6.7

Table Of Contents
Table 115. Data Counters (Continued)
Chart Label Description
Consumed Amount of machine memory used on the host.
Consumed memory includes virtual machine memory, service console memory, and
VMkernel memory.
consumed memory = total host memory - free host memory
n
Counter: consumed
n
Stats Type: Absolute
n
Unit: Megabytes (MB)
n
Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum)
n
Collection Level: 1 (4)
Granted Sum of the guest physical memory granted for all powered on virtual machines. Granted
memory is mapped to the host's machine memory.
Granted memory for a host includes the shared memory of each virtual machine on the host.
n
Counter: granted
n
Stats Type: Absolute
n
Unit: Megabytes (MB)
n
Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum)
n
Collection Level: 2 (4)
Swap Used Sum of the memory swapped by all powered on virtual machines on the host.
n
Counter: swapused
n
Stats Type: Absolute
n
Unit: Megabytes (MB)
n
Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum)
n
Collection Level: 2 (4)
Total Aggregate total memory available to the cluster.
n
Counter: totalmb
n
Stats Type: Absolute
n
Unit: Megabytes (MB)
n
Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum)
n
Collection Level: 1 (4)
Chart Analysis
To ensure best performance, the host memory must be large enough to accommodate the active memory
of the virtual machines. The active memory can be smaller than the virtual machine memory size. It
allows you to over-provision memory, but still ensures that the virtual machine active memory is smaller
than the host memory.
Transient high-usage values usually do not cause performance degradation. For example, memory usage
can be high when several virtual machines are started at the same time or when a spike occurs in virtual
machine workload. However, a consistently high memory usage value (94% or greater) indicates that the
host is probably lacking the memory required to meet the demand. If the active memory size is the same
as the granted memory size, the demand for memory is greater than the memory resources available. If
the active memory is consistently low, the memory size might be too large.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance
VMware, Inc. 21