vCloud Director Scalability Limits / Configuration Maximums

[PhilPollard]

I'm looking around for a config maximums or scalability guide for VCD. Google shows that at one point there was a KB article for this (1029345) called "VMware vCloud Director Scalability Limits" but it appears to have been removed.

Where can I find the official word on config maximums?

[IamTHEvilONE]

Is there a specific limit you are looking for?

Best Regards,

Jon Hemming

[pic]

The KB is currently being worked on so it is not available.

[PhilPollard]

Specificially I am looking on the best practice and/or maximums for the number of ESXi hosts per VCD.

[IMMatt]

That's a good question.  Each VCD cell can talk to up to 25 vcenters, but I haven't seen a specific ESXi host limit for it.  I would assume it has more to do with vCenter host limits and VM limits (10k VMs per vCloud environment).  Realistically, I think it would be pretty hard to hit a host limit before you hit the VM limit, but it would be nice to see a number.

[PhilPollard]

Has there been any progress on this issue? I've run into a few more situations where having a maximums document would be very helpful.

Specifically:

- How many VMs can exist in a vApp?

- How many Catalogs can exist in an Organization?

- What is the max name size for a template, a catalog, a vapp, and a VM?

[PhilPollard]

I can get the name sizes by just brute testing, but I would really like some official guidance on the following:

- How many VMs can exist in a vApp?

- How many Catalogs can exist in an Organization?

vCloud Director has been released for over a year now -- still no guide?

[bparlier · Accepted solution]

You can look here:

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r50/vsphere-50-configuration-maximums.pdf

Just go to the Cloud Director section.

[PhilPollard]

I'm glad to see they folded it into the general Maximums guide. Page 6 to be specific.

Any word if there are details for this on top of ESXi 4.1?

     - Phil

[bparlier]

Haven't seen that specifically, but will look around for you shortly.

[admin]

ALthough not listed I am pretty sure there is also an 8 host limit per cluster if you are using Fast Provisioning, just like in VMware View.  So that should be considered in a design as well.

[IamTHEvilONE]

Chris,

Are you referring to this? http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003319

The limit is about how many hosts can open a given Linked Clone chain, not about a cluster limitation.  Sure, an 8 host limit per VMFS datastore volume will avoid the issue all together ... but doesn't explain what's going on.

If vCloud & vCenter are at least as smart as Lab Manager was, it should be able to gracefully handle this.  Lab Manager, if you had a 9 host cluster on VMFS, would just not power on the VM on the additional host.

So just to be accurate ... if you build multiple linked clone trees (different root nodes), then the load balancing can happen within reason and DRS should be able to accomodate by moving other VMs around.

It's not perfect, but it should be able to handle this situation automatically.

Best Regards,

Jon Hemming

[admin]

Cool.  Thanks for clarifying.  I know the question comes up often once you want to enable fast provisioning.