My first vSPhere 5 “Monster VM”
Amongst all the new features introduced with vSphere 5, VMware increased the virtual hardware limits for virtual machines. What has so far been referred as “Monster VM” or “Super VM” is VMware’s ultimate move to help organizations to virtualize business-critical applications.
- Virtual Machine Hardware Version: 8
- 32 virtual CPUs
- 1 TB virtual RAM
- 2 TB virtual disk
- 3D Graphic Support
- USB 3.0 Devices
- EFI BIOS
- etc
In addition to the virtual machine maximums above vSPhere 5 introduced changes to the Paravirtual SCSI adapter that now also supports boot disks. Paravirtual SCSI adapter promises reduced CPU cycle’s consumption and increase throughput for intensive workloads.
In a VDI context I don’t foresee use cases for such a Monster VM, but only time will tell. Perhaps Graphic intensive applications that require abundance CPU with large amount of disks for swap could be amongst of the first.
Anyway, I thought would be inspirational to create a Monster VM and demonstrate it here.
11 comments
Eugene
Let me guess how it will cost in licenses to run such VM
Greg
That's one hell of a home lab you have now :)
EMC has been good to you ;)
Duncan
where's the 64TB Physical RDM?
Jason
Way to many or maybe we just don't understand the benefit to the bent over customer it gives us.
Jason
In reference to Eugene's post.
Rotem Agmon
Great post Andre, I'm also super jealous of your lab setup :)
Now this is what I call raw power!
BTW: ESX 4.0 Update 1 already supports boot disks using Paravirtual SCSI adapter (see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010398)
Dan
Very cool but will cost $76,890 in vSphere licensing fees (22 Enterprise Plus licenses). Neat but no thanks.
Andre Leibovici
@Dan
Not if your organization has a ELA with VMware. I agree with you, however most likelly any companies running such large VM will have ELA with VMware.
Andre Leibovici
@Rotem Agmon
Thanks for the update on Paravirtual SCSI adapter and for commenting on the blog.
Don Gray
Just set up my own yesterday:
24 virtual processors
48 GB of ram
Running a gentoo linux vm.
Speed? Compiles a linux kerenel, modules and ramdisk in about 65 seconds.
CryptoKnight
Q: Even if it was $77,000 in licensing, how much does a TB of RAM cost?
A: Near a million dollars. Yes, I know that they are over-provisioning, but still.
If you are in the position to buy a server with greater than 32 CPU's and
greater than 512 GB RAM you can afford the software licensing, even without
the Enterprise Licensing Agreement with EMC/VMware =)
Comments are preserved from the original site and are closed.