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Ikky786

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20 Virtual machines on vmware

Lets say I wanted to setup a home lab using VMware (rackmount or any other server) to host approx 20 virtual machines, what kind of setup would I need?

at the moment I have an 8 gig dell power edge 1950 with 2 processors I think..... I want to install sccm 2012, sql , scom 2012 - whole mini corporate infrastructure!!!!!!!!!!!
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bbao
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for setting up a lab of all 2012 series OS and application servers, the 8G RAM seems not sufficient for runnig most or all VMs at the same time.

you do need large memory and fast storage. try at least 64 GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
the present configuration is sufficient as per requirements mentioned in the VM host Hardware requirements.

https://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/intro_hostreq_ws.html

it's depends up on how many vm you will run at a time online...

for example about the memory u can easily calculate on the base machine or host machine u should have atleast 1 gb, and assigned memory to Vm's .. and assigned processors to vms...

for example u have 4 core processors x 2 = 8 cores

u assigned 7 vm's each core...and left 8th core for the host machine...  as well as ram


then

it's Ok

if u want to assign more than avail .. i.e u can shut down the host and created another host... vise versa... u can create but it'll be heavy to get performance ... and it may be crash...

so hardware sizing is very important...

all the best
> u assigned 7 vm's each core...

are you able to assign one VM to use a specific core of your CPU in VMware? i am afraird you can't do that, you can SUMULATE (not assign) multiple cores for a VM, but you can't assign one or more specific cores to a VM.
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On such a server he'll be using several disks in RAID arrays, so the disks shouldn't be that much of a bottleneck even for several VM's running simultaneously. Besides, SSD's for so many VM's would require pretty large SSD's, and those are still very expensive. In a testing environment where data redundancy isn't that important, you could even use RAID 0 to get optimal performance.
> using several disks in RAID arrays

i guess hardware RAID0/5 or even SAN could be more expensive than single SSD for a home user? :)
It's a Dell PowerEdge server with RAID controller, he probably already has some disks with it.
You need Enough memory to run the host operating system

PLUS

memory required for EACH guest operating system running at the same time

This includes memory for applications that are running on host system
and on the guest systems.

If you were to run several Virtual Linux machines, or several Windows machines, look at the memory suggested for each virtual OS, plus the suggested memory for the hosting machine.

Every VM uses memory, the host uses it.

Assume minimum 4 GB for the host
plus 1 GB min for each guest (VM) x 20 = 20 GB

Total of 24 GB. If your guest VMs need 1.5 or 2 GB each, factor that in as well.

Hope this helps.

Jeff
As I mentioned earlier, ESXi requires only very little RAM, something around 32MB, which is in no way close to 1GB or the 4GB you mention now. You can safely say that what the host uses is irrelevant compared to the VM's, and you don't have to take it into account.

Other HyperVisors may need more, like Hyper-V, but not ESXi.
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