diff --git a/deployments/hadoop-hdfs/site.pp.tmpl b/deployments/hadoop-hdfs/site.pp.tmpl
index 8cf801c0d4e431b12a9757446620647ca158efc8..f190f86274c87f1d9f62cba12c64285aa094dfe6 100644
--- a/deployments/hadoop-hdfs/site.pp.tmpl
+++ b/deployments/hadoop-hdfs/site.pp.tmpl
@@ -77,7 +77,8 @@ class{'hadoop':
     #'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.groups' => "*",
     'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.hosts' => "*",
     'yarn.app.mapreduce.am.env' => 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/hadoop/lib/native:$$LD_LIBRARY_PATH',
-    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-check-enabled' => 'false',
+    # increase virtual memory limit for Spark
+    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-pmem-ratio' => 5,
   },
   version                => $$hadoop_version,
   hdfs_deployed          => $$hdfs_deployed,
diff --git a/deployments/hadoop-single/single.pp.tmpl b/deployments/hadoop-single/single.pp.tmpl
index b0a7a4b7992c555027bb8dd0557bbe3cdcafa221..db444db41e409ee59671ab5e6b8b6f4e14abc325 100644
--- a/deployments/hadoop-single/single.pp.tmpl
+++ b/deployments/hadoop-single/single.pp.tmpl
@@ -101,7 +101,8 @@ class{'hadoop':
     #'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.groups' => "*",
     'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.hosts' => "*",
     'yarn.app.mapreduce.am.env' => 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/hadoop/lib/native:$$LD_LIBRARY_PATH',
-    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-check-enabled' => 'false',
+    # increase virtual memory limit for Spark
+    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-pmem-ratio' => 5,
   },
   version                => $$hadoop_version,
   hdfs_deployed          => $$hdfs_deployed,
diff --git a/deployments/hadoop/site.pp.tmpl b/deployments/hadoop/site.pp.tmpl
index bf5c3dc7a6c610de5f66cb1ac9b469982525047a..bb021137fdfd7ba16bc754138373608bd74679c4 100644
--- a/deployments/hadoop/site.pp.tmpl
+++ b/deployments/hadoop/site.pp.tmpl
@@ -99,7 +99,8 @@ class{'hadoop':
     #'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.groups' => "*",
     'hadoop.proxyuser.hive.hosts' => "*",
     'yarn.app.mapreduce.am.env' => 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/hadoop/lib/native:$$LD_LIBRARY_PATH',
-    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-check-enabled' => 'false',
+    # increase virtual memory limit for Spark
+    'yarn.nodemanager.vmem-pmem-ratio' => 5,
   },
   version                => $$hadoop_version,
   hdfs_deployed          => $$hdfs_deployed,