Creating an SBC SWe VM Instance with VMXNET3

Create a Virtual Machine (VM)

Perform the following steps to create new SBC VM.

1. Log on to VMware ESXi GUI as the root user.
   
   1. Enter your VMware administrator user name.
   2. Enter your VMware administrator password.

2. Click Virtual Machines. Click Create / Register VM to open the New virtual machine window.
   

   
   

   Note

   The figures shown in this procedure are intended as examples of the user interface and might not match the presented images exactly.

   
   

3. Make sure that Create a new virtual machine is selected and click Next.

4. Configure the VM name and guest OS.
   
   
   

   1. Provide a Name for your VM. The name can be up to 80 characters.

      Avoid special characters for the name. Refer to System Name and Hostname Naming Conventions for details.

   2. Select ESXi 8.0 virtual machine as the Compatibility, Linux as the Guest OS family, and Debian GNU/Linux 10 (64-bit) as the Guest OS version.

   3. Click Next.

5. Select a datastore and click Next. This datastore is required to store all log-related data files.
   (Make sure that the datastore has at least 100 GB or more of free space) 
   
   
   

6. Under Virtual Hardware, expand the CPU drop-down menu to customize the CPU settings as follows:
   1. Determine the total number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to allocate to the virtual machine, and select this number in the CPU field (the following screen capture uses four vCPUs).

   2. In the Cores per Socket field, enter the total number of cores to allocate to each virtual socket (the following screen capture uses four cores).

      The number of virtual sockets automatically updates.

   3. In the Reservation field, enter an amount to reserve.

      Set the CPU reservation for the VM so that it equals the physical processor CPU speed, multiplied by the number of vCPUs divided by two.

      For example, a configuration of 4 vCPUs with a processor of 2.99 GHz CPU speed, reserve: 2992 * 4/2 = 5984 MHz

   4. In the Limit field, select "Unlimited" for optimal performance.
      
      

7. Under Virtual Hardware, expand the Memory drop-down menu and assign memory to the virtual machine. 

   Use 20 GB of RAM for large configurations and 17 GB of RAM for small configurations. Refer to SBC SWe Performance Metrics for more information on memory required for different call capacities.

   For fewer than 6000 calls, the minimum reservation must be 10GB. Anything more than 6000 calls requires at least 14GB vRAM. Refer to SBC SWe Performance Metrics for more information.

   
   

8. Under Virtual Hardware, expand the Hard disk 1 drop-down menu. Customize the Hard disk settings as follows:
   1. In the Hard disk 1 field, enter a minimum of 100 and select GB.
   2. In the Location field, click Browse... and select the datastore where the ISO file is available.

   3. In the Disk Provisioning field, select Thick provisioned, eagerly zeroed.

      The Virtual Device Node field should use the default values of SCSI controller 0 and SCSI (0:0).

      
      

9. Under Virtual Hardware, select LSI Logic Parallel in the SCSI Controller 0 field.
   
   

10. Under Virtual Hardware, click Add network adapter three times so that there are four Network Adapter fields (one is the default). Define the network adapters as follows:
    
    1. Select the management interface for the first network adapter (VM Network in the following screen capture).
    2. Select the HA interface for the second network adapter (HA Network in the following screen capture).
    3. Select the packet interface 0 for the third network adapter (PKT0 in the following screen capture).

    4. Select the packet interface 1 for the fourth network adapter (PKT1 in the following screen capture).

       These network adapters and labels are already created on the ESXi host server. If you are installing for the first time on a new ESXi host server, these network adapters and corresponding labels (VM Network, HA Network, PKT0, PKT1) need to be created. For details, refer to Creating Virtual Machine using vNetwork Standard Switch (vSwitch).

       Make sure that the Network Adapters are mapped in the following order:

       • First network adapter (Network Adapter 1) for the management interface
       • Second network adapter (Network Adapter 2) for high availability interface
       • Third network adapter (Network Adapter 3) for packet interface 0
       • Fourth network adapter (Network Adapter 4) for packet interface 1
    5. Expand each Network Adapter drop-down menu and check the Connect at power on the box beside each Status field.

    6. Select VMXNET 3 in each Adapter Type field.
       

       The VMXNET 3 virtual network adapter has no physical counterpart. VMXNET is optimized for performance in a virtual machine.

       
       

11. Click Next. Review the VM settings that you configured and click Finish to create the VM.
    

Enable/Disable Autostart of the VM

For detailed information, refer to Enable/Disable Autostart of the VM section of the Creating an SBC SWe VM Instance with Direct IO Passthrough.