The new VMware vSphere 6.5, recently available in GA, increase all configuration maximums to new limits (compared to the 6.0 and previous versions).
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.
For more information see the official docs Minimum & Maximum for VMware vSphere 6.5.
Host ESXi 6.5
In most cases there is 2x increase from vSphere 5.5! For each ESXi the new limits are now:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | vSphere 6.0 | vSphere 6.5 | |
| Logical CPU |
64 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 320 | 480 | 576 |
| Physical RAM |
1 TB | 1 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | 12 TB | 12 TB |
| NUMA Nodes |
8 nodes | 8 nodes | 16 nodes | 16 nodes | 16 | ||
| Virtual CPU | 512 | 512 | 2048 | 2048 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 |
| Virtual Disks | 2048 | ||||||
| Virtual Machines | 320 | 320 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 1024 | 1024 |
Note that maximum physical CPUs of ESXi 6.5 will dependent on hardware at launch time. It’s used the logical CPU concept to consider also cores and hyper-threading.
Also note that 12 TB is supported on specific OEM certified platform. See VMware Hardware Compatibility Limits for guidance on the platforms that support vSphere 6.0 with 12 TB of physical memory.
Virtual Machine with Virtual Hardware (vHW 13)
For each virtual machines those are the new limits:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | vSphere 6.0 | vSphere 6.5 | |
| Virtual CPU |
8 | 8 | 32 | 64 | 64 | 128 | 128 |
| Virtual RAM |
255 GB | 255 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 4 TB | 6128 GB |
| Max VMDK size |
2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 2 TB – 512 B | 62 TB | 62 TB | 62 TB |
| Virtual SCSI target |
60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Virtual NICs |
10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Some limits and features are available only with virtual hardware 13, other also for previous versions.
vCenter Server 6.5
There is a 2x increase compared to previous vCenter Server 6.0 and the new vCenter Server maximums are:
| vSphere 4.0 | vSphere 4.1 | vSphere 5.0 | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | vSphere 6.0 | vSphere 6.5 | |
| Hosts per vCenter |
300 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 2000 |
| Hosts per datacenter | 100 | 400 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 200 |
| Hosts per cluster | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 64 | 64 |
| VMs per cluster | 1280 | 3000 | 3000 | 4000 | 4000 | 6000 | 6000 |
| Powered on VMs | 3000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 25000 |
| Registered VMs | 4500 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | 15000 | 35000 |
| Linked vCenter Servers | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
The number of powered on VMs and registered VMs could be increase using linked mode across vCenter Servers: 30,000 and 50,000 (that remain the same limites of version 6.0).
The vCSA version of vCenter Server will now have the same limits of the Windows installable version (also with the embedded DB!). And finally the vCSA is now the first choice with also some new features available only for it!
