Installation guide

CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines
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The CPU page shows how much of the server processor or processors each virtual
processor is utilizing, how CPU resources are allocated to the virtual machine, whether
Hyper-Threading is enabled and if there is any scheduling affinity to any specified
processors on the server.
Understanding Performance Values
The values under Performance are based on the past five minutes. The period of time
these statistics cover can be modified. See Configuring the Statistics Period for the
VMware Management Interface on page 89. Performance information displayed
includes:
• CPU Utilization — how much of the server processor or processors each virtual
processor is utilizing.
Understanding Resource Values
The values under Resources indicate a range of percentages of a processor to which
the virtual machine is entitled. Resource information displayed includes:
• Minimum — represents the minimum amount of processor capacity that must
be available in order to power on the virtual machine.
• Maximum — represents the highest amount of processor capacity the virtual
machine can ever consume, even if the processor is idle. The maximum value
can be larger than 100% if the virtual machine has more than one virtual CPU.
• Shares — represents a relative metric for allocating processor capacity. The
values low, normal, and high are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual
machines on the server and the service console. Share allocation symbolic
values can be used to configure their conversion into numeric values.
• Isolated from Hyper-Threading — represents the CPU operation state of the
virtual machine. Enabling this option prevents a virtual machine from sharing a
physical CPU with other virtual machines when Hyper-Threading is enabled.
Note: Enabling this option prevents the virtual machine from using the
performance advantages of Hyper-Threading.
For more information on share values, refer to the resource management man pages:
cpu(8), diskbw(8), and mem(8). For more information on Hyper-Threading, see
the hyperthreading(8) man page.
• Scheduling Affinity — represents on which ESX Server processors the virtual
machine can run, when the ESX Server system is a multiprocessor system.