vSphere 5 vRAM Changes

Thanks to the numerous traffic about vSphere 5′s vRAM “tax” – VMware has changed the entitlements.

(Take a look at Justin’s post here explaining vRAM “tax” and how it works.)

Basically, VMware has made 3 changes:

Increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions.
Capped the amount of vRAM counted in any given VM
More flexible in calculating and reporting hitting the limit

The fist one being the most important – and it was quite an increase for Enterprise and Enterprise+ and the Free hypervisor. Here is VMware’s chart:

vSphere edition	Previous vRAM entitlement	New vRAM entitlement
vSphere Enterprise+	48 GB	96 GB
vSphere Enterprise	32 GB	64 GB
vSphere Standard	24 GB	32 GB
vSphere Essentials+	24 GB	32 GB
vSphere Essentials	24 GB	32 GB
Free vSphere Hypervisor	8 GB	32 GB
vSphere Desktop	Unlimited	Unlimited

Enterprise and Enterprise+ have doubled, up to 96GB. The rest have increased only by 8GB. However, keep in mind that this is a per license limit. Your ESXi server will have at least 2 CPUs, meaning 2 vSphere licenses. So, This means that a typical Essentials vSphere server will an entitlement of up to have 64GB of vRAM available.

As a special note – for the Free Hypervisor, 32GB is the physical RAM limit for the physical server.

The second item, the “capped amount” simply means that (for example) if you have a VM with 512GB of vRAM, it’s not going to require you to have 5 vSphere licenses just to let that VM run. That VM only counts for 96GB of vRAM.

Lastly, They have changed the way vSphere tracks the vRAM usage – by taking the average vRAM consumed over a 12 month period, rather than keeping you alerted every-time your VM’s consume more vRAM than you are licensed for.

This was a good move by VMware, and it’s nice to know they listen to their market. I’m looking forward to vSphere 5.

See the official VMware Blog posting here.

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