Virtual Vista SP or Server 2008 SP1 x86 problem

[erblock]

New issue:

When running Lookout 6.1 server process on a Vista SP1 (x86) or Win2k8 (x86) as a virtual machine under Win2k8 (x64) Hyper-V, if you set multiple virtual processors on the virtual machine, Lookout freezes after short random time (minutes to hours).

Symptoms are frozen screen and 0% CPU on Lookout.exe.  Lookout.exe can be killed only by shutdown or restart and not through task manager "End Process", or stop-process command.

If virtual machines are set to single virtual processor, all is OK.

Please look into fixing this....here's why:

My current project with lots of client hypertrends taxes the single processor machine by causing nicitdl5.exe to use nearly 100% CPU when clients have high data demand such as when changing Hypertrend screens, etc.  With multiple client machines demanding data from Citadel on the same server at the same time, things can get ugly.

For the short time of testing between freezes on the multi-processor virtual machine servers, this problem goes away and the server is much faster at getting data out to clients and the CPU utilization is MUCH less, even overall.  Very smooth serving on multi-processor VM.....
Except of course...you can't keep the damn thing running....j


Thanks,
Ed

[erblock]

Update:

A response on Microsoft 2k8 Virtualization forums had a good point as follows.  LabVIEW/DSC 8.5 and Lookout were installed on these VM's when configured for a single processor.  It was after they were installed and working that I switched to a second virtual processor and caused the issue.  So maybe a HAL list change is what Lookout can't handle?

So I will next test with a clean VM running 2 virtual processors prior to installing LavVIEW/DSC/Lookout and see if problem goes away.  I'll get back here with results within a day or two.

Ed

[erblock]

Update 2:

Lookout.exe still freezes at 0%CPU.  "End Task" in task manager now properly kills the process however.

So....looks like a National Instruments isse.

Next, I will try installing only Lookout 6.1 to see if that can stay running on a 2CPU VM when no LV8.5/DSC is installed.

Ed

[erblock]

Ryan.....

Did you folks test multi-processor virtual machines (Win2k8 HyperV) with Lookout 6.2?   Any other news on this issue?

Thanks,

Ed

[Mike@DTSI]

They probably dont officailly support virtual machines.  This is where the industry is going. 

We use VMWare without issue.

Mike

[Ryan.S]

Ed,

We didn't test multi-processor virtual machines, such as hyperV, with 6.2. 

We do have much experience with VMWare, especially when doing tests. But the problem is that we don't officially support virtaul machine.