What is a VPU (versus CPU)?

Question

1. I know that VPU stands for Virtual Processing Unit (versus CPU), but what does that mean exactly?

2. Is it just the new terminology for referring to processor resources in a virtual server versus a dedicated (physical) server?**

3. My understanding is that VMWare can divvy up cores in a processor across virtual servers... But, can VMWare also divvy up virtual (Hyper-threaded) cores too?

4. Is a VPU a shared core (i.e. shared across other hosting accounts)? Or does each VPS get 100% of its allocated VPU?

5. Is a Cloud Hosting VPS different from a traditional VPS from and end user's perspective.

I'm still a little fuzzy on these concepts, and I'm trying to evaluate different hosting plans.

Answer 1

1. It means that your VM is assigned a number of virtual CPUs, the OS in that VM 'sees' that/those virtual CPUs and can schedule work against it/them. Of course they're actually mapped to real CPUs but the virtualisation/time-slicing mechanism hands out real CPU processing capability to the VMs as required.

2. You could say that yes, though I'd have said 'virtual server versus a physical server' myself.

3. Yes but VMWare doesn't present sub-core units to VMs, if you have a 4 vCPU VM then its work will be carried out by one or more real physical CPUs/threads.

4. Yes it's shared (unless specifically, and stupidly, specified to be dedicated).

5. No not really, you just have no idea where your VM is in the world.