From VMware KB:
The VMware software will run on Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP)
systems, also technically referred to as Multi-Processor Specification
(MPS) systems. However, the environment provided within each VMware
virtual machine is a Uni-Processor (UP) system. Multiple concurrent
VMware virtual machines will make use of the multiple processors in a
system.
The VMware software requires at least a Linux 2.2.x kernel to run on
an SMP system and will fail with an error message on SMP systems running
2.0.x or 2.1.x kernels. With VMware products for Windows NT/2000/XP,
the VMware software supports SMP kernels. The host OS will run its tasks
on multiple processors dynamically (regardless of whether apps or one,
two or more VMs are running at the same time). Keep in mind though that
each VM runs as a single process on the host OS, so if you run a single
VM on a dual processor machine, the performance will be only slightly
higher then if you ran the same single VM on a single processor system.
However, if you run two VMs concurrently, the dual-processor machine
will yield higher performance since the host OS will assign each of the
two main VM processes to each processor.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1184
iSCSI Software Support Department
Kind Regards,
Anatoly Vilchinsky
