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Toormser
Contributor
Contributor

Can I change CPU Settings for vCenter Machine

Dear Community,

We're use HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9 (which has Intel Xeon CPU E5-2667 v4 in it) in our company for ESX-Hosts. So at on of these hosts, the vCenter Maschine is located. The vCenter machine has (by default) 4 Cores by 4 Sockets. The problem is, that the DL380 Gen9 has 2 Hardware CPU Sockets only. In this case, the vCenter machine virtualize 2 Sockets (becaue it has 4 Sockets). This generate more cpu load than necessary.

My misson is, I go to the ESX-01 server directly (https://esx01.foo.bar), shutdown the vCenter machine, change the CPU settings to 4 vCores by 1 Socket and start the vCenter machine again.

My question is: Can I go for it or should I do nothing on this machine? For my understanding what happend during I shutdown the vCenter machine is, the vCenter is not reachable only? Or not?

Version VMware ESXi, 6.7.0, 15160138 is installed on our cluster.

Thanks Toormser

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Moderator: Moved to vCenter Server


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
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IRIX201110141
Champion
Champion

Your assumption is wrong. In your case there is no different in 1x4Core, 4xSocket or 2x2.  This comes into play when you need more vCPU or vMemory than one of your phys. Cores can deliver. It comes into play when CPU Hot Add is enabled.  You should read about NUMA and how ESXi deal with it.

Regards,

Joerg

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Toormser
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your answer. We have an really high value of ready-time (about 4000ms and higher) in the host cpus. One of the reason of this, was the fact, that much virutal machines was configured for (for example) 4vCores by 4 Sockets. To reduce the ready-time in the host cpus, I reconfigure the virtual machines to 4vCores by 1 Socket.

I've notice every day the values and after reconfigure 30 machines, we're win 50% more performance (regarding the ready-time). So, some machines are remain right now, the vCenter virtual machine is one of these.

This is the reason why I ask "Can I change the CPU in the vCenter (vSphere) Machine?"

Thanks, Toormser

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Stay on the right side of the hardware requirements for the VM: Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance


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Toormser
Contributor
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Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines)416 GB

This fitted for our environment (we have 5 hosts and round about 300 machines). It's absolutely okey, that the vSphere machines becomes 4 vCores. But it's really necessary, that the vSphere machine becomes 4vCores by 4 Sockets or can I scale it down to 4vCores by 1 Sockets?

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Just make sure it has a total of 4:

1 vCPU with 4 sockets

2 vCPUs with 2 sockets each

4 vCPUs with 1 socket each


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VMware Training & Certification blog
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