Greetings All,
I am installing a server with 3 VMs, 1 domain controller and 2 Remote Desktop servers (for thin clients).
Hardware: Dell R515, 2 x 3.1ghz 8-core Opteron, 32gb RDIMMs, 3 x 300gb SAS as RAID5
All OS are Server 2008 R2 x64. I am using vSphere Essentials and have installed ESXi 5.1 on the host.
My issue: I'm a bit hazy on exactly how ESXi allocates cpu resources...what I want is for the RD server(s) to get a large majority of the CPU and the domain controller to get only what it needs to function (it is not the only DC on the network).
I only really wanted one RD server, but when I configured the VM it didn't want to let me give most of the CPU to that vm, saying I can only do 8-way. So my real question then is, do I need to give each VM settings reflecting the physical assets I want it to utilize, or is this an invalid approach and ESXi will give however much CPU bandwidth is available?
I've read some of the ESXi resource management guide, but I'm still not clear on the relationship between physical and virtual CPU, and what the real limits of my Essentials licensing are in this regard. This server is going into a busy production environment, so any guidance would be greatly appreciated :-)
Cheers,
Andrew