Performance problems can arise in any computing environment. In a virtualized computing environment performance problems can arise due to new and often subtle interactions occurring in the shared infrastructure. Uncovering the causes of those problems requires an understanding of the available performance metrics and their relationship to underlying configuration issues.

A new guide covering performance troubleshooting for VMware vSphere 4, including ESX 4.0 hosts, is now available. This document uses a guided approach to lead the reader through the observable manifestations of complex hardware/software interactions in order to identify specific performance problems. For each problem covered, it includes a discussion of the possible root-causes and solutions. Topics covered include performance problems arising from issues in the CPU, memory, storage, and network subsystems, as well as in the VM and ESX host configuration.

The document is available on the VMware Performance Community at http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10352.