Warnings on virtual machine memory usage

[walterD]

Hello,

Have a question about the difference between ESX 3.5 and vSphere 4. I have 4 ESX 3.5 and 2 vSphere 4. On the ESX 3.5 the memory usage is clearly lower then on the ESX 4 for the same virtual machine.

Example : SVR2003 TS with average of 20 users configured the same, running the same application.

On the ESX 3.5 : HP Prolaint DL380 G5 with 16 GB memory, dual processors running on 3 GHz (4 logical processors no Hyperthreading)

Memory Granted : 2.134.016 KB Average

Memory Active : 313.342,33 KB Average

On the ESX 4 (vSphere) HP Proliant DL380 G6 with 16 GB memory, Quad processors running on 2,8 GHz (16 logical processors with Hyperthreading)

Memory Granted : 2.097.152 KB Average

Memory Active : 1.987.864,5 KB Average

As you can see there is a big difference in mem usage. We therefore always get alerts and warning from our virtual center whiel I cannot find anything wrong on the config from the virtual servers, as well on the vmware machine.

Does anybody had the same problem, and what can we do about it ..

THX

Walter

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

This has been elaborately discussed quite a few times.

Check out http://communities.vmware.com/thread/211585?start=90&tstart=0.

Make sure you have the patch mentioned in http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1014019 installed.

Guest operating system's memory usage might be overestimated on Intel systems that support EPT technology or AMD systems that support RVI technology. This issue might cause the memory alarms in vCenter to go off spuriously even if the guest is not actively accessing a lot of memory.

[walterD]

Thanks for you're reply.

Meanwhile found the anwser in the communities. That solved my problem ..

[brandontek]

Wait a minute, did MKguy solve your issue with his link or did you find the issue yourself?

If you found it yourself, what's the solution?

[walterD]

I've installed the latest patch for vSphere 4.

It was also in the answer from MKGuy, but while waiting on reply's, I did not stop searching and found the answer maenwhile.