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Michael Webster is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX4/5 #66) , vExpert 2012, and the owner of IT Solutions 2000 Ltd, which delivers project management, ITIL based VMware operational readiness and technical architecture consulting services to enterprise and service provider clients around the world. He has been using VMware products since 1998 and has been designing and deploying VMware solutions since 2002. He specializes in the design and implementation of virtualization solutions for Unix to Linux migrations, business critical applications, disaster avoidance, mergers and acquisitions, public and private cloud. Michael has been in the IT industry since 1995 and consulting since 2001. As of February 2012 IT Solutions 2000 Ltd was granted the VMware Virtualizing Business Critical Applications (VBCA) Competency, making it one of the first companies in the world to achieve this accreditation. IT Solutions 2000 Ltd is one of very few companies world wide accredited to deliver projects for all the business critical applications covered by the VBCA program i.e. SAP, Oracle, MS SQL Server, MS Sharepoint, MS Exchange. Michael is regularly called on to consult and speak on all aspects of virtualizing business critical applications at events and for organizations all across the globe.
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Old Long White Virtual Clouds 
I read your post according RAC on VMWare.
Would it be possible to get details/scripts for the synthetic tests and testplan (think you use swingbench ?) and how to gather and compare testresults (service time, response time) – that would be very cool.
Whats about the jumbo frames for interconnect (real performance boost ?) – what is important and what have to be changed or what must be supportet on switch layer ?
How long does this take if there is no experience in this testing – days, weeks or more ?
Do you have experience how long it takes to evaluate Real Application Testing (my problem is not much time and budget :-))
Thank you
ng, jochen
Hi Jochen,
For the tests I’ve done I’ve used swing bench. VMware has also done a number of benchmarks using swing bench. It is freely available on the internet. Each version of swing bench is very different so the one you choose is the one you’ll need to use for all the tests else the results will vary greatly if you cross versions. A documented test plan would be something that’s only available as part of a services engagement.
Jumbo Frames on the interconnect is definitely recommended. It will reduce CPU load and improve packet response times in general if using modern NICs. But like anything it should be validated. I’ve done a lot of testing with Jumbo Frames on 10Gb/s links and it makes a big difference. With 11g R2 you can specify multiple interconnects and the benefit across the links will add up. In order to use Jumbo Frames you need to make sure all the devices in the network path between source and destination support the larger size packets (9000 normally). If you’re using this only on the interconnect this should be very easy to achieve as it should be a private network. In that case only the switch ports used by the interconnect need to be modified. Be aware though that some switches need a global setting changed and that might require a reload / restart of the switch. You should seek advice from your network team.
I would say if you have no testing experience it’d take a few weeks to get up to speed. You also need to make sure you have a solid plan on how you will measure the test results. You can use Oracle Enterprise Manager in addition to other tools such as Vmware’s vFabric Hyperic, VMware vCenter AppSpeed or AppInsight. AppSpeed is the tool I used to measure the application transaction latency.