When you provision a Tanzu Kubernetes cluster, you specify the virtual machine class type. Each class type reserves a set of resources for the VM, including processing, memory, and storage. In addition, for each type there are guaranteed and best effort editions depending on your use case.

Default Values for Select Virtual Machine Class Types

The table lists default values for select virtual machine class types that are used as VM deployment sizes for Tanzu Kubernetes cluster nodes. Each class type is a request for resource reservations on the virtual machine for processing, memory, and storage.

There are two editions for each class type: guaranteed and best effort. A guaranteed class edition fully reserves its configured resources, that is, for a cluster the spec.policies.resources.requests matches the spec.hardware settings. A best effort class edition does not, that is, it allows resources to be overcommitted. Typically guaranteed classes are used for production workloads.

Note: The list might not be exhaustive, and in the future VM types might be customizable. To view the current and complete list of VM types available in your environment, log in to the Supervisor Cluster and run the kubectl describe virtualmachineclasses command.
Table 1. Default Values for Select Virtual Machine Class Types
Class CPU Memory (GB) Storage (GB) Reserved CPU and Memory
guaranteed-8xlarge 32 128 16 Yes
best-effort-8xlarge 32 128 16 No
guaranteed-4xlarge 16 128 16 Yes
best-effort-4xlarge 16 128 16 No
guaranteed-2xlarge 8 64 16 Yes
best-effort-2xlarge 8 64 16 No
guaranteed-xlarge 4 32 16 Yes
best-effort-xlarge 4 32 16 No
guaranteed-large 4 16 16 Yes
best-effort-large 4 16 16 No
guaranteed-medium 2 8 16 Yes
best-effort-medium 2 8 16 No
guaranteed-small 2 4 16 Yes
best-effort-small 2 4 16 No
guaranteed-xsmall 2 2 16 Yes
best-effort-xsmall 2 2 16 No