Memory Overhead performance counter provides different data than Memory Overhead Summary (in VIC)

[david_drew]

I posted the same question phrased differently in the Performance thread, so I apologize for repeating myself, but I can't find an explanation in the docs.

Looking at values of Memory Overhead from performance counters, I'm getting values such as "58.22". Checking the VIC Performance tab returns the same information, so I know it's correct.

But, in the Summary form in the VIC, there's a different statistic, "Memory Overhead Summary", and it's usually around 120 - 140. I'd like to know what the difference is, and why two different (though probably related) types of data use the same label. Ideally, it would be nice to know how to convert one to the other.

Thanks,

-David

[admin · Accepted solution]

The Memory Overhead under Summary tab that you are referring in VI Client is different from the Performance counter 'overhead'

The Memory Overhead under summary tab is the amount of memory resource (in bytes) that will be used by the virtual machine above its guest memory requirements. This value is set if and only if the virtual machine is registered on a host that supports memory resource allocation features. For powered off VMs, this is the minimum overhead required to power on the VM on the registered host.

While the counter memory overhead is the amount of overhead memory consumed by the running virtual machine.

Please select Memory Overhead counter from Change Chart Options under Performance Tab for the counter value.