2 physical CPU seen as 4 CPU in ESXi

[Jdoukhan]

Hi,

I got an issue on a UCS blade B200 M4. the blade contains 2 physical CPU E5-2660 v3@2.60Ghz (10 cores each)

ESXi 5.5 u2 (with or without cisco custom image) installed successfully.

But ESXi 5.5 see 4 physical CPU with 5 cores each instead of the 2 physical.

I don't have any idea why, maybe a bios features but not sure which one ?

Has someone got any idea ?

Thanks in advance.

[MKguy]

I've heard that some multi-core AMD CPUs are basically two separate CPUs integrated on one CPU die/socket and representing a single NUMA node. That might be the case for these new Intel CPUs as well.

Please post the output of the following ESXi shell commands:

# esxcli hardware cpu global get

# esxcli hardware cpu list

# esxcli hardware memory get

I don't know what BIOS features UCS offers, but check if Node Interleaving is enabled (though it shouldn't affect how the CPU count is presented to the OS).

[Jdoukhan]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

Here are the result of the command asked :

#esxcli hardware cpu global get

CPU Packages: 4

   CPU Cores: 20

   CPU Threads: 40

   Hyperthreading Active: true

   Hyperthreading Supported: true

   Hyperthreading Enabled: true

   HV Support: 3

   HV Replay Capable: true

   HV Replay Disabled Reasons:

# esxcli hardware cpu list

In the attachment

# esxcli harware memory get

Physical Memory: 549644300288 Bytes

Reliable Memory: 0 Bytes

NUMA Node Count: 4

Regarding the BIOS features in the UCS, nothing seems to looks like a node interleaving.

[admin]

It sounds like this could be Intel erratum HSE14 (see http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/xeon-e5-v3-spec-update.pdf).  Is your microcode up-to-date?

[Jdoukhan]

Hi there,

Found the issue on the cisco community. It seems that the E5 v3 add a new feature which is called COD (Cluster On Die).

Unfortunately this feature is not supported by VMware for the moment (even in 5.5 u2).

It is possible to disable it on the bios.

Thanks for your help.

[a_p_]

The Cisco Unified Computing System BIOS Settings - Cisco page shows the different BIOS options.

André