IBM 88743BU - System x3950 E, User Manual

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Chapter 1. Technical overview
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Figure 1-11 The architecture of VMware ESXi eliminates the need for a service console
1.5.2 VMware ESXi on x3850 M2
Although VMware ESXi can be booted from flash memory or installed on a hard
disk, ESXi is currently available from IBM only on specific systems, including
specific models of the x3850 M2. These models have an integrated bootable
USB flash drive that is securely installed to an internal USB port.
With an IBM eX4 server running VMware ESXi (or VMware ESX), applications
and services can be deployed in highly reliable and secure virtual machines.
Virtual machines can be provisioned, consolidated, and managed centrally
without having to install an operating system, thus simplifying the IT
infrastructure and driving down total cost of ownership for businesses with
constrained IT budgets and resources.
One important recommended consideration when selecting a server to run
VMware ESX is to ensure you have sufficient headroom in capacity. The IBM
x3850 M2 is optimized for VMware ESXi because of its vertical scalability in the
key areas such as processor, memory, and I/O subsystems. VMware discusses
the benefits of CPU dense ESX server hosts by saying
2
:
The chance that the scheduler can find room for a particular workload without
much reshuffling of virtual machines will always be better when the scheduler
has more CPUs across which it can search for idle time. For this reason, it will
generally be better to purchase two four-way ESX Server licenses than to
purchase four two-way machines.
VM kernel
VMM
OS
VMM
OS
VMM
OS
Virtual Ethernet
adapter and switch
Network stack
Distributed
VM file system
Storage stack
Device drivers
Resource
scheduling
User world API
CIM broker
Third-party
CIM plug-ins
vpxa SNMP
hostd DCUI syslog VMX VMX VMX
2
See Tips and Techniques for Implementing Infrastructure Services on ESX Server , available at:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/resources/409 . Reproduced by permission.