The new VMware vSphere 5.5 increase all configuration maximums to new limits: maybe we can say with no limit, or at least, to be serious, with really huge numbers compared to the actual needs and the existing compunting power.
Those new limits are both for scalability aspect, but also to fit with possible performance requirements, considering that a bigger number of business critical applications are going in the virtual environment.
Note that actually the official docs with Minimum & Maximum of VMware vSphere 5.5 is not yet released.
ESXi 5.5
With a 2x increase from vSphere 5.1! For each ESXi the limits are:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | |
| Logical CPU |
64 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 320 |
| Physical RAM |
1 TB | 1 TB | Yes | 2 TB | 4 TB |
| NUMA Nodes |
8 nodes | 8 nodes | 16 nodes | ||
| Virtual CPU | 512 | 512 | 2048 | 2048 | 4096 |
| Virtual Machines | 320 | 320 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
Other interesting aspects are:
- Support for 40Gbps NICs
- 16Gb E2E (end-to-end) Fibre Channel
- Enhancements for Low Latency Application Support
New Virtual Machine Virtual Hardware (vHW 10)
For each virtual machines those are the new limits:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | |
| Virtual CPU |
8 | 8 | 32 | 64 | 64 |
| Virtual RAM |
255 GB | 255 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB |
| Max VMDK size |
2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 62 TB |
| Virtual SCSI target |
60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Virtual NICs |
10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
The new VMDK limit is little less than 64TB: around 62TB that is little less than datastore file size limit (anyway remember that usually you have to leave more free space for snapshot, swap file, log, …). Note also that on NFS, it depends on the underlying file system.
vCenter Server 5.5
There are several news in the vCenter Server Appliance with a new scalability of embedded database (vPostgres). It can now support up to 100 vSphere hosts / 3000 virtual machines!
Other vCenter Server Maximums are:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | |
| Hosts per vCenter |
300 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Hosts per datacenter |
100 | 400 | 500 | 500 | 500 |
| Linked vCenter Servers | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Powered on VMs | 3000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 30000 |
| Registered VMs | 4500 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | 50000 |
For more information see also: Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 5.5. If you are curious about old numbers see also: Configuration Maximums for VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 and Virtual Infrastructure 3.0.
Andrea Mauro
Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.
