Correcting the Process level measurements of CPU time for Windows guest machines running under VMware ESX
Recently, I have been writing about how Windows guest machine performance counters are affected by running in a virtual environment, including publishing two recent, longish papers on the subject, one about processor utilization metrics and another about memory management. In the processor utilization paper, (which is available here), it is evident that running under VMware, the Windows performance counters that measure processor utilization are significantly distorted. At a system level, this distortion is not problematic so long as one has recourse to the VMware measurements of actual physical CPU usage by each guest machine.
A key question – one that I failed to address properly, heretofore – is whether it is possible to correct for that distortion in the measurements of processor utilization taken at the process level inside the guest machine OS. The short answer for Windows, at least, is, “Yes.” The % Processor Time performance counters in Windows that are available at the process level are derived using a simple technique that samples the execution state of the machine approximately 64 times per second. VMware does introduce variability in the duration of the interval between samples and sometimes causes the sampling itself rate to fluctuate. However, neither the variability in the time between samples nor possible changes to the sampling rate undermine the validity of the sampling process.
In effect, the sampling data should still accurately reflect the relative proportion of the CPU time used by the individual processes running on the guest machine. If you have access to the actual guest machine CPU usage – from the counters installed by the vmtools, for example – you should be able to adjust the internal guest machine process level data accordingly. You need to accumulate a sufficient number of guest machine samples to ensure that the sample data is a good estimator of the underlying population. And, you also need to make sure that the VMware measurement intervals are reasonably well-synchronized to the guest machine statistics. (The VMware ESX performance metrics are refreshed every 20 seconds.) In practice, that means if you have at least five minutes worth of Windows counter data and VMware guest CPU measurements across a roughly equivalent five minute interval, you should be to correct for the distortion due to virtualization and reliably estimate processor utilization at the process level within Windows guest machines.
Calculate a correction factor, w, from the ratio of the actual guest machine physical CPU usage as reported by the VMware hypervisor to the average processor utilization reported by the Windows guest:
Then multiply the process level processor utilization measurements by this correction factor to estimate the actual CPU usage of individual guest machine processes.
The impetus for me revisiting this subject was the following question posed by Steve Marksamer posted on a LinkedIn forum devoted to computer capacity and performance:
[What is] the efficacy of using cpu and memory data extracted from Windows O/S objects when this data is for a virtual machine in VMware. Has there been any timing correction allowing for guest to host delay? Your thoughts/comments are appreciated. Any other way to get at process level data more accurately?
This is my attempt to formulate a succinct answer to Steve’s question.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also note that Steve and I once collaborated to write an article on virtualization technology that was published back in 2007. I don’t think I have seen or talked to Steve since we last discussed the final draft of our joint article back in 2007.
A recent paper of mine focused on the processor utilization measurements that are available in Windows (the full paper is available here), and contains a section that describes them being impacted by VMware’s virtualization of timer interrupts and the Intel RDTSC clock instruction. Meanwhile, on this blog I posted a number of entries that covered similar ground (beginning here), but in smaller chunks. But, up to now, I neglected to post any material here related to the impact of virtualization on the Windows processor utilization measurements. Let me start to correct that error of omission.
Considering how VMware affects the measurements CPU reported at the system and process level inside a guest Windows machine, a particularly salient point is that VMware virtualizes the clock timer interrupts that is basis for the Windows clock. Virtualizing clock timer interrupts has an impact on the legacy method used in Windows to measure CPU utilization at the system and process level, which samples the execution state of the system roughly 64 times per second. When the OS handles this periodic clock interrupt, it examines the execution state of the system prior to the interrupt. If a processor was running the Idle thread, then the CPU accounting function attributes all the time associated with the current interval as Idle Time. Idle Time is then accumulated at the processor level. If the machine was executing an actual thread, all the time associated with the current interval is attributed to that thread and process. Processor time is also accumulated in counters associated with active threads and processes. Utilization at the processor level is calculated by subtracting the amount of Idle time accumulated in a measurement interval from the total amount of time in that interval.
So, the familiar Windows performance counters that report % processor time are derived using a sampling technique. Note that a simple statistical argument based on the sample size strongly suggests that these legacy CPU time measurements (i.e., any of the % Processor Time counters in Windows) are not reliable at intervals of less than 15 seconds, which was the official guidance in the version of the Windows Performance Guide that I wrote for Microsoft Press back in 2005. But so long as the measurement is interval is long enough to accumulate a sufficient number of samples – one minute measurement intervals are based on slightly more than 3600 execution state samples, the Windows performance counters provide reasonable estimates of processor utilization at both the hardware and process levels. You can easily satisfy yourself that this is true by using xperf to calculate CPU utilization precisely from context switch events and comparing those calculations to Windows performance counters gathered over the same measurement interval.
In virtualizing clock interrupts, VMware introduces variability into the duration of the interval between processor utilization samples. If a clock interrupt destined for a Windows machine that is currently parked in the ESX dispatcher queue occurs, the VMware dispatcher delays delivery of that interrupt to the guest machine until the next time that guest machine is dispatched. A VMware white paper entitled “Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines” has an extended discussion of the clock and timer distortions that occur in Windows guest machines when there are virtual machine scheduling delays. Note that it is possible for VMware guest machine scheduling delays to grow large enough to cause some periodic timer interrupts to be dropped entirely. In VMware terminology, these are known as lost ticks, another tell-tale sign of contention for physical processors. In extreme cases where the backlog of timer interrupts ever exceeds 60 seconds, VMware attempts a radical re-synchronization of the time of day clock in the guest machine, zeros out its backlog of timer interrupts, and starts over.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to measure directly the magnitude of these guest machine dispatcher delays, which is the other part of Steve’s question. The VMware measurement that comes closest to characterizing the nature and extent of the delays associated with timely delivery of timer interrupts is CPU Ready milliseconds, which reports the amount of time a guest machine was waiting for execution, but was delayed in the ESX Dispatcher queue. (VMware has a pretty good white paper on the subject available here).
If the underlying ESX Host is not too busy, guest machines are subject to very little CPU Ready delay. Under those circumstances, the delays associated with virtualizing clock timer interrupts will introduce some jitter into the Windows guest CPU utilization measurements, but these should not be too serious. However, if the underlying ESX Host does become very heavily utilized, clock timer interrupts are subject to major delays. At the guest level, these delays impact both the rate of execution state samples and the duration between samples.
In spite of this potential disruption, it is still possible to correct the guest level % processor time measurements at a process and thread level if you have access to the direct measurements of hardware CPU utilization that VMware supplies for each guest machine. The execution state sampling performed by periodic clock interval handler still amounts to a random sampling of processor utilization. The amount of CPU time accumulated at the process level and reported in the Windows performance counters remains proportional to the actual processor time consumed by processes running on the guest machine. Using processor utilization measurements gathered over longer intervals and with a reasonable degree of synchronization in the measurement gathering process to encompass both the VMware external measurements and the Windows guest internal measurements are both required for this reconciliation.
To take a simple example of calculating and applying the factor for correcting the processor utilization measurements, let’s assume a guest machine that is configured to run with just one vCPU. Suppose you see the following performance counter values for the Windows guest machine:
From VMware ESX measurements, then suppose you see that the actual CPU utilization of the guest machine is 88%. You can then correct the internal process CPU time measurements by weighting them by the ratio of the actual CPU time consumed compared to the CPU time reported by the guest machine (88:73, or roughly 1.2).
Similarly, for a guest machine with multiple vCPUs, calculate the average utilization per processor to calculate the weighting factor, since VMware only reports an aggregate CPU utilization for each guest machine.
A key question – one that I failed to address properly, heretofore – is whether it is possible to correct for that distortion in the measurements of processor utilization taken at the process level inside the guest machine OS. The short answer for Windows, at least, is, “Yes.” The % Processor Time performance counters in Windows that are available at the process level are derived using a simple technique that samples the execution state of the machine approximately 64 times per second. VMware does introduce variability in the duration of the interval between samples and sometimes causes the sampling itself rate to fluctuate. However, neither the variability in the time between samples nor possible changes to the sampling rate undermine the validity of the sampling process.
In effect, the sampling data should still accurately reflect the relative proportion of the CPU time used by the individual processes running on the guest machine. If you have access to the actual guest machine CPU usage – from the counters installed by the vmtools, for example – you should be able to adjust the internal guest machine process level data accordingly. You need to accumulate a sufficient number of guest machine samples to ensure that the sample data is a good estimator of the underlying population. And, you also need to make sure that the VMware measurement intervals are reasonably well-synchronized to the guest machine statistics. (The VMware ESX performance metrics are refreshed every 20 seconds.) In practice, that means if you have at least five minutes worth of Windows counter data and VMware guest CPU measurements across a roughly equivalent five minute interval, you should be to correct for the distortion due to virtualization and reliably estimate processor utilization at the process level within Windows guest machines.
Calculate a correction factor, w, from the ratio of the actual guest machine physical CPU usage as reported by the VMware hypervisor to the average processor utilization reported by the Windows guest:
w = Aggregate Guest CPU Usage / Average % Processor Time
The impetus for me revisiting this subject was the following question posed by Steve Marksamer posted on a LinkedIn forum devoted to computer capacity and performance:
[What is] the efficacy of using cpu and memory data extracted from Windows O/S objects when this data is for a virtual machine in VMware. Has there been any timing correction allowing for guest to host delay? Your thoughts/comments are appreciated. Any other way to get at process level data more accurately?
This is my attempt to formulate a succinct answer to Steve’s question.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also note that Steve and I once collaborated to write an article on virtualization technology that was published back in 2007. I don’t think I have seen or talked to Steve since we last discussed the final draft of our joint article back in 2007.
A recent paper of mine focused on the processor utilization measurements that are available in Windows (the full paper is available here), and contains a section that describes them being impacted by VMware’s virtualization of timer interrupts and the Intel RDTSC clock instruction. Meanwhile, on this blog I posted a number of entries that covered similar ground (beginning here), but in smaller chunks. But, up to now, I neglected to post any material here related to the impact of virtualization on the Windows processor utilization measurements. Let me start to correct that error of omission.
Considering how VMware affects the measurements CPU reported at the system and process level inside a guest Windows machine, a particularly salient point is that VMware virtualizes the clock timer interrupts that is basis for the Windows clock. Virtualizing clock timer interrupts has an impact on the legacy method used in Windows to measure CPU utilization at the system and process level, which samples the execution state of the system roughly 64 times per second. When the OS handles this periodic clock interrupt, it examines the execution state of the system prior to the interrupt. If a processor was running the Idle thread, then the CPU accounting function attributes all the time associated with the current interval as Idle Time. Idle Time is then accumulated at the processor level. If the machine was executing an actual thread, all the time associated with the current interval is attributed to that thread and process. Processor time is also accumulated in counters associated with active threads and processes. Utilization at the processor level is calculated by subtracting the amount of Idle time accumulated in a measurement interval from the total amount of time in that interval.
So, the familiar Windows performance counters that report % processor time are derived using a sampling technique. Note that a simple statistical argument based on the sample size strongly suggests that these legacy CPU time measurements (i.e., any of the % Processor Time counters in Windows) are not reliable at intervals of less than 15 seconds, which was the official guidance in the version of the Windows Performance Guide that I wrote for Microsoft Press back in 2005. But so long as the measurement is interval is long enough to accumulate a sufficient number of samples – one minute measurement intervals are based on slightly more than 3600 execution state samples, the Windows performance counters provide reasonable estimates of processor utilization at both the hardware and process levels. You can easily satisfy yourself that this is true by using xperf to calculate CPU utilization precisely from context switch events and comparing those calculations to Windows performance counters gathered over the same measurement interval.
In virtualizing clock interrupts, VMware introduces variability into the duration of the interval between processor utilization samples. If a clock interrupt destined for a Windows machine that is currently parked in the ESX dispatcher queue occurs, the VMware dispatcher delays delivery of that interrupt to the guest machine until the next time that guest machine is dispatched. A VMware white paper entitled “Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines” has an extended discussion of the clock and timer distortions that occur in Windows guest machines when there are virtual machine scheduling delays. Note that it is possible for VMware guest machine scheduling delays to grow large enough to cause some periodic timer interrupts to be dropped entirely. In VMware terminology, these are known as lost ticks, another tell-tale sign of contention for physical processors. In extreme cases where the backlog of timer interrupts ever exceeds 60 seconds, VMware attempts a radical re-synchronization of the time of day clock in the guest machine, zeros out its backlog of timer interrupts, and starts over.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to measure directly the magnitude of these guest machine dispatcher delays, which is the other part of Steve’s question. The VMware measurement that comes closest to characterizing the nature and extent of the delays associated with timely delivery of timer interrupts is CPU Ready milliseconds, which reports the amount of time a guest machine was waiting for execution, but was delayed in the ESX Dispatcher queue. (VMware has a pretty good white paper on the subject available here).
If the underlying ESX Host is not too busy, guest machines are subject to very little CPU Ready delay. Under those circumstances, the delays associated with virtualizing clock timer interrupts will introduce some jitter into the Windows guest CPU utilization measurements, but these should not be too serious. However, if the underlying ESX Host does become very heavily utilized, clock timer interrupts are subject to major delays. At the guest level, these delays impact both the rate of execution state samples and the duration between samples.
In spite of this potential disruption, it is still possible to correct the guest level % processor time measurements at a process and thread level if you have access to the direct measurements of hardware CPU utilization that VMware supplies for each guest machine. The execution state sampling performed by periodic clock interval handler still amounts to a random sampling of processor utilization. The amount of CPU time accumulated at the process level and reported in the Windows performance counters remains proportional to the actual processor time consumed by processes running on the guest machine. Using processor utilization measurements gathered over longer intervals and with a reasonable degree of synchronization in the measurement gathering process to encompass both the VMware external measurements and the Windows guest internal measurements are both required for this reconciliation.
To take a simple example of calculating and applying the factor for correcting the processor utilization measurements, let’s assume a guest machine that is configured to run with just one vCPU. Suppose you see the following performance counter values for the Windows guest machine:
%
Processor Time
|
|
(virtual)
|
|
Overall
|
73%
|
Process A
|
40%
|
Process B
|
20%
|
From VMware ESX measurements, then suppose you see that the actual CPU utilization of the guest machine is 88%. You can then correct the internal process CPU time measurements by weighting them by the ratio of the actual CPU time consumed compared to the CPU time reported by the guest machine (88:73, or roughly 1.2).
% Processor Time
|
||
(virtual)
|
(actual)
|
|
Overall
|
73%
|
88%
|
Process A
|
40%
|
48%
|
Process B
|
20%
|
24%
|
Similarly, for a guest machine with multiple vCPUs, calculate the average utilization per processor to calculate the weighting factor, since VMware only reports an aggregate CPU utilization for each guest machine.
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