Knowledge

• Determine Resource Pool requirements for a given situation
  …for a given situation. But no situation is given, so a general explanation here. VMware resource pools can be used for delegation of control and, the main purpose meant to use them for, resource compartmentalization. You can use resource pools to:
  • Segment you organization
  • Isolate VMs from certain users
  • Access control and delegation
  • Separate resources
• Evaluate appropriate shares, reservations, and limits in a given situation
  …for a given situation. But no situation is given, so a general explanation here. Resource pools consist of multiple resources that can be guaranteed or limited. Those resources are:
  • Shares
    The number of CPU or Memory shares a VM has in respect to the Resource Pool or ESX hosts total.
  • Reservation
    The guaranteed CPU or Memory allocation for a resource pool. Those resources are extracted from the parent ESX host of resource pool. Indicates whether expandable reservations are considered during admission control. If you power on a virtual machine in this resource pool, and the reservations of the virtual machines combined are larger than the reservation of the resource pool, the resource pool can use resources from its parent or ancestors if this check box is selected (the default).
  • Limit
    Upper limit for the amount of CPU or memory the host makes available to this resource pool. Default is Unlimited. To specify a limit, deselect the Unlimited check box.
• Evaluate virtual machines for a given Resource Pool
  When you select a resource pool and go to the tab “Resource Allocation” you can see the VMs in a resource pool. This shows you the view as shown below including the Resource Pool main items like Reservation, Limit and Shares.
  
  
• Create Resource Pools
  To create a resource pool you can
  • Select the object you would like to create a resource pool in (ESX host, other resource pool or vApp)
  • Right click, and select “Create Resource Pool…”
    
    
• Set CPU resource shares/reservations/limits
  To set CPU Shares, reservations and / or limits on a existing resource pool:
  • Right click the resource pool
  • Click “Edit Settings…”
  • Adjust the CPU settings to your needs.
• Set memory resource shares/reservations/limits
  To set Memory Shares, reservations and / or limits on a existing resource pool:
  • Right click the resource pool
  • Click “Edit Settings…”
  • Adjust the Memory settings to your needs.
• Define Expandable Reservation
  Indicates whether expandable reservations are considered during admission control. If you power on a virtual machine in this resource pool, and the reservations of the virtual machines combined are larger than the reservation of the resource pool, the resource pool can use resources from its parent or ancestors if this check box is selected (the default).
• Add virtual machines to pool
  In Dutch we have a nice phrase for this; “Sleur en Pleur”. This means something like drag and drop, and that’s just is, drag and drop the VMs into the correct resource pool. Another option is to select the correct resource pool during a VMotion.
• Describe resource pool hierarchy
  You can cascade resource pools. This means that you can place resource pools within resource pools. Remember that a second level resource pool (pool in pool) cannot have more resources then the resource pool on a higher level. When you use more than one resource pool on the second level those resource pools together cannot use more resources than the resource pool on the above level.

Tools

• vSphere Resource Management Guide
• Product Documentation
• vSphere Client