ESX on 480C Blades w/ VC

[JCATC]

Wondering how companies are configuring their blade chassis for ESX Vi3 and Virtual Connect with iSCSI storage. We are looking to move from DL380s with 14 NICs to 480Cs and are wondering what others are doing currently on the blades in this capacity. Thanks.

[mrguitar]

I am interested in hearing feedback on this, too...What is the optimal C series blade configuration, processor/HD/Memory-wise and with which storage hardware?

[lody]

It depends on the resources the VM's needs. VMware will have calculating models available to size Processor and memory. For licensing a Quad core is preferred. Each VM needs up to 2G memory. With 16G mem you can have 8 VM's or you overcommit to 10 or even 12 VM's depending on the CPU load of the VM's you can calculate the amount of proc. resources with an average 25% CPU load per VM you can have 16 VM's on a Quad-core, but VMware will have some eavedrops if a VM uses multiple CPU's. About the number of NIC's I suggest to have minimal 3 NIC's (Vmotion, virtual Console Nic and Production Nics) 4 is preferable. This means BL46xc with Enet Mezz card (needs 4 Interconnect Enet switches in a C7000 enclosure or only 2 in C3000) or BL480c. I suggest SAN Shared storage (MSA or EVA) or the AiO iscsi solution. Shoot on this! Got no idea why you want to use VC modules if you only need 3 BL480's no spare blade and limited amount of cables. Use pass-thru interconnects save lots of money in small environments. Lodewijk [Updated on 1/8/2008 9:02 AM]

[Calvin Staples]

Could you explain the term "eavesdrops if VM uses multiple CPU's"? We are not familiar with this term... Thx CLS

[mboanta]

Hey guys, I was actually referred to this site from an HP friend of mine. I have a SR Systems Engineer position open here in Orange County, CA and I am looking for someone that has strong experience with the following: HP Proliant series servers, c-Class blades/enclosures, enclosure interconnects/switches HP Proliant Virtual-connects (including Flex-10 VC) HP Insight Control environment for Windows (including HPSIM, RSP, RDP, VCEM) VMWare ESX 3.5, vSphere4, Virtual Center, Update manager, VMWare Convertor Please give me a call at 949-417-4818 if you or anyone you know is qualified and interested in a new opportunity. Thanks again for your time and help! Sincerely, Joe 949-417-4818 jojhenry@teksystems.com

[UK-Blr]

Could you explain the term "eavesdrops if VM uses multiple CPU's"? We are not familiar with this term... Thx CLS .. Means A. when you assign additional vCPU to the VM, there will be overburden of the rsources and ESX will assign usually (approx) 200-300MB of RAM as overhead. i.e if you assign 2GB RAM to a Two vCPU VM, it takes 2GB + 300MB as the as the used memory from a physcial server. Again it depends on which version of Windows you use, for 64bit VMs it will be slightly higher and may go upto 500+ MB. More Info: Virtual CPUs Memory (MB) Overhead -32-bit VM (MB) Overhead -64-bit VM (MB) 1 256 1 512 79 176 1 1024 84 180 1 2048 91 188 1 4096 107 204 1 8192 139 236 1 16384 203 300 Intentionally left Blank 2 256 97 288 2 512 101 292 2 1024 101 300 2 2048 125 316 2 4096 157 349 2 8192 221 413 2 16384 349 541

[chopper3]

Thanks for the post Uday, still don't know what you mean by 'eavesdrops' - are you mixing two words up?