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  1. #1
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    Question whats is the Guaranteed RAM & Burst RAM?

    whats is the Guaranteed RAM & Burst RAM?

  2. #2
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    Guaranteed ram is the ‘amount’ of ram that is always available to you. The BURST ram refers to the ram you can use when other users on the node are not consuming much ram which means you are able to go beyond your guaranteed ram.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by searchbar1 View Post
    Guaranteed ram is the ‘amount’ of ram that is always available to you. The BURST ram refers to the ram you can use when other users on the node are not consuming much ram which means you are able to go beyond your guaranteed ram.
    No, that's wrong.

    The whole "burst" thing is a creation of the now-outdated OpenVZ UBC method. (Note that OpenVZ now uses vswap.)

    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia (some post I wrote in the past)

    Think of breakfast. You want a 3-egg omelette. You're out of eggs, so you go to the grocery store. But eggs are only sold by the half-dozen (6 eggs), maybe even a full dozen (12 eggs). So you have to buy the whole carton. When you get home, you only use 3 eggs. (Ignore the fact that eggs are leftover, for this analogy.)

    Software (services) is the same way -- while it only needs 3 eggs, it asks for 12. So OpenVZ reserves 12 eggs for it to use. However, it only uses 3 -- yet the "usage" meters still report 12.

    If your account is limited to 24 eggs, and you repeat this with two other software/services that want to allocate 12, you'll be asking for 36 eggs -- too many! Nevermind that you'll only be using 9 eggs, well below the advertised limit of 24.

    The fault lies in two places -- (1) software asks for too much RAM that it doesn't need, and (2) OpenVZ doesn't intelligently handle RAM measurements.

    Now go back to Virtuozzo (SLM), VMWare, Xen, or dedicated servers. The software asks for 12 eggs, and the computer responds like a teenage girl: "Yeah, whatever." When measurements take place, it sees 3 eggs, and reports just 3 eggs.

    So with OpenVZ, you can't actually use the RAM -- "burst" or "guaranteed" based on actual usage. It's all about allocation limits. If you really want to "use" the RAM, then you'll want to get an account with a minimum 2x, probably even 4x, of the allocation available.

    Even then, some software runs like @ss -- including Minecraft (anything Java) and Cherokee webserver. It's like a fat kid in a candy store: "I want this, and that, one of these and one of those." Nevermind that the parent doesn't buy more than a chocolate bar. Because the kid has asked for it, OpenVZ keeps reserving it to infinity (aka server or container halt). The issue with a VPS is that once RAM runs out, CPU often pegs out in response. That's one way how you get abuse of nodes.
    The "burst" is how much RAM the VZ container has. The "guaranteed" is the kill limit.

    There's no "extra RAM" on the server anywhere.
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  4. #4
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    It's irrelevant with 2.6.32 kernel. If someone is still advertising burst don't use them or ask them to move you to a server with the .32 kernel.

    Having said that, the only number that ever mattered with the .18 kernel was burst. It doesn't matter what the guaranteed ram setting was. It could be 1MB (if that's even possible). As long as burst was set to 1GB then that is how much memory you have.

    The one and only exception is if the physical server completely runs out of RAM + SWAP. Then the kernel will start shutting down processes in the burst memory space first. That situation should never ever happen and would be a problem even if your VPS ran completely in guaranteed memory.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by mustardman View Post
    It doesn't matter what the guaranteed ram setting was. It could be 1MB (if that's even possible). As long as burst was set to 1GB then that is how much memory you have.
    It mattered, as it was the kill limit for processes.

    The one and only exception is if the physical server completely runs out of RAM + SWAP. Then the kernel will start shutting down processes in the burst memory space first. That situation should never ever happen and would be a problem even if your VPS ran completely in guaranteed memory.
    Yet almost every amateur host that thought it as "extra RAM" did just that -- overloaded the servers.

    There's still too many hosts and "hosts" out there using UBC. It sucks.
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  6. #6
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    This one got me confused too, the first time

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    There's still too many hosts and "hosts" out there using UBC. It sucks.

    I guessing those still using UBC would be servers that had existing customers and they didn't want to go through the hassle of moving over. There's almost no reason why anyone, especially starting up would still be using UBC.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by 48-14 View Post
    I guessing those still using UBC would be servers that had existing customers and they didn't want to go through the hassle of moving over. There's almost no reason why anyone, especially starting up would still be using UBC.
    You'd be surprised at the reasons.
    It ranges from people insisting UBC is better, to being too lazy to change (and thus running years-old hardware).

    Sad.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    You'd be surprised at the reasons.
    It ranges from people insisting UBC is better, to ...
    Well I suppose that UBC might be better for low-end box VPS hosts, users can't do nearly as much with x amount of RAM. You can cram a lot more 256mb UBC vps servers on a machine in comparison to vswap.

    Can't think of a single instance where it would be good for the end-user.
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  10. #10
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    UBC uniquely gave unscrupulous providers the opportunity to deceive their users into thinking that:
    1. they were getting something extra
    2. their server needed / used more memory than it actually did

    The second must have been particularly useful for customer retention - after all who would believe after seeing say 500MB of memory usage in "free -m", that they could switch to a 256MB VPS from another provider and not run out of memory...

    When it comes time to upgrade, those providers using "honest" UBC setups (eg. 256MB VPS with 512MB burst) would have no problem switching to an equivalent vswap system (256MB VPS plus vswap). But providers who offered "no burst" plans (ie. burst limit = guaranteed limit = nominal VPS memory) would have a more difficult time. Take a "512MB" VPS with 512MB burst - that's roughly equivalent to a 256MB VPS on vswap (or any other system). But if you have users on such a plan, can you afford to give them a free upgrade to a 512MB vswap system, or must you explain why a 256MB is just as good? And how would you explain that without also admitting that you originally sold them a "512MB" VPS with only 256MB of usable memory? Tricky.
    Chris

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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by DWS2006 View Post
    Well I suppose that UBC might be better for low-end box VPS hosts, users can't do nearly as much with x amount of RAM. You can cram a lot more 256mb UBC vps servers on a machine in comparison to vswap.

    Can't think of a single instance where it would be good for the end-user.
    I have come across a few of those that when asked about Swap, either couldn't or didn't even know what it was.

    Such boxes are only good as monitors or vpn's.

  12. #12
    Our hosts, eUKhost, still advertise a burstable ram allowance, which we make use of.

    I dont know the ins and the outs, but from our point of view it appears to give a cost effective way of increasing our RAM allowance from 2gb to 4gb and in doing so appearing to resolve our memory shortage issues.

    Although I have no idea what is happening behind the scenes the marketing lead me to the impression given by in neq3sam the first response.


    Daniel

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by dhutch View Post
    a cost effective way of increasing our RAM allowance from 2gb to 4gb and in doing so appearing to resolve our memory shortage issues.
    What is the guarantee? 1GB
    If so, raising 2GB to 4GB is fine, because 4x is often needed.

    If that's not it, they're full of bull, as that's not how UBC works.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by dhutch View Post
    I dont know the ins and the outs, but from our point of view it appears to give a cost effective way of increasing our RAM allowance from 2gb to 4gb and in doing so appearing to resolve our memory shortage issues.
    "appears to" is exactly right. The UBC system is overestimating your memory usage, perhaps by a factor of about 2. But in compensation your provider gives you a "burst" limit of double your plan memory. So overall you get approximately what you paid for, which is all you can reasonably expect.

    Edit: damn, beaten by kp again!
    Chris

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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    Edit: damn, beaten by kp again!
    By 2 minutes.

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  16. #16
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    Guaranteed memory is the amount of memory allocated to your VPS which you can use up to at any time. Burst allows your VPS to use more than your guaranteed memory as long as the memory is available to use up to the burst limit.
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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by dhutch View Post
    Although I have no idea what is happening behind the scenes the marketing lead me to the impression given by in neq3sam the first response.


    Daniel


    That's it right there. No different than a Jimmy Kimmel twerking video that the media has embarrassingly caught fire about. All about marketing and not knowing what's behind the scenes.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by VMakerHOST View Post
    Guaranteed memory is the amount of memory allocated to your VPS which you can use up to at any time. Burst allows your VPS to use more than your guaranteed memory as long as the memory is available to use up to the burst limit.
    Did you read past the first post of the thread? Perhaps you should...
    Chris

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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by VMakerHOST View Post
    Burst allows your VPS to use more than your guaranteed memory as long as the memory is available to use up to the burst limit.
    That is wrong.
    Read the posts in this thread. It explains it in detail and in analogy.

    It's amazing how many "hosts" get this wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by 48-14 View Post
    Jimmy Kimmel twerking video
    Must. Resist. Yucky. Stupid. Videos. Online.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    What is the guarantee? 1GB
    If so, raising 2GB to 4GB is fine, because 4x is often needed.
    Guarantee 2GB, burstable to 4gb, site typically uses around 2GB on full load but had all sorts of issues when we where on 1.5gb burstable to 2gb. WHM shows 4gb available.

    Thats a VPS from eUKhost running a forum.


    Daniel

  21. #21
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    Once again because some commenters here still have it wrong. The ONLY setting that matters is burst. Just pretend guaranteed does not exist because it does not matter. If it did you have much bigger problems because the node has run out of RAM+SWAP which will make all VPS's basically unusable anyways.

    http://lowendbox.com/blog/why-i-dont...stable-memory/

    http://hostingfu.com/article/guaranteed-memory-openvz

    Completely irrelevant anyways unless the node is still running the old .18 kernel.

  22. #22
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    You shouldnt care about Guaranteed RAM & Burst RAM, get a VPS provider with 2.6.32 kernel nodes and enjoy life
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  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by mustardman View Post
    Once again because some commenters here still have it wrong. The ONLY setting that matters is burst. Just pretend guaranteed does not exist because it does not matter. If it did you have much bigger problems because the node has run out of RAM+SWAP which will make all VPS's basically unusable anyways.
    Agreed, but that's only half the picture. The other vital point is that memory usage isn't accounted properly. Your usage will be overestimated so you need the burst limit to be higher than the nominal VPS memory.

    Quote Originally Posted by dhutch View Post
    Guarantee 2GB, burstable to 4gb, site typically uses around 2GB on full load but had all sorts of issues when we where on 1.5gb burstable to 2gb. WHM shows 4gb available.
    Thanks for illustrating the point. The figures shown to you in WHM (both available and used) or in top, or in free (or anything derived from /proc/meminfo) are fabricated, and on UBC systems the method used to calculate those numbers is badly flawed. So if you think you're using 2GB, the chances are your real usage is around 800MB - 1GB (having usage overestimated by a factor of about 2 to 2.5 is typical for linux servers). Happily, your provider is an honest one who's sold you this as a "2GB" VPS, and indeed you'd probably get up close to 2GB of real usage (4GB reported) before running into problems, but don't think for a moment that you actually have (or need) 4GB.

    The only real information on your memory usage can be found in /proc/user_beancounters, which unfortunately takes some experience to interpret (post it here if you'd like it interpreted).
    Chris

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  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    Happily, your provider is an honest one who's sold you this as a "2GB" VPS, and indeed you'd probably get up close to 2GB of real usage (4GB reported) before running into problems, but don't think for a moment that you actually have (or need) 4GB....
    That said, they nominally make me pay extra for the 'burstable' allowance (which also includes more CPU cores) on top of the standard package. I use the term nominally however, because I've never actually had it as a chargeable item on my invoice.


    Daniel

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    Agreed, but that's only half the picture. The other vital point is that memory usage isn't accounted properly. Your usage will be overestimated so you need the burst limit to be higher than the nominal VPS memory.
    Once again because for some reason people STILL don't get it. The ONLY only only setting that matters is burst. As a rule burst is ALWAYS always always set to equal or greater then guaranteed and since guaranteed does not matter the burst setting is AGAIN....ALWAYS always always the only setting that matters. That's just how it works. So I don't know what you are trying to say or if you even understand what you are trying to say.

    If you want to say there is a time when burst vs guaranteed matters you are talking about a situation which basically makes the node unusable so it NEVER never never matters.

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