This post will focus on the virtual machine from a VMware perspective.
First we have to start off with the always faithful ESXTOP, lets dig in. The command is of course “esxtop”, so with that being said, the question mark (?) is your friend if you ever need some assistance. This Command / Utility is always available and should be used when troubleshooting performance as well as verifying that your machines have been configured correctly.
The below chart says it all. I have to give credit to yellow bricks for doing all of the leg work with formalizing the explanations.
If you ever asked yourself the question or have been asked the question does the virtual machine hardware version really matter and wasn’t quite sure please keep reading as Ill try my best to clarify this one for us.
Virtual Hardware Version vSphere ESXi Host
Facts:
A virtual machine’s hardware version can be upgraded ONLY in the powered off state. Right click the virtual machine and select Upgrade virtual machine.
A virtual machine’s hardware version can be downgraded only by Workstation 6.x or later, Converter 3.x or later, and Fusion 2.x or later.
Virtual Machine File Locations: Each virtual machine will reside in its own respective Data Store.
Locate the Data Store and select – Browse to locate the file in question
Additional Tools:
There is also a disk mount utility allows you to mount a VMware virtual disk (.vmdk file) on a host Windows system called VMware-mount.
The below table identifies all associated files visible to a given data store
The Performance Troubleshooting Taught Process
· Verify VMware Tools is installed in the virtual machine and running the correct version
· Verify that you have provided enough guest resources including memory, disk IO & CPU
· Verify that there are enough free resources on the host
· Verify the CPU power management features on the host are disabled
· Verify that host networking issues are not impacting the performance of the virtual machine
· Verify that there are not any antivirus scans running on the Host or the guest OS
· Verify that the Data latency is not through the roof
· Verify the health of the physical Host is optimal