Estimating capacity for hosting VMs

Does VMWare have some sort of online calculator for estimating the number of VMs that can be concurrently run on a single server based on factors such as: the VMWare product (ESX, ESXi, etc), server hardware, available RAM and disk storage, storage data throughput, host OS (if any), guest OS, average CPU load of guest OS, and VM configuration(s)?

Or, in other words, how do you accurately answer the question, "How many VMs can you run on that thing?"

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Comments

dynamik

VMware does have some capacity planning tools, and you can always check out something like Platespin Recon as well.

astorrs

JDMurray wrote: »

Or, in other words, how do you accurately answer the question, "How many VMs can you run on that thing?"

Well that's easy... "it depends"

JDMurray

Too bad the tool from VMware isn't free.

astorrs

JDMurray wrote: »

Too bad the tool from VMware isn't free.

PlateSpin Recon (now from Novell) is probably your best bet.

It's available in a Project Edition that is priced at $2 per "server day" (number of servers * number of days monitored) and can be quite cost effective in smaller environments (<100 servers).

Hyper-Me

you could always try microsofts assesment and planning tool as well

JDMurray

I'm really looking for something that doesn't monitor actual hardware. I need a "best guess" calculator that works based on the most influential factors on VM capacity for each VMWare product. I don't have an actual network to analyze. Even if it doesn't consider network traffic load.

JDMurray

Hyper-Me wrote: »

you could always try microsofts assesment and planning tool as well

MAP looks really cool. I'm going to check if I can input virtual machines into it rather than only have it analyze real machines.