Figure 9.10 Configuring the capacity for the cloud
The next stage, capability profiles, is an interesting concept. This is different from
capacity. Capacity is the limit of what can be stored in the cloud, whereas capability
defines what the virtual machines created in the cloud are, well, capable of. For
example, what is the maximum number of virtual CPUs that can be assigned to a
virtual machine, and what is the maximum amount of memory for a VM? By default,
two capability profiles exist—one for Hyper-V and one for ESX—which indicate the
maximum capabilities for each hypervisor platform. For example, the Hyper-V
capability profile sets the processor range from 1 to 64 and sets the memory from
8MB to 1TB, which are the limits for Hyper-V 2012 and Hyper-V 2012 R2. I expect this
will be revised in an update with the new Windows Server 2016 maximums of 240
vCPUs and 16TB of memory. The ESX capability profile sets the processor range from
1 to 64 and the memory from 4MB to 255GB. Again I expect to see this updated with
the more recent maximums. By default, you can select any combination of the two
built-in, locked capability profiles for your cloud based on the hypervisors used in the
cloud, but you don’t have to.
Imagine that you are creating a development cloud today. Windows Server 2016
Hyper-V is available with its support for virtual machines that have 240 virtual CPUs
and 16TB of RAM. I may give a user a quota of 100 virtual CPUs and 4TB of memory,
so do I want that user consuming their whole quota with a single VM? Not likely.
Instead, I could create a custom capability profile in the Library workspace and under
Profiles ➢ Capability Profiles create a new profile to meet the capabilities that I want
in a specific cloud. In Figure 9.11, I have created a custom capability profile that limits
virtual CPUs and indicates a memory range from 512MB to 4GB. I could also mandate