This blog post will introduce and explore how to enable VMware Advanced Memory Tiering.
Why enable Advanced Memory Tiering?
In more and more conversations with Enterprise customers, one trend is increasingly clear: the pressing need for IT consolidation. The primary driver? Taming the ever-rising cost of RAM. The extreme price hikes we’re currently seeing in memory may not be the end of the story, making efficiency a critical priority for every organization.
The good news is that new technologies are emerging to tackle this challenge head-on. With a transition to VCF 9, you unlock the power of Advanced Memory Tiering with NVMe technology. This feature allows you to achieve immense efficiency gains by intelligently managing your memory resources.
My advice: Don’t wait until after your next hardware refresh. Include Advanced Memory Tiering as a non-negotiable factor in your initial design requirement. By doing so, you can ensure your future hardware lifecycle is strategically aligned to maximize memory efficiency and provide significant cost savings. This forward-thinking approach will make your infrastructure more resilient and cost-effective in the face of volatile hardware prices.
Practical Benefits of Memory Tiering and Choosing the Right Ratio!
There’s an official white paper with numerous practical examples, including performance testing, based on various workload types. See this document Memory Tiering Performance 2025 for reference! In this reference you see instructions how to observe Active memory metric, it is also possible to obeserve these metrics with RV-Tools.
NVMe Compatibility for Memory Tiering
Hardware is the backbone of Memory Tiering’s performance, and since NVMe devices function as one of the memory tiers, their compatibility is a non-negotiable requirement. VMware strongly recommends selecting NVMe drives that meet specific criteria for endurance and performance to ensure efficient tiering and durability:
Endurance: To handle repeated writes, select drives of Class D or higher (≥7300 TBW).
Performance: For efficient tiering, drives should be Class F (100,000–349,999 writes/sec) or Class G (350,000+ writes/sec).
Constrains
Please note that for VCF 9.0, Memory Tiering is not recommended for virtual machines that are sensitive to latency. This specifically includes, but is not limited to, the following VM types:
High-performance VMs
Security VMs (e.g., those utilizing SEV, SGX, or TDX technologies)
Fault Tolerance (FT) VMs
“Monster” VMs (those configured with 1TB or more of memory)
All relevant information about Memory tiering is available on Memory Tiering Recources Hub.
Configuration Steps
The configuration process involves two main steps:
- Partition Creation: This can be performed by running an ESXCLI or PowerShell command/script.
- Enabling Memory Tiering: This can be performed by using ESXCLI, PowerShell, or the vCenter UI, applying it to individual hosts or the entire cluster simultaneously.
Experience the process firsthand by exploring the Hands-on Lab: NVMe Memory Tiering End to End Configuration (HOL-2603-02-VCF-S). This lab provides a practical guide on performing the necessary configuration steps, with a focus on implementation based on ISIM.
End of this post.
Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed in this blog are solely my own and should be treated as personal opinions. This content does not hold any legal or authoritative standing.