Manual
2X More VMs Per Server with vSphere 5.1, Xeon E5, and QLogic Server Adapters
Any concern about hosng Tier-1 apps on VMs has been elevated with vSphere 5.1, Intel E5 processors, and
next-generaon I/O throughput of the QLogic mulprotocol server adapters. Even agship enterprise
applicaons such as SAP, which typically require dozens of development, QA/test, and producon servers,
have adopted server virtualizaon within these environments as a best pracce. The CPU, memory, storage,
and networking I/O requirements are well documented by applicaon vendors and VMware. If one of your
goals is to increase VM density, the same combinaon allows for double the number of VMs per server while
enjoying the same level of individual applicaon performance.
Generaonal Dierences in Performance Using VMware VMmark 2.5
Using the VMware VMmark 2.5 virtualizaon
benchmark, VMware compared the performance of
four-node clusters consisng of servers with four-
core Intel Nehalem processors versus servers with
eight-core Intel EP processors. The new cluster
scored 120 percent higher than the old cluster. The
performance advantages were largely due to the
generaonal improvements of the eight-core E5-
2665 processor versus the four-core x3460
processor, improved bus speeds, increased
memory, and the resulng increase in I/O
throughput.
Having doubled the throughput rates with the
QLogic QLE2672 Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus
Adapter, the vSphere 5.1 plaorm can also support
more storage devices and meet bandwidth
requirements. Now, using the same number of
Fibre Channel links as before can support double
the bandwidth, beneng virtualized applicaons.
QLogic I/O = Higher VM Density
Performance Differences in Intel
Generation Using VMware VMmark 2.5
Business-crical applicaons such as ERP, CRM, eCommerce,
and e-mail need high-performance and high-availability I/O
infrastructure to meet business SLAs.
Tier-1 Apps
(Source: VMware Blog)