Manual

Best Pracces in vSphere 5.1
No hardware resource is more important to overall performance
than memory. Plan to ensure each VM has the memory it needs,
but without wasng memory in the process.
Memory
Start with Planning
When planning a VMware installaon, it is important to take into account the new capabilies of vSphere
5.1. VMware has added signicantly to the scalability of vSphere 5.1. For data centers virtualizing Tier-1
applicaons, the signicant scalability enhancement is the ability to have up to 1TB of memory and 64 virtual
CPU cores (vCPU) per VM. This will ensure that almost all Tier-1 applicaons should perform well in a
vSphere 5.1 environment.
However, these new capabilies bring new complexies, and with them the need to plan new data center
architectures. This not only includes planning the deployment for today’s needs, but also thoroughly
invesgang evoluon strategies for applicaons before bolng down racks and lling them with servers.
Planning which applicaons are going to run on your virtualized servers is the rst step in understanding your
needs. From there, it is crical to dene server integraon points with exisng resources (likely core
switching and storage resources), and how these will be aected by the evoluon of exisng resources. Aer
that, planning your approach to vMoon® and capacity growth over the lifeme of your new infrastructure
will help you scope internal I/O requirements
appropriately.
Finally, determining whether to ulize
converged networks or not, and what I/O
performance you need, will enable you to
intelligently discuss your I/O and networking
opons with your SAN/LAN equipment
providers. These steps will help you ensure
success when virtualizing your Tier-1
applicaons.
To fully opmize virtualized data centers,
servers need maximum I/O capacity to support high input/output operaon rates and high bandwidth
applicaons. Increased bandwidth is also needed for server virtualizaon, which aggregates I/O from mulple
virtual machines (VMs) to the host’s data path. This next-generaon combinaon takes full advantage of new
features that are described in detail in this planning guide. Read on to discover how QLogic can increase your
infrastructure ROI and overall compeveness.