ESXi

Hi,

I was wondering about the ESXi 4.1 vSphere Hypervisor and was reading at the bottom of this page http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/faq.html that:

"vSphere Hypervisor license provides a vRAM entitlement of 32GB per server, regardless of the number of physical processors. vSphere Hypervisor can be used on servers with maximum physical RAM capacity of 32GB."

Does this mean that ESXi Hypervisor only supports 32 GB physical RAM? We are currently looking at investing in a 64GB server, but would we only get 32GB available?

Thanks

Lillis

For ESXi5, yes thats true.  If you plan to run the free hypervisor, dont buy more than 32 GB :smileyhappy:

Thanks, but what about 4.1? Any restriction there?

4.1 does not have such a restriction.

The 4.1 version of the free hypervisor has other indo of restrictions, for the example on the number or cores per socket (max 6).

Andre

Thanks guys for all the answers!

Do just take note that only apply to ESXi free edition does the physical RAM limitation comes to place and for the licensed copies vRAM.

Both are different.

Wee Kiong, Tan wrote:

Do just take note that only apply to ESXi free edition does the physical RAM limitation comes to place and for the licensed copies vRAM.

Both are different.

For the licensed version, the definitive answer is at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

For the free version, the FAQ answers are at http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/faq.html

How much vRAM does a VMware vSphere Hypervisor license provide?

vSphere Hypervisor license provides a vRAM entitlement of 32GB per server, regardless of the number of physical processors. vSphere Hypervisor can be used on servers with maximum physical RAM capacity of 32GB.

There are BOTH physical and vRAM restrictions with the free verson.

That is correct for free edition hypervisor for ESXi 5, its base on physical RAM and vRAM entitlement.  So even if you have more physical RAM it would be unused.  Same applies you can only apply 32GB of vRAM even if you have less than 32GB of physical RAM by doing an overcommit.

vRAM entitlement applies to the licensed version.

Hello,

I can confirm: ESXi 5 RTM (pre Update 1) has a bug which actually skips the Physical and vRAM check.

But since ESXi 5 Update 1,  you CAN NOT even run ESXi 5 Free on a server with more than 32GB of physical memory.

Since the huge drop in RAM pricing lately, a standard server now has about 64/92GB of memory so I can only hope this scale will also happen with ESXi.

If I'm not mistaken: the change in Licensing policy between ESXi 4 and ESXi5 changed because cores / processor package was changing too rapidly.

However, with RAM it's only a matter of time for this becomes equally the case?

Kind Regards

Does this mean that ESXi Hypervisor only supports 32 GB physical RAM? We are currently looking at investing in a 64GB server, but would we only get 32GB available?

It's not a *physical* limitiation - it's a *vRAM* limitation.  This means that the sum of the memory *allocations* for your running guests can not exceed 32GB.  It's not based on the memory you *use* - it's based on the memory you *allocate*.  Those are very different numbers!

For the free edition it is 32Gb physical RAM.

For license version, it is vRAM.  This is confusing however am explaining as below.

If you have 10 VMs each allocated 4GB.  Your total would be 40GB used.

E.g if you are using Essential license which is 32GB vRAM/socket.  If you server has 2 socket (irregardless of cores), you would need to purchase 2 x Essential license.  You will be entitled to use 64GB of vRAM.

In such, you will be allow to have 16VMs each at 4GB.  However do note the vRAM is calculate base on Powered allocated on VM.

If at times due to contention e.g. balloning happens, but its not all the time which causes you to exceed the vRAM entitlement of 64GB, you will not be penalize.  This is so as the allocated is base on a year of average usage.