VMware ESX Server: Scale Up or Scale Out?

Overview

This IBM paper presents a basis for discussion about optimal and efficient implementations of ESX Server, the flagship VMware product for x86 hardware virtualization. It considers best practices regarding the scalability of an ESX Server implementation on IBM eServer xSeries and BladeCenter servers. This paper focuses on the discussion on two major scenarios. The scale-up implementation applies to architecture based on one or few large x86 server systems and involves adding components and resources to the system to achieve scalability. The scale-out implementation is based on many smaller x86 server systems means adding new server systems to your "server farm" to scale it according to your needs.