What is CPU topology in kvm virt-manager?

Question

In KVM virt-manager what is the meaning of Sockets, Cores, and Threads ?

Answer 1

RedHat has a sparse writeup of CPU topology in virt-manager. Basically, this allows you to have the virtual guest believe it has a specific number of physical CPUs (sockets), each with a specific number of cores, with each core having one or more threads. This can be important when running a virtual machine with an enterprise database engine, such as Microsoft SQL Server, which is licensed by the core. Oracle also has licensing fees that are priced per socket and per core. So, the more resources you have available to these database engines, the more you have to pay in ongoing fees.

A number of large corporations choose to go this route to simplify licensing fees and simplify server management. For most people, however, this will likely be unnecessary. A single socket with a respectable number of cores, each with one or two threads each, will more than suffice for development or personal projects.

I hope this answers your question.