X520 VMQs with Windows Server 2012

[idata]

I'm trying to understand the expected behavior of VMQs with Windows Server 2012 on the x520 (w/ latest drivers). I've created a WS12 Hyper-V server with 12 VMs that all have VMQs active on the X520 DP, however, when i look at the created queues on the driver Advanced tab (and in PowerShell) I see that all the queues are assigned to the same logical processor (processor 16). Shouldn't these queues be dynamically spread across different logical processors for scale? In my case, the server has 64 LPs (E5-4640).

Any insight is appreciated,

JetSetBoogie

[Mark_H_Intel · Accepted solution]

Windows Server 2012 introduces dynamic assignment of virtual machine queues. If you do not have any traffic or very little traffic, you might see all queues assigned to one CPU ID. As traffic to the virtual machines increases, you should see the CPU ID assignment changing.

Another thing to keep in mind about dyanamic VMQ is that the logical cores created by Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology are not used for VMQ. Therefore, if you have 64 logical processors, you will only see VMQ using up to 32 processors.

Check out the section titled Dynamic VMQ in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj248719.aspx Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012.

Mark H

[idata]

I appreciate the information Mark. I'll try to apply more network load on my next attempt. Those E5-4640s are stout Thanks for the Performance doc reference as well.

Thanks,

Jet