How to change the memory size of an ova appliance before deploying it on VCenter Server?

Question

In this Question george was asking if it is OK to lower the memory of VMware Virtual Appliance.

What I would like to know is how to modify memory size in the ova file before the deployment? because after the deployment in Vcenter Server if I lower the memory size the VM refuses to spawn requiring at Least 8GB of memory.

Does the VM require 8GB of RAM? – ewwhite Dec 17 '13 at 16:30 — ewwhite, Dec 17 '13 at 16:30

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 17:49

Without making some configuration changes, vCenter will require at least 8 GB of RAM to function properly because of some of the hard-coded values for Java and other dependencies.

For reference, this is a setup with 2 hosts and 22 VMs, using the Web client:

esxi-vcenter:~ # free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          8002       7872        130          0        380       3828
-/+ buffers/cache:       3663       4339
Swap:        15366          4      15362

Yes, some is cached, but usage does spike depending on activity, so I highly recommend leaving it at 8 GB.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 18 '13 at 09:02

Using VMware Workstation I've been able to modify the OVA Appliance memory size, here are the steps:

Import the ova appliance in VMWare Workstation
Modify Virtual Hardware properties in VM settings
Export the Modified VM has a OVF Model
In VCenter deploy the VM using the OVF model (recall that the OVF is just a descriptor for the VMDK disk image)

I would like also to acknowledge that this is for a prototype deployment.

How to change the memory size of an ova appliance before deploying it on VCenter Server?

2 Answers2