Administration Guide › 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

Because most 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 that is required to cache the data and handle messaging increases rapidly. We recommend increasing the memory of the 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 an additional CPU (3.2 GHz or larger) for moderately large managed environments to improve the responsiveness of automated processes.
• Operating System Limitations: Most 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 a 64-bit processor and an 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: 2,500 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: 8,000 Computer Systems (that is, VMs and ESX Hosts).