Those relative cpu/memory "share" values get utilized by the physical host layer, right? and not the Resource Pool layer?
In other words, each physical host is running, say, 20 VMs and of those 20 there are different shares assigned to various VMs (some are "High" others "Normal" and others "Low") due to the fact that those 20 are broken up into various Resource Pools and we've assigned "High", "Normal", and "Low" to various Resource Pools. Regardless of the reservations guaranteed to any particular Resource Pool, if VM1 on VMHOST1 is "High" shares and VM2 on that same VMHOST1 is "Low" shares then VM2 will spend more time in "CPU Ready" land than VM1, right? While cpu/memory shares can get configured at the Resource Pool level, it seems to me that they actually MATTER at the physical host level (they are relative to the VMs on the particular ESX host, NOT the particular Resource Pool they are a part of).
(my examples assume all other things being equal, for instance, that all example VMs are all 1vCPU VMs)
Why this matters to me, in case you care, is because I have a layout described here and using the examples I used in that thread, I'm thinking that increasing the shares of the "FinanceProduction" Resource Pool to "High" and the "FinanceTest" Resource pool to "Normal" will better ensure that the VMs in those Resource Pools can actually achieve the cpu/memory reservations and limits I've assigned to them. We're basically seeing performance degrade as we grow, yet they aren't approaching their cpu/memory reservation.
Benny Hauk, VCP4
Systems Admin
LifeWay Chrstian Resources
REF: How to best ensure if there is a loser in a contention race that it will always be a "non-prod" VM?