Virtual Center Sizing

[thickclouds]

I have looked everywhere. We are trying to size several VC environments that will grow rather large (40+ hosts, 1000+ guests) Does VC support the /PAE switch in windows 2003 32bit to give it more memory? How large should we size the boxes?

[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

There is a doc with this info but I can't seem to find it. We are currently at 1500 VMs and 50 servers. Our VC server, running VC 2.5 which is more scalable than 2.x, has 4 GB of RAM and a dual core proc and easily handles the load. We also have between 40 and 50 sessions connected at any given time. Our databse server has 8GB RAM, 2 x dual core procs and 8 hard drives in a RAID 10 config. The only thing I would change is the # of spindles available for the SQL server. there are periods where the disk queue length is higher than I would like.

some info on Virtual Center,and ESX,maximums: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_config_max.pdf

Hope that helps

[thickclouds]

Thanks for the max doc, I have actually already reviewed it though. My question in in order for the virtual center server to see more than 2GB you must ust boot.ini switches as you know. Will/does VC support this and can it actually use more than 2GB?

[VirtualNoitall]

you mean /3GB?

Our VC service is only using about 400MB of RAM currently. We did not use the switch. Of the 4GB of RAM on the host running the VCMS 2.5 GB are free. This server initially had VCMS and the DB which is why it has more RAM that it otherwise might.

[thickclouds]

I mean the /PAE switch which allows a win32 process to consume more than 2GB of RAM. Have/could you try this one?

[VirtualNoitall · Accepted solution]

Not it is not. PAE is for large memory support > 4GB. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283037

Here is another doc that talks about PAE and /3GB: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

Hope that helps!

[thickclouds]

Right. I know that doc I am just curious if I give the box 8GB, can it use over 4. 3GB just limits the os to 1GB.

[VirtualNoitall]

I am running 50 hosts, 1500 VMS, and 50 concurrent VI connections. You can only get a bit bigger, based on the maximums listed by VMware ( 200 hosts, 2000 VMS, and 100 connections ) and VCMS is only using 400 MB of RAM in our environment. 4GB isalready overkill.