Enhanced virtual machine performance.
Benefit from better virtual machine performance in
ESX Server 3. Performance improvements have been achieved
through:
multi-virtual machine scalability
improved memory management unit (MMU) handling
significant networking enhancements
Linux native posix thread library (NPTL) support
Advanced memory management.
RAM over-commitment. Increase memory
utilization by configuring virtual machine memory
that safely exceeds the physical server memory. For
example, the sum of the memory of all virtual machines
running on a server with 8GB physical memory can be
16GB.
Transparent page sharing. Utilize
available memory more efficiently by storing memory
pages identical across multiple virtual machines only
once. For example, if several virtual machines are
running Windows Server 2003, they will have many identical
memory pages. Transparent page sharing consolidates
those identical pages into a single memory location.
Memory ballooning. Shift memory dynamically
from idle virtual machines to active ones. Memory
ballooning artificially induces memory pressure within
idle virtual machines, forcing them to use their own
paging areas and release memory for active virtual
machines.
Improved power management. Lower
the data center utility bill with improved power management.
ESX Server enters a low power “halt” state
when a CPU is not scheduled.
4-Way Virtual SMP. Enable a single
virtual machine to use up to four physical processors
simultaneously. ESX Server 3 extends this unique feature
from two to four processors. With 4-way Virtual SMP
even the most processor intensive software applications
like databases and messaging servers can be virtualized.
16GB RAM for virtual machines. Run
the most memory-intensive workloads in virtual machines
with a memory limit extended to 16GB.
Support for powerful physical server systems.
Take advantage of very large server systems
with up to 32 logical CPUs and 64GB RAM for large
scale server consolidation and DR projects.
Support for up to 128 powered-on virtual
machines. Take advantage of very large server
systems for enterprise-class server consolidation
and containment. The maximum number of powered-on
virtual machines has been extended from 80 to 128.
Flexible virtual switches. Scale
up to handle more virtual machines. Virtual switches
can be created with any number of ports from 8 to
1016, and the maximum number of virtual switches has
been raised from 128 to 248.
Wake-on LAN. Enable higher consolidation
ratios by allowing virtual machines to go on stand-by
mode when not used.
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