ESXi

 View Only

  • 1.  Building new system for QA testing environment which CPU to use

    Posted Sep 22, 2013 09:20 AM

    Hello ,

    We are in process of building new Vmware Vspher  platform which will based on Esxi 5.1.

    I need to order the servers and i need help for choosing enough powerful CPU's for vspher host to hold around total 64 guest  each  and the  guest running mostly win2k8r2 with java based agent with our R&D software and some few SQL guests.

    My first thought would be between

    • Intel® Xeon Phi™ Coprocessor 3120P (6GB, 1.100 GHz, 57 core)
    • Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-4640 (20M Cache, 2.40 GHz, 8.00 GT/s Intel® QPI)

    With given scenario , will be most appreciate ,what would give me best performance/price wise


    Please advice

    Thanks



  • 2.  RE: Building new system for QA testing environment which CPU to use

    Posted Jan 30, 2014 11:48 PM

    Ciao! I don't tink you 'll need too much power for your hosts, 64 vms you can handle easily with couple of dual socket E5-26xxV2 cpu server (it depends on your application, Memory or CPU intensive?)

    I never heard that Xeon Phi is supported by ESXi hypervisor, I'm waiting for this announce... Xeon Phi should be a great improvement for High density clusters!!!!!...

    vmware, pls support Xeon Phi cooprocessor in your hypervisor!!!!!!!!!!!! :smileyhappy: :smileyhappy::smileyhappy:



  • 3.  RE: Building new system for QA testing environment which CPU to use

    Posted Jan 31, 2014 06:50 AM

    Xeon Phi is not supported and do not work vSphere. Its use case is very specific and can be compared to a GPU that are very good in floating-point calculations and should not be confused with a "normal" x86 compatible processor.



  • 4.  RE: Building new system for QA testing environment which CPU to use

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jul 25, 2014 01:56 AM

    Xeon Phi coprocessors are better described as SMP machines on a card. It literally runs Linux and you interface with it in whatever ways you need to, from there. (you can SSH into it locally).

    I can't speak for VMware's roadmaps around this, but I can say it's not supported for vCPU use right now, and it's very different from adding more processors to a multiprocessor motherboard. It would be very cool if such hardware existed, but consider basic system architecture first, and then relationship between the existing socketed CPUs, RAM, and now the PCI-E Phi coprocessor card itself. Very cool stuff, but a very different tool than your typical processor.

    More info here: https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/article/330164/an-overview-of-programming-for-intel-xeon-processors-and-i…