Unsolved pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?
-
Think of it like this, separation of the hypervisor and VM's means a VM should never effect the host in terms of a VM crash. It's why separation is critical between the two, among the other issues.
This is purely at the VM level that needs to be targeted first. Then the Host must have it's own PF settings configured for the host. In case it crashes.
-
OK I'm totally new to dynamic RAM assignment.
@Mike-Davis what do you gain by using Dymanic RAM assignment in this case, unless you're overallocating on the server? You mention that your RDS server can spike to 80 GB of RAM, do you find that the loss in performance when running less than that is worth using dymanic RAM (i.e. when you have to much RAM that's not in use on a VM, you can have performance issues on that VM).
This is an educational question for me.
-
@Dashrender said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
OK I'm totally new to dynamic RAM assignment.
@Mike-Davis what do you gain by using Dymanic RAM assignment in this case, unless you're overallocating on the server? You mention that your RDS server can spike to 80 GB of RAM, do you find that the loss in performance when running less than that is worth using dymanic RAM (i.e. when you have to much RAM that's not in use on a VM, you can have performance issues on that VM).
This is an educational question for me.
The point of the Dynamic RAM allocation is because he'll have peaks and valleys of users using the RDS system. Keeping the memory as static on any host is almost wasteful as other hosts could likely use the memory as well when they have to process reports or whatever else.
-
@Dashrender said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
OK I'm totally new to dynamic RAM assignment.
@Mike-Davis what do you gain by using Dymanic RAM assignment in this case, unless you're overallocating on the server? You mention that your RDS server can spike to 80 GB of RAM, do you find that the loss in performance when running less than that is worth using dymanic RAM (i.e. when you have to much RAM that's not in use on a VM, you can have performance issues on that VM).
This is an educational question for me.
@Dashrender That's a good question. Basically I have two RDS servers. A primary and then one that can be put in to service by just setting the IP address. The host doesn't have enough RAM for me to allocate them both the most RAM they would ever use, but by assigning dynamic RAM to them both, they can both be online and I can keep them patched up to date, etc. It was the fastest way I could think of to be able to put the second RDS server in to service should the primary one have an issue.
I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any other ideas.
-
Do you already have a connection broker configured for these hosts?
-
And the reason I ask about the connection broker, is you could just have both RDS servers going at the same time, and have the connection broker send the bulk of the connection request to your primary rds and if it hits a threshold, send the new incoming to the backup RDS server.
Since both are configured for dynamic ram allocation, this would be a better approach overall. Also it means you could take down an RDS server, and the connection broker would send all of the connection request to the backup RDS server.
-
Why do you have two RDS servers on the same VM host? If it's because you only have one VM host and you want to be able to do patches while the system is up and running, I understand that.
In this case where you are bouncing live users from one VM to the other, I understand the use of Dynamic RAM.
I do like Dustin's suggestion on the broker though - but I'm not familiar enough with them to know if they can do what you want or not.
-
@DustinB3403 No - There are a couple reasons. The main reason is that the two servers don't get patched at the same time and the app they are running doesn't get updated at the same time. This is so that if an update breaks the server, I can just put the other one in service. I suppose I could set up a connection broker and have all the request go to one or the other, but then that's another server to troubleshoot if something isn't working.
-
The bottom line is that it's the software vendors patches and updates that are my biggest concern. Having a second server that is a version behind and ready to go is cheap protection against that.
-
@Mike-Davis said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
The bottom line is that it's the software vendors patches and updates that are my biggest concern. Having a second server that is a version behind and ready to go is cheap protection against that.
As @scottalanmiller would say the cheaper approach might be to find a new vendor / solution..
-
So if these systems are on different patch cycles, and a patch breaks your primary RDS hosted application. I assume you use the backup as a fall in, and then perform a restore to the primary, or uninstall the patch to address the issue.
My question is there a way you can setup snap shotting at patch night, and if the patch breaks the system then you just restore the snap?
-
@DustinB3403 Yes we can (and do) snap and we can restore snaps. The last time the server got hosed, we did just that. I think it 20 minutes total and the owner was impressed, but then the vendor needed to figure out how to move forward. That's when we built a second server for him to test his new version on.
-
Seems like the fix should be on the Zabbix side.
-
@Mike-Davis said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
Is there a best practice as it relates to the page file setting on a Windows Server with dynamic RAM? I have it set to system managed, and it's working ok, except the Zabbix reports "Lack of free swap space on <servername>" I could just turn that trigger off for the servers with dynamic RAM, but I wondered what others were doing.
I had to disable that trigger for me as well.
-
@dafyre Only on servers with dynamic RAM? Those are the only servers I'm having that issue with, and setting the page file size manually didn't fix it they way I thought it would.
-
@Mike-Davis said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
@dafyre Only on servers with dynamic RAM? Those are the only servers I'm having that issue with, and setting the page file size manually didn't fix it they way I thought it would.
I would not do that. This is a Zabbix setting problem not a Windows one.
-
@Mike-Davis said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
@dafyre Only on servers with dynamic RAM? Those are the only servers I'm having that issue with, and setting the page file size manually didn't fix it they way I thought it would.
If you didn't also change the PF size, I'm not surprised that it didn't fix the Zabbix issue.
-
@Dashrender said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
@Mike-Davis said in pagefile size on Windows Server with dynamic RAM?:
@dafyre Only on servers with dynamic RAM? Those are the only servers I'm having that issue with, and setting the page file size manually didn't fix it they way I thought it would.
If you didn't also change the PF size, I'm not surprised that it didn't fix the Zabbix issue.
No, it have issues with all of my servers with that trigger. It's definitely a zabbix issue, as far as I'm concerned.
I haven't had time to research it.
