ISE on VMWare - CPU Requirements

[dan.d.pub]

Hi,

I have installed ISE 2.7 on a VMWare environment.

The specifications require a minimum of 16 CPUs so I configured the VM to have 4 Sockets each with 4 Cores, a total of 16 vCPUs.

However, if I type 'show inventory' the ISE sees only 4 CPUs.

Bottom line, will the ISE use all the 16 vCPUs or do I need to configure the VM differently ?

Thanks,

Dan

[hslai]

I would suggest to try RHEL 7.6, which is the underlying OS used by ISE 2.7, and see whether you are seeing the same. I've never come across like this and it seems more likely an issue with your VMware setup.

[dan.d.pub]

Thank you for thaking the time to answer.

Do you mean to use something such as 'lscpu' to see what the OS sees ?
How do I access the underlying OS ?

Also, is there a recommended VMWare Socket & Cores setup for an ISE virtual machine ?

Regards,

Dan

[Damien Miller · Accepted solution]

For ISE is does not matter how many sockets and cores you use, as long as the total equals the expected template, between 12 and 24 vcpu. VMware allows you to specify cores and sockets for non technical reasons where an example would be licensing reasons on SQL servers. ISE performance will be the same whether you have 1 socket or 4. 

VMware recently changed the way they present the vcpu configuration in the GUI. Make sure you are setting 16 CPU, and not 4 CPU and 4 Sockets. You would want 16 CPU still and 4 sockets in that case. 

Make sure you 3615 is set up like this screenshot with 16 cpu. 

[ajc]

Hi Damien,

I assume the same applies to Hyper-V VM running ISE, right?

[Charlie Moreton]

Yes, it is the same for all virtual platforms

[ajc]

Hi Damien,

When you say a 3615 with 16 CPU, that actually means 8 physical cores from the server and 16 threads (vCPU) WITH hyperthreading enabled, right?

[ahollifield]

Yes, 16 vCPU cores must be exposed to the VM.

[Charlie Moreton]

@ajc Resurrecting a 2-year old thread that has an accepted solution limits the number of people that will take a look at it. The best thing to do is to start a new thread.

[dan.d.pub]

Hi Damien,

So if I understand correctly, as long as #sockets * #cores >= 16 we should be ok regardless of it the "show inventory" shows only 4 CPU. Correct ?

(we are using a slightly older version of VMWare so we still have the sockets and cores setup)

Thanks,

Dan

[hslai · Accepted solution]

Nope. The output of "show inventory" should reflect the number of vCPU cores allocated to the ISE VM. As you are not seeing so, VMware is not allocating CPU correctly for some reason.