Hardware .
2. In the Device window, select Hard Disk and click the Advanced button in the lower right.
3. In the Mode section, be sure Independent and Persistent are both selected.

The use of the snapshot feature reduces performance. If you do not use the snapshot feature, run your virtual machine with no snapshots. To be sure a virtual machine has no snapshots, from the Workstation menu bar, choose VM > Snapshot > Snapshot Manager . If you see a snapshot you do not want, select it and click the Delete button."

As you can see, using Independent Persistent disk in VMWare increases performance and guarantees data written to disk.  It also means that snapshots of the GroupWise VM are not going to happen. And if you did a snapshot, you would get the GroupWise system as you snapped it, not as originally created.  The decision comes down to the need/usage of snapshot technology. If backup software or other technology requires snapshots, then 'independent and persistent' will not work.

###END

These are from documents I have written for customers as part of designs for GW on SLES and VMWare over the years.  They are well researched and again mostly still hold true today.

My suggestion: Do not do Independent and Persistent.  Likely you will want to snapshot.

Good luck and if you find you need help -let me know.   Also, in the process of going from non-VM to VM -you should just move and upgrade to latest GW 14R2 --at least on the Primary domain.  But that is me and what I would do.

Take Care.

Gregg A. Hinchman, PMP

Salesforce Certified Administrator

Salesforce Certified App Builder

Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator

Gregg at HinchmanConsulting.com 

www.HinchmanConsulting.com

765.653.8099

"Courage is doing what is right." 

>>> 
From: Thys de Beer<Thys at nwpg.gov.za>
To:ngwlist<ngw at ngwlist.com>
Date: 7/4/2017 3:58 AM
Subject: [ngw] GW in Vm environment

HI All,

Ok we have a new vce/dell vxrail setup, vsan the whole thing .. so now my first time for GW and oes/edir for that matter .. when i try to create here are some new questions (not had this before on my small esxi hosts before ..what do i select?for now gw2012, will upgrade to gw2014 once on new solution

A few questions on VM creations... vCentre  vxrails ..... and this an All flash solution,,

For my normal OES/Linux boxes .. i know filr specify some these following questions but for my sles/oes/gw boxes what do i do?

1. Disks should i do "Independent" / "Independent -Persistent" or "Independent - Non-Persistent" .. sorry about this i just want to be sure .. heard horrible things about snaphosts and edir

2. Then also it talks about  "Sharing"?  ... "no=sharing" or "multi-writer" or " unspecified"  this is all new.. remember this is in a vSAN all flash setup for storage..if it matters....

3. "Virtual flash read Cache"? .. do i enable? and how big do i make this? 4Gb 8GB 10 or nothing?..

Kind Regards,

Thys de Beer

NWPG Office of the Premier

GITO: Infrastructure

Deputy Dir: Server Administration
http://www.waytag.com/!ThysdeBeer.tag

018 388 3828

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