Processor allocation in VM in 6.0

[bhanuprat92]

I have a Windows server 2008 R2 VM with 16 CPU comprising of 16 Sockets and 1 Core assigned from VCenter.

When I see in server , there's showing 1 processor with 1 core and 1 logical core. How to understand this?

[IRIX201110141]

Because you haven read the limitation or better the differents in Windows Server 2008 editions.  Your 2008 Standard was limit to 4 sockets and 32GB ram IIRC.

So in VMware configure the CPU Settings within these limits. For Example:

1x Socket and 16 Cores

2x Socket and 8 Cores

4x Socket and 4 Cores

Again... its a limit in Windows and not VMware.  Are you sure that the VM needs 16 vCPUs?

Regards,

Joerg

[bhanuprat92]

Thanks

[sushilkm]

In pure hardware terms, it means your motherboard have 16 CPU .

Look at your ESXI CPU architecture and assign accordingly keeping NUMA in mind, else you may end up with Performance issues.

Pls Share your current

A ) Number of socker

B ) CPU model

C) total physical memory

[bhanuprat92]

ESXi Detail :

The ESXi version is : 6.5

Sockets in ESXi : 2

ESXi CPU : Intel Xeon R - E5-4650 @ 2.70 GHz

Number of logical processors in ESXi : 64

Total memory on ESXi : 512 GB

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition VM :

Total memory in VM : 2.24 GB

Total Socket : 16

Total core : 1

[sushilkm]

I am not sure on how many CPU u prefer to assign to VM but it hardly your boundaries as as below

CPU - 32

Memory 256 GB .

Above is your NUMA boundary. Unless you have specific use case, do not attemot to cross above config limit for any VM. Would suggest to Apply One socket and 16 v CPU for best performance. this way, your VM will stay within NUMA limits.

Sockets or COres Per socket have been a controversial topic per se with experts differing on this. Ultimately it was cretaed to comply with Licencing requirements .

http://frankdenneman.nl/2013/09/18/vcpu-configuration-performance-impact-between-virtual-sockets-and...

Above blog by frank say it doesn;t make much difference provided u r within NUMA boundary, Pls do note that more is not always better when it comes to virtualization.

On other hand below blog by mark says otherwise.

Does corespersocket Affect Performance? - VMware vSphere Blog

See the below maximums for 2008 R2

[Dave_the_Wave]

VMware documentation obfuscated the matter somewhat with Windows OS licensing issues.

Some Standard Server versions will only allow maximum 2way=2sockets, if that was the license in hand, you could ramp up a rather beefy VM by setting it up as 2 CPU with 8 cores per socket. Now you have a Windows Standard Server that is running 16 threads that would otherwise be difficult in the real world.

NUMA will take care of your sockets/cores/threads, if the choice OS doesn't have any socket handicaps, 1Socket=1CPU=1core makes for easy setup.

From tests I have done, the VM appears to only care about the total overall count of beer cans it got, regardless if they were bundled in four 6 packs, two 12 packs, or the one 24 flat.