Hardware Requirements for System Under Test

[krishnadc]

Hi Team,

I was reading through the VMMark 3.1 User's Guide and looking for a clarification regarding the VMmark Hardware Requirements for System Under Test.

I understood that the cluster for SUT should have minimum of 2 Hosts (to support Infrastructure operations as well). My question is - Are the CPU/Memory/Storage requirements mentioned in the document (47 vCPUs / 166 GB) per Host (or) cluster? Also, in case, if the CPU/Memory of SUT is lesser than recommended in the document, will there be any errors in the test run?

Thank you,

Krishna

[Fred Abounader]

The 47 vCPUs refers to how many vCPUs are allocated to all the Workload VMs (Weathervane, DVD Store and Standby)  that are created for 1 tile for a VMmark3 run.  It is  possible to run a single tile on the SUT cluster (made up of a minimum of 2 hosts) that has less than 47 logical cores or threads.  On the VMMark3 Results page there is a submission of a single tile run with a 2 host SUT cluster with only 32 logical cores.   https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2019-11-01-Fujitsu-RX1330M4.pdf

[Fred Abounader]

Also, for memory you are allowed to overcommit memory (more memory allocated to the VMs then physical memory installed in SUT hosts).

Per the VMmark3 User Guide document:

System Under Test Memory Requirements

Each tile in the VMmark benchmark allocates a total of either 158GB or 166GB of RAM (the RAM required by the prime and tile clients is not included in this total because it’s not part of the SUT; instead it’s addressed in “Memory Requirements for VMmark Clients” on page 35). While memory overcommitment is allowed, it does have the potential to adversely affect the VMmark score.

[krishnadc]

Thanks Fred for your reply -

I do have one question - I was going through the report from the link provided above (https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2019-11-01-Fujitsu-RX1330M4.pdf ) and observed the following:

• Under "Servers" section, there are 2 servers mentioned in SUT - I believe these are the ESXi hosts where the Workload VMs will run
• "Datacenter Management Server" - I believe it is a different ESXi Host where the Prime Client is run.

Are my observations correct?

Also, under "Clients" section, there is 2/1 number mentioned for "Total Number of Virtual Clients / Virtual Client Hosts"  - I did not understand what this is for and how to read it. Can you please clarify this question?

Thank you,

Krishna

[Fred Abounader]

The Datacenter Management Server refers to the HW server where  the VMware vCenter Server Appliance is running.

The statement under Clients section in regards to is 2/1 number mentioned for "Total Number of Virtual Clients / Virtual Client Hosts" is stating there are 2 virtual clients (the Tile Client and the PrimeClient) running on 1 ESXi host.

[krishnadc]

Thanks fredab2​ for your reply -

If I understand it right, from the report mentioned above (https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2019-11-01-Fujitsu-RX1330M4.pdf ) , the vCenter Server is running in a seperate server and Clients (Tile Client and Prime Client) are running in a different server (as specs and ESXi versions are different).

Is it a good practice (and is it allowed in VMMark setup) to install vCenter Server as a Virtual Machine in the same ESXi Host as clients?

Thanks,

Krishna

[Fred Abounader]

It is allowed to run vCenter server on same hosts as Clients but you can look through a number of submissions and probably see it isn't done by most submitters.