Best Practices When Deploying VMware vSphere on the HP ProLiant DL980 (updated October 2012)

Use Profile-Driven Storage to identify the right storage resource to use for any given VM based on its service level. With

SDRS you can aggregate storage into pools, greatly simplifying scale management and ensuring optimum VM load

balancing while avoiding storage bottlenecks. And with Auto Deploy, the new deployment model for vSphere hosts

running the ESXi hypervisor, you can now install new vSphere hosts in minutes and update them more efficiently than

ever before.

For more information about the new features in VMware vSphere 5.0, go to

vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-50-new-features.html.

For complete documentation on VMware vSphere 5.0, go to

pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp.

vSphere 5.1

vSphere 5.1 is VMware’s latest release of its industry-leading virtualization platform. This new release contains many

new features and enhancements from which the HP ProLiant DL980 can benefit.

One of the remarkable enhancements is larger virtual machines size: Virtual machines can grow two times larger than in

any previous release to support even the most advanced applications. Virtual machines can now have up to 64 virtual

CPUs (vCPUs) and 1TB of virtual RAM (vRAM).

For more information about the new features in VMware vSphere 5.1, go to

vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-what-is-new-vsphere51.pdf.

For complete documentation on VMware vSphere 5.1. go to

vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-pubs.html.

VMware features matrix

To run Windows and vSphere virtualization software optimally, you need to understand how to best leverage the

capabilities and resources of the DL980 server using different versions of vSphere. A good starting point is to review the

following VMware features matrix.

Table 1: VMware Features Matrix on the HP ProLiant DL980