Scenarios and Best Practices › Scalability Best Practices › Scalability Recommendations › CA Server Automation vCenter Management Recommendations › vCenter Management Limitations in Terms of Virtual Machines

vCenter Management Limitations in Terms of Virtual Machines

Due to the fact that the vast majority of the CA Server Automation manager resides within a single process space, Operating System limitations tend to be the primary culprit in scalability. Consider the following limiting factors:

• Available Memory: As the number of objects being managed increases, the amount of memory required to cache data and handle messaging increases rapidly. We recommend increasing the memory of manager to at least 8 GB.
• Available CPU: The CA Server Automation manager requires significant CPU resources, especially in times of rapid environmental change, or during initial startup. We recommend supplying additional CPU (3.2 GHz or larger) for moderately large managed environments to improve the responsiveness of automated processes.
• Operating System Limitations: Much of the CA Server Automation Manager resides within a single process space. As a result, the memory addressing space of a 32-bit operating system can become exhausted, even when system memory is not exhausted. To avoid this issue, we recommend using 64-bit processor and operating system for a moderately large managed environment.

Examples:

The following examples provide requirements and scalability limit recommendations for the CA Server Automation manager:

• Minimum Requirements (32-bit, 2.6-GHz CPU, 4-GB RAM, 100-GB disk)

  Scalability limit: 2500 Computer Systems (that is, VMs and ESX Hosts)

• Recommended System (64-bit processor and Operating System, 3.2-GHz CPU, 8-GB RAM, 100-GB disk)

  Scalability limit: 8000 Computer Systems (that is, VMs and ESX Hosts)