Wanted tips to improve Terminal Server Performance

[Happyman]

Am Running a windows Server 2012 R2 Host - 96GB Ram - Duel Xeon E5 - 2630 with 16 cores and 32 Logical processors

- Server 2012 R2 Guest - allocated 32GB Ram and 4 CPUs
- Server 2008 R2 Guest (terminal Server) - currently allocated 32GB ram and 8 CPU's

Site has 25 users and mainly runs two Database apps (one SQL based and one 4DD based) - data is housed and shared from 2012 Guest

Issue is sluggishness of mainly 4DD Database app, but TS server generally, when under user load.

I Would really appreciate some guidance or troubleshooting tips.


I am planning to increase the CPU's allocated to the Terminal server and apply the LMHOST entry for Shared folder issues tonight. But the system performance has been much less than expected and I am wondering if I have misconfigured something obvious or if I should be looking at a VMware platform perhaps?

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

[Martin]

What kind of storage are you using? SATA/SAS/iSCSI, and with how many disks?

[Happyman]

What kind of storage are you using? SATA/SAS/iSCSI, and with how many disks?

Hi Martin, SAS - From memory 8 Disks - 2 in RAID 1 for OS - 6 in RAID 5 for data

[Happyman]

As an FYI:

I increased the CPU allocation to the two guest machines last night and have had to revert today after complaints from users.

The change was - giving 8 CPU's to 2012 Guest and 16 to the 2008 Terminal server. Theoretically leaving 8 Logical Processors to Host.

It's now back to 4/8

This reminds me of a question I couldn't find a definitive answer to and that is; How does the Virtual Box and Host 2012 R2 system interact in terms of allocating CPU resources.

The VB setting is "CPU's"
The Host server has 16 Cores and 32 Logical Processors.

When looking at Resource manager on Host it "looked" like it was a one-to-one allocation of CPU to Logical Processors? But the change last night makes me wonder if it's to Cores or some kind of dynamic load balancing? In which case what would be the optimum configuration to increase the responsiveness of the terminal server?

[Martin]

In most load cases the "additional" logical processors don't help very much.
You will get best performance if you just calculate with the "real" cores.

[Happyman]

In most load cases the "additional" logical processors don't help very much.
You will get best performance if you just calculate with the "real" cores.

So that would suggest there isn't a straight one-to-one resource matchup but rather a load being presented to the OS to take care of and then the OS dividing up the available CPU resources?

It kind of suggests that the VB service for each guest is being given an "affinity" preference at launch?

[scottgus1]

do a search on the forum here for "hyperthread". That will show what the issue is about physical vs logical processors.

[mpack]

Personally, I can never understand why it even needs to be explained. The fact that two options exists tells you that they are not the same. And if logical cores can perform as well as real cores, why would anyone ever pay a premium for additional real cores?

If you want to improve the performance of any application you first need to identify what the bottleneck is. Throwing CPU at it will only help if CPU is that bottleneck - and the application has been designed to take advantage of multiple cores (most apps are not).

[loukingjr]

Just to add to what mpack said, if an application is optimized to use multiple cores, the developers will certainly mention it. Adding logical cores can sometimes slow down an application that isn't optimized for multiple cores. Most applications do not need multiple cores.