Linux / Unix / VMware

Running VMware VirtualCenter in a Virtual Machine

Details

Published on Monday, 24 August 2009 14:45

Hits: 698

Consider the following hints before setting up a VirtualCenter server in a Virtual Machine:

• Dedicate the virtual machine to VirtualCenter. In particular, keep the VirtualCenter database on a physical server or separate virtual machine, unless you are only running the MSDE database for demonstration purposes. This will ensure that VirtualCenter will have exclusive access to the resources of the virtual machine's operating system.
• Memory: The maximum memory that the VirtualCenter server can use is 4 GB (2GB for the application, and 2 GB for the operating system), but in environments with fewer than 50 ESX Server hosts, less memory will be required. The minimum requirement is 2GB.
• CPU: VirtualCenter typically will use only 1 CPU, but for environments greater than 50 ESX Server hosts, it will benefit from 2 CPUs. Configure the number of VCPUs accordingly. Be aware that the virtual machine will use some portion of the CPU to handle virtual networking; the overhead can be as high at 30% for environments above 50 ESX Server hosts.
• Networking: VirtualCenter will rarely need more than a few hundred KB/sec on network bandwidth
• Storage: VirtualCenter does not perform any significant I/O operations to its local disk
• Use resource shares or reservations to ensure that the VirtualCenter virtual machine has the highest priority out of all virtual machines on the ESX Server host, and has guaranteed usage of its configured memory.
• Along with setting reservations and shares, make sure there is enough spare capacity in the cluster to handle a failure and still have enough resources for VirtualCenter to run.
• If high availability for the VirtualCenter virtual machine is desired, then the ESX Server host on which it is running may be placed in a VMware HA cluster. If that host fails, another will automatically restart the VirtualCenter virtual machine. This will subsequently restart all the VirtualCenter services.
• In all cases, set the restart priority of the VirtualCenter virtual machine to "high".
• VMware DRS to be disabled on the VirtualCenter virtual machine, by setting the Automation Level to "Disabled".

VMware white paper, http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_in_vm.pdf