Please help with CPU issue.

[Jim82]

Hi all,

Please help me decide whether I should remove ESXi or stay with it.

I actually only need 1 server, but likes ESXi for the Snapshots and the option to manage my server "locally".

Never the less I am in doubt about the performance of my guest server. ESXi allow me to select up to 8 CPU's. I am running a single physical Core i7 920.

But selecting more than 4 CPU's to my guest server, will result in a message about missing license. I am running the free version and want to stay running that.

Here are my questions:

1) Would I be better off running my server without ESXi?

2) Is ESXi in fact utilizing my CPU to the max even though I'm only able to select 4 CPU's?

3) Is there any noticeable performance degradation in running 1 guest with ESXi, rather than just running that server as a normal installation(without ESXi).

Any help is much appreciated!

Best regards

Jim

[mcowger]

1) Depends on your priorities. If your priority is performance, then you should run it natively. if your priority is management options (snapshots, etc), then stick with it.

2) Yes. Your core i7 920 has 4 physical cores (8 logical, but that includes hyperthreading cores), so by creating a 4 vCPU VM you are using 95% of the available CPU power.

3) There is always a performance impact to virtualization - the extent of the impact and its detectability is entirely dependent on the application and can't easily be predicted without a lot of data collection.

--Matt
VCP, VCDX #52, Unix Geek, Storage Nerd

[golddiggie]

The FREE edition limits you to just four vCPU's per VM... In order to get more, you need to purchase one of the editions that allow more...

The i7-920 processor is a 4 core, hyper-threading (so 8 threads max), not a single core as you posted.

Typically, I don't see people running a single server under ESX/ESXi... Usually, you're looking to have MORE servers (virtual) per physical resource/asset/server... Since you're running on a desktop processor, is it safe to say this is also a desktop system?

You do NOT want to assign more vCPU's than you have actual, physical, cores in your system... So, I wouldn't assign 4 vCPU's to your virtual server/guest... Typically, we start off assigning a single vCPU to a VM, unless it requires more (for performance reasons, and is SMP or a multi-threading application/server running)... You'll normally find VM's with one, or two, vCPU's assigned in the vast majority of environments. Cases where the VM's are being heavily tasked is where you'll find more vCPU's allocated...

I highly recommend reading up on ESX/ESXi starting here... Go through the Release Notes and Compatibility docs as well as the Guides and Papers for starters... You'll learn a good amount there. Follow up by going through some of the Knowledge Base items for the release you're looking to use... A bit of reading/self education will go a LONG way...

VMware VCP4

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[Jim82]

Thank you both for very helpfull answers.

although this is a desktop CPU, the server has 24GB RAM and is to be used with Cpanel Hosting Control Panel for webhosting.

/Jim