Being dim, it's been a long week... VMWare Q...

MasterPlan1 · 3 Jun 2011 at 14:54

Ok, so I've got a new machine here at work - it's going to be dual hex xeon's, it's purely for a DB server, but we're running it on a vSphere hyper visor because we can move it off and move it around with ease. (I personally don't agree with it, but hey ho.)

Question 1:

I can definately add another chip in at a later date?

Question 2:

In theory, I should be able to add all 12 cores as processing power to the DB machine? In my eyes, I personally feel this is a loss of performance as it will not be utilising HT. As it should have 24 threads available to it, but will only have 12 as I don't think VMWare uses HT.

TIA.

n30_mkii · 3 Jun 2011 at 21:18

Yep only a max of 4 vcpu's as standard. In VMWare it will create a HEC for each core and HT if available, so it will fully max the processors potential minus the overhead for the hypervisor. Will it be the only thing on this host?

droyden · 4 Jun 2011 at 17:25

What DB is it?
What is your disk configuration?

MasterPlan1 · 4 Jun 2011 at 17:46

Convinced my boss it's a bad idea dumping it on a hyper visor, went with a base install of 2k8R2.

HarryPainful · 4 Jun 2011 at 23:28

Why is it a bad idea because you're inexperienced with vmware?

Trojan · 5 Jun 2011 at 08:42

HarryPainful said:
Why is it a bad idea because you're inexperienced with vmware?

I imagine it's more a bad idea due to the server use not really being suited to being virtualised in this instance. If you're only going to run a single VM on an ESX server, you're wasting money, performance, and effort.

Just because something can be virtualised, doesn't necessarily mean that it should be.