Please help. I have just installed a new Dell 2900 server of very beefy specs that is running like a lamb, not a lion.
Host machine specs:
Dell 2900, dual quad core xeons, 32GB of RAM, Perc 5/i RAID with 8 drives sda (2 mirrored), sdb (2 mirrored), sdc (4 in RAID 5). Machine is running 32bit Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Server (7.10) which of course has the 2.6.22 kernel. VMWare Server 1.04. I have the NICS bonded in linux with ifenslave prior to installing and configuring VMWare Server 1.04.
Guests are all Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 all running the latest VMWare tools (7.2.8 build 55017)
Even though I only have 2 virtual machines with light disk load on it so far, I keep getting HUGE amounts of iowait that brings the VM's to a screeching halt until it finishes. They either don't respond at all or respond very slowly even to PING.
I originally thought I had the problem licked by installing the any-any-update114 patch and editing grub to turn off the tickless kernel with the clock=pit and nohz=off kernel options, but the issue is continuing.
Below is a graph of the iowait. I don't know whether this is a symptom or the cause of the VMWare freezes, the magenta bleeding down from the top is the iowait.
Please help me. I'm at wits end.