%DRPRX counter

I have noticed that regularly on several ESX hosts I was seeing the %DRPRX counter show values from 10 to 100 and that this was happening for multiple VM’s. This counter only ever shows values on the VM’s not the vmnic’s, management or vmkernel ports.
Duncan Epping describes the issue here:
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/02/02/e1000-and-dropped-rx-packets/

I created a discussion here and it seems that switching to a VMXNET3 network driver does stop the counter showing but I am still unsure whether this is an actual issue or a false negtive
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1563141#1563141

Apply a limit of 1GB of RAM to a VM when it has 4GB allocated

Duncan Epping has hit the nail on the head again.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/07/06/memory-limits/

I totally agree, I have seen first hand the horror of memory limits and the impact it can have on a guest.

A customer asked me to assist resolve a performance issue with a VM. The VM was Windows Server 2000, it was allocated 4GB of RAM. I opened the VI client performance tab and was shocked to see the Memory ballon running at 3GB solid. Some bright spark created a VM memory limit of 1GB on the Windows 2000 template, the template was allocated 1GB of RAM. Unfortunately this VM guest on deployment was granted more memory and no one thought to look for a hard coded memory limit.

Here is the result of removing the limit.

 

RunningVM’s

This blog will be a place for me to blog about my three primary passions, IT, running and the All Blacks.