vmware workstation number of processors vs cores

In that article, I suggested different options to ensure the vNUMA presentation for a virtual machine was correct and optimal. While the vSphere platform is extremely configurable, that flexibility can sometimes be our worst enemy because it allows for many sub-optimal configurations.īack in 2013, I posted an article about how Cores per Socket could affect performance based on how vNUMA was configured as a result. This virtual construct allows a workload within the virtual machine to benefit from physical NUMA, while continuing to support functions like vMotion. When a virtual machine is sized larger than a single physical NUMA node, a vNUMA topology is created and presented to the guest operating system. NUMA is becoming increasingly more important to ensure workloads, like databases, allocate and consume memory within the same physical NUMA node that the vCPUs are scheduled. As of vSphere 5, those configuration items now set the virtual NUMA (vNUMA) topology that is exposed to the guest operating system. This setting was originally introduced in vSphere 4.1 to overcome operating system license limitations. Let’s refer to this virtual configuration as 2 Sockets x 10 Cores per Socket. In the example screenshot above, 20 vCPUs (NumCPUs) divided by 10 Cores per Socket (NumCoresPerSocket) results in 2 Sockets. If you are using PowerCLI, these properties are known as NumCPUs and NumCoresPerSocket. Note: When you create a new virtual machine, the number of vCPUs assigned is divided by the Cores per Socket value (default = 1 unless you change the dropdown) to give you the calculated number of Sockets. Much has been said and written about how to optimally configure the vCPU presentation within a virtual machine – Sockets x Cores per Socket.

But as we virtualize larger and more demanding workloads, like databases, on top of the latest generations of processors with up to 24 cores, special care must be taken in vCPU and vNUMA configuration to ensure performance is optimized.

Using virtualization, we have all enjoyed the flexibility to quickly create virtual machines with various virtual CPU (vCPU) configurations for a diverse set of workloads.

18 July 2019 – correction in the example where only compute is considered for vNUMA.

Vmware workstation number of processors vs cores