Memory usage - Alarms

[Dr_No2]

Hello

I am using ESX 3.5 and on my VMs, I keep getting red alarms about "Virtual Machine Memory Usage" being over the limit then turns yellow.

When I go into the actual VM (Windows), and look at the memory usage, it only says it is using 400MB, when I allocated the VM 2GB...How is it over the limit? Why does ESX recognize that it is using over 2GB when guest VM is using 400MB?

Thanks

[dmaster]

did you specify a memory limt on those vm's ? maybe this is causing the problem ?

or

if you see this temporary only when restarting or power on the vm, then this is normal behaviour.

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

This is common when a virtual machine first boots. Windows zeroes the contents of all pages in physical memory while booting. The Windows balloon drivers are not started until late in the boot sequence, soon after booting the amount of shared memory drops rapidly, and ESX Server compensates by using ballooning to reclaim memory. Page sharing continues to exploit sharing opportunities over time saving additional memory.

Eric Siebert

VMware Communities User Moderator

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Check out my website: VMware-land

Read my virtualization blog: SSV Blog

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-