Minimum Server Requirements

• 2-16 processors: Intel 900MHz Pentium III Xeon and above, or AMD Opteron (in 32-bit mode only)
• 512MB RAM minimum
• Two or more Ethernet controllers. Supported controllers include:
  • Broadcom NetXtreme 570x Gigabit controllers
  • Intel PRO/100 adapters
  • Intel PRO/1000 adapters
  • 3Com 9xx based adap

Note: For best performance and security, use separate Ethernet controllers for the service console and the virtual machines.

• A SCSI adapter, Fibre Channel adapter or internal RAID controller. The supported SCSI adapters supported are Adaptec Ultra-160 and Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT and most NCR/Symbios SCSI adapters. The supported RAID adapters are HP Smart Array, Dell PercRAID (Adaptec RAID and LSI MegaRAID), IBM ServeRAID, Intel RAID and Mylex RAID devices. The supported Fibre Channel adapters are Emulex and QLogic host-bus adapters (HBAs).
• A SCSI disk, Fibre Channel LUN or RAID LUN with unpartitioned space. In a minimum configuration, this disk or RAID is shared between the service console and the virtual machines.

Recommended for Enhanced Performance

• A second disk controller with one or more drives, dedicated to the virtual machines
• Sufficient RAM for each virtual machine and the service console
• Dedicated Ethernet cards for network-sensitive virtual machines

Maximum Physical Machine Specifications

Storage

• 16 host bus adapters per ESX Server system
• 128 logical unit numbers (LUNs) per storage array
• 128 LUNs per ESX Server system

VMware File System (VMFS)

• 128 VMFS volumes per ESX Server system
• Maximum physical extents per VMFS volume:
  • VMFS-2 volumes: 32 physical extents
  • VMFS-1 volumes: 1 physical extent
• 2TB per physical extent
• Maximum size per VMFS volume:
  • VMFS-2 volumes: approximately 27TB, with a maximum of 2TB per each physical extent
  • VMFS-1 volumes: approximately 2 T

CPU

• 16 physical processors per system, with 8 virtual CPUs per processor
• 80 virtual CPUs in all virtual machines per ESX Server system

Memory

• 64GB of RAM per ESX Server system
• Up to 8 swap files, with a maximum file size of 64GB per swap file

Adapters

• 64 adapters of all types, including storage and network adapters, per system
• Up to 8 Gigabit Ethernet or 16 10/100 Ethernet ports per system
• Up to 32 virtual machines per virtual network device (vmnic or vmnet adapter)

Remote Management Workstation Requirements
The remote workstation is a Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Linux system from which you launch the VMware Remote Console and access the VMware Management Interface. The VMware Remote Console runs as a standalone application. The VMware Management Interface uses a Web browser.

Hardware Requirements

• Standard x86-based computer
• 266MHz or faster processor
• 64MB RAM minimum
• 10MB free disk space required for basic installation

Software -- Windows Remote Workstation

• Windows XP Professional
• Windows 2000 Professional, Server or Advanced Server
• Windows NT 4.0 Workstation or Server, Service Pack 6a
• The VMware Management Interface is designed for these browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6.0 (6.0 highly recommended for better performance)
  • Netscape Navigator 7.0
  • Mozilla 1.x

Software -- Linux Remote Workstation
Compatible with standard Linux distributions with glibc version 2 or higher and one of the following:

• For single-processor systems: kernel 2.0.32 or higher in the 2.0.x series, kernel in the 2.2.x series or kernel in the 2.4.x series
• For multiprocessor systems: kernel in the 2.2.x series or kernel in the 2.4.x series
• The VMware Management Interface is designed for these browsers:
  • Netscape Navigator 7.0
  • Mozilla 1.x

Virtual Machine Specifications
Each ESX Server machine can host up to 80 virtual CPUs in virtual machines (and up to 200 registered virtual machines) on a single ESX Server or up to 8 virtual machines for each CPU, with the following capabilities and specifications.

Virtual Storage

• Four host bus adapters per virtual machine
• 15 targets per host bus adapter
• 60 targets per virtual machine; 256 targets concurrently in all virtual machines

Virtual Processor

• Intel Pentium II or later, (dependent on system processor)
• One or two processors per virtual machine

Note: If you plan to create a dual-virtual CPU virtual machine, then your ESX Server machine must have at least two physical processors and you must have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product.

Virtual Chip Set

• Intel 440BX-based motherboard with NS338 SIO chip

Virtual BIOS

• PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6

Virtual Memory

• Up to 3.6GB per virtual machine

Virtual SCSI Devices

• Up to four virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine with up to 15 devices per adapter
• 9TB per virtual disk

Virtual Ethernet Cards

• Up to four virtual Ethernet adapters per virtual machine

Note: Each virtual machine has a total of five virtual PCI slots, therefore the total number of virtual adapters, SCSI plus Ethernet, cannot be greater than five.

Virtual Floppy Drives

• Up to two 1.44MB floppy drives per virtual machine

Virtual CD-ROM

• Up to two drives per virtual machine

Legacy Devices
Virtual machines may also make use of the following legacy devices. However, for performance reasons, use of these devices is not recommended.

Virtual Serial (COM) Ports

• Up to two serial ports per virtual machine

Virtual Parallel (LPT) Ports

• One LPT Port per virtual machine

Supported Guest Operating Systems
The following table lists the supported guest operating systems in ESX Server 2.5. VMware Virtual SMP can be used to configure guest operating systems marked as SMP-Capable for dual virtual CPU configurations.