Server Virtualisation?

alsol

Hello there,

A new client would like to install the NAV (Native) Database Server in a virtualised environment. I can't believe it, but there is no whitepaper or anything similar about this topic on partnersource. Also on mibuso could not find much about it.

Does anyone has experiences with VMWare and NAV? Are there any problems, hints or issues to take care of when using NAV in a virtualised environment?

Thanks.

David_Singleton

I wouldn't be surprised. VMWare is not a Microsoft product, so why would they have a white paper on it?

Generally the issue here is the skill set of the person configuring the VMWare. Native seever is very Hard Disk dependent, and it needs to have the disk access configured correctly. I think that if you let VM use virtual disks then you can expect a lot of issues. But if the Navision VM Machine will have physical RAID 1 LUNs assigned to it you should be fine. Just don't let them virtualize the drives. Though that also depends on how many spindles you have, since if you have a lot of spindles (say more than 50) then you may get good performance out of virtual drives too.

The question I would want answered, is "why Native"?

kine

There are some performance tests descrbed from Microsoft for NAV 2009. Some tests are comparing the virtualized environment with real one (with Microsoft Hyper-V technology). See http://www.facultyresourcecenter.com/cu ... px?ID=8011

David_Singleton

kine wrote:

There are some performance tests descrbed from Microsoft for NAV 2009. Some tests are comparing the virtualized environment with real one (with Microsoft Hyper-V technology). See http://www.facultyresourcecenter.com/cu ... px?ID=8011

Hmmm I am not teaching at any university, looks like that site is only for university lecturers.

kine

Same document was released through partnersource. This is public link I have found...

David_Singleton

kine wrote:

Same document was released through partnersource. This is public link I have found...

So which University are you lecturing at now :whistle: 8)

kine

I do not know, now I cannot open the URL... ending with timeout...

But when you google for "PerformanceGuideforMicrosoftDynamicsNAV.pdf" you will find one public copy.

partnersource link is here

David_Singleton

But that white paper only covers SQL. And specifically aimed at the middle tier, not the Database server. I don't think its really a good comparison to the Native Database Server.

kine

Yes, but you can see the difference between virtualised and non-virtualised environment. Result is that if all is ok, there is still around 10% performance loss on the disk subsystem. Question is, if it is ok or not...

alsol

Thank you for your reply. Well, the reason for Native was, that this is a small installation and there was no reason for SQL.

We finished the setup on VMWare now and there were no major problems. The only thing is the login time. When I select a company, it takes about 8 seconds until the main menu appears. Of course this is not much, but its not perfect. Especially because its still the standard CRONUS Company. Could this be because of VMWare?

Best regards

kine

First connection to the server means that the server is opening the FDB file. Check if there are some anti-virus applications and set it to not check FDB files - it could be the delay and when the FDB will be bigger, it will be longer time. But still, you need to count with some time to open the files. But if you will use e.g. Application Server to keep one open session, you will not have this problem with opening the DB files.