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ESX Memory Management on Systems with AMD Opteron Processors
Details
I have a system with AMD Opteron processors. The BIOS offers the option of running with or without node interleaving for memory. Which configuration is best for running ESX?
Solution
NUMA
Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) links several small, cost-effective nodes via a high performance interconnect. Each node contains both processors and memory, much like a small SMP system. However, an advanced memory controller allows a node to use memory on all other nodes, creating a single system image. When a processor accesses memory that does not lie within its own node (remote memory), the data must be transferred over the NUMA interconnect, which is slower than accessing local memory. Thus, memory access times are “non-uniform,” depending on the location of the memory, as the technology's name implies.
Additional Information
Numerous VMware publications contain valuable information on how NUMA works as well as performance considerations when using NUMA.
For more information regarding how ESX uses NUMA, see NUMA Support. This article contains specific information pertaining to hardware and BIOS setting requirements.
For more information regarding performance considerations when using NUMA, see Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) in Performance Best Practices and Benchmarking Guidelines.
For more information regarding NUMA specific to your ESX version, see Using NUMA Systems with ESX Server in the Resource Management Guide for your version of ESX.
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- KB Article: 1570
- Updated: Nov 13, 2009
- Products:
VMware ESX - Product Versions:
VMware ESX 2.0.x
VMware ESX 2.1.x
VMware ESX 2.5.x