VMware configuration maximums

December 9th, 2008 by jason Leave a reply »

Configuration Maximums for Virtual Infrastructure 3 is by far one of my favorite VMware documents.  This is a useful document for the VMware evangelist and any VMware VI administrator to have tacked up on the wall of their office for use as a quick reference.  It’s also handy for identifying platform comparison points of discussion or decision.

The document answers most of the “How many…”, “How much…” type questions about the VMware Virtual Infrastructure capabilities (ESX hypervisor, VirtualCenter, guest VMs, etc.)  more than once I’ve used this document as the basis for interactive VMware trivia sessions at our local VMware User Group meetings.  This is one of the documents that will most often be updated as new releases of VMware VI are released so it’s a good one to keep tabs on.

The VI3 documentation page keeps us informed as to what date the document was last updated.  In addition, one of the RSS feeds I am subscribed to is VMware, Inc. This feed lets me know the moment any of the VI documents are updated (at which time I then download the updated document for my own document repository I maintain).  Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) documents seem to update almost weekly which is a good indicator that VMware Engineers are hard at work in their labs certifying compatible hardware thereby expanding the list of hardware we may run our VI on.

The virtualization hypervisors (I never thought about it but is this the correct plural for hypervisor?) and management tools are evolving rapidly.  VMware, by far the most innovative of all companies in the virtualization arena, must have teams of technical writers keeping product documentation up to date.  For me personally, accurate product documentation is of the utmost importance and I hope VMware stays on top of it.  Vendor documentation is the gospel for the products and it defines what’s supported and what is not.  Keep yourself informed by reading the vendor documentation once in a while.  Even if you’re not into reading, at least know where the documentation is located for reference purposes.  I promise you the VMware configuration maximums is an interesting/fun read.

ps.  For those paying close attention, the scheduled server maintenance has been completed this evening.  I am now going out to shovel the snow in the driveway for the 3rd time in 24 hours.

Advertisement