Adding a CPU to a physical host

[jreinhart]

Hi,

If I set up a single CPU (dual slot motherboard with only 1 CPU in it) server with vSphere licensed for a single CPU on it, could I, at some point in the future, put a CPU in the second slot and upgrade the vSphere license to reflect 2 CPUs?

If so, what are the considerations on it? I would use the exact same CPU model for each CPU.

Thanks!

- Jesse

[JohnADCO]

As long as you have a dual proc unused license registered in the license server I don't see why not. I don't think the actual ESX code is any different but I could be wrong. But that would be the real question. Is single proc and dual proc ESX the same exact code with only licensing being different.

[mehul96]

There is a single distribution of ESX s/w for a given release (i.e. VMware does not have different distributions for single v/s multi proc hosts). Granted that the actual execution will differ but the difference will be how many HEC (Hardware Execution Contexts) are seen by vmkernel, so it would be safe to say that adding a compatible pCPU is simple and should work fine once licensing is taken care of

[AndreTheGiant]

it, could I, at some point in the future, put a CPU in the second slot and upgrade the vSphere license to reflect 2 CPUs?

Yes.

But you need a CPU with the same stepping (consult your motherboard manual for it).

On ESX side you need only a new serial license for 1 CPU.

Andre

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