Another Resource Pool Question

[johnswb]

Ok, this is what I have in place.

A VM-Cluster with the following:

Total CPU Resources: 106 GHz

Total Memory: 106 GB

A Resource Pool with the following:

CPU

Shares: Low (2000)

Reservation: 10240 MHz

type: Fixed

Limit: 15360 MHz

Unreserved: 10240

Memory

shares: Low (81920)

Reservation: 15360 MB

type: Fixed

Limit: 20710 MB

Unreserved: 13845.49 MB

My question is about the Memory usage; I show the following during the time of this post.

CPU usage: 3729 MHz

Memory usage: -1989 MB

I know for a fact that the VM's that I have in this resource pool do not exceed the reserved amount I have set. So why would I be getting a negative -1989 MB ?

Even if I increase the memory I still get a negative on the memory.

[acr]

Follow this link..

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=97488

[johnswb]

I've upgraded VC to 2.0.2 before I created any resource pools. But after some time everything started looking good without doing anything. Maybe I just needed to wait for it to settle.

[acr]

Hopefully that will be it, although my understanding is that this issue still exists in 2.0.2..??

[RParker]

Yup. No change.

I just figure it's below negative amount from the entire pool. Whether this is true or not, that's how I regard the number.

[RParker]

You have low shares, yet you have a reservation?!?

Hmm.. I would leave the reservation off, unless your VM's specifically NEED a reserve memory (I haven't seen a difinitive example of this), you are wasting resource.

[johnswb]

My main reason of setting the reservation is this.

I have around 100 productional VM's and around 30 test VM's. My objective is to give "x" amount of resources to the test VM's, and leave the rest for production. I have several people building both test and productional VM's. With the test VM's going into resource pool that I created gives me a way to manage the resources of the VMCluster (VMC).

I am open to hear any suggestions you may have on how you think a resource pool should be setup.

[RParker · Accepted solution]

Well if you have resrouces available, you shouldn't have to reserve them. If they are test, and your production needs the resource, I would think the reverse is the way you want it, because the way it appears now is that TEST has reserve (which means they are guaranteed resource) and Production gets what is left over.

If your setup works for you, than who am I to judge? I just think its odd to reserve memory for a low share..

That's like setting the idle thread as high priority to me. If your cluster isn't starved for memory, then your TEST environments should have enough memory / CPU. When your production isn't using the memory, then the TEST will get the left overs by virtue of the LOW shares setting.

[johnswb]

RParker, that makes complete since to me. I'm trying to get a better understanding of resource pools and you just did that. I'm in the beginning stage of resource pools and just trying to get a better understanding of it.

My main concern is to make sure all of my productional VM's has the resources at all times. So, if I create a resource pool for these it will guarantee they will have the resources.

I like your suggesting better.