VMware ESX Server allows you to optimize the performance of your virtual machines by managing a virtual machine's resource allocations. You can control a virtual machine's access to:

• CPU time
• Memory space
• Network bandwidth
• Disk bandwidth

Note: You must be the root user to manage virtual machine resources.

You can manage virtual machine resource allocations through the VMware Management Interface, from the procfs interface on the service console, and the VMware Scripting API. The first two methods are covered in this chapter, while the Scripting API is described in the VMware Scripting API User's Manual at www.vmware.com/support/developer.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Virtual Machine Resource Management
• Using ESX Server Resource Variables
• Improving Performance
• CPU Resource Management
• Managing Virtual Machine CPU Resources
• Memory Resource Management
• Managing Virtual Machine Memory
• Using Your NUMA System
• Sizing Memory on the Server
• Managing Disk Bandwidth
• Managing Network Bandwidth