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ESX 4 VMs and patchign with SCCM...

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farscapesg1

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OK... here's the deal. Our company requires us to patch servers/workstations with SCCM, as well as for inventory and licensing purposes. We, are currently also pushing really hard to virtualize using VMWare. Our division has approximately 90 VMs spread across two Dell R900's (16 Cores each, 128 GB RAM each). We are currently "ahead of the curve" compared to most of the other divisions but have recently started experiencing a major issue.

Due to patching with SCCM 2007, those servers are getting hit by the Patch Scan, causing the svchost process to hit 100% CPU. Now imagine 1/4 to 1/2 of our servers pegging the CPU usage at the same time and you can probably guess our problem. Not only do the VMs running the scans come to a crawl (causing issues with patient care interfaces, communication issues, and massive delays), but also brings the two host machines to their knees. For example, this afternoon at about 4:30 both hosts were using 100% CPU and all hell broke loose in the division.

A few other divisions that have started moving to VMWare have also started experiencing this recently. The VMWare implementation team for our company is scratching their heads. The SCCM team and Microsoft says it is working as intended and they don't have this problem with physical machines. Our VMWare reps are not recognizing it an issue either :(

For those familiar with VMWare, is anyone else experiencing this issue?
 
Welcome to virtualization.

Stagger things. Virus scans, patch scans, patches... if it can't be staggered, you need to find one that is :(

I'd hope that SCCM can schedule things.
 
Yeah... that's the problem. SCCM staggers by "creation" date. The problem is that systems created from a template with SCCM already installed... has the same "creation" date by SCCM standards :rolleyes:

Guess I'll have to see how much flexibility we have. Our division standards (that I inherited) are to patch all servers at the same time/same day in the division. Never been a problem with physical boxes, but I guess I may have to throw the old policy out and work on something new. Not looking forward to attempting to manage that though :(
 
Usually done the SMS/SCCM client after the fact, get it to install when you actually join the box to the domain through policy or a script. What happens if you delete the machine from SCCM and then reinstall the client?

You're not going to want all the systems rebooting at the same time following patching either, it can hit your disk pretty hard as well as the normal cpu and memory spike.
 
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