CPU usage at 100% on guests after VMotion

[Lexcom]

Hi,

On ESX 3.5 and Virtual Center 2.5 after I tell a ESX server to enter Maintenance mode, it VMotions all the VM's off (as it should with DRS), but then all the VM's go into 100% CPU usage. If I reboot the Virtual Center machine, then everything is ok again.

What is going on?

Jim

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

Hi Jim, perhaps this KB article is related - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003638.

[eagleh]

apply ESX3.5 Update 1 + Virtual Center Server 2.5 Update 1, the April-30 patch seems have brought back this problem again. so do NOT apply the 04-30-2008 patch.

[Winter666]

Like Dave said...

Had the same problem few days ago. This helps for me!

1. Log on to the VirtualCenter Server Console as an administrator.

2. Make a backup copy of the vpxd.cfg file (typically it is located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\vpxd.cfg).

3. In the vpxd.cfg file, add the following configuration between the <vpxd> and the </vpxd> tags:
   
   
   <cluster>
   
   
   <VMOverheadGrowthLimit>5</VMOverheadGrowthLimit>
   
   </cluster>
   
   This configuration provides an initial growth margin in MB-to-virtual machine overhead memory. You can increase this amount to larger values if doing so further improves virtual machine performance.

4. Restart the VMware VirtualCenter Server Service.
   
   Note: When you restart the VMware VirtualCenter Server Service, the new value for the overhead limit should be pushed down to all the clusters in VirtualCenter.