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montespcs
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Service Console Memory - Is the default (272MB) enough for 50+ VM's?

I am running ESX 3.0.2 (52542) with my Service Console Memory running the default (272MB) configuration. Is this enough memory for 50+ VM's?

I don't run VCB, 3rd party apps, VMotion, HA, or DRS. I only use the standard HP Insight Management agent installation 7.9 for a hardware reporting tool.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas?

Thanks!

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Texiwill
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Hello,

Due to the possibility of agents being installed or backup tools being used that contact the SC, I often use the maximum for my SC memory and set my swap space to 2GBs (the max you can have for a single swap partition on Linux, however you can have as many of these as you desire). If this is after the fact, you either need to repartition, add another partition on your local drives, or use a local swap file.

If you search the forums for 'swapon' you will find plenty of instructions for this.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill

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weinstein5
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Could be - are you seeing any perfomance issues like with the VM Console? If not then it shoudl be fine - if you do need to increase the memory you will also need to increase the service console swap space - it needs to be 2x the size of the memory assigned to the service console -

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JonRoderick
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After a recent VMware healthcheck, we were advised to increase our COS RAM to 544 and, as weintein5 points out, increase the swap partition to twice this.

I couldn't get any evidence from VMware as to whether this was actually needed in our environment but as they recommended it, we did it and haven't seen any problems either way up to now.

Cheers.

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dmaster
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normally you do not have to change the service console memory with ESX 3 the default of 272MB is just fine..

the only reason to increase the service console memory if you have installed some agents like HP SIM, navisphere agent, ecc console, solution enabler , etc. on your service console.

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VMKR9
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I tend to set the console memory and swap to the maximum pretty much regardless of the amount of vms, in a modern server with 16-32GB+ that extra 500mb for the service console does not concern me and is enough to allow me not to have to worry about it.... just my 2 cents.....

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weinstein5
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I agree with vmkr9 - or at a minimum make sure the swap space is set to 1.6 GB (this is twice the maximum amount of memory for the COS) so that way if you do decide to resize the meemory your do not need to touch the swap partition

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Texiwill
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Hello,

Due to the possibility of agents being installed or backup tools being used that contact the SC, I often use the maximum for my SC memory and set my swap space to 2GBs (the max you can have for a single swap partition on Linux, however you can have as many of these as you desire). If this is after the fact, you either need to repartition, add another partition on your local drives, or use a local swap file.

If you search the forums for 'swapon' you will find plenty of instructions for this.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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Schorschi
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Set it to 800MB, set the swap to 1600MB, and never look back. Smiley Happy

John_Bergin
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What about with ESXi - It sets on a different scale or doesn't set it at all?

We were just told to push it to 800 but it seems like a lot of ram to allocate to the SC when we don't run agents and ESXi doesn't utilize that at all (?)

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weinstein5
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ESXi does not have a service console so no need for service console memory or swap space by default -

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John_Bergin
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Of course but that RAM need must still exist at some level. The hypervisor must have SOME system overhead.

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weinstein5
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yes it is now rolled into the vmkernel which automatically take memory as needed

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Texiwill
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Hello,

Actually ESXi has a Service Console... It is not running GNU/Linux but the Posix environment from Busybox. This is a very common misunderstanding. Service Console to me has always been 'Management Appliance' and yes, it is its own VM albeit a specialized one since VI3 arrived. Perhaps the term Service Console should be exchanged with Management Appliance.

If you have the HP Agent version of ESXi then your SC should have more memory than the default.

vmkernel allocates its memory first and will grab whatever it needs for the VMs. the SC plays no part in this anymore, not like ESX v2.x. So what the SC has for memory is unrelated to the # of VMs, but related to what the SC/Management Appliance and its agents in use. So if you are using HPASM then I may double the amount of memory for the SC. But should this really need to happen? Just look at vmstat and verify that swapping is not occurring. If it is, then raise the amount of memory available to the Management Appliance.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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montespcs
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Setting the SC to 800MB (max) and having a partition set for 2x that amount is our best solution we came up with. Cold and hot migrations actually completed successfully, and issues with HP Insight Manger agent cleared up.

Thanks!

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