Recommended Configuration

Maximums

VMware Cloud Director 10.3

Updated on August 12, 2021
 Recommended Configuration Limits

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 Recommended Configuration Limits

This Configuration Maximums document provides the recommended configuration limits for VMware
products. When you configure, deploy and operate your virtual and physical equipment, it is highly
recommended you stay within the limits supported by your product. The limits presented in the tool are
tested, recommended limits, and are fully supported by VMware.

Disclaimer: The limits can be affected by other factors, such as hardware dependencies. For more information about the
supported hardware, see the appropriate hardware compatibility guide. It might not be possible to maximize all configuration
settings and expect your desired outcome. To ensure that you do not exceed supported configurations for your environment,
consult individual solution limits. The recommended configuration limits do not represent the theoretical possibilities of your
product.

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 Recommended Configuration Limits

Category Limit Description

Management Maximums

Maximums related to the entities managed directly by VMware vCloud Director.

VMware vCenter Server systems 35 vCloud Director is tested up to a
certain number of vCenter Server
instances. This is a recommended
maximum validated as part of
vCloud Director scale and
performance testing. Exceeding
this limit is acceptable but might
result in performance degradation.
The impact on performance and
stability depends on many factors
and varies from environment to
environment. Extensive testing is
recommended to make sure that
system performance meets your
standards.
vCloud Director cells N/A The minimum recommended
deployment is 3 cells: 1 primary and
2 standby. Additional application
cells can be deployed for improved
performance and concurrency
characteristics.
Each VCD cell internally supports
by default a DB pool of 75
connections.
Users 75,000 The maximum number of users
Organizations 20,000 The total number of tenant
organizations managed by vCloud
Director.
Users per organization 7500 The maximum number of users
supported per organization.
Organization VDCs 20,000 The maximum number of
organization VDCs.
Provider VDCs 200
Independent disks 10,000 Independent disks are stand-alone
virtual disks that can be created in
organization VDCs. Administrators
and users who have adequate
rights can create, remove, and
update independent disks, and
attach them to or detach them from
virtual machines using the API. The
maximum number of independent
disks supported in vCloud Director
9.1 is a soft limit. Depending on the
environment configuration and
workload profiles it is possible to
have a significantly larger number
of independent disks, up to 10,000.
vCloud Director 9.5 was tested and
certified up to 10,000 independent
disks.
VMs per vApp 128 Virtual machines per vApp.
vApps 40,000 The total number of vApps
managed by vCloud Director.
vApps per organization 5000 The maximum number of vApps in
an organization.
Catalogs 10,000 The total number of catalogs in all
organizations.
Media 5,000 The total number of media files in
all catalogs.

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 Recommended Configuration Limits

Category Limit Description

Resource pools per provider VDC 64 The number of top-level resource
pools per provider VDC.
External Networks 8000 External networks connecting
organization VDCs to physical
networks. Backed by VMware
vSphere port group, VLAN, or
distributed virtual switch (dvSwitch)
objects or backed by NSX-T T0
routers
Routed networks (Org VDC and Total Total of routed networks + isolated
vApp) routed networks is limited by edge
networks gateways in underlying VMware
are limited NSX Manager.
by NSX
Manager
Isolated networks (Org VDC and Total Total of routed networks + isolated
vApp) isolated networks is limited by edge
networks gateways in underlying VMware
are limited NSX Manager.
by NSX
Manager
Direct Org VDC networks 10,000 Organization VDC networks
connecting directly to an external
network.
VMs 40,000 Total number of VMs including
standalone VMs and VMs in vApps
Dedicated External NSX-T Networks Determined
by NSX-T
limits.
Consult
NSX-T
docs.
VCD Instances linked in multi-site 16 Maximum number of VCD
configuration instances that can be linked in
multi-site configuration
Dedicated vCenter Servers (CPOM 100
vCenters)
Cross VDC Networking VDC Groups per vCloud Director 1000 Org VDC networks stretched to all
VDCs in the same VDC Group

Each VDC group encapsulates two

or more Org VDCs in the same
organization in one vCloud Director
site or a set of associated
organizations in multiple vCloud
Director sites. Stretched networks
can be created across the group
with distributed routing enabled for
east-west traffic. The northbound
interface of the edge gateways in
the participating Org VDC form the
egress points of the VDC group and
they can be Active/Passive, Active/
Active, one-armed, or private.
Cross VDC Networking Org VDCs per VDC Group 16 Org VDC networks stretched to all
VDCs in the same VDC Group
Cross VDC Networking Universal Logical Routers 1 Universal Org VDC networks stretched to all
Router per VDCs in the same VDC Group
VDC Group
Cross VDC Networking Cross-VDC networks per vCloud 10,000 Org VDC networks stretched to all
Director VDCs in the same VDC Group
Cross VDC Networking Cross-VDC networks per VDC group 200 Org VDC networks stretched to all
VDCs in the same VDC Group

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 Recommended Configuration Limits

Category Limit Description

Infrastructure Maximums

vCenter Server instances and NSX Manager instances under vCloud Director impose scale limits on the
underlying infrastructure and managed entities. The limits might vary for different versions of vSphere. Be sure to consult
appropriate vSphere documentation (vSphere Configuration Maximums).
The overall vCloud Director powered system inherits the limits of the underlying vCenter Server instances and NSX Manager
instances. In most cases, the limits can be related to the configuration maximums in the underlying vCenter Server instances.
Some of the entities are co-managed by vCenter Server and vCloud Director and might also be subject to vCloud Director
imposed limits. When vCenter Server and vCloud Director limits apply, both are noted in the table. The lower limit of the two is
the actual limit in the given environment.
vCenter Server systems 35 There is no inherent limit on the
number of vCenter Server instances
in vCloud Director. The larger
number of vCenter Server instances
will increase the load on vCloud
Director services and will require a
larger number of cells.
ESXi hosts backed by NSX-V vSphere The total number of ESXi hosts that
maximum can be managed by vCloud Director.
Primarily constrained by vCenter
Server limits. vCloud Director can
generally support the maximum
number of hosts allowed by the
underlying vCenter Server
instances.
ESXi clusters vSphere The total number of ESXi clusters
maximum managed by vCloud Director.
Datastores vSphere The total number of datastores
maximum; under vCloud Director
vCloud management. Constrained by the
Director limits of the underlying vCenter
max = 1024 Server instances. vCloud Director
imposes its own overall maximum.
Storage policies vSphere All storage policies exposed to
maximum; vCloud Director by managed
Cloud vCenter Server instances.
Director
limit = 128
Registered VMs vSphere VM managed in vCloud Director
maximum; inventory.
Cloud
Director
limit =
40,000
Powered-on VMs vSphere Powered-on VM managed by
maximum; vCloud Director.
Cloud
Director
limit =
25,000
Edge Gateways 10,000 per Edge gateways provided by NSX in
Cloud managed vCenter Server instances.
Director
NSX-T Managers 30 per
Cloud
Director
Latency Maximums

The roundtrip latency tolerance for vCloud Director components.

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 Recommended Configuration Limits

Category Limit Description

vCloud Director Cell(s) vCenter Server 150ms Recommended maximum round
trip network latency. Exceeding this
limit might impact the stability and
responsiveness of the system. If
you choose to exceed the limit,
perform extensive testing to
establish whether the performance
impact is acceptable. The actual
impact of latency on performance
depends on a large number of
factors and might vary significantly
between environments.
vCloud Director Cell(s) NSX Components 150ms Recommended maximum round
trip network latency. Exceeding this
limit might impact the stability and
responsiveness of the system. If
you choose to exceed the limit,
perform extensive testing to
establish whether the performance
impact is acceptable. The actual
impact of latency on performance
depends on a large number
offactors and might vary
significantly between environments.
vCloud Director Cell(s) ESXi Hosts 150ms Recommended maximum roundtrip
network latency. Exceeding this
limit might impact the stability and
responsiveness of the system. If
you choose to exceed the limit,
perform extensive testing to
establish whether the performance
impact is acceptable. The actual
impact of latency on performance
depends on a large number of
factors and might vary signifcantly
between environments.

vCloud Director Cell(s) AMQP Asynchrono vCloud Director Cell(s) to AMQP

us message broker has no latency
limits since the communication is
asynchronous.
vCloud Director Cell(s) Cloud Director Database (External 1 ms Recommended maximum round
or Appliance) trip network latency between Cloud
Director Cells and backing Cloud
Director Database. Exceeding this
limit might impact the stability and
responsiveness of the system. If
you choose to exceed the limit,
perform extensive testing to
establish whether the performance
impact is acceptable. The actual
impact of latency on performance
depends on a large number of
factors and might vary significantly
between environments.
Cross-vCenter NSX Environment All NSX Components 150ms
Cross-vCenter NSX Environment NSX Manager and NSX Controllers 150 ms
Cross-vCenter NSX Environment NSX Manager and ESXi Hosts 150 ms
Cross-vCenter NSX Environment NSX Manager and vCenter Server 150 ms
system
Cross-vCenter NSX Environment NSX Manager and NSX Manager in 150 ms
a cross-vCenter NSX Environment
NSX Controller Cluster NSX Controller Cluster storage Peak write
subsystem latency 300
ms
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 Recommended Configuration Limits

Category Limit Description

NSX Controller Cluster VMFS NFS or vSAN Datastore Mean write vmdk, vmx, nvram, vmem, etc.
storage for NSX Controller Cluster latency 100
virtual appliance disks and files ms
Concurrency Maximums

The limits for concurrent API and UI operations and concurrent console sessions. These
characteristics generally depend on the number of vCloud Director cells. Concurrency limits listed
in the following table are recommended for best performance. Exceeding the limits is possible but will
impact user experience and responsiveness of the system. The impact depends on many variables.
Extensive testing is recommended to determine performance characteristics in your environment.
Concurrent VM consoles NA The total number of concurrent VM
console connections per vCloud
Director. The recommended
maximum is determined by many
factors, including the number of
vCloud Director cells.
Concurrent user tasks (invoked in 128 The total number of concurrent
UI or API) operations (tasks) being processed
by VMware Cloud Director. Includes
API and UI initiated user operations.
Please refer to VMware Validated
Design for Cloud Providers for more
details.

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