Mastering VMware vSphere 6. Marshall Nick
supports.
Because the majority of organizations that adopt vSphere are primarily virtualizing Microsoft Windows, that operating system will receive the majority of attention when it comes to describing procedures that must occur within a virtualized operating system. You will see coverage of tasks for a virtualized installation of Linux as well, but the majority of the coverage will be for Microsoft Windows.
If you are primarily virtualizing something other than Microsoft Windows, VMware provides more in-depth information on all the operating systems it supports and how vSphere interacts with those operating systems on its website at www.vmware.com.
The Bottom Line
Identify the role of each product in the vSphere product suite. The VMware vSphere product suite contains VMware ESXi and vCenter Server. ESXi provides the base virtualization functionality and enables features like Virtual SMP. vCenter Server provides management for ESXi and enables functionality like vMotion, Storage vMotion, vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere High Availability (HA), and vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT). Storage I/O Control and Network I/O Control provide granular resource controls for VMs. The vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) provide a backup framework that allows for the integration of third-party backup solutions into a vSphere implementation.
Master It Which products are licensed features within the VMware vSphere suite?
Master It Which two features of VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter Server together aim to reduce or eliminate downtime due to unplanned hardware failures?
Master It Name two storage-related features that were introduced in vSphere 5.5.
Recognize the interaction and dependencies between the products in the vSphere suite. VMware ESXi forms the foundation of the vSphere product suite, but some features require the presence of vCenter Server. Features like vMotion, Storage vMotion, vSphere DRS, vSphere HA, vSphere FT, SIOC, and NIOC require ESXi as well as vCenter Server.
Master It Name three features that are supported only when using vCenter Server along with ESXi.
Master It Name two features that are supported without vCenter Server but with a licensed installation of ESXi.
Understand how vSphere differs from other virtualization products. VMware vSphere’s hypervisor, ESXi, uses a Type 1 bare-metal hypervisor that handles I/O directly within the hypervisor. This means that a host operating system, like Windows or Linux, is not required in order for ESXi to function. Although other virtualization solutions are listed as “Type 1 bare-metal hypervisors,” most other Type 1 hypervisors on the market today require the presence of a “parent partition” or “dom0” through which all VM I/O must travel.
Master It One of the administrators on your team asked whether he should install Windows Server on the new servers you purchased for ESXi. What should you tell him, and why?
Chapter 2
Planning and Installing VMware ESXi
Now that you’ve taken a close look at VMware vSphere and its suite of applications in Chapter 1, “Introducing VMware vSphere 6,” it’s easy to see that VMware ESXi is the foundation of vSphere.
Although the act of installation can be relatively simple, understanding the deployment and configuration options requires planning to ensure a successful, VMware-supported implementation.
In this chapter, you will learn to
Understand ESXi compatibility requirements
Plan an ESXi deployment
Deploy ESXi
Perform postinstallation configuration of ESXi
Install the vSphere Desktop Client
Planning a VMware vSphere Deployment
Deploying VMware vSphere is more than just virtualizing servers. Storage, networking, and security in a vSphere deployment are equally as significant as they are with the physical servers. As a result, the process of planning the vSphere deployment becomes even more important. Without appropriate planning, you run the risk of configuration problems, instability, incompatibilities, and diminished financial impact.
To plan a vSphere deployment, you must answer a number of questions (please note that this list is far from comprehensive):
• What types of servers will I use for the underlying physical hardware?
• What kinds of storage will I use, and how will I connect that storage to my servers?
• How will the networking be configured?
In some cases, the answers to these questions will determine the answers to other questions. After you have answered these questions, you can then move on to more difficult issues. These issues center on how the vSphere deployment will impact your staff, your business processes, and your operational procedures. Although still important, you won’t answer those sorts of questions here; instead, we’ll just focus on the technical issues.
vsphere Design is a Topic all its own
The first section of this chapter barely scratches the surface of what is involved in planning and designing a vSphere deployment. The topic of vSphere design warranted its own book: VMware vSphere Design, Second Edition (Sybex, 2013). If you are interested in a more detailed discussion of design decisions and design impacts, or you are studying for the certification “VMware Advanced Professional – Data Center Design,” that’s the book for you.
The next few sections discuss the three major questions outlined earlier for planning your vSphere deployment: compute platform, storage, and network.
Choosing a Server Platform
The first major decision when planning to deploy vSphere is choosing a hardware, or “compute,” platform. Compared to traditional operating systems like Windows or Linux, ESXi has more stringent hardware restrictions. ESXi won’t necessarily support every storage controller or every network adapter chipset available on the market. When we talk about Virtual SAN (VSAN) in Chapter 6, “Creating and Configuring Storage Devices,” you will find this especially true. Although these hardware restrictions limit the options for deploying a supported virtual infrastructure, they also ensure that the hardware has been tested and will work as expected with ESXi. Not every vendor or white-box configuration can play host to ESXi, but the list of supported hardware platforms is large, and hardware vendors continue to test newer models when they are released.
You can check for hardware compatibility using the searchable Compatibility Guide available on VMware’s website at www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/. A quick search returns dozens of systems from major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, IBM, and Dell. For example, as of this writing, searching the guide for HP or Dell both returned over 200 individual results, including blades and traditional rack-mount servers supported across several different versions of vSphere 5.0 to 6.0. Within the major vendors like HP, Dell, Cisco, and IBM, you should easily find a tested and supported platform to run ESXi, especially their newer models of hardware. When you expand the list to include other vendors, you can choose from a substantial base of compatible servers supported by vSphere.
The Right Server for the Job
Selecting the appropriate server is undoubtedly the first step in ensuring a successful vSphere deployment. In addition, it is the only way to ensure that VMware will provide the necessary support. Remember the discussion from Chapter 1, though – a bigger server isn’t necessarily a better server!
Finding a supported server is only the first step. It’s also important to find the right server – the server that strikes the correct balance of capacity, scalability, availability, and affordability. Do you use larger servers, such as servers that support four or more CPU sockets