# Processor spikes running on VMWare virtual machines **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Tags:** server-administration\ **Created:** [March 8, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749 "2011-03-08T14:10:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://community.wowza.com/u/Benjamin_Sadaba)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/1 "2011-03-08T14:10:53Z")
We have a 3 server setup, 1 repeater - 2 edge, running under VMware ESXi on a HP ProLiant DL 120 G6, with 4 Xeon X3430 @ 2.40GHz with 12G of ram and 2 gigabit ethernet (onboard). We only have these 3 machines running there. Config is: repeater 1 -\> 2 procs + 2G of ram edge 1 -\> 4 procs + 4G of ram edge 2 -\> 4 procs + 4G of ram The repeater recieves 4 streams and in turn spits out 8 connections (4 per edge server if I understood correctly the repeater-edge configuration). We only do live streaming for now, so I guess disk speed is not important. We’re get around 700-800 connections for the 4 streams (2 are 420k, 2 are 96k). Everything is running smooth, but we just noticed a weird trend while monitoring the servers. At a certain point, apparently not related to number of connections, the processors spike to 90%-95% and stay like that. The machine doesn’t die, and it keeps serving fine. I find it weird that the machine is running at 10%-20% constantly and it suddenly spikes as described before. Any idea on what can be causing it? It happens on both the repeater and the edge servers. ---
**Author:** ![Ian\_Beyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@Ian\_Beyer](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ian_Beyer)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 7:25am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/2 "2011-03-08T07:25:51Z")
Do you have VMWare tools installed on all of them? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Good](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/charlie_good/32/383_2.png) [@Charlie\_Good](https://community.wowza.com/u/Charlie_Good)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/3 "2011-03-14T03:38:29Z")
Not sure what this would be. Patch8 is more stable than the native release of 2.2.3. I would suggest moving the latest patch and if you have problems look for errors/warnings in the log files: [https://www.wowza.com/downloads/WowzaMediaServer-2-2-3/WowzaMediaServer2.2.3-patch10.zip](https://www.wowza.com/downloads/WowzaMediaServer-2-2-3/WowzaMediaServer2.2.3-patch10.zip) Charlie ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/4 "2011-03-08T15:40:22Z")
What version of Wowza are you using? Are the 3 using same version? Have you tuned the server following the Wowza tuning guide: [https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-do-performance-tuning](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-do-performance-tuning) If you have, review the guide anyway, the use of garbage collection (GC) settings has been clarified. I suggest updating all 3 to version 2.2.3.08 [https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-streaming-engine-software-updates](https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-streaming-engine-software-updates) Richard ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/5 "2011-03-08T23:39:46Z")
yes, patch 8 is released. Richard ---
**Author:** ![Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://community.wowza.com/u/Benjamin_Sadaba)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/6 "2011-03-08T16:48:39Z")
Thanks for all the answers. We do have vmware tools installed in all of them. Actually, the 3 machines were cloned, so the setup is exactly the same, except for the config, obviously. I will try changing the GC settings. Is version 2.2.3.08 stable enough for a setup like this? ---
**Author:** ![Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://community.wowza.com/u/Benjamin_Sadaba)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2011, 9:18am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/7 "2011-03-10T09:18:02Z")
I still have not applied the patch (I’ll do it later today), but I can definitely say that enabling the commented out GC settings fixed the issue. Here you have a CPU monitoring chart of the past 5 days, and you can guess when I changed the settings 😉 ![](http://i54.tinypic.com/nv3xj5.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Benjamin\_Sadaba](https://community.wowza.com/u/Benjamin_Sadaba)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 11:00am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/processor-spikes-running-on-vmware-virtual-machines/33749/8 "2011-03-14T11:00:33Z")
Mixed news here: after changing the gargage collection settings everything was running great, but after updating to patch 8 we had problems maintaining open streams for a long period of time. Before the update to patch 8 we had a 1.2M stream running (and being watched) for over 20 hours. After the update the player would stop after 10-15 minutes, even though the stream was still there… We had to revert to the 2.2.3 version because we couldn’t find an reason for this behavior…