I've been asked to take a look into the Hot-Add Memory and CPU features which are available with vSphere 4. The concept seems pretty useful and straight forward, but what isn't is the list of Operating Systems that support these features. There doesn't seem to be a definitive list. Either that, or I should have gone to Specsavers?
I've had a look around and I can find two KB articles from VMware: Here, and Here which talk about using Hot-Add on Linux OS's. Another VMware document focused on Microsoft: VMware Guest/Host OS Compatibility Guide There is Jason Boche's great article which he researched and tested himself, And Daniel Eason's summary on Hot-Add.
From these different articles I have taken all of the information and produced the following table which in theory should be all of the OS's which support VMware Hot-Add Memory/CPU.
|
Operating System |
Service Pack |
Hot-Add Memory |
Hot-Add CPU |
|
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition x86 |
|
|
|
|
|
Unknown |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x86 |
|
|
|
|
|
Unknown |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x86 |
|
|
|
|
|
Unknown |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Web Server x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Serve 2008 Essential Business Server Premium x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Essential Business Server Standard x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Small Business Server Premium |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2008 Small Business Server Standard |
|
|
|
|
|
R2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP2 |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SP1 |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition x64 |
|
|
|
|
|
Unknown |
Yes |
No |
|
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition x86 |
|
|
|
|
|
Unknown |
Yes |
No |
|
|
|
|
|
Do you know different? If you are aware of other OS's that can make use of these features, please leave a comment below.
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Hey Simon
Based on that list, nobody will be using the hot add CPU feature then!! I remember when this first came out a colleague said “Windows would through a fit if you threw another CPU in while it was still running” and the list suggests they were right.
I liked Scott Lowe's approach in his vsphere book. He has an application owner demanding 16GB, so he assigns the box 16GB and then puts a limit on it of 2GB. App owner is happy as he thinks he has 16GB and VM admin is happy as he has only given out 2GB. If it needs to be amended on the fly, well you just increase the limit, sort of like hot adding memory. Suppose you could do the same with vCPU's and number of clock cycles. Although this approach takes a little more thought and management if the server is important enought to need Hot Add then this approach would give you that zero downtime capability on OS's that are not supported currently.
very helpful. Thanks!
very helpful. Thanks!
and linux ?