ESXi 5.0 - HT CPU - Allocate 2 HT cores as a single cpu

[axl1971]

Apology if any of my termonolgy is incorrect, need some advice on this.

I plan to implement SAP BI on ESXi 5. Build 768111 on Windows 2008 R2 and due to license I am restricted to one CPU only.

I have spoken to our legal team and SAP have confirmed if I can allocate 2 HT cores (if that is the correct term) and show it as a single CPU within the operating system I am not breaking any license agreement.

However in VSphere client when I set Number of Virtual Sockets = 2 and Number of Cores Per Socket = 1 - I see two vCPU - I may be mistaken on my understanding, but I assumed this would show as a single vCPU

so how can I set the vCPU to be single - yet use 2 HT per socket.

[a_p_]

Welcome ot the Community,

what you need to do in this case is to configure a single socket with 2 Cores per Socket. This will present one vCPU (socket) with two cores to the guest OS.

André

[axl1971]

is this done via the vSphere GUI ? Is this the settings for number of virtual sockets and number of cores per socket or is this via the cpuid.corespersocket setting ?

[a_p_]

As of vSphere 5 you can configure this in the VM's virtual hardware (processor) settings in the GUI.

André

[axl1971]

H

thanks for your assistance, I have done as you requested, and as you can see I still get vCPU count as 2 - unless this is the wrong section I am changing the settings

[a_p_]

The "Total number of Cores" shown here will be the same no matter how you configure the settings (2->1, 1->2). However, it's the presentation to the guest OS which matters in your case. With setting the "Number of virtual sockets" to 1 and "Number of cores per virtual socket" to 2, the guest will see one dual-core vCPU.

André

[axl1971]

no matter what settings I use, the guest OS see's two vCPU and accoring to SAP this would breach our license agreement and I would need to purchase an additional CPU license. SAP associate a core as a CPU license.

Looks like what I wanted to do can not be done.

Thanks for your assistance, very much appreciated.

[a_p_]

After taking a look at SPA's license agreement I understand what you mean. You'd need 2 licenses (rounded up from 1 for the first vCPU and 0.5 for each additional vCPU) in this case. I wonder what they were referring to when they said you can add 2 HT cores as this is not possible with vSphere (at least not from what I know).

The only way - although this would be very strange - could be to set a CPU affinity for the VM, which however would not change the presentation to the guest OS. Setting a CPU affinity might also impact the whole environment.

André