Monday, May 9, 2011

Be Cool and Know Geeky Facts - ESX 4.1 Maximums

It always fun when you work on projects and configurations that push the limits of what is possible.  This isn't actually true, as sometimes when you are on the bleeding edge you do actually bleed.  Hopefully you don't bleed for very long and then you are back to having fun.

Anyway,  I recently had to consult the vSphere 4.1 Maximums doc again to check the max number of virtual SCSI devices per VM and maximum number of LUNs per ESX host.  These are big numbers and most configurations do not come close to these limits.  It is an interesting document to look through to see what the actual limits are for all the various VM and ESX categories.  Besides, you could be the cool at the party and know what that you can have up to 10 virtual NICs per VM on ESX 4.1 (among other great things!)

While not all maximum values increase with each new release of vSphere, many do so be sure to get a fresh copy of this doc after a new release of vSphere / ESX.

An interesting side note, is that the published maximums are all tested values.  They are not theoretical numbers based on the way the code is written, but actual tested configurations.

Todd