During a capacity-planning workshop, you learn that a mission-critical SQL virtual machine must always have at least 2 GHz of processor time but should be able to use more CPU when the host is lightly loaded. Which CPU resource control in a Type-1 hypervisor such as VMware ESXi will meet this requirement?
Set the VM's CPU shares to High
Apply a 2 GHz CPU limit to the VM
Pin both vCPUs to two specific pCPUs using CPU affinity
Configure a 2 GHz CPU reservation for the virtual machine
A CPU reservation guarantees that the specified amount of CPU (expressed in MHz or GHz) is always available to the VM, even when the host is under heavy contention. Because the reservation is only a floor-not a ceiling-the VM can consume additional CPU cycles if they are free.
Shares only set relative priority and do not guarantee any minimum capacity.
A CPU limit sets an upper bound, preventing the VM from exceeding the configured value, so it would block bursting above 2 GHz.
CPU affinity pins vCPUs to specific physical cores but does not ensure that those cores are available or provide minimum throughput.