Speed or number of cores?

[Tim_0200]

More of a theoretical question than a specific problem.

For a Zabbix server (both one that includes the database and does NOT include the database), what type of processor would be more beneficial... more cores or faster speed?

[LenR]

I'm running everything virtual....

I run the server and mysql DB on the same host, most data is collected via proxies and the web runs on a separate server. My zabbix server has 8 cores, runs at about .2 load per core at about 5000 nvps. Memory and I/O are CRITICAL. We could NOT function when we were on iSCSI disk, FC disk is much better. The server has 36G memory, tune mysql to use it. Tune cache. The best I/O is one you don't do because of cache hits.

The VMware cluster is 3 Dell R720's, there are 2x more MS System Center systems than Zabbix on the cluster too.

[jan.garaj]

Number of cores, because Zabbix is scaling by increasing of number of zabbix processes. If it's single process/thread, than is better to use CPU with higher frequency - it's not Zabbix case.