Specifications

Hosts running virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems have the following hardware

requirements:

For AMD Opteron-based systems, the processors must be Opteron Rev E or later.

For Intel Xeon-based systems, the processors must include support for Intel Virtualization Technology

(VT). Many servers that include CPUs with VT support might have VT disabled by default, so you must

enable VT manually. If your CPUs support VT ,but you do not see this option in the BIOS, contact your

vendor to request a BIOS version that lets you enable VT support.

To determine whether your server has 64-bit VMware support, you can download the CPU Identification

Utility from the VMware Web site.

vCenter Server and vSphere Client Hardware Requirements

The vCenter Server system is a physical machine or virtual machine with access to a supported database.

The vCenter Server system must meet specific requirements. The vCenter Server machines must meet the

hardware requirements.

vCenter Server Hardware Requirements

Table 3‑2. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server

vCenter Server Hardware Requirement

CPU Two 64-bit CPUs or one 64-bit dual-core processor.

Processor 2.0GHz or faster Intel 64 or AMD 64 processor. The

Itanium (IA64) processor is not supported. Processor

requirements might be higher if the database runs on the

same machine.

Memory 4GB RAM. Memory requirements might be higher if the

database runs on the same machine.

vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware

VirtualCenter Management Webservices (Tomcat),

Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.

When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of

your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these

services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM

heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting

after installation if the number of hosts in your

environment changes. See the recommendations in

Table 3-3.

Disk storage 4GB. Disk requirements might be higher if the vCenter

Server database runs on the same machine. In vCenter

Server 5.0, the default size for vCenter Server logs is 450MB

larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure the disk space

allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this increase.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express disk Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation

archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted

after the installation is complete.

Networking Gigabit connection recommended.

The recommended JVM heap settings for vCenter Server depend on your inventory size.

Chapter 3 System Requirements

VMware, Inc. 17