[vbox-dev] Docs Review: VirtualBox Limits

[Klaus Espenlaub]

On 15.05.2011 06:05, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
> Hello,
>
> All other serious virtualizers have published their limits, except
> VirtualBox. (KVM, VMware ESX and Hyper-V)
>
> Example Hyper-V docs:
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267(WS.10).aspx

Thanks for the link - I tried to find such docs for Hyper-V (and others) 
a while ago and failed...

> Even open-source projects, such as Wikipedia treat VirtualBox not
> seriously; Their reviewer reverted my updates twice (!) and after
> speaking with him, he demanded official documentation, before he
> allows me to modify wikipedia. Yay !
> I decided to publish my (incomplete) knowledge, in the form of patch
> for VirtualBox manual.
>
> Here is my first "Request For Comments" patch for VirtualBox Limits,
> please review:

For hosted products it's difficult to document the details, as some OS 
settings which determine the maximum number of VMs may be different in 
each distribution/installation... what makes it worse is that VirtualBox 
is available for many platforms. Right now you have way too many "Linux" 
restrictions in your draft.

Overall it's a good idea, especially as the really hard limits are 
usually much higher than any competitor.

Klaus

>
> --- /home/user/Linstall/1/vbox/doc/manual/en_US/user_KnownIssues.xml
>   2011-05-04 12:11:30.000000000 -0400
> +++ /home/user/Linstall/vbox/doc/manual/en_US/user_KnownIssues.xml
>   2011-05-14 23:48:29.000000000 -0400
> @@ -2,7 +2,51 @@
>   <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
>   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd">
>   <chapter id="KnownIssues">
> -<title>Known limitations</title>
> +<title>Known limits and limitations</title>
> +
> +<sect1>
> +<title>Known limits</title>
> +<para>To consider serious deployment of VirtualBox, you should be
> aware of it's technical limits, both host-side and guest-side
> related.</para>
> +<itemizedlist>
> +<listitem>
> +<para>Host: (per Physical Machine limits)</para>
> +<itemizedlist>
> +<listitem><para>Max. Processors: 256 logical CPUs
> (Linux/Solaris 64-bit and 32-bit hosts)
> +<footnote><para>Logical CPU means physical CPU, processor
> core, CPU hardware thread, or any combination
> thereof.</para></footnote>
> +</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Max. Processors: 32 logical CPUs (Windows
> 64-bit and 32-bit hosts)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>RAM: 16 TiB (on 64-bit hosts)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>RAM: 64 GiB (on 32-bit hosts)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Number of concurrently running virtual
> machines: 8192 VMs (Linux 64-bit, but on standard kernels up to 127
> VMs)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Number of concurrently running virtual
> machines: 128 VMs (Linux 32-bit)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Host-only Networks: 8</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Bridged/Internal Networks: not limited by
> VirtualBox</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>NAT/VDE/UDP Tunnel networks: not limited
> by VirtualBox</para></listitem>
> +</itemizedlist>
> +
> +</listitem>
> +
> +<listitem>
> +<para>Guests: (per Virtual Machine limits)</para>
> +<itemizedlist>
> +<listitem><para>Max. Processors per guest: 32 Cores</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>RAM per guest: 2 TiB (on 64-bit
> hosts)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>RAM per guest: 3.5 GiB (on 32-bit
> hosts)</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>vNICs per guest: 8</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>vMonitors per guest: 8</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>vHDDs per guest: 4 IDE + 30
> SATA/SCSI/SAS</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Max. vHDD size: 2 TiB</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Floppy devices: 2</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Serial Ports: 2</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Shared Folders: not limited by
> VirtualBox</para></listitem>
> +<listitem><para>Snapshots: not limited by
> VirtualBox</para></listitem>
> +</itemizedlist>
> +</listitem>
> +</itemizedlist>
> +</sect1>
> +
> +<sect1>
> +<title>Known limitations</title>
>
>     <para>This sections describes known problems with VirtualBox
>     $VBOX_VERSION_STRING. Unless marked otherwise, these issues are planned to
> @@ -208,4 +252,5 @@
>         due to inherent limitations of the OS/2 graphics system.</para>
>       </listitem>
>     </itemizedlist>
> +</sect1>
>   </chapter>
>