Specifications

Administration Guide
358 VMware, Inc.
the!virtual!machine!is!approximately!187MB.!About!14MB!of!overhead!memory!is!
currently!being!used!for!virtualization,!out!of!a!maximum!of!54MB.
Cautions
VMware!supplies!vmmemctl!drivers!for!Windows!Server!2003,!Windows!XP,!Windows!
2000,!Windows!NT!4.0,!and!Linux.!The!appropriate!vmmemctl!driver!is!installed!when!
you!install!VMware!Tools!in!the!guest!operating!system.!The!system!uses!swapping!to!
reclaim!memory!from!virtual!machines!running!other!guest!operating!systems!and!
from!virtual
!machines!that!do!not!have!VMware!Tools!installed.
The!maximum!amount!of!memory!that!the!system!may!attempt!to!reclaim!using!
vmmemctl!is!restricted!based!on!known!limitations!of!the!type!of!guest!operating!
system.!Alternatively,!you!can!specify!the!configuration!file!option!
sched.mem.maxmemctl!manually.!See!the!description!of!the!ESX
!Server!options!
MemCtlMax[OSType]!for!appropriate!limits.
Using Your NUMA System
ESX!Server!2.5!includes!additional!support!for!machines!that!are!based!on!NUMA!
(Non‐Uniform!Memory!Access)!architecture.!NUMA!machines!are!made!up!of!
multiple!nodes!(also!called!CECs!on!some!multiple‐node!machines).!
Each!node!comprises!one!to!four!processors!and!main!memory.!In!a!node,!each!CPU!
has!the
!same!distance!from!its!“local!memory.”!
Each!processor!can!access!memory!on!any!node,!but!accessing!memory!on!a!different!
node!(referred!to!as!“remote!memory”)!is!substantially!slower!than!accessing!“local!
memory”!that!lies!on!the!same!node!as!the!processor.!That!is,!the!memory!access!speed!
for!CPUs!
on!a!node!vary,!depending!on!the!“distance”!of!the!memory!from!the!node.!
For!additional!information!on!NUMA!and!supported!NUMA!platforms,!refer!to!the!
VMware!ESX!Server2!NUMA!Support!White!Paper,!available!at!
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx2_NUMA.pdf.
For!more!information!on!NUMA!management!by!VMware!ESX!Server,!see!the!numa(8)!
man!
page.
NUMA Configuration Information
This!section!describes!how!to!obtain!statistics!about!your!NUMA!system.