I am not in favor of dedicating virtual CPUs as this restricts the other
users of the system and is a potential waste of resources and money.
Since the CP Scheduler does an excellent job of distribution of the
resources, then using the SHARE command might be better.

Assuming there are more than two VSE machines of which two really need
to use two virtual CPUs each and there are four real CPUs, then if I am
correct issue two SET SHARE commands:

set share vseguest1 relative 100 absolute 49% limithard
set share vseguest2 relative 100 absolute 49% limithard

Okay, it could be absolute 50% but if both VSE guests wanted the maximum
resources at the same time, no other work would get done.

My understanding of those two commands is that they would allow either
VSE guest to get almost the full usage of two real CPUs each any time
they need them.  Stated another way, either could at most get 49% of the
box leaving the remaining 51%  for all the other users of the four CPUs.
If both wanted the maximum at the same time it would be 49% for
vseguest1, 49% for vseguest2 and 2% for the remaining users.  Any other
time, the workload would be spread evenly among all the guests in the
box given QUICKDSP and other SHARE settings.

Am I correct?


-----Original Message-----
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Stephen Frazier
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 11:40 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: CPU usage -- virtual or dedicated ?


Many VSE shops have been running on multiple processors for a long time.
We first started it on the 
4381. Adding virtual processors to VSE improves performance but not as
much as most people expect. 
With 2 processors you get about 180% of one processor. With 3 processors
you get about 240%. More 
than 3 processors gives very little if any improvement. I have not found
that dedicating a processor 
to VSE does any good. Others have done it.

My recommendation with several processors. Define multiple VSE guests
and divide the workload among 
them. Give each guest 2 virtual processors. Let VM decide how to
dispatch the virtual processors on 
the real processors.

These recommendations assume any VSE after about VSE/ESA 2.4 using the
turbo dispatcher and a VM 
after HPO. :)

Posted to both VM-L and VSE-L.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I picked this up from the VSE-L, but it is a good question for VM. I 
> think many VSE shops are seeing multiple processors for the first time

> when they move to z-hardware and under VM it can be confussing as what

> to do with 4 processors.
> 
> The question(s) arise.
> 1) Is anything gained by giving VSE more than 1 virtual CPU?
> 2) With only 4 to go around does dedicating processors to VSE make 
> sense?
> 3) Would the answers be any different depending on the number of guest
VSE?
> 
> Assume z/VM 5.2 and z/VSE 3.1
> 
> Thanks

-- 
Stephen Frazier
Information Technology Unit
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
3400 Martin Luther King
Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298
Tel.: (405) 425-2549
Fax: (405) 425-2554
Pager: (405) 690-1828
email:  stevef%doc.state.ok.us
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