VMware vCenter 4 minimum RAM requirement, is it 2GB or 3GB?

View Comments

• Im looking at my course material for the "What's new in vsphere" and can't see anything but sure I was told 3Gb during the course

• Now that is an interesting question. vSphere will not install with less than 2GB of memory, but that said you have two authoritive documents that have conflicting results. personally I would raise this with VMware Education as an issues as theortically you have two correct anwser to a question.

• Like all the configuration maxims (and minims) these are not usually hard numbers - ie. vCenter won't start with less than 2GB RAM. Mostly these recommended guidelines are exactly that, and remember that guidelines != rules.

  What is always missing from these (hence the confusion) is the context and explanation for the guideline, so here's my recommended guideline for the recommended guidelines:

  1) If you need to know the minimum vCenter RAM for the VCP4 exam, follow the guideline in the official course (nothing else).
  2) If you need to know the minimum vCenter RAM for your operational environment, start with the latest advice and adjust according (your mileage may vary).

  HTH
  Steve

• I have to agree with Steve here, the exam is based upon information from the pre req. which is What's New and the Install, Configure & Manage courseware. This is only one of the differences you will find in the courseware and the offical documentation.

• I would always go with the documentation as far as the VCP exam is concerned - they don't write the questions from the courseware.

  I hate being a Vasey, can you fix my link above please ;-)

• Scott, you are completely right. Always follow the offical documentation and not what you learn on the course.. :)

• This wont help anyone out, but I have vCenter 4.0 running on a old 1TB NAS that only has 512 MB of RAM in it. I was kind of surprised that it runs.

• Now we're all really confused ...

  Exam answer = 3GB
  Real World = 512MB (That must be dog slow... and how many ESX nodes is that vCentre taking care of?)

  I've got mine as a VM within vSphere cluster, Virtual Hardware 2GB, Reservatio 1GB, Max 2GB. Database on another machine (MS SQL2K8)

• I've also noted different CPU requirements between vmware docs and the courseware. vmware docs state that (2) 2GHz CPU's are required for vcenter, but the courseware states that only a single 2GHz cpu is required?!?!

  From Page 77 of the ICM course manual >

  vCenter Server Hardware Requirements

  Processor - 2.0GHz or higher Intel or AMD x86 processor
  Memory - 2GB RAM minimum
  Disk Storage - 1GB minimum
  Networking - Gigabit recommended

• And for comparison... Form the "vmware" installation guide. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf#page=13 >

  Minimum Requirements for vCenter Server

  CPU – 2 CPUs
  Processor – 2.0GHz or faster Intel or AMD processor. Processor requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.

  Memory – 3GB RAM. Memory requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.

  Networking – Gigabit connection recommended.

  This kind of stuff is maddening! :)