Data Manager 8.4.2 in a VM Environment - Server crashing

[ParanoidAndroid1777]

Not sure where to start looking for the cause but we used to run 8.4.2 on a physical server without issue but since migrating to a virtual environment (ESX), the VM hosting Data Manger periodically seizes up and no-one can connect to it and we have to force a reboot via vCenter.

We've tried reserving the memory and CPU so resources would not have to be brokered but this doesn't seem to resolve the issue.

Has anyone seen anything similar?

Thanks

[MFGF]

Is it the virtual server that crashes or Data Manager that stops responding? if it's the server, I'd suggest you look in the event log to see if any errors are being registered by the OS. Sounds like you have issues with the VM rather than with Data Manager itself?

MF.

[ParanoidAndroid1777]

The VM becomes unresponsive and we can no longer RDP to it, forced restart via vCenter is the only way to get back on.  vmWare have taken a look and ruled out their end, we're in the process of logging a support ticket with Microsoft to analyse the problem.

The thing is, this only happens to the data manager server and this is the 2nd vm with data manager.  We had another vm that suffered from the same issues so we created a new vm and installed data manager on that one and the same issues persist.  None of our other VMs for other services exhibit these issues.

Was just wondering if there were any issues around 8.4.2 and virtual environments and indeed, whether v10.2 is a "better" product in a virtual environment?

[MFGF]

If you want support from IBM you're going to have to move to Data Manager 10 - 8 dropped out of support a while ago. Having said that, both are fine in a virtual environment.

One of the major changes between 8 and 10.2 is that Data Manager is now 64-bit whereas in 8 it was 32-bit. This means you need to worry less about how much memory a build will grab - in 8 the (32-bit architecture imposed) limit was 2Gb per process. With 64 bit it can grab more than this (assuming your server has enough free memory).

You really need to figure out why your windows server becomes unresponsive. Are there any messages written to the Windows Event Log?

MF.

[ParanoidAndroid1777]

No, windows event viewer is it's normal plethora of information messages and then a big gap when the hang occurs followed by startup events after the restart.

I'm counting on MS being able to analyse a memory dump or something.

Thanks for the v8 - v10 info, 64 bit should make a difference to performance :-)

[MFGF]

If there are no event messages it's really tricky! Not sure what else to suggest - I hope your MS gurus can figure out what's going on!

Good luck - hope you manage to find the issue.

Cheers!

MF.