advice from those running xprotect in a VM

militarymedic23 · Feb 17, 2017

Wanted to ask what people have seen for experience when running xprotect in a VM.

The scenario I have at the moment is a jump from 8 cameras to 16. Obviously the free version doesn't allow that, so my thought was to visualize the host and run two essential servers.
But... when I have the same 8 cameras up in a client when the server was running just regular 2012 R2 on bare metal, my CPU usage was minimal. doing the same in a VM has it going straight to 100. It's also the only VM running on the host.
Tried to set all the visible options to max for this VM (esxi 6.5 and 2017 R1 for essentials), but that didn't seem to do much. Server is a R410, 4 disk in Raid 0, 16GB ram, dual xeon.
I'm scraping together money to make the $1600 jump for express, licenses and care pack, but that money tree in my back yard just won't grow. so I'm trying to work with what I have at the moment.

Any suggestions?

Zeddy · Feb 18, 2017

There should be some overhead in virtualising but not that much. Where are you measuring the high CPU? from the VM side or from the performance graphs in vsphere client? I assumed you've edited the VM properties and changed the amount of sockets/cores to reflect the hardware installed in your Dell?

Edit: BTW, RAID0 is a bad idea. A single disk failure and you've lost all data on that volume.

nayr · Feb 18, 2017

the VMS wont get any video decoding hardware when you run it in a VM and the'll perform like total shit.. they need to be on bear metal for direct access to the gfx hardware.

decompressing multiple HD video streams in realtime with software alone will crush even the biggest and most expensive xeon CPU's.

The advice is: Dont run any VMS on anything but bear metal; they are entirely inappropriate for virtualized environments.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Excellent points, thanks.

I had a vm running with vms years ago with decent results, but not nearly the HD quality of cams I'm using now. Figured it was worth a shot but hadn't quite realised the performance impact of then vs now.

For the RAID setup, I know 0 can blow the entire array of a disk goes but I'm fairly limited with the r410. It has a perc 6/ir controller which is limited to 1 or 0.
I could put back in the h300s software based raid card but I'm not quite sure how much software raid eats into OS resources especially when running vms software.

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
Excellent points, thanks.

I had a vm running with vms years ago with decent results, but not nearly the HD quality of cams I'm using now. Figured it was worth a shot but hadn't quite realised the performance impact of then vs now.

For the RAID setup, I know 0 can blow the entire array of a disk goes but I'm fairly limited with the r410. It has a perc 6/ir controller which is limited to 1 or 0.
I could put back in the h300s software based raid card but I'm not quite sure how much software raid eats into OS resources especially when running vms software.

Why run 0 at all?
Also the r410 is really old, have you run a power consumption test? You are likely paying more in electricity than it costs to buy a new replacement system.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

The r410 is old, but the vms system was a 1950 before so it was a definite upgrade for me!
I can get another r410 for a little over $100 but even the 420 is 400+.
It's a home budget so not something I can throw tons of money into.
I figure 100 something to get another 8 cameras going and save for the full 16 licenses down the road. Maybe next tax season I could swing a r430!

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
The r410 is old, but the vms system was a 1950 before so it was a definite upgrade for me!
I can get another r410 for a little over $100 but even the 420 is 400+.
It's a home budget so not something I can throw tons of money into.
I figure 100 something to get another 8 cameras going and save for the full 16 licenses down the road. Maybe next tax season I could swing a r430!

Why do you insist on using old servers...you can buy an i5-6500 haswell based optiplex/elitedesk for about 300 that will be more powerful and pay for itself in a year or two depending on your electrical rates. Heck even an second or third gen i5 system for 100-150 will be much better. Put a killawatt meter on your powerhog server you will be stunned at how much money you are forking over to the electric company instead of your own pocket.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Oh I know this is a beast. The built in power metering does a good job of showing me that info.
For right now I'm considering another machine a patch.
Having two machines covering 8 cameras each does seem quite overkill, but I like your point about more of a desktop unit that certainly wouldn't suck so much juice.
The end goal is to have one machine that can handle all 16 cams.
But to be fair, what are the advantages of running milestone on a server vs a desktop and vice versa ?

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
Oh I know this is a beast. The built in power metering does a good job of showing me that info.
For right now I'm considering another machine a patch.
Having two machines covering 8 cameras each does seem quite overkill, but I like your point about more of a desktop unit that certainly wouldn't suck so much juice.
The end goal is to have one machine that can handle all 16 cams.
But to be fair, what are the advantages of running milestone on a server vs a desktop and vice versa ?

There is no advantage running on a server...desktops are cheap and the modern ones are very efficient...what power consumption numbers do you see for the r410? I am not suggesting using another machine in conjunction with the 410..im suggesting throwing the 410 in the garbage where it belongs...or selling it to some sucker..

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

come now, don't bash my servers too much. They were a great deal for a great price when I got them, and compared to how power hungry the 2950 and 1950 were, these were definitely an improvement.
Right now I'm seeing a reading of 190W. But that is with the machine still running vmware. I'm trying to export a machine config then re-install windows on bare metal. might be a little bit of a power change

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
come now, don't bash my servers too much. They were a great deal for a great price when I got them, and compared to how power hungry the 2950 and 1950 were, these were definitely an improvement.
Right now I'm seeing a reading of 190W. But that is with the machine still running vmware. I'm trying to export a machine config then re-install windows on bare metal. might be a little bit of a power change

holy crap...that is insane...a modern i5-6500 will pull about 30w under the same load...that is 160w..at 10c a killawatt hour thats 140 PER year...in the toilet..heck you can buy two sandy bridge pc for 100 each and have full redundancy at 40w per unit or so..maybe less.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Ok ok point proven.

What desktop unit would you aim for if you were buying one?

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
Ok ok point proven.

What desktop unit would you aim for if you were buying one?

Look at the hp elitedesk towers...they will hold 2x3.5 drives and a 2.5 drive..

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Elitedesk over an optiplex?

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
Elitedesk over an optiplex?

If room for two 3.5 drives is important

looney2ns · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
come now, don't bash my servers too much. They were a great deal for a great price when I got them, and compared to how power hungry the 2950 and 1950 were, these were definitely an improvement.
Right now I'm seeing a reading of 190W. But that is with the machine still running vmware. I'm trying to export a machine config then re-install windows on bare metal. might be a little bit of a power change

Nice room heater you have there.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Yeah yeah yeah I know it's a heater.
I run mostly virtual platforms so these servers are my main go to for the sheer power, just at the expense of electricity.

fenderman · Feb 18, 2017

militarymedic23 said:
Yeah yeah yeah I know it's a heater.
I run mostly virtual platforms so these servers are my main go to for the sheer power, just at the expense of electricity.

What sheer power? It's got way less power than a modern desktop...

Zeddy · Feb 18, 2017

nayr said:
the VMS wont get any video decoding hardware when you run it in a VM and the'll perform like total shit.. they need to be on bear metal for direct access to the gfx hardware.

decompressing multiple HD video streams in realtime with software alone will crush even the biggest and most expensive xeon CPU's.

The advice is: Dont run any VMS on anything but bear metal; they are entirely inappropriate for virtualized environments.

From what I read XProtect doesn't support CUDA or similar so if it had access to an nvidia gfx card it won't use it, plus ESXi doesn't virtualise the CPU it just time slices it so the guest still has access to CPU specific functions like quicksync.

ESXi 6.5 supports up to 128 vCPU's and 6128GB of RAM per VM if there is going to be a limitation anywhere it's going to be hardware or software not the VMWare virtualisation layer. I've virtualised heavier realtime workloads than decoding H.264 so it can be done.

militarymedic23 · Feb 18, 2017

Prob won't go beyond 16 cams for my setup, but what is the limit of a optiplex/elitedesk unit in terms of number of cameras it can handle?

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advice from those running xprotect in a VM

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

Zeddy

Getting the hang of it

nayr

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

looney2ns

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper

fenderman

Zeddy

Getting the hang of it

militarymedic23

Young grasshopper