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VMWare and physical cores?

Hi,

I'm using VMware V9 with a CPU that has 4 physical cores.

Let's say that I have 3 VM's, and I specify that each VM gets 2 processors. If I fire up all 3 VM's, they are obviously going to claim more cores than I have. How does VMware reconcile this? Does it throttle access to the cores or something like that?

I also noticed that there is a field for "Number of cores per processor". Does that refer to HyperThreading?

What's the best practice when distributing resources to the VM's?

Thanks in advance.
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Thank you. So when you use the term "vCPU (socket)", that's analogous "Number of processors:" in VMware, correct?

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Correct, it's displayed a little different in VMware Workstation to vSphere.

But yes virtual processors = sockets = vCPU.
And the "Number of cores per processor" refers to HyperThreading, correct? If so, how should those be deployed?
Cores is a reference to cores on the physical processor.

if hyperthreading is enable on your processor, you will usually have double the cores.

I would only recommend using cores, if you have a license requirement based on cores, whether you select processors (sockets) or cores, the performance is going to be the same, it's there to maintain license conditions, where it states, licensed for 2 cores.
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Thank you. I'm beginning to get a grasp on sockets, cores, and VM's.

This is just a testbed for me to learn VMware, so allow me to pose another theory based question:

Let's say I'm running VMware on am AMD 8350, This CPU has 8 cores and not HT (I think). Let's say a single socket MB with 32GB of RAM. I'd like to test run maybe Server 2012, and three Win 7 x64 machines.

What values should I put into the two fields?

thanks.
Start with 1 Processor, 1 Core, if you require, more performance, add another processor, to 2 Processors.
Great, Thank you.

1. Sum can never exceed 8, correct? Or is it 7, as the host machine uses one? and each machine gets same, regardless of OS?
1. What if I had an Intel cpu - 4 cores with HT?
1. Correct (it will not let you exceed what physical cores you have in the host!)

2. Same as 1.
Thank you so much.

Andrew, I read one of your articles about converting physical and virtual machines to the Microsoft Hyper-V format.

Do you prefer the Microsoft offering over VMware?
Go-Bruins,

"1. Sum can never exceed 8, correct? Or is it 7, as the host machine uses one? and each machine gets same, regardless of OS?
1. What if I had an Intel cpu - 4 cores with HT?"


1. sum on single VM can never exeed sum of logical cores that physical CPU have (so if U have your AMD with 8 physical cores without HT, AMD don't have HT same like Intel, it have something called HT but it's something else), then on single VM U may use up to 8 vCPU ("Number of processors" or "number of cores per processor" in VMware Workstation)

2. if U have intel CPU with 4 cores and HT, U will have 8 logicar cores so in single VM U have also a limit up to 8 vCPU  ("Number of processors" or "number of cores per processor" in VMware Workstation)

But as we inform U sooner:
- it's not recommend and needed in most cases to exeed 2 vCPU  ("Number of processors" or "number of cores per processor" in VMware Workstation) per single VM
- U can exeed your logical cores/logical processors with for example sum of 9 VM's, and as I type U before for VMware workstation I will use a ratio up to 1:2, so for example for 8 cores CPU/4 cores CPU with HT and 9 VMs, U may use summary 16 vCPU  ("Number of processors" or "number of cores per processor" in VMware Workstation) so 7 may have 2 vCPU and 2 should have 1 vCPU (sum will be 16 vCPU)
- vCPU are shared so they will not eat your physical core and for example in vmware workstation can't have anything for Windows host system, no, they are shared so working as an appliaction (U may run much more applications at once than physical or logical core your CPU have)
- if starting with Virtualization, build your workstation with 32GB of ram and instal here ESXi hypervisor (it's boot from USB, like a linux) and then it's managed very easy and flexible from VMware vSphere Client from your Windows laptop, You can download ESXi hypervisor and Your Free license here (U need to register):
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi5&lp=default

Then U will discover new world of virtualization,  when U can run ten's of system at once or just save them as a VM and run when U want, Virtual Appliances from different software and hardware vendors, unlimited possibilities to test, evaluate,show, share and use in production, and everything on single PC (or server) :P.

have fun mate

regards
NTShad0w