Manually increase the heap memory for vCenter services
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Manually increase the heap memory for vCenter services

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Article ID: 320871

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

  • Performance degradation identified within vCenter server operations.

  • The "alarm.VsphereUiHealthAlarm" has been triggered at the Datacenters folder level.

  • The following entries are observed in the /var/log/vmware/vsphere-ui/logs/vsphere_client_virgo.log file on the vCenter server.

[INFO ] health-status-85 c.v.v.v.cm.HealthStatusRequestHandler$HealthStatusCollectorTask   Determined health status 'YELLOW: [(vmodl.LocalizableMessage) {
   dynamicType = null,
   dynamicProperty = null,
   key = webclient.memory.lowheap,
   arg = null,
   message = The server is running low on heap memory (>90% utilized.)
}]' in 0 ms

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0
VMware vCenter Server 7.0

Cause

This issue is triggered when the vSphere-UI service heap memory consumption exceeds the configured warning threshold

Resolution

Note: Service names may vary between vCenter server versions 7.x and 8.x. For a complete list of service names and step-by-step instructions on managing services for both "Windows vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance", refer to: Stopping, Starting, or Restarting VMware vCenter Server Appliance services

Important: vCenter Server updates may revert these configurations to their default state. It is recommended to document these changes so they can be reapplied following any future updates.

  1. Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance via SSH using root credentials, then type shell to enter the Bash interface.
  2. Execute the following command to display the memory allocation for each service:

    cloudvm-ram-size -l
  1. Increase the memory allocation for a specific service by executing the following command. The example below demonstrates increasing memory for the vsphere-ui service:

cloudvm-ram-size -C #### vsphere-ui

Note: #### should be replaced with the desired amount of memory in MB.

For example, this command would increase the memory of the vsphere-ui service from 853 MB to 2048 MB.

cloudvm-ram-size -C 2048 vsphere-ui

While there is no "one-size-fits-all" configuration for memory, a recommended baseline is to double the existing memory limit of the failing service. This process is iterative, continue to scale the memory upward if performance does not stabilize.
  1. Restart the service that has been altered, in this example "vsphere-ui"
service-control --stop --all && service-control --start --all
  1. Confirm that the service has now been allocated the increased memory by using the below command

    cloudvm-ram-size -l

Additional Information