[Xen-users] Xen and I/O Intensive Loads

["Nick Couchman" <Nick.Couchman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, folks,

I'm attempting to run an e-mail server on Xen.  The e-mail system is Novell GroupWise, and it serves about 250 users.  The disk volume for the e-mail is on my SAN, and I've attached the FC LUN to my Xen host, then used the "phy:/dev..." method to forward the disk through to the domU.  I'm running into an issue with high I/O wait on the box (~250%) and large load averages (20-40 for the 1/5/15 minute average).  I was wondering if anyone has ideas on tuning the domU to handle this - is there a better way to forward the disk device through, should I try using an iSCSI software initiator in the domU, or is it just a bad idea to put an I/O load like this in a domU?  Unfortunately mapping the entire F/C card through to the domU isn't really an option - the FC card accesses other SAN volumes for the Xen host, so it needs to be present in dom0.

I'm running Xen 3.2.0 on SLES 10 SP2, on a Dell PowerEdge R610 server.  The FC HBA is a QLE2462, dual-channel 4Gb FC card.  Any help, hints, etc., are greatly appreciated!

-Nick

---

<br><hr>
This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient. If this email is not intended for you, or you are not responsible for the delivery of this message to the intended recipient, please note that this message may contain SEAKR Engineering (SEAKR) Privileged/Proprietary Information. In such a case, you are strictly prohibited from downloading, photocopying, distributing or otherwise using this message, its contents or attachments in any way. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the message from your mailbox. Information contained in this message that does not relate to the business of SEAKR is neither endorsed by nor attributable to SEAKR.

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users