Installation guide

C H A P T E R 1 2 VMware ESX Server Resource Management
383
Virtual Machine Resource Management
ESX Server uses a proportional share mechanism to allocate CPU, memory, and disk
resources when multiple virtual machines are contending for the same resource.
Network bandwidth is controlled with network traffic shaping.
CPU and memory resource each offer an additional dimension of control. For CPU
management, you can specify a minimum and maximum percentage of a single
physical CPU’s processing power for each virtual machine. You may also specify CPU
shares and restrict a virtual machine to run on a certain set of physical CPUs (CPU
scheduling affinity). For more information, see Admission Control Policy on page 389.
Similarly, you may specify minimum and maximum memory sizes, as well as memory
shares, for each virtual machine. Your level of control is greatly impaired, however, if
you fail to install VMware Tools in each virtual machine or if you fail to set up the
VMkernel swap space. For more information, see Allocating Memory Resources on
page 403.
Note: You should not have to adjust resources for every virtual machine you create.
We suggest that you determine which virtual machines are performance sensitive
and adjust these accordingly.
Service Console Resource Management
The service console receives 2000 CPU shares and has a minimum CPU percentage of
8 percent, by default. In most cases, this should be an appropriate allocation, since the
service console should not be used for CPU-intensive tasks.
If you do find it necessary to adjust the service console’s allocation of CPU shares, you
can use the VMware Management Interface. See Configuring the Service Console on
page 220.
Depending on the number of virtual machines you plan to run concurrently, we have
approximate guidelines for the memory you should allocate to the service console.
For more information, see Service Console Memory on page 424.