[Users] Problem with Load with Servers Connected to a SAN

[Mark Johanson]

Having troubles getting a problem diagnosed with load issues during VPS
creations. The template that causes the issues is a cPanel template that
is 2G in size (not my choice in the template size it is how management
wants the VPS ready to go with minimal config change so cPanel is
pre-installed rather then installing after the VPS is created).

When the VPS creates it causes a extreme amount of load (ie upwards of
120-300) until it finishes with the untaring of the template. We are
running out of ideas on things to check for possible causes behind the
load, or even if it might just be OpenVZ running VPS's on a SAN. I've
included the server and SAN information below. I can provide other
information as well (not sure what all you might need for information
and didn't want to make an overloading message.

We have tried two different kernels to see if it might be kernel
related, but (while still not ruled out) does not seem to be the cause
unless it happens to be a issue in both kernels we have tried.

Any assistance would be great.

Sever 1:
MOTHERBOARD VENDOR: Supermicro
MOTHERBOARD MODEL: X8DTL
CPU: (2 x physical) (16 x logical)  Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz
RAM:  16427432 kB
Linux server 2.6.32-feoktistov.1 #1 SMP Fri Mar 4 19:19:45 MSK 2011
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
vzctl version 3.0.26.2

Server 2:
MOTHERBOARD VENDOR: Supermicro
MOTHERBOARD MODEL: X8DTL
CPU: (2 x physical) (16 x logical)  Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz
RAM:  16427452 kB
Linux server vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.9.1.el5.028stab089.1  #1 SMP Fri Mar 4
19:19:45 MSK 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
vzctl version 3.0.26.3

San Information:
FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE
ZFS v15
istgt iSCSI target
RAID50 7 RAID5's in the RAID0
21 drives