Allocation Models

Configured on Organisation vDC

Allocation Pool
The default allocation model is the Allocation Pool.
This model specifies an amount of resources for the
organization VDC and the amount that is guaranteed.
The amount guaranteed is set as a reservation on the
corresponding vSphere resource pool.
When the percentage of guaranteed resources is set
to 100%, a reservation of 100% of the allocated
resources is set on the resource pool. When an
organization VDC is created with 10 GHz of CPU
resources and a guarantee of 75%, it translates into a
resource pool with a limit of 10 GHz and a reservation
of 75% of that 10 GHzin this case,
7500 MHz.
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Characteristics
Each allocation model has very specific characteristics that can
be placed in either a VM or resource pool category.
The Allocation Pool is a pool of resources, of which a
percentage can be guaranteed.
A reservation is set to guarantee resources on a resource
pool level.
By default, the resource pool reservations are: CPU 0%,
memory 100%.
Customer is allocated a fixed amount of guaranteed
resources but has the ability to burst.
On a per-VM level no reservation is set for CPU resources.
On a per-VM level a reservation is set for memory resources.
This reservation is based on the percentage of guaranteed
resources.
The example on next slide explains these characteristics in more
detail.
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Allocation Pool Example (vCloud Director 5.1 / 5.5)

In this example a tenant has requested 8 GHz of CPU resources with a
guarantee of 20% and 1 GB of memory with a guarantee of 35%.

The default for CPU is a 0%

guarantee, but in this example it has
been manually set to 25% guarantee
for CPU allocation.
VMware vSphere resource pools are
the constructs that are used to carve
resources.
The tenants request results in a
resource pool with a reservation of
2500 MHz and a limit of 10,000 MHz.

As viewed in vCloud Director, 2500

MHz are guaranteed, and the tenant
has the ability to burst up to 10.000
MHz.

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A virtual machine contained as part of a newly created vApp is placed in the

resource pool that corresponds with the chosen organization vDC. For the
Allocation Pool model, the VM level has the CPU Reservation set to zero. This
means that no CPU reservation or limit is set on a VM level for this VM.

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For memory, this behaviour is slightly different because both a reservation and a
limit are configured. The limit always equals the provisioned memory and the
reservation equals the percentage of guaranteed memory as defined as part of
the allocation model.
Figure below shows that the guaranteed amount of memory resources has been
set to 100%
of all available memory.

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However, if we change the

percentage of guaranteed
resources for memory on the
Allocation Pool organization
VDC to 50%, the resource pool
changes accordingly, as is
shown in the Figure .
Note that the reservation has
been decreased from 10,240
MB to 5120 MB.

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This in turn results in a decrease of the per-VM level memory reservation to 50% of
the provisioned memory. In Figure 20, the VM has been provisioned with 512 MB, of
which below 256 MB is reserved (guaranteed):

Allocation Pool Summary

As shown in the example, the percentage of guaranteed resources impacts the
implementation of the resource pool, the associated limits, and reservations. The Allocation
Pool model allows the cloud provider and cloud consumer (tenant) to contract for a certain
quantity of resources in the organization VDC, with the resource guarantee levels being
a part of that contract.
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Pay-As-You-Go
Pay-As-You-Go is the traditional model used by many enterprise
environments. This allocation model allows you to specify an amount of
guaranteed resource per VM, unlike the other allocation models. When
the percentage of guaranteed resources is set to 100%, a reservation is set
to 100% of what has been allocated to that particular VM.
This model also differs from the other models by allowing limitation of the
vCPU speed.

Characteristics
Percentage of resources guaranteed on a per-VM level.
A reservation is set on a VM level.
By default, the VM reservation on CPU is 0% and memory
100%.
By default, the vCPU speed is set to 0.26 GHz, which
means the vCPU is limited to 0.26 GHz.
The resource pool that corresponds with the vCloud Director
organization vDC is an accumulation of all reservations set on
a per-VM level.
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Pay-As-You-Go Example (vCD 5.1 & 5.5)

In this example, a tenant has requested an organization VDC with a Pay-As-You-Go
allocation model. The tenant has requested the vCPU speed to be set to 1 GHz, of
which 20% needs to be guaranteed. Memory resources is 20% guaranteed.

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Note that the default for

CPU is 0%, but it has been
manually set to 25%. Also
note that the vCPU speed is
set by default to 0.26 GHz,
which is reflected as the
vCPU limit for the VM.
It is recommended that this
default value be increased.
When the organization VDC
is created it results in the
resource pool shown in the
Figure on the right:
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When vApps are created, their associated reservations are

accumulated into the resource pool. When a vApp is created with
two VMs, each having a single vCPU and 512 MB of memory,
reservations on memory and CPU are altered accordingly (see
Figure on next slide).
On a resource pool level, a reservation of 130 MHz is set, which is
25% of 2 x 0.26 GHz. A guarantee of 100% was set on memory,
which translates to 1221 MB in total.
Note: A resource pool includes the memory overhead of
virtualization. See the VMware Resource Management Guide for
more details.
The primary difference between the Pay-As-You-Go allocation
model and the other allocation models is the use of limits and
reservation on a per-VM level.
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The next two Figures show the reservation and limit that have been set on
the resource pool of the VM as a result of the selected values.
As shown in the Figure below, a reservation of 65 MHz and a limit of 260
MHz on CPU have been defined. For memory, a 512 MB reservation and limit
have been configured. If guaranteed memory resources had been configured
with a value of 50%, the reservation of memory resources for this VM would
have been set to 256 MB.

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Pay-As-You-Go Summary
The tenant has guaranteed resources per VM and typically is charged per
instantiated and powered-on virtual machine. The resource pool created as part
of the organization VDC only accumulates reserved resources and does not limit
the VMs. Limits and Reservation are placed on a per-VM level.
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Reservation Pool
The Reservation Pool allocation model is the most static model. In
this model all resources are guaranteed. It can be compared to an
Allocation Pool with all guarantees set to 100%.
Characteristics
Fully guaranteed pool of resources.
A reservation is set to guarantee resources on a resource
pool level.
Customer pays a fixed amount for guaranteed resources.
No reservations or limits are set on a per-VM level for CPU.
It provides the ability to set custom limits, reservations, and
shares on a per-VM level for CPU and memory. This option is
not available for VMs running in Org vDC using The Allocation
Pool or Pay-As-You-Go allocation models.
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Pay-as-you-Go operates on a per-VM basis. Rather than creating a

pool of finite capacity as in the Allocation and Reservation Pool
models, it creates a resource pool whose size is derived from a
cumulative total of VM resources.
Resources are committed in the Org vDC only when the vApp is
started. As such it is treated as an infinite pool of resources to
your consumers, while still being constrained by the limits of the
resources available in the underlying PvDC.
CPU Quota, Memory Quota, and Maximum Number of VMs
settings can be applied to control the maximum amount of
resources in this Org vDC consumes before it runs out of
resources, or thet can be set to unlimited. If they set to unlimited,
consumers can create vApps until the resources are physically
exhausted.
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Reservation Pool Example

In this example, the tenant has requested 10 GHz of CPU
resources and 10 GB of memory resources.

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All resources are fully

guaranteed.
A resource pool with a
reservation equal to the
limit is created within
vSphere, as shown in the
Figure.

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All resources are guaranteed on a resource pool level, with no reservations

or limits set on the virtual machine. This is shown in the next two figures:

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Reservation Pool Summary

The Reservation Pool model is very straightforward. A limit equal to the reservation is
set on a resource pool level, which gives the tenant a guaranteed pool of resources. There
are no limits or reservations set on a per-VM level, and this gives the customer flexibility
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in carving up resources.

vCD 5.1
When you create a VM in an Org vDC which is defined as a Reservation Pool you can
actually manually set the shares per type of resource (memory and CPU) and also set
a reservation and even a limit if and when needed. Pretty cool, but as you can imagine
also very complex at some point to figure out to what it should be set.

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On a per VM level, how do the Allocation Models affect the

Limits/Reservation settings for both CPU and Memory
respectively?
At VM Level

Pay-As-YouGo

Allocation
Pool

Reservation
Pool

Reservation
and Limit for
CPU

Yes

No

No

Reservation
and limit for
Memory

Yes

Yes

No

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How Provider vDC and Organisation vDC

define Service Level to consumer
Provider
vDC

Organisation
vDC

Consumer

Hardware

Datacenter

Operations

Performance,
Availability,
& Capacity

Resource
Allocation

Level of Guarantee

Service Level

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