Question 1

(a)

On a per VM level, how do the Allocation Models affect the Limits/Reservation settings
for both CPU and Memory respectively?

Answer:

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

(b)

What will happen when the Org vDC runs out of capacity? Is this behaviour
similar to the Reservation pool model?

When the Org vDC runs out of capacity, it will request for more resource from
the parent PvDC. Therefore you may assume that the Pay-as-you-go allocation
model is an infinite pool of resources constrained only by the limits of the
Provider vDC.
The pay-as-you-go model is different from the Reservation pool model in that
the latter will not be able to request for more resources from its parent pool
when the reservation pool reaches its limit.

Question 2
The following three departments of a company are consumers of an on-premise
private cloud computing.
Production

Production demands the top grade of service tier for VMs that run
with pre-determined workload. It occasionally bursts for unreserved
capacity.

Development

This is a test and development environment in which low resource

guarantee is given and resources are given on a first-come-firstserve basis.

Finance

The applications for this organisation is considered as missioncritical and resources must be guaranteed without any compromise.

Each Org vDC has an allocation model which determines how it can consume
resources from the underlying PvDC it is configured to use.
Create Org vDC with appropriate Allocation models to represent different levels of
service that are available to these three organisations:
Explain your solution.
Production
The Allocation Pool model is most commonly found in Production environments,
where it provides a minimum guaranteed level of service with some burst capability.
In the Allocation Pool model, everything over the guarantee values is unreserved
capacity, which can be used to burst but is shared with other consumers.
This example is representative of a workload that can benefit from occasionally
consuming a lot of CPU resource if it is available but does not rely on it for day-today functionality. It is likely to consume little of the physical resource on a day-to-day
basis, so you can be comfortable in oversubscribing the CPU resources heavily in
this manner.
Development
Pay-As-you-Go is most commonly found in development or hybrid/auto-scaling
environments, where there are highly variable numbers of VMs on a day-to-day
basis. This model allows the tenant to scale without pre-configured limits. It does
also allow cloud consumers to scale without any contractual agreement on resources.
Sophisticated capping mechanisms now allows the cloud administrator to limit a
tenant based on number of VMs, CPU and memory resources.

Finance
The Reservation Pool model is one of the more expensive allocation models in
vCloud Director because it dedicates physical resources to an Org vDC when it is
created. This means those resources are not available to other organisations using
the same underlying PvDC even if they are not being used.
The Reservation Pool model always guarantees resource availability to its
consumers but allows the resources allocation of individual VMs to be delegated to
consumers rather than being set at an Org vDC level.

Question 3
Highlight the pros and cons of the three Allocation Models.
(i)

Allocation Pool

(ii)

Pay-As-you-Go

(iii)

Reservation Pool

The PAYG model is the most simplistic of the three. This model allows the tenant to
scale without pre-configured limits. It does also allow cloud consumers to scale
without any contractual agreement on resources. Sophisticated capping mechanisms
now allows the cloud administrator to limit a tenant based on number of VMs, CPU
and memory resources. One thing to notice is that all VMs in a PAYG are standalone
entities that have specific limits and guarantees that cant be shared with the other
VMs in the same tenant. So if a VM is not using all the reserved capacity available to
it, that capacity cannot be used by other VMs in the tenant that are demanding more
resources. The other typical disadvantage of this model is that its based on a firstcome-first-served basis. Given the cloud consumer didnt subscribe to allocated or
reserved resources, the system may refuse to deploy VMs at any time depending on
the status of resource consumption on the Provider vDC.
The Allocation Pool model is interesting because it allows the cloud administrator
(but not the cloud consumer) to oversubscribe resources. The level of
oversubscription is set by the cloud administrator at the time the Org vDC is created
and the cloud consumer cannot alter those values. The most evident advantage of
this model is that the cloud consumer has a set of allocated and reserved resources
that has been subscribed (typically for a month). The other advantage of this model
is that all VMs in the same Org vDC can share CPU and memory resources inside a
bucket of resources that is dedicated (yet oversubscribed) to the tenant. The
disadvantage of this model is that the cloud consumer can deploy a finite number of
VMs before their total resources hits the limit of the Org vDC.
However, if the Org vDC runs out of memory, the Provider vDC will search from
other clusters and create another allocation model pool for the organisation.Thus
making the Allocation pool an elastic pool.
The Reservation Pool model is radically different from the above two. In this model
a Resource Pool is completely dedicated and committed to the cloud consumer. This
means that all oversubscription mechanisms are delegated to the tenant thus giving
to the cloud consumer the flexibility to choose the oversubscription ratio of resources.
The disadvantage of this model is that the cloud administrator cannot benefit from
oversubscribing resources at Org vDC instantiation, given the allocated resources to
the tenants are 100% reserved. This means that the cloud consumer will have to
absorb the cost of this premium service from the cloud provider. Note that the
Reservation Pool model (with vCloud Director 5.1) is the only one that doesnt

support elasticity thus further limiting the cloud provider flexibility and architectural
choices.

Question 4
Explain the characteristics of the following three Allocation Models.
(i)

Allocation Pool

(ii)

Pay-As-you-Go

(iii)

Reservation Pool

Each allocation model has very specific characteristics that can be placed in either a
VM or resource pool category.
(i) Allocation Pool
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.

(ii) Pay-As-you-Go
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.
(iii) Reservation Pool
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 perVM 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.

Question 5
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 250.8 GHz (CPU) and
78.26 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Allocation Pool model.
The settings for the Allocation Pool model are as follows:
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
CPU Allocation: 10 GHz
CPU resource guaranteed at 25%
Memory Allocation: 10GB
Memory resource guaranteed at 100%
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 25%x10GHz = 2500 MHz
CPU Limit: 10 GHz
Memory Reservation(committed): 10GB
Memory Limit: 10GB
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? Yes. The newer Allocation pool model provides elastic pool capability.
What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for a newly created VM using resource from this Org vDC? Assuming
the VM rating is 2 vCPU and 512MB.
CPU Reservation(used): 2x1GHzx25% = 500 MHz
CPU Limit: 2x1GHz = 2 GHz
Memory Reservation(used): 100%x512MB = 512 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 1.0GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 1.0GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 1.0 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)
(ii)
(iii)

Small VM: 10 VM constrained by 10GHz [10GHz/1GHz vs 10GB/0.512GM]

Medium VM: 5 VM constrained by 10GHz [10GHz/(2*1GHz) vs 10GB/1GB]
Large VM: 2 VM constrained by 10GHz [10GHz/(4*1GHz) vs 10GB/2GB]

Question 6
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 250.8 GHz (CPU) and
78.26 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Allocation Pool model.
The settings for the Allocation Pool model are as follows:
CPU Speed: 0.26 GHz
CPU Allocation: 10 GHz
CPU resource guaranteed at 25%
Memory Allocation: 10GB
Memory resource guaranteed at 100%
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 25%x10GHz = 2500 MHz
CPU Limit: 10 GHz
Memory Reservation(committed): 10GB
Memory Limit: 10GB
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? Yes. The newer Allocation pool model provides elastic pool capability.
What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for a newly created VM using resource from this Org vDC? Assuming
the VM rating is 2 vCPU and 512MB.
CPU Reservation(used): 2x0.26GHzx25% = 130 MHz
CPU Limit: 2x0.26GHz = 520 MHz
Memory Reservation(used): 100%x512MB = 512 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)
(ii)

(iii)

Small VM: 20 VM constrained by 10GB [10 GHz / (1*0.26 GHz) vs

10 GB / (512 MB)
Medium VM: 10 VM constrained by 10GB [10 GHz / (2*0.26 GHz) vs
10 GB / (1024 MB)
Large VM: 5 VM constrained by 10GB [10GHz/(4*0.26GHz) vs 10GB/2GB]

Question 7
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 10.64 GHz (CPU) and
52.46 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Allocation Pool model.
The settings for the Allocation Pool model are as follows:
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
CPU Allocation: 2.13 GHz
CPU resource guaranteed at 50%
Memory Allocation: 10.49GB
Memory resource guaranteed at 50%
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 50%x2.13GHz = 1.07 GHz
CPU Limit: 2.13 GHz
Memory Reservation(committed): 50%x10.49GB = 5.25 GB
Memory Limit: 10.49GB
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? Yes. The newer Allocation pool model provides elastic pool capability.
A VM with 2 vCPU and 512MB is instantiated on this Org vDC.
What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the VM?
CPU Reservation(used): 2x 1GHz x 50% = 1 GHz
CPU Limit: 2x 1GHz = 2 GHz
Memory Reservation(used): 50%x512MB = 256 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 1 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 1 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 1 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)

Small VM: 2.13/1 = 2 VM constrained by 2.13 GHz [2.13GHz/1GHz vs 10.49GB/0.512GB]

(ii)

Medium VM: 2.13/2 = 1 VM constrained by 2.13 GHz [2.13GHz/(2*1GHz) vs 10.49GB/1GB]

(iii)

Large VM: 2.13/4 = 0 VM constrained by 2.13 GHz [2.13GHz/(4*1GHz) vs 10.49GB/2GB]

Question 8
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 5.32 GHz (CPU) and
26.22 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Pay-As-You-Go model.
The settings for the Pay-As-You-Go Pool model are as follows:
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
CPU Quota: Unlimited
CPU resource guaranteed at 20%
Memory Quota: Unlimited
Memory resource guaranteed at 20%
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 0 GHz
CPU Limit: Unlimited
Memory Reservation(committed): 0 GB
Memory Limit: Unlimited
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? Can
A vApp comprising two VMs, each having a single CPU and 512 MB of memory, is
instantiated on the Org vDC. What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings for the
CPU and Memory per VM?
CPU Reservation(used): 1GHz x 20% = 0.2 GHz
CPU Limit: 1 GHz
Memory Reservation(used): 512MB x 20% = 102.4 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before after the vApp is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 2 x 1GHz x 20% = 0.4 GHz
CPU Limit: Unlimited
Memory Reservation(committed): 2 x 512MB x 20% = 204.8 MB
Memory Limit: Unlimited

To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 1 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 1 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 1 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)

(ii)

(iii)

Small VM:
5.32 GHz / (20% * 1 GHz) = 26

vs 26.22 GB / (20% * 512 MB) = 256

Medium VM:
5.32 GHz / (20% * 2 GHz) = 13

vs 26.22 GB / (20% * 1024 MB) = 128

Large VM:
5.32 GHz / (20% * 4 GHz) = 6

vs 26.22 GB / (20% * 2048 MB) = 64

Question 9
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 49.22 GHz (CPU) and
28.72 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Pay-As-You-Go model.
The settings for the Pay-As-You-Go Pool model are as follows:
CPU Speed: 0.26 GHz
CPU Quota: Unlimited
CPU resource guaranteed at 25%
Memory Quota: Unlimited
Memory resource guaranteed at 100%
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 0 GHz
CPU Limit: Unlimited
Memory Reservation(committed): 0 GB
Memory Limit: Unlimited
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? Can
A vApp comprising two VMs, each having a single CPU and 512 MB of memory, is
instantiated on the Org vDC. What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings for the
CPU and Memory per VM?
CPU Reservation(used): 0.26 GHz x 25% = 65 MHz
CPU Limit: 0.26 GHz [every VM only has only 1 vCPU]
Memory Reservation(used): 512MB x 100% = 512 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before after the vApp is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(used): 2 x 0.26 GHz x 25% = 130 MHz
CPU Limit: Unlimited (49.22 GHz)
Memory Reservation(used): 2 x 512MB x 100% = 1024 MB = 1 GB
Memory Limit: Unlimited (28.72 GB)

To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 0.26 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)

Small VM:
49.22 GHz / (25% * 0.26 GHz) = 757

vs 28.72 GB / (100% * 512 MB) = 56

(ii)

Medium VM:
49.22 GHz / (25% * 2*0.26 GHz) = 378 vs 28.72 GB / (100% * 1024 MB) = 28

(iii)

Large VM:
49.22 GHz / (25% * 4*0.26 GHz) = 189 vs 28.72 GB / (100% * 2048 MB) = 14

Question 10
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 49.22 GHz (CPU) and
28.72 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Reservation Pool model.
The settings for the Reservation Pool model are as follows:
CPU Allocation: 10 GHz
Memory Allocation: 10 GB
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 10 GHz
CPU Limit: 10 x 100% = 10 GHz
Memory Reservation(committed): 10 GB
Memory Limit: 10 GB x 100% = 10 GB
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? No
A VM with 2 vCPU and 512MB is instantiated on this Org vDC.
What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings provided by the Org vDC for the
CPU and Memory respectively of the VM?
CPU Reservation(used): 0 GHz
CPU Limit: 0 GHz
Memory Reservation(used): 0 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 1 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 1 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 1 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)

Small VM: 10 GHz/ 1 GHz = 10 vs 10 GB / 512 MB = 20

(ii)

Medium VM: 10 GHz/ (2 x 1 GHz) = 5 vs 10 GB / 1024 MB = 10

(iii)

Large VM: 10 GHz/ (4 x 1 GHz) = 2 vs 10 GB / 2048 MB = 5

Question 11
A Provider virtual Data Center (PvDC) has a total resource of 10.64 GHz (CPU) and
52.45 GB (Memory). An Organsation virtual Data Centre (Org vDC) was created to
utilise the resources from this PvDC using Reservation Pool model.
The settings for the Reservation Pool model are as follows:
CPU Allocation: 8 GHz
Memory Allocation: 16 GB
What is the Reservation(committed) and Limit settings for the CPU and Memory
respectively for the Org vDC before any VM is instantiated?
CPU Reservation(committed): 8 GHz
CPU Limit: 8 GHz x 100% = 8 GHz
Memory Reservation(committed): 16 GB
Memory Limit: 16 GB x 100% = 16 GB
Can the Org vDC request for more resource from the parent PvDC when it runs out
of cacpacity? No
A VM with 2 vCPU and 512MB is instantiated on this Org vDC.
What is the Reservation(used) and Limit settings provided by the Org vDC for the
CPU and Memory respectively of the VM?
CPU Reservation(used): 0 GHz
CPU Limit: 0 GHz
Memory Reservation(used): 0 MB
Memory Limit: 512MB (same as provisioned)
To facilitate planning for the sizing of VM on the Org vDC, estimate the number of
VMs based on the following VM rating, assuming the virtualisation overhead is
negligible:
(i) Small VM:
1 x 1 GHz vCPU; 512 MB
(ii) Medium VM:
2 x 1 GHz vCPU; 1024 MB
(iii) Large VM:
4 x 1 GHz vCPU; 2048 MB
(i)

Small VM: 8 GHz/ 1 GHz = 8 vs 16 GB / 512 MB = 32

(ii)

Medium VM: 8 GHz/ (2 x 1 GHz) = 4 vs 16 GB / 1024 MB = 16

(iii)

Large VM: 8 GHz/ (4 x 1 GHz) = 2 vs 16 GB / 2048 MB = 8