VMware vsphere 4.1 with ESXi and vcenter

Transcription

1 Study Guide 5 Day VMware vsphere 4.1 with ESXi and vcenter A step by step approach to successful virtualization planning, deployment and administration. Featuring VMware vsphere with VMware ESXi 4.1, VMware vcenter 4.1, and related products December 2010

2 VMware vsphere 4.1 with ESXi and vcenter Copyright 2009, 2010 by ESXLab.com All rights reserved. Published by: Larry Karnis, ESXLab.com 15 Claypine Trail Brampton, Ontario Canada L6V 3L8 Phone: Toll Free: Facsimile: Web: (905) (888) (905) First edition published October 2009 Second update for vsphere 4.1, December 2010 To find out more about our products and services including consulting services, renting our remote lab facilities, running your own VMware class or custom training and content solutions, please visit our website or the author: This document was prepared in its entirety using the open source OpenOffice 3 office suite. OpenOffice can be freely downloaded for free from Microsoft Visio 2007 was used to create some of the slide graphics. Final PDF assembly was performed with PDFFactory Pro available at Screen grabs were captured with Screen Grab Pro from Traction software. This free tool is available from This document, the images, screen grabs, etc. are original works. This document is copyright 2009 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved. No reproduction by any means including photo-copying or electronic imaging is permitted without prior written authorization from the copyright holder. This training material is provided 'as is', without any warranty either expressed or implied. ESXLab.com prepared this material with due care for accuracy and completeness, but does not warrant that the content is either error free or suitable for any specific use. By using this courseware, customer agrees to accept responsibility for all results desirable or otherwise. Customer agrees that all lab exercises are for illustration purposes only, and assumes all risks including but not limited of data damage or loss, resulting from such use. Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft Exchange 5.5, Microsoft Exchange 2000, Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Microsoft Exchange 2007 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. GroupWise and NetMail are trademarks of Novell Inc. Lotus Domino is a trademark of IBM Corporation. RedHat and Fedora Core are trademarks of RedHat Inc. VMware, VMware Workstation, VMware Server, VMware Player, VMware ESX, VMotion, vsphere, etc. are registered trademarks of VMware Corporation. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. ESXLab.com is an independent training and content development company that is in no way affiliated with or in any way related to VMware Inc. In no case is any such relationship either implied or intended.

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4 Author's Note Twenty five years ago, I started my IT career as a UNIX/C programmer. By 1992, I was working as a very busy UNIX admin. so I gave up the safety of full time work for consulting. As a hedge against down time, I contacted a major training company and offered my services. Soon, I was teaching their UNIX and C programming classes (very popular at the time). My love of UNIX morphed into a love of Linux so by 2002 I was teaching Linux for ReadHat. In 2004, I had the very good fortune to be contacted by VMware. Would I like a job working as a trainer? I said no and asked if they wanted a contractor. They said no. I had this conversation with VMware three times in 2004 until they finally agreed to hire me as a contractor. I sat the ESX I & II classes and earned my VMware Certified Professional on ESX 2.0 (VCP# 993). I worked as a contract resource for VMware for about 4 years. I got to watch ESX grow from a niche product used primarily for testing into a full blown production platform. VMware was a young, company creating technical magic (VMotion was absolutely unbelievable in 2003). IMHO, their software magicians were, and still are without equal. They have since delivered Storage VMotion, High Availability, DRS clusters, Fault Tolerant VMs and much, much more. In 2008, I left VMware to work again as an independent. I enjoy training and was still a huge advocate of VMware's technology, so I decided to start a company to provide vendor independent VMware training courses that anyone could run. The result is this book set. This Study Guide fully explains how each vsphere feature works. The accompanying Lab Guide takes you through the mechanics. Each lab starts at the very beginning and takes you through all the steps needed to complete the job. There is no magic in this course because nothing is done for you. In most cases, you can perform the labs at work exactly the same way and get the same result (just be careful and don't break anything!). Developing courseware is much like developing software (my first job). You write, re-write, review, edit update, test until you truly believe that it is bug free. The reality is that bugs exist and no doubt, some are lurking in this book set. If you find one, please let me know. I'll fix the issue and the next version of the courseware will be better for your input. As a bonus, I will provide a free ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam voucher to the first person who reports each unique bug VMware vsphere has rekindle my love of IT, and I've seen it do the same for others. Demand for VMware vsphere skills is growing and so will your career once you've completed this class. Larry Karnis larry.karnis@esxlab.com (905) x100

5 Time Line & Table of Contents Get Certified Now! ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist Day 1 Topics Chapter 0 - Overview Chapter 1 VMware vsphere Overview Chapter 2 Standalone ESXi Chapter 3 Virtual & Physical Networking Chapter 4 NAS Shared Storage Day 2 Topics Chapter 5 Virtual Machines Chapter 6 vcenter Chapter 7 Virtual Machine Rapid Deployment Day 3 Topics Chapter 8 Permission Model Chapter 9 Advanced Virtual Networking Chapter 10 Using Fibre and iscsi Shared Storage Chapter 11 VMware File System Chapter 12 Resource Management 2010 ESXLab.com. All rights reserved. - i - December, 2010 Photocopying this document in whole or in part is not permitted.

6 Day 4 Topics Chapter 13 Virtual Machine Cold and Hot Migration Chapter 14 Distributed Resource Scheduler Chapter 15 VMware High Availability Clusters Chapter 16 Guided Consolidation Chapter 17 VMware Data Recovery Day 5 Topics Chapter 18 Server Consolidation with vcenter Converter Chapter 19 vcenter Alarms Chapter 20 VMware Update Manager Chapter 21 Performance Monitoring Chapter 22 Final Thoughts Appendix Appendix 1 Definitions & Acronyms 2010 ESXLab.com. All rights reserved. - ii - December, 2010 Photocopying this document in whole or in part is not permitted.

7 Chapter 0 - Overview ESXLab.com VMware vsphere 4.1 with ESXi and vcenter Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-1 Module 0 Introduction

8 Introduction to Virtualization Introduction to vsphere Class Overview Virtualization Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-2 Module 0 Introduction

9 Virtualization App O/S App O/S App O/S App O/S App O/S App O/S App O/S App O/S VMware vsphere App O/S A software abstraction that creates virtual hardware & maps it to physical hardware Is completely transparent to guest OS and applications Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-3 Traditional PC Server Deployments One O/S and Application per server Captive local disk Workloads locked to server Virtual Deployment Require fewer physical servers Can run many workloads as Virtual Machines Workloads not locked to server (cold migration, VMotion, Storage VMotion) Load balancing and high availability options depend on shared disk Higher hardware utilization rates Lower marginal cost to deploy new workloads (just make a new VM) Better reliability and performance due to more capable hardware New options for Disaster Recovery, Back Up Module 0 Introduction

10 Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. VMware vsphere VMware ESXi Enterprise class server virtualization software Management, Performance, Monitoring vcenter Load Balancing VMotion, Storage VMotion and DRS Clusters High Availability HA Clusters Planning, Deployment and Back Up Capacity Planner, vcenter Converter, VMware Data Recovery Continuous Availability VMware Fault Tolerance 0-4 VMware provides a complete suite of products both for virtualization as well as for management, back up, disaster recovery, testing, replication and much more. These products make mitigating to virtualization very beneficial. The primary risk of virtualization is too many eggs in one basket... That is, if you consolidate workloads into virtual machines but lack the ability to: - Load balance your VMs across servers - Rapidly recover VMs that fail when a physical host fails - Easily manage and monitor VMs - Deploy VMs from known good images then you are creating risk... If you cannot load balance, then you run the risk of poor VM performance (due to host resource over-commit). If you cannot automatically place and restart VMs due to a physical server failure, then you may have critical production VMs down for hours if a host fails. Furthermore, if a physical host that supports a large VM population fails catastrophically, then your VMs might be down for days (until the hardware can be repaired). VMware Virtual Infrastructure provides all of the above features. Other products are maturing but do not yet offer the same breadth or depth of functionality as VMware. Module 0 Introduction

11 Key Topics Virtualization Overview Stand Alone ESXi Virtual & Physical Networking vsphere Management Virtual Machines, Rapid Deployment Shared Storage VM Migration & Load Balancing High Availability Physical to Virtual Conversions Back Up, Recovery & Disaster Recovery Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-5 The above items are key topics in this class but not a complete list of topics. For a complete list of topics, please consult the table of contents. Module 0 Introduction

12 Public Class Daily Timetable Schedule 09:00 a.m. Start 10:30 a.m. Break 12:00 p.m. Lunch 01:00 p.m. Resume 03:00 p.m. Break 05:00 p.m. End of Day Informal Ask questions any time Cell phones on vibrate please Take calls outside class Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-6 The above schedule is for public classes based on our standard timetable. Your training company/partner may set a different schedule. Module 0 Introduction

13 Problems & Opportunities Business or IT problem we face Identify common pain points. E.g. Provisioning Deployment Management Imaging Back Up & DR Etc. Virtual Solution Explain how Virtual Infrastructure addresses the problem New methods Streamlined procedures Less risk Faster results Reduced costs Simplify Etc. Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-7 Virtualization addresses most of the common pain points experienced by modern PC server deployments. As we go through this class you will learn how virtualization delivers the above benefits and much more. Module 0 Introduction

14 Introductions Who Name and current job Why are you here? Official reason Honest reason Experience with Windows Linux/UNIX VMware hosted products (Player, Server, etc.) VMware ESXi 3.x, VirtualCenter 2.x 3 rd party Virtualization (Xen/Hyper-V) Favorite vacation spot? Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-8 Experience with virtualization is not a prerequisite for this class... If you do have prior virtualization experience either with VMware products or other products please feel free to share them with the class. Module 0 Introduction

15 Vendor Neutral Certification ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist, Technician Exam based certifications for virtualization professionals Score 80%+ and earn ECVS Score 60-79% and earn ECVT About the exam Available at the end of class 75 questions in 90 minutes Multiple choice or True/False For more information see the brochure at the back of this book Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 0-9 VMware will not award certification to candidates unless you attend their class and then pass the VCP-410 exam. In response, ESXLab.com has created verifiable, vendor neutral VMware vsphere certifications so that attendees of ESXLab vsphere classes can achieve certification. Our exam fully tests a candidates knowledge and skill with VMware's vsphere products. There are two certifications you can earn. ECVS is awarded to candidates who, by scoring 80% or higher in the exam, demonstrate a superior level of knowledge and experience. ECVT is awarded to candidates who, by scoring 60% to 79%, demonstrate a solid understanding of the skills needed to effectively manage vsphere. The ECVS exam is free to any one who attends an ESXLab.com class. Your instructor should make the exam available to you on Friday afternoon at the end of the lecture/lab portion of the class. If you cannot stay for the exam (or if it is not offered), you can make arrangements with your local training center to sit the exam at a later time (note: a fee may apply). To be successful in the exam, we strongly suggest you: - Review the course book daily giving extra time to topics you found challenging - Review and/or redo the labs so that you fully understand the mechanics - Ask questions in class - Review VMware official product documentation available at Module 0 Introduction

16 Module 0 Introduction

17 Chapter 1 - Introduction Introduction to VMware vsphere Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-1 Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

18 VMware vsphere Introduction to vsphere Common IT problems vsphere solutions vsphere deployment options Storage, Network and server cloud computing Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-2 Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

19 Problems & Opportunities Low server resource utilization Data center costs, space, power, cooling Application, OS deployment Back Up & Recovery Server Refresh Remote access and support Hardware maintenance Operating system license costs Disaster Recovery Test, Development, Training, QA Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-3 Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

20 Server Resource Utilization Pre-virtualization server utilization rates are very low One OS/application per server Fortune 1,000; 8% avg. utilization Typical utilization % Usually one critical resource Other sub-systems mostly idle Why 1 OS, application/server? Political, administrative isolation Application, DLL isolation Simplify backup, recovery, DR Perception is that PC servers are cheap to buy, license, run Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-4 The most common method of deploying PC servers is one application per server. The reason for this is many-fold but is based on the belief that the complexities, risks and inflexibility of running many applications on a single server and operating system are simply not worth the cost savings of running many applications or services on a single PC server. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

21 App O/S App O/S App O/S vsphere App O/S App O/S Server Consolidation Many VM's/physical server VMs compete for available host CPU, RAM, Disk, Network VMs get needed resources Not declared resources Idling VMs may give up CPU, RAM Ensures active VMs run well under CPU, memory over commit (when vcpu count > physical core count) Share network, storage bandwidth Administrators can tune VMs Weighted scheduling, memory management and disk I/O Ensures critical VMs get resources when, as needed Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-5 Virtualization solves the one-workload/server problem without the traditional costs, risks or complexities of installing many applications on a single server. A PC server running VMware ESXi is capable of running many virtual machines concurrently. Each virtual machine is an independent software entity that functions as a complete, generic PC server. Each virtual machine has: - A virtual hardware layer that includes a generic motherboard, chipset, keyboard, mouse, video controller, IDE controller, CD/DVD device, NIC, PCI bus, SCSI controller, SCSI disk(s), CPU(s) and memory sized appropriately for the intended operating system and application - An operating system that recognizes and can drive virtual hardware - One or more applications Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

22 OS, Apps Tied to PC Server Problems OS, application health, availability, speed, scalability tied to PC server Server outage means application outage MSCS clustering is complex, expensive Resource contention reduces application performance E.g.: app(s) demand more CPU than available Virtual Solutions Virtual machines Many to one P2V consolidation Load balance VMs to improve performance Migrate VMs to less busy ESXi hosts Automate with DRS If an ESXi host fails Restart or continue VMs on another ESXi host Manual or automated VM, OS back in service in 0-3 minutes VMware HA Fault Tolerance Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-6 Traditional PC server deployment strategies result in a functional, but less than optimal environment... To ensure that we have sufficient resources to ensure acceptable performance for our application, we over-provision physical servers with CPU, memory, NICs and storage. Even so, it is possible that during busy periods our application may slow down due to a scarcity of some critical resource. If our server fails, our application becomes unavailable even though the operating system and application disk image on the failed machine are healthy. Our application remains unavailable until the server is repaired something that may take many hours or days. To defend against prolonged outages we may be tempted to deploy traditional application level clusters (such as Microsoft Cluster Services). This usually requires us to duplicate our application, operating system and hardware on a machine that will spend most of it's time waiting (e.g.: stand by node of a 2 node active/stand-by cluster). Not only is this expensive, but the increased complexity of running a cluster may actually increase risk of down time. Virtualization addresses these problems in new ways. Because VMs are free to migrate to other ESXi hosts, we can rebalance ESXi clusters to address performance issues. And, with High Availability clusters, we can place and boot failed VMs on healthy ESXi hosts. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

23 Problems Power, cooling costs Square foot costs Out of rack space Expensive to build out Additional concerns Networking costs Shared SAN storage Back up procedures, time, costs Disaster Recovery Administrator time Config. consistency Datacenter Issues Virtual Solutions Consolidation rates of VMs/ESXi Relieves rack space congestion Reduces power, cooling costs Leverages existing networking, storage resources (SAN switches) Fewer physical servers to administer, back up, network, etc. Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-7 Data center power and cooling costs are substantial and are expected to continue to rise. Here are some sobering facts about what it takes to power a server in a data center: - A 1U PC Server can draw 300W to 1,200W of power - A 2U PC Server can draw W of power on each of its power supplies - A rack of 1U servers at 400W/server will consume 135 amps of power per hour - Many data centers double their power consumption every 3 years - As servers become more powerful, the power draw per server increases - Data centers often run out of power/cooling before running out of rack space - Idle servers often consume more than 50% of their maximum power draw - Cooling servers consumes as much to twice as much energy to operate them - Servers with 32+GB of RAM use more power to run RAM than they do to run CPUs (especially true of servers that run high frequency FB memory) Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

24 OS, Application Imaging Problems Bare metal installs Complex Drivers, agents, etc. Time consuming Introduce needless variation, risk Imaging solutions not universal Tied to manufacturer, hardware components Images may not help if maker changes hardware configuration Virtual Solutions VMs get generic hardware, not physical hardware Easy to create VM master images Clones, Templates Copy & customize... Easy to create a VM Image Library Easy to maintain Not tied to hardware Easy to change H/W vendors Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-8 OS and application imaging solutions ease the task of deploying operating systems and their applications. Typically an administrator installs their preferred OS and apps onto a PC server and then uses an imaging tool to harvest a deployment image for future use. This works great if you need to deploy the same image onto the same hardware but can cause problems if: - Your vendor changes underlying hardware (chipsets, storage controllers, etc.) - Your images require frequent maintenance - You change hardware vendors Virtual machines don't suffer from these problems because their virtual hardware is independent from the physical hardware seen by ESXi. So, even if you change hardware (or hardware vendors), you can still deploy VMs from your pre-build VM images. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

25 Problems Backup tools are expensive, complex Backup, recovery, application, open file agents Speed limited by network bandwidth Limited back up windows Virtual networking not as fast as physical networking Back Up & Recovery Virtual Solutions Most LAN backup tools are supported File system back ups VM snapshots Data synchronized Disk image backup VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) Based on snapshots Data Recovery VM back up, recovery File level recovery Virtual appliance Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 1-9 VMs work with traditional LAN based back up tools so you can continue to use these if you like. However, VM networking is not as efficient as pure physical networking, so you should expect your back up windows (time to complete a back up) to increase when using network based back up tools in a VM. There are a number of solutions to this problem... VMware Consolidated Backup uses a physical back up proxy server and direct SAN connectivity to snapshot and back up your running VM with no network dependency (Fibre SAN only). Since Fibre SAN networks run at 4Gb or 8GB and they were designed for high volume storage traffic, your back ups should complete much faster than LAN based back ups. VMware Data Recovery (DR) performs snapshot based back ups with full virtual disk deduplication, so backups are fast and complete. And Data Recovery provides you with the ability to do both file level and full virtual machine level recoveries. Third party back up tools such as VRanger Pro ( PHD Virtual Back Up ( or Veeam Backup & Replication ( leverage ESXi storage APIs to quickly and safely back up VMs. These tools are easy to install and use, are (relatively) low in cost (unlike traditional network back up tools) and make it easy to recover individual files or complete VMs. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

26 Problems PC servers have a short life span 3-5 yrs depending on available maintenance support contracts OS, application migrations are time consuming, risky Workload down during migration Done off hours Hard to do remotely Inherently risky Server Refresh Virtual Solution Virtual hardware VM H/W is independent of physical hardware Easy to migrate VMs to another ESXi host Hot, cold VM migration Limits down time 4 simple steps... Provision new server Install ESXi, join cluster Migrate VMs to new host Shut down, wipe server Can be performed remotely Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Virtual Machine hardware is a software abstraction that is independent of physical PC server hardware. ESXi maps virtual hardware operations to physical hardware activity. Virtual machines see: A virtual motherboard with a chipset, keyboard, mouse, IDE, floppy controller A virtual PCI video controller One to four virtual IDE CD/DVD devices One to two virtual floppy drives A virtual PCI bus Up to 8 virtual Network Interface Cards (NICs) One to 4 virtual SCSI Host Bus Adapters (SCSI HBAs) Up to 15 virtual SCSI disks per SCSI HBA Up to 8 virtual CPUs that map to physical CPU cores Virtual memory that is indistinguishable from physical memory Virtual hardware presented to VMs is the same regardless of the underlying physical hardware. Therefore a VM can migrate from ESXi host to ESXi host (even if the ESXi hosts are different makes or models of hardware) without issue. The only exception is CPU. The make, model and stepping, but not cores or hyperthreading, of the physical CPU is exposed to the Guest OS at boot time. These properties must not change (due to VM migration) as the VM runs. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

27 Problems HW maintenance requires down time Short maintenance windows Weekend vendor support is costly Must be on site 7x24 4hr response Expensive Often no guarantee of a fix within 4hr window Without top tier contract, hardware issues may keep a server down for days Hardware Maintenance Virtual Solutions To perform H/W tasks on ESXi host Evacuate ESXi host of Virtual Machines VMotion, cold migrate VMs to other ESXi hosts Patch, upgrade, repair, reconfigure host No VM down time during maintenance If ESXi capacity permits, maintenance can be done during production hours Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Before virtualization, server hardware maintenance was a costly and risky task that was usually performed on weekends. With virtualization, server hardware maintenance is greatly simplified and risk is eliminated. To perform physical server maintenance on ESXi hosts: - VMotion all VMs off the host that will be maintained - Shut down and power off the host when all fully evacuated of VMs - Add, upgrade, fix hardware - Power on the server - Rejoin clusters - Migrate VMs back to the fixed host Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

28 High Windows OS Costs Problems Windows 2003, 2008 Server licenses are expensive Host licenses, CALs May have to buy more expensive editions for needed features E.g. Microsoft Cluster Services not available on Windows Server Standard Editions Solution Windows Enterprise, Datacenter have VM friendly pricing Enterprise 4 VM at no additional charge Datacenter unlimited VMs at no additional charge Check your License agreement for entitled instance count Volume purchase agreements Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Microsoft may grant you the right to run additional instances of Windows 2003/2008 Server depending on the base license installed... Windows 2003/2008 Standard does not permit additional VM instances so every VM would require a unique Windows Standard license. Windows 2003/2008 Enterprise permits a limited number of Windows VMs (up to 4) to be run on the same machine running the original license without additional charge. Windows 2003/2008 Datacenter permits an unlimited number of Windows VMs to run on the same host running the original Windows license at no additional cost. As VM consolidation rates go up (more VMs/ESXi host), the cost to license Windows per VM can go down dramatically if you select the appropriate Windows edition (Enterprise or Datacenter). You also get the added benefit of the enhanced features (e.g.: Clustering) offered by premium Windows editions). Windows Datacenter simplifies license compliance because you are entitled to run an unlimited number of VMs/server. You are also entitled to downgrade your Windows editions in the same family (e.g.: If you have W2k3 Datacenter, you can deploy W2k3 Standard or Enterprise in your VMs). Note: Posted prices are accurate retail prices as of September, Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

29 MS Virtualization Calculator Part A License cost by average VM/s per server Part B License cost by actual VMs per server Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class This calculator, published on Microsoft's web site shows the US Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of Microsoft Windows Server operating system licenses (both Windows Server 2008 and 2003) and Virtual Machine instance counts as permitted by the three Windows Server editions; Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. This calculator shows that, under certain conditions, substantial savings can be had by purchasing either Windows Enterprise or Windows Datacenter editions over individual Windows Standard editions. With the premium Windows editions, the higher base cost is offset by the lower marginal cost per Windows VM. To gain the lowest cost per Windows VM, you must have high Virtual Machine to physical machine ratios (e.g.: VMs per physical server). With today's high core count CPUs (i.e.: CPUs with 4, 6, 8 or 12 cores per physical CPU) and relatively low RAM costs, such consolidation rates are not just attainable, but actually reasonable. In the example above, there are 2 ways to calculate license costs; Average VMs per host and actual VM's per host. The example was worked so that both methods correlate (i.e.: actual VMs in the bottom (Blue) part match the average VMs in the top (Green) part), and prices mostly match as a result. Please check your own volume license agreements before changing your licensing strategy! Note: Posted prices are accurate retail prices as of September, Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

30 Disaster Recovery Problems Ensure business continuity Replication is costly Duplicate all HW, SW at remote site Complex DR procedures must be tested, reviewed, refined, retested Risky Failure of DR plan puts business at extreme risk Virtual Solutions ESXi + SAN Shadow SAN LUNS to DR site ESXi host(s) at DR site set to run VMs ESXi only solution Snapshot VM, copy to DR site Can be scripted and scheduled Snapshot guest OS sync ensures valid, consistent, reliable virtual disk image Use 3 rd party tools Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The traditional approach to disaster recovery is to duplicate all of your expensive hardware and software at a second datacenter. This is costly and must be carefully planned and tested before being trusted. With virtualization, you can simplify disaster planning by replicating VMs and storage at your DR site. If you have SANs that support LUN shadowing, you could shadow critical LUNs from your production SAN to your DR SAN. If you have a primary site failure, just boot the VMs at your DR site's ESXi hosts and SAN. If you don't have LUN shadowing capabilities, you can still replicate VMs at a DR site. In this case, you need to decide how you are going to replicate your VMs. You could either: - Perform off line replication of VMs from nightly back up images. This works and can Efficient but you risk loosing up to one day's work - Use VMware Consolidated Back Up to snapshot and copy running VMs to your DR site - Use 3 rd party tools to do on-the-fly VM replication at your DR site. A number of 3 rd party tools are available to perform VM hot replication including: - Veeam Backup & Replication ( - Vizioncore vreplicator ( Check out a comparison of these two products here: Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

31 Test, Development & QA Problems Development, test environments don't match production environment Too costly to deploy an exact match Differences introduce variation, risk Hard to validate changes, test software, catch errors if production, test/development environments differ Virtual Solutions Clone production VMs Clone - Exact copy of original VM Test changes on clone Configuration changes OS patches Application upgrades Validate procedures VM snapshots let you back out of changes Saves VM state No need to re-image if problems encountered Revert back to original Try again! Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

32 IT Technical Career Benefits Indeed VMware job tracking graph According to Dice ( Candidates with one completed virtualization project are considered experienced Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class As a IT technical professional, having ESXi and vcenter skills is good for your career! Virtualization skills remain in demand even though many aspects of IT are flat. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

33 vsphere Components VMware ESXi/ESX with Virtual SMP ESXi 4.1 or ESX 4.1 VSMP Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing 1-8 vcpus (cores) per VM VMware VMFS high performance file systems VMware vcenter management VMotion hot VM migration Storage VMotion hot relocates VM disk Distributed Resource Scheduler (load balance) High Availability clusters (failure recovery) Guided Consolidation (plan your consolidation) Converter (physical/virtual migrations) Update Manager (patch, update ESXi) Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

34 VMware ESXi Enterprise class virtualization Bare metal install Lean hypervisor Dynamically load balances VMs Assigns CPU, RAM resources when needed, as needed If resources are scarce, idling VMs get little service Dynamically tunable Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi is a bare metal hypervisor. It is bare-metal because ESXi is installed upon and owns the physical PC server. A hypervisor is an operating system whose primary task is running virtual machines rather than normal operating system tasks. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

35 VMware vsphere 4.1 Editions vsphere vsphere vsphere vsphere ESXi Standard Advanced Enterprise Enterprise+ ESX + VSMP + VMFS P P P P P vsphere Client P P P P P Consolidated Back Up P P P P Update Manager P P P P High Availability P P P P Thin Provisioning P P P P VMotion P P P P Hot Add Hardware P P P Data Recovery P P P Fault Tolerance P P P vshield Zones P P P Virt. Serial Port Concentrator P P P DRS Load Balancing P P Distributed Power Mgt P P Storage VMotion P P Distributed vswitches P Host Profiles Storage I/O QoS Network I/O QoS P P P Price per CPU Socket $0 $995 $2,245 $2,875 $3,495 Subscription & Support Basic $273 $472 $604 $734 Subscription & Support Production $323 $561 $719 $874 Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class VMware licenses are expensive. To get the best value out of them, you should plan for high server consolidation rates. Consolidating 10 legacy physical PC servers onto one ESXi host is very reasonable (the author has seen 35 VMs on an ESXi host on a number of occasions). By consolidating many workloads onto a single PC server you avoid: - The cost of refreshing older PC servers - The cost of maintenance contracts for these PC servers - The labor cost of physically migrating the OS and apps to a new server - Administrative and power costs running more PC servers - Reduced network switch and SAN switch port use VMware now licenses ESXi by the socket so a two physical CPU machine would require two licenses (2 x the price shown above). Subscription and Support (SnS) is mandatory at the time of purchase. vcenter is also needed to take advantage of many advanced features such as VMotion, Storage VMotion, Update Manager, High Availability, DRS, Fault Tolerance, Distributed Power Management, Distributed vswitches and Host Profiles. vsphere pricing is explained here and is current for the USA as of Sept, Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

36 vsphere Hardware Limits vsphere vsphere vsphere vsphere ESXi Standard Advanced Enterprise Enterprise+ Max Cores per Physical CPU Max RAM per Physical ESX Server 256GB 256GB 256GB 256GB unlimited Max Virtual CPUs per VM VMware has license imposed hardware limits on physical servers and VMs Physical servers Max 256GB RAM (2TB for Enterprise +) Max 6 core physical CPUs (12 for Advanced and Enterprise+) Virtual Machines Max 4 Virtual CPUs per VM on most editions Exception - Enterprise + allows 8 vcpu VMs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class VMware imposes limits on: - The maximum number of physical CPU cores per physical CPU - The maximum physical RAM that can be used in a physical PC server - The maximum number of virtual CPUs you can add to a VM For physical servers, you need to determine if you want to use 6-core or 8-12 core physical processors. You also need to decide if you want to put more than 256GB of RAM in your physical PC servers. For Virtual Machines, you should select the VMware vsphere edition based (in part) on the number of virtual CPUs (vcpus)you need to present to your biggest VMs (i.e.: can you get by with up to 4 vcpus/vm or will your enterprise workloads, such as SQL and MS Exchange need 5-8 vcpus per VM). All vsphere editions have the same VM RAM limit, which is 256GB/VM. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

37 Small Business Bundles vsphere vsphere Essentials Essentials Plus ESX Servers (2 sockets) 3 3 ESX Cores (6 cores max) 6 6 vcenter Server Nodes 3 3 VSMP (Max vcpus/vm) 4 4 Update Manager P P VMware HA P Data Recovery P VMotion P Package Price $495 $3,495 Support and Subscription Basic $116 $734 Support and Subscription Production $874 Per Incident Support Price $299 Prices from as of September, Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class VMware has created special license bundles that are targeted at small business. These license bundles provide smaller customers with virtualization and management capabilities for less than the cost of one (competent) PC server. The Essentials Plus bundle adds hot migration (VMotion) rapid VMware failure recovery (VMware HA), automated patching and updating capability for ESXi hosts and Windows (Update Manager) and simple back up and recovery (Data Recovery). These added features make Essentials Plus a compelling offering. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

38 VMware vcenter Management Console for vsphere Manage host, VM, network, storage Administer, monitor, tune, review Schedule jobs, review activity, resource maps Host Profiles and VM specifications P2V migrations Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

39 Single Host Deployment Single ESXi host VMs share host CPU, RAM, Disk, Network of the host system Manage with vsphere Client Low-cost or free ESXi or vsphere Standard Edition Benefits Lower capital cost Lowers power use Faster deployments Easier upgrades Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The primary benefit that moves most organizations to virtualization is server consolidation (replacing physically deployed servers/workloads with virtual machines). While there are many benefits to consolidating onto ESXi there is one major risk you have many workloads now dependent on the health of a single machine. In the past, if a server failed, only one group of users were inconvenienced. With virtualization, a physical server failure has the potential to impact many more users. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

40 Multiple ESXi w. Shared Storage Migrated VMs onto shared SAN storage VMs still run on single host No VMotion, DRS, HA without vcenter Some fault tolerance If an ESXi host fails Use Datastore Browser to import VMs onto surviving host(s) Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class By moving your VMs onto shared storage, you untie your VMs from a single physical host. You also break the storage limits that may be imposed on you by your server platform. But, best of all, you now have a simple way to recover VMs that fail due to a server failure. As we will see later, VMware provides a piece of software called the Datastore Browser. The Datastore Browser has the ability to reassign ownership of powered off VMs to other hosts. So, if a server does fail... - Log into a surviving ESXi host - Launch the Datastore Browser - Identify the VMs that failed when the ESXi host failed - Take ownership of these VMs using the Datastore Browser by adding them to the surviving ESXi host's inventory - Power on these VMs on the new host While this approach is somewhat labor intensive, it does solve the problem of VMs being down because a host is down. You can automate VM recovery with VMware HA. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

41 Full vsphere Add vcenter ESXi and VM management Includes Cold migration Consolidation Converter Enables VMotion Storage VMotion High Availability Load balancing Fault Tolerance Back Up etc. Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

42 Cloud Computing Dynamically provision hardware on demand Provision what's needed, when needed Physical hardware abstracted, shared Storage Shared Storage Appliances (SANs) Provision, grow LUNs on demand LUNs visible to many ESXi hosts PC Servers run ESXi to deploy, run VMs Size for reasonable VM workload Provision more as VM population grows Dynamically load balance to maintain performance Networking VMware Distributed vswitches Virtual switches that span ESXi hosts Add physical uplinks to improve ESXi LAN speed Consistent configuration, metrics across ESXi hosts Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

43 Storage Cloud Storage Area Networks (SANs) Aggregate physical disks into LUNs Presents LUNs to ESXi VMFS cluster filesystem Safe concurrent access Grow LUNs as needed Provision LUNs on demand Snapshot, back up LUNs Shadow (replicate) LUNs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

44 Server Cloud Provision PC Servers to meet growth, performance needs Buy a new PC server Install ESXi, join vcenter Add to DRS cluster VMs rebalance onto new server Reduces CPU, memory use on other servers Add to HA cluster Restarts VMs if an ESXi host fails Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

45 Network Cloud Distributed vswitches span ESXi hosts Unified view of all Port, Port Group settings Simple, consistent, VMotion compatible configuration Common MAC address table Supports internal Private VLANs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Distributed vswitches are software objects that emulate a standard layer 2 switch. Distributed vswitches span two or more ESXi hosts and provide consistent network functionality across all VMs, etc. that are plugged into the distributed vswitch. A distributed vswitch has a single common MAC table and a unified set of performance counters. Because a vnetwork Distributed Switch configuration spans all ESXi hosts, they are especially helpful for VMotion because VMs will find exactly the same Port Group (configured exactly the same way) on any ESXi host that shares the distributed vswitch. Distributed vswitches are created and managed with the vsphere Client. You must have vcenter to create a distributed vswitch. You must have VMware vsphere Enterprise + to create and use vnetwork Distributed Switches. For organizations that run Cisco enterprise networking products, VMware offers the Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed switch. This is an upgrade to VMware's default vnetwork Distributed Switch. The Nexus 1000V offers full Cisco IOS compatibility and can be managed and monitored with standard Cisco tools. Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

46 Module 1 - Introduction to vsphere

47 Chapter 2 VMware ESXi VMware ESXi 4.1 Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-1 Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

48 Stand Alone ESXi ESXi Overview ESXi Installation Procedures Best Practices Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-2 Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

49 Project Plan By the end of this chapter, we will have Installed ESXi onto a stand alone server Partitioned local storage for ESXi and VMs Connected to ESXi using the vsphere Client and Secure Shell Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-3 Our first step in this class is to install ESXi onto stand alone PC servers and then connect to those newly installed ESXi hosts using the vsphere Client and SSH. In future chapters we will add to our original implementation. Our ultimate objective is a scalable, highly redundant, load balanced Virtual Infrastructure implementation that supports a large community of Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, desktop and Linux VMs. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

50 Problems & Opportunities Problems Server consolidation DNS, DHCP, Web, File & Print, AD, DC Reduce costs Capital $ Hardware support $ IT staff admin time Free up rack space Increase server utilization rates Position for future growth, flexibility Virtual Solution Low cost vsphere Standard Edition supports 256GB physical RAM 1-6 core CPUs 1-32 GB NICs GB NICs Local, shared storage volumes, file shares Consolidate many VMs onto one host Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-4 vsphere Standard Edition is a low cost version of VMware ESXi especially intended for entry level virtualization deployments that offer the following hardware capabilities One or more physical CPUs 4 or 6 core CPUs supported (up to 12 core CPUs on vsphere Enterprise(+)) Will use up all available physical memory up to 256GB Local disks or RAID volumes on supported SATA, SCSI or SAS controllers Up to 32, 1GB NICs including dual and quad NICs Up to 4, 10GB NICs iscsi hardware and software initiators Fibre host bus adapter support and Use of NFS shares. With the ability to run up to 8 light duty or 2-4 medium duty VMs per CPU core, ESXi or vsphere Standard Editions are excellent choices for entry level server consolidation projects. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

51 ESXi Block Diagram Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-5 VMware ESXi is a bare-metal virtualization hypervisor solution. As such, it must install on an industry standard PC server. Please check VMware's Hardware Compatibility Guide (portal on web site) for the most up to date list of supported PC servers. Because it owns the hardware, ESXi is in full control of resource assignments to running VMs. The VMkernel, allocates hardware resources on an as-needed basis. In this way, the VMkernel can prevent idling VMs from wasting CPU cycles that could otherwise be used by busy VMs. Likewise, the VMkernel keeps track of needed RAM, not just requested or allocated RAM. It can dynamically re-assign RAM to memory starved VMs, thereby ensuring that VMs get the memory they need to run. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

52 Scalable ESXi Deployment SAN advantages Local storage for High performance Higher availability Boot, SC, VM paging Capacity management SAN LUNs ESXi boot, swap, VM use LUN Backup, replication Disaster Recovery Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-6 As your ESXi deployment matures (technically) you will want to introduce: Different LAN (virtual) segments to isolate network traffic. You could use different LAN segments for things like IP Storage, Management and production systems Shared storage solutions including iscsi, Fibre SAN and NFS shares Hardware redundancy in the form of multipath storage solutions and teamed NIC configurations You may even wish to consider a Boot From SAN solution so you don't need to configure servers with local storage. Boot from SAN is available on supported Fibre SAN controllers and also with iscsi SAN controllers (using iscsi hardware initiators). Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

53 CPUs 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 12 core CPUs Max 128 cores/host Intel 64-bit Xeon only Hyperthreading AMD Opteron NUMA local memory All Opteron CPUs supported Memory Min 2GB to boot 256GB 2TB on Enterprise + ESXi Server Hardware Network 1-32 GB NICs GB NICs VLAN, NIC Teams Storage Local volumes SCSI, SAS, SATA RAID, non-raid iscsi SANs Fibre SANs File Shares NFS only No SMB support Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-7 ESXi is capable of using the largest PC server hardware platforms. Apart from what is stated above, ESXi is limited to: No more than 192 CPU cores (or Hyperthreaded logical processors) for CPU scheduling purposes All available RAM (ESXi Standard/Enterprise). Furthermore the following implementation limitations need to be considered: Very limited selection of supported 10GB Ethernet controllers Jumbo Frame now supported, which will dramatically improve software iscsi performance. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

54 ESXi Installable: loaded onto disk or onto a USB thumb drive Embedded: burned into flash on the motherboard No Service Console OS More secure Available for free Per incident support available ESXi vs. ESX ESX Installed onto a storage volume Local or SAN storage Includes a full Console OS based on CentOS 5.2 Linux Larger memory foot print Retired after ESX 4.1 VMware recommends deploying ESXi only for current and future installs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-8 VMware has officially stated that ESX will be retired at the end of the ESX 4.1 release. That is, VMware will no longer release ESX for future releases of their software just ESXi. For this reason, VMware recommends that all current and future hypervisor deployments use ESXi, not ESX. ESXi comes in two forms Embedded and Installable. Embedded is baked into firmware on the motherboard of select PC servers. This lets you boot your server without any local storage. ESXi Installable is a version of ESXi that can be installed onto local storage, USB memory keys or SAN storage. It is installed from CD media that you can download from ESXi does away with the Service Console. This provides a smaller, leaner hypervisor than full ESX. It is also more secure because there is less software (to exploit) and fewer services running on ESXi than there is on ESX. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

55 ESXi Install Steps Install steps... Boot your server from ESXi install media Accept the EULA Select target disk for installation Agree to partition and format disk Reboot server when install complete Post install steps... Log in and change root password Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class. 2-9 Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

56 ESXi Boot Screen To begin your ESXi install, boot from CD Hit ENTER to launch the installer Customized installs Serve media from HTTP or NFS Scripted installs simplify deployment Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi is installed in text mode so your PC server doesn't need to have graphics capability. VMware makes it possible to set up an install server for ESXi so you can perform network based installs. Using Linux' KickStart capabilities, ESXi installations can be automated/scripted so you can install and configure new servers hands-off. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

57 Accept the VMware EULA You must accept the VMware End User License Agreement before you install ESXi Hit F11 to proceed to the next step Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The ESXi installer uses your Video Card's VESA mode for hardware independent graphics. The good news is that VESA is almost universally supported (and consequently should work). The bad news is that VESA is the slowest mode of operation. The overall sluggishness of VESA mode is exacerbated by the use of remote management cards such as: HP Integrated Lights Out (ilo) IBM Remote Server Assistant (RSA) Dell Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) While useful, remote graphics consoles over slower WAN links will require patience and a steady hand. To minimize the sluggish (drunk) mouse behavior, use key sequences like Tab move to the next clickable region Enter invoke a clickable action or Space select a clickable option. In fairness to ESXi, graphics mode is only used during installation so graphics performance (or lack of it) is an installation time only issue. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

58 Select the Target Volume Installer displays available storage volumes Categorized as Local or Remote Local volumes are visible to just your host and consist of local RAID or physical volumes Remote volumes are visible SAN LUNs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Normal ESXi installations occur in graphics mode. Consequently, the installer must get your preferences/settings for the install language, keyboard and mouse. These settings are used only during installation. Since, once it is in service, ESXi runs in text mode (with no native graphics capabilities), your language, keyboard and mouse preferences are discarded once the installation has completed. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

59 Install Custom Storage Drivers The installer is ready to proceed... Selected volume is re-partitioned, formatted All existing partitions on the selected volume are deleted Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The installer will now install ESXi onto your selected storage volume. To do this, the installer: - Wipes all partitions on the selected target storage volume - Creates partitions as needed (normally 8 partitions are created) Useful information about the installation disk: - ESXi consumes about 6GB of disk space in overhead. The rest is for VM use - partition 4 is the boot partition and is located at the front of the disk (behind the Master Boot Record and partition table) - partitions 2 and 4, 5, 6 & 8 are for ESXi use and occupy the front of the disk - partition 7 is a vmkcore partition (partition code 0xfc) and is a ESXi partition used to hold crash dumps - partition 3 consumes all remaining disk space and is partitioned and formatted as a VMware File System (VMFS) Note: ESXi has an known issue installing onto local disk of > 2TB in size. If you have a very large local RAID array the installer will report but not use all available space. You will have to manually extend the size of the VMFS volume to claim all space. A great community article on how to fix this issue can be found here: Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

60 Installation Completed Once your installation has completed, hit Enter to reboot to ESXi Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class It only takes about 3-5 minutes to install ESXi onto your PC server. The install proceeds non-interactively. A status indicator updates a percent completed horizontal bar. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

61 ESXi Small footprint, bare metal hypervisor Use F2 at the boot screen to set up your ESXi 4.1 host Simple BIOS like interface Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi has a simple, BIOS-like interface that makes it very easy to configure. To configure your ESX host, simply hit F2 at the greeter screen. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

62 Log In for the First Time The administrator account for ESXi is root By default, no root password is set Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The ESXi administrator account is root (the traditional Linux administrator account). When you install ESXi, the system defaults to: - no root password - IP properties set via DHCP - no command line access (either locally or remotely) In the next few slides, we will discuss how to change these values. Since there is no default password, just hit Enter to proceed to the ESXi configuration screens. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

63 ESXi Configuration Menu Configure ESXi through a simple text menu Hit Enter to activate a menu function Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The ESXi configuration menu is a simple text interface where you complete your server's customizations. Use the up/down arrows to move to a function. When a function is highlighted, its properties and the command keys used to modify that function are displayed on the right. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

64 Set the Root Password The first thing you should do is set the root account password Prevents unauthorized access to your server Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

65 Default Management IP Settings By default your ESXi host uses DHCP Host name and IP address assigned using an IP address out of your lease pool Example above reclaims a desktop PC lease! Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class You must set the IP properties of your ESXi host before you can manage it. Select Configure Management Network to set the: - Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) - IP address - Netmask - Default Gateway and other properties. You can set these values statically or dynamically using DHCP. DHCP servers can send static properties to a host. To do this, configure your DHCP server with the MAC address of your ESXi host management NIC and then set the static properties to server whenever that NIC broadcasts for a DHCP lease. Be sure to Restart Management Network after all changes to ensure your updates take effect. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

66 Configure Management Network The Configure Management Network submenu let's you set key network properties Management NIC IP properties DNS settings Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class It is a best practice to use static network settings for your ESXi host. To complete this task, you must: 1. Select the correct NIC for management networking 2. Set a static IP address and Netmask and Default Gateway values 3. Identify your local DNS server(s) and the default DNS search domains Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

67 Select Management NIC(s) Physical NICs are used to carry mgt. traffic Select Network Adapters to view/change NICs Select 2 or more NICs to automatically create a NIC team Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class You manage your ESXi host through your network. To communicate with your ESXi host (using either the vsphere Client directly or vcenter indirectly), you must have network connectivity to it. Since modern PC servers may have many NICs and these NICs may be connected into different physical and/or virtual LAN segments, you may have to select the correct physical NIC (rather than the default NIC) before you can manage your machine. NIC Teams The Network Adapters screen lets you review and select the NIC or NICs you wish to use to carry network traffic. If you select more than one physical NIC, you automatically create a NIC team. NIC teams afford better speed and redundancy. Tip It can be difficult (or impossible) to tell which RJ45 jack is associated with which MAC address. A simple way of selecting the correct physical NIC(s) is to unplug all NICs from their switch except for the NICs you wish to use for management. Then use the Status column (Connected means the NIC has a link to the switch) to determine which NICs you should for management. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

68 IP Configuration Best to use Static IP properties No chance your server could lose its IP lease and therefore it's IP address Static IPs are needed for vcenter Management Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Complete this form to set your ESXi host management NIC IP properties. vcenter cannot manage an ESXi host whose IP address changes. For this reason it is best to give all of your ESXi, ESXi hosts fixed IP properties. You must select Set static IP addresses... and complete all three fields to complete your static IP address properties assignment. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

69 DNS Configuration You must set DNS and FQDN properties Enter the IP of your DNS server(s) You MUST enter the FQDN of your ESXi host Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi and vcenter require DNS services to function properly. So it is critical that you have DNS name servers set up and accessible from your local LAN segment. It is a best practice to have both primary and secondary DNS servers available... but ESXi will function with just primary DNS. You must set a fully qualified domain name for your ESXi host. The ESXi FQDN must be resolvable forward (host name IP address) and backward (IP address FQDN). Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

70 Custom DNS Suffixes DNS suffixes are help resolve host names DNS look ups that contain only a host name have suffixes from this list appended before a DNS look up is attempted Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class DNS Suffixes are used to enable DNS to look up the IP address of a host specified only by it's host name (and not qualified with a domain name). An example might be a look up request for a host called esxi5. DNS needs a full domain name. Custom Suffixes will append domain names from the list set on this screen to simple host names and then perform a DNS query. This continues until either: - a matching FQDN is found and it's IP address is returned - no matching FQDN is found and all suffix Domain names have been tried It is a good practice to add at last one domain name to this list! Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

71 Apply Network Changes Network changes are applied en mass NIC, IP and DNS changes are activated by restarting Management Network services Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class All network changes are applied at one time when you leave the Configure Management Network sub-menu. First the new settings are applied to the appropriate configuration files and then the ESXi hosts' management network is brought down and back up again. For this reason it is best to be at the physical server's console when updating management networking properties. You should be brought back to the System Customization menu. Your network changes should be visible. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

72 Test Management Network Basic connectivity test with Ping, DNS Pings gateway, DNS server Tries to resolve the server's FQDN Each test reports OK or Fail Do not proceed until all tests pass! Verify your DNS server is ping-able Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

73 Local/Remote Tech Support Tech Support mode enables command line access to your ESXi host Local must be on the physical server's console Remote can Secure Shell to your server Default is OFF for both services May need to turn on for VMware/partner access Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Tech Support Mode enables functions used by support providers who are comfortable working on the ESXi command line. By default, all local and remote command line access to your ESXi host is disabled so you can only access your ESXi host through: - the vsphere client pointed directly at your ESXi host - vcenter if vcenter has management control over your ESXi host - The VMware Management Assistant service (VMA), if installed Enabling Local Tech Support allows physical console command line access. Support personnel who have access to the physical console (directly or via remote console services such as Dell DRAC, HP ILO or IBM RSA) would be able to log in to your server. Enabling Remote Tech Support enables the Secure Shell Daemon (sshd) and supports network based administrator access to your box without the need for remote console services. Warning Enabling Remote tech support enables direct root access to your ESXi host through a TCP/IP connection. This is a potential security threat. Turn on this feature only if needed. If this feature is turned on, set a strong root password. Never expose your machine to an untrusted network like the Internet if Remote Tech Support is turned on! Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

74 Restart Management Agents ESXi uses agents (services) to communicate with vcenter and the vsphere client If agents fail, your server is unmanageable Use this feature to reset management agents Does not interfere with running VMs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class It may happen that the management agents (services) on your ESXi host become unstable or crash. If this occurs, your ESXi host will not respond to vcenter or the vsphere client. In vcenter your host will grey out and report as disconnected. You could reboot the ESXi host but that would bring down all running VMs. A more acceptable option is to simply restart the management agents on your ESXi host. This function can be done at any time. Any connected vsphere Client sessions will be closed. Once this function completes, your host should become active in vcenter and should accept direct vsphere Client login requests. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

75 ESXi Ready for Service ESXi server is ready for use Additional hot keys are active Use the vsphere Client to manage ESXi Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Once ESXi has rebooted, it is managed through the web or via VMware's vsphere Client. You can download the vsphere Client from There are additional hot keys active on the ESXi console: Alt-F1 first command line log in screen Alt-F2 the ESXi greeter screen (screen shot above) Alt-F3 to Alt-F10 no function Alt-F11 Grey scale status screen/greeter screen with no F-key prompts Alt-F12 VMkernel log dump Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

76 Alt-F12 VMkernel Log Entries Hit Alt-F12 at any time to view the VMkernel log contents Displays the most recent VMkernel log contents Look here to see detailed error messages Or, look at /var/log/messages on the cmd line Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The VMkernel records detailed log entries into a file called /var/log/messages. You can view this file by logging into the Local/Remote tech support prompts (as root) and issuing the command: # less /var/log/messages You can see the most recent entries by hitting the Alt-F12 keys on your machine's console. This display shows one screen full of the most current additions to the VMkernel log file. You should check this file if you are troubleshooting problems and need more information than is available in the vsphere client. Hit Alt-F2 to go back to the ESXi greeter screen when done. Note All command line commands entered using Local or Remote tech support are logged to /var/log messages. In this way, it is possible to reproduce the activities of prior command line sessions. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

77 Login with vsphere Client Launch vsphere Client Use ESXi IP or FQDN ESXi User name (root) ESXi Password Chatty, but low bandwidth application Runs well over corporate LAN, WAN Can run over Internet Selectable session timeout values Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class You manage your ESXi host directly with the vsphere Client. This is a separate download and install available from VMware ( All VMware client to server connections are encrypted using strong encryption. The encrypted link is set up before any data is exchanged between the client and the back end server. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

78 Security Warning All VMware client/server connections use 256-bit AES symmetric key encryption ESXi uses self-signed Digital Certificates No Certificate Granting Authority to verify authenticity Since host is local, ignore warning Check Install this certificate... Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi uses self-signed digital certificates to support end-to-end encryption. All communications between VMware client and VMware server software is encrypted using strong encryption. Since the digital certificate cannot be independently verified by a 3 rd party Certificate Granting Authority, a warning is issued. It is (usually) safe to permanently disregard this warning. It is possible to purchase an SSL certificate from a Certificate Authority (CA) and then install that certificate onto your ESXi host. This would eliminate the warning messages because a trusted certificate can be used to verify that the host is who it says it is. Normally trusted certificates are used on Internet facing hosts to ensure the integrity of web requests (e.g.: for secure banking/payment systems, etc.). Since your ESXi hosts won't be directly on the Internet, there is no need (and no benefit) to purchasing a trusted certificate for your machine. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

79 vsphere Client ESXi VSphere Client presents a task launch page Inventory work with your ESXi host Roles define user categories System Logs review, save log files Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

80 vsphere Client Menu,Button Bars Tabbed Interface Items being Managed Recent Actions 4 Sections: Menus, Inventory, Tabs, Recent Tasks Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

81 ESXi Configuration Hardware links to review/set HW settings Software links to review/customize ESXi Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Most ESXi hardware and software configuration is done using the vsphere Client. Use the Configuration tab and the appropriate boxes (Hardware, Software) to review and/or configure your server. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

82 Review/Set Time Configuration Navigation: Software Time Configuration ESXi owns the hardware clock Provides clock services to VMs Use Network Time Protocol to ensure a very accurate clock Not configured by default Use Properties... to enable/configure NTP Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi uses Network Time Protocol to ensure that it's clock remains accurate. This is important because the ESXi host provides clock services to all VMs it runs. So, any clock drift in the ESXi host will result in clock drift in VMs. If VM clocks drift by more than 5 minutes they may not be able to join or remain members of Active Directory domains. Click the Properties... link to review and configure NTP. Best Practice Always set your server's BIOS clock to UTC and ensure you select Server Clock is UTC when you install ESXi. That way, VMs will get a UTC clock and can then set their local time zone to any region they like. If you set the hardware clock to your local time, then VMs must all operate in your local time zone only (because they cannot calculate time zone offsets from any time zone other than UTC). Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

83 Local ESXi Users & Groups Users & Groups Tab Define ESXi users Right click on background, Select Add... Set user login, password and group (optional) Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class You can create local ESXi user accounts with passwords to allow for local authentication (for both the vsphere client and Local/Remote Troubleshooting if enabled). To do this click on the Users & Groups tab and then right-click the back ground and select Add... You can make new groups by clicking the Groups button and then rightclicking the background. Best Practice You would create local accounts only if you do not have an Active Directory service available. Otherwise, it is a best practice to join an AD domain and use domain accounts. Tip To command line log into ESXi over the network (from Windows, ESXi Remote Troubleshooting Mode must be enabled) download the putty Secure Shell terminal emulator at Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

84 Joining a Domain ESXi can join an Active Directory domain Navigation: Software Authentication Services Properties... Specify domain, then domain user/password with rights to add hosts to a domain Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi 4.1 can now join an Active Directory domain. AD authentication allows you to set up access rules for ESXi login without having to create local user accounts on ESXi. FYI Joining an AD domain is the first step to allowing AD defined users to access ESXi directly. The second step is to select inventory items (your ESXi host, folders, VMs, Resource Pools) and assign these users rights on these items. Without specific permission assignments, AD based users will not be able to interact with ESXi. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

85 ESXi Host Roles Roles determine privileges by user, group Default role: No access no rights on ESXi host Read-only: look but cannot modify Administrator: full control of local ESXi host Both root, dcui hold Administrator role Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

86 Licensing ESXi 4.1 License options Evaluation Mode 60-day evaluation Cannot be extended All features available Serial Number 25 character code Get from VMware Enables entitled licensed features Click Edit... to add an ESXi license License entitlements can also be obtained from vcenter Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi now ships with an unrestricted use 60-day evaluation license. This eliminates the need to contact VMware for temporary evaluation licenses. ESXi can be activated using a stand alone host license. A host license is issued on a host by host basis and unlocks access to feature entitlements purchased for that host. Alternatively, ESXi can draw a license entitlement for needed features from vcenter. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

87 System Health Status Click Configuration > Health Status to review host hardware health Uses CIM to poll hardware Reports back issues found Issues propagate up to the host Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The vsphere Client can report on most aspects of your system's hardware health including: - CPU sockets, cores and cache size - Power supply, motherboard, CPU and add-on card temperatures - Fan location, health and speed - Hardware firmware and driver health including chipset, NIC, storage controller, BIOS functionality - Power supply count and health (connected, disconnected, missing, etc.) and - System boards. Use this view to get a quick assessment of your server's physical health. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

88 Physical CPU Properties Click Configuration Processors to review host CPU properties. Verify: CPU socket, core and Hyperthreading status matches expectations Click Properties... to enable Hyperthreading Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi reports on the properties of the CPUs found in your server, including: - The make/model of the machine - Make/model and speed of the CPUs - Number of populated sockets - Number of cores in the CPU - Number of Logical Processors (sockets * cores * HT logical processors) - Presence/Absence of Hyperthreading (Intel CPUs only) - Presence/Absence of power management capabilities (newer CPUs only) If you have Intel CPUs and Hyperthreading is reporting N/A you should check to see if Hyperthreading is active. To do this, click: Properties > Hyperthreading > Enabled This will turn on Hyperthreading support even if the machine's BIOS is set to disable it. You will need to reboot ESXi for this change to take effect. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

89 Physical Memory Properties Click Configuration Memory to review host RAM configuration. Note: System (VMkernel) RAM is reserved All remaining RAM available for VM use Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class ESXi uses memory in 2 ways: 1. For the VMkernel hypervisor (approximately 400MB), and 2. For virtual machines (all remaining RAM). ESXi needs a minimum of 2GB of RAM or it will refuse to run. Adding more RAM means more room for VMs to run which should result in good performance as your VM population and RAM requirements grow. ESXi is very frugal and hands out memory to VMs only when needed and only for as long as needed. We will explore ESXi memory scavenging techniques later in this class. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

90 Network Adapters All recognized NICs displayed in the Network Adapters view Speed, Assigned vswitch, physical MAC address and Observed IP ranges reported Observed IP range - helps you determine which sub-net a physical NIC can see and consequently what traffic is should carry Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Observed IP Ranges This value displays the IP address range observed by ESXi as frames flow through each physical NIC. Here's what it's used for. In most corporate networks, different physical LAN segments are used to isolate different types of traffic such as Production traffic, storage traffic, management traffic, back up traffic, etc. It is a common practice to use different sub-net address blocks for each physical segment. For example, your company may subnet its network traffic as follows: /16 Production traffic including servers /16 Desktop PCs and printers /16 Management LAN segment for direct PC server management /24 Back Up LAN /24 IP Storage LAN (for iscsi servers) In the above scheme, if a physical NIC reported Observed IPs in the 10.1/16 range, you would know it was physically connected to the management LAN. If another physical NIC reported Observed IPs in the /24 range, then it should be used to carry back up traffic. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

91 Network Properties Click Configuration DNS and Routing to review ESXi management settings: Verify Host, Fully Qualified Domain Name, IP address, DNS IP and Gateway Click Properties... to make any changes Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class It is important that your Service Console OS network settings are correct. After installation, it is a good idea to review these settings and fix any errors you find. Click Properties... to edit network settings for the Service Console. You will need to reboot your ESXi host before these changes take effect. Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

92 ESXi System Logs Review, save ESXi system logs Navigation: Home System Logs hostd.log: host management service log Licensing, cluster mgt., vcenter mgt., etc. Messages: VMkernel general log file Use Export System Logs to save log files (locally) as text files Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

93 Sizing ESXi CPU, Memory Physical CPUs service Virtual CPUs About 2-5% CPU virtualization overhead Plan for between 2-8 vcpus per CPU core Maximize CPU cores, speed & cache size Don't expect Intel Hyperthreading to help Only vsphere Advanced, Enterprise + support 8 and 12 core CPUs Memory Must have 2GB RAM to install/boot ESXi VMkernel uses 400+MB of RAM All remaining RAM free for VM use VMs given RAM as needed, not declared x memory over commit is reasonable Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

94 Sizing ESXi Storage, NICs Storage Controllers ESXi is inherently multipath aware Vendor supplied multipath drivers now supported Better I/O performance to LUNs Improved reliability through path redundancy NICs Virtual Switches use physical NICs Physical NIC uplinks vswitch to physical LAN segments Virtual NIC traffic consumes CPU cycles Faster ESXi CPUs give faster virtual network speed Benchmark network performance before deploying network heavy production workloads Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

95 Lab 2 Install ESXi 4.1 In this lab we will perform an install of ESXi 4.1 onto a physical PC server Install onto dedicated HP DL365 servers Use RDP to access our kit central server From there, use Remote ILO console to power on and install ESXi Our server pod Is located in a remote Class-A data center Accessed by Microsoft Terminal Services Has one server/student Uses real PC server hardware Not simulation, emulation or PCs running ESXi in a VM Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 2 - Stand Alone ESXi

96 Chapter 18 Converter VMware vcenter Converter Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 18 vcenter Converter

97 VMware vcenter Converter A consolidation and VM migration tool that can: Perform physical to virtual (P2V) migrations Migrate VMware Workstation/Server/Fusion VMs into ESXi Import Microsoft Virtual PC, Virtual Server and Hyper-V VMs into ESXi Import Citrix XenServer VMs into ESXi Convert Ghost, Live State and Acronis deployment image files into ESXi vmdks Export ESXi VMs to VMware WorkStation, Server or Player format Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class VMware vcenter Converter is a general purpose VM conversion tool that makes it easy to cope with diverse VM and image formats. Converter's job is to facilitate the migration of physical and/or virtual machines from one host to another. Converter lets you launch, configure and complete a physical migration of Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/Windows 7 and Linux from a physical host to a VM; greatly simplifying the task of Windows server consolidation. Converter can also import or export VMs to VMware Workstation/Server format. This is necessary because ESXi can only boot VMs whose disk are in ESXi Thick or Thin format and not disks directly copied from VMware Workstation, Player or Server.. Converter can also help you preserve your investment in physical server images by letting you convert Norton Ghost or LiveState images to virtual disks. From there it is a simple matter to build a VM around the virtual disk and then convert the VM into a template. Finally, Converter lets you import Microsoft VMs. So, if you started with Microsoft virtualization products and decided to switch to VMware, you can bring your VirtualPC/VirtualServer /Hyper-V VMs over to ESXi with Converter. Module 18 vcenter Converter

98 Project Plan Migrate physical Windows servers to VMs Replace physical HW with virtual HW Guest OS customization to set a new identity Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Module 18 vcenter Converter

99 Clone & Update Disks Converter copies disks between Physical disks Virtual disks Hot Clone Physical to virtual disk clone performed while physical machine is in service Cold Clone Physical machine booted from Converter CD Applications, host OS, services not running Update new virtual disk Replace physical drivers with virtual drivers Update HAL, registry for virtual HW, drivers Guest OS Customization (optional) Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The key task completed by vcenter Converter is the cloning of a physical disk to a virtual disk. This can be performed either hot (while the physical machine is running) or cold. Of the two, Cold cloning is more trustworthy (because the physical disk isn't being changed while it is being cloned) but involves down time. The result of cloning physical disk(s) is a corresponding virtual disk on a datastore. Once the disk has been cloned, vcenter Converter will build a VM around the virtual disk to match the hardware characteristics of the source machine. Because the new virtual disk is a clone of the physical machine's disk, there is a risk that booting the VM will cause an identity conflict with the physical machine. While this isn't an issue if you have powered down the physical machine, it is a concern if you are simply doing test migrations (to validate procedures, etc.) in preparation for a real migration. In this case, you can either: - Boot the new VM on a completely isolated virtual network to avoid any risk of identity clash, or - Use Guest OS Customization to assign a new identity to the new VM Module 18 vcenter Converter

100 Install and Enable Converter On vcenter VMware vcenter Converter module must be installed To add... Launch vcenter installer on vcenter server Click vcenter Converter on the main install screen Layers Converter onto vcenter vsphere Client machine Launch the vsphere Client, log into vcenter Click Plug-ins Manage Plug-ins Install, then Enable Converter plug-in Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class VMware vcenter Converter is a vcenter add on module. And like all modules, vcenter Converter consists of two components: 1. A vcenter module that extends vcenter to include the ability to import physical machines, VMs, install images, etc. 2. A user interface module that adds the necessary menus and dialogs to the vsphere Client Converter is no longer a default install (with vcenter). So, if you didn't install it, it won't be present on your vcenter server. To fix this, re-launch the vcenter installer, pick vcenter Converter run the installer. This will layer the vcenter Converter vcenter. By default, the vsphere Client that you download from an ESXi server does not include the vcenter Converter user interface extensions they must be downloaded from vcenter. To do this, launch the vsphere Client and: Click Plug-ins (menu bar) Manage Plug-ins Available Plug-ins roster Locate the vcenter Converter in the available plug-ins roster and click download and install. Module 18 vcenter Converter

101 Manage Plug-ins vsphere Client > Plug-ins > Manage Plug-ins Converter should be installed and enabled If not, click the Download and Install... link in the Status column Monitor progress in the Progress column Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The Download & Install link (if present) will file transfer and install the vcenter Converter plug-in into the local vsphere Client. If you use vsphere Clients installed on multiple virtual or physical machines, you would need to repeat this step for each machine. Module 18 vcenter Converter

102 Converter Steps Seven steps to hot-migrating a physical machine: 1. Prepare physical machine for migration 2. Log in to and profile the physical machine 3. Set properties of target VM Disk size, identity, location, etc. 4. Snapshot and copy physical disk(s) 5. Create a new VM using the virtual disk(s) 6. Replace physical drivers with virtual drivers 7. Perform post-conversion housekeeping Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class vcenter Converter goes through four steps to hot migrate a physical machine to a virtual machine. While these are discrete steps, they are not executed sequentially so you may find vcenter Converter creating the new target VM while the physical disk is still being copied. Module 18 vcenter Converter

103 Prepare for Conversion While not explicitly required, it is a good idea to prepare the physical machine for conversion: Best to perform production conversions during maintenance windows Less activity on the machine makes for more successful conversions Test conversions can be done anytime Best if done during off peak hours Ensure users cannot log in Stop any production applications Disable any unneeded OS services Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class vcenter Converter needs administrative level credentials for the source (physical) machine. You can supply the local machine Administrator password or you can use any other credentials that would grant Converter full administrator rights to the system. vcenter Converter can P2V an active system... and will snapshot the system to quiesce local drives before copying the local volumes to new virtual disks. There are a couple of things to keep in mind during this process: Quiet machines make for better conversions. If you can quiesce the local machine, then there is a much higher chance that the converted disks and the data they hold will be complete and usable. A simple way to do this is to wait for a maintenance window, shut down all applications, disable all unneeded services and then do the hot conversion. There must be sufficient room on the local volumes for vcenter Converter to create snapshot files. Converter needs space to accumulate pending disk updates (and snapshot files are used for this purpose). If you do not have sufficient space, then the conversion process will either fail to start or will fail when the local volume fills up. You should have a minimum of 500MB to 1GB of free space before attempting a conversion on an active machine. Module 18 vcenter Converter

104 Launch Converter Enterprise Launch Converter Enterprise by: Select a host or cluster Right click Select Import Machine... If option isn't present then the Converter plug-in wasn't downloaded Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class You begin the P2V process by right-clicking the ESXi host that will act as the target for the migrated physical machine. Before beginning a conversion, you should: - Get administrator level credentials on the physical machine - Audit the physical machine to ensure it is a good candidate for conversion - Verify that the physical machine has room for a snapshot file for each disk Next, select Import Machine... which launches the Import Machine Wizard. Module 18 vcenter Converter

105 Profile Physical Machine Initiate the Physical to Virtual conversion Launch the Converter Enterprise wizard Provide the FQDN/IP of physical machine Provide administrator credentials for the physical machine Converter extract a hardware profile of the physical machine, including: Number/speed of CPUs Amount of RAM available Number/size of each disk or file system Number of NICs Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Converter starts by extracting a physical profile of your machine including: - Number of physical CPU cores - Provisioned RAM - Number of physical NICs - Number of NTFS volumes Converter uses this information to build a comparable virtual machine. As we will see later, right-sizing your new VM after conversion is an important step that helps ensure your VM isn't over provisioned. Module 18 vcenter Converter

106 Select Host, Add Credentials Conversion type Physical, Virtual Backup image, etc. Select host FQDN or IP address Provide credentials Must have admin. rights on the source machine Converter Logs in to source Pulls a H/W profile Installs agents Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class Converter needs administrator rights on the source machine. Select the source machine by FQDN or IP address and provide the necessary login credentials. The machines local Administrator account will work. As of vsphere 4.1, Converter can now reach out to Linux physical machines and convert them to virtual machines. Please check VMware's documentation for a list of supported Linux distributions and releases. Module 18 vcenter Converter

107 Set Target ESXi Host, Datastore Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class The next step is to specify the target VM's properties. In this step, you are asked to set the target VM's: - Name (as it will appear in vcenter's inventory) - Datastore which storage volume will host the new VM - The host or cluster that will own the new VM - The new virtual machine's hardware version number (either legacy hardware version 4 or the current hardware version 7) Module 18 vcenter Converter

108 Set Target VM Properties Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class This step lets you set detailed properties for your target VM, including: - VM destination name and the folder it will live in - Target disk properties including their new size and type (thin or thick) - CPU count and memory size - The number of virtual NICs in the target VM and the port group used - Services running on the source VM that you may wish to disable on the Target VM (such as server health monitoring agents) - Advanced options such as; post copy disk synchronization, guest OS Customization, etc. The result is that you have full control over the conversion process! Note: you must click the Edit link beside each property to change their values Module 18 vcenter Converter

109 Clone Physical Disk(s) Converter copies needed disks First, downloads and installs OS drivers/agents used during the conversion process Must reboot to activate drivers on W2K, XP, NT No reboot required on W2k3, W2k8 Unneeded physical disks can be ignored Quiesces, snapshots selected disks Converter needs 500MB-2GB for snapshot Lack of space may cause converter to fail CCleaner ( deletes unneeded files Only other choice is to Cold Clone the machine Network copy physical disks to selected ESXi host, datastore Optionally adjust target disk size up or down Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class A lack of free space on the disk being converted can prevent you from doing hot conversions... vcenter Converter uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services to quiesce the local disk. VSS needs between 500MB and 2+GB of free space on the disk being converted to hold snapshot files, converter agents, etc. If this space is not available, then Converter may not be able to hot convert your virtual machine. If you encounter this problem, you can: Cold Convert. Use the VMware supplied vcenter Converter Boot CD to boot your physical machine. The vcenter Converter Boot CD is a BootPE CD that boots Windows from CD. It includes drivers for popular hardware and can boot most machines. Converter would then run off the Boot CD and convert the physical machine with out the need to run the physical machine OS. This results in very reliable conversions with the penalty of some down time. Free up disk space and try again. You may be able to free up enough disk space to allow Converter to proceed. A great tool for freeing up disk space is CCleaner which is available for free from CCLeaner cleans up Windows patches, old temporary files, stale download files, browser cache files, etc. Module 18 vcenter Converter

110 Resize Target VM Disk Get Certified now. Sit the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam at the end of your class To resize the target disk: - Click Edit beside Data to copy - To skip a disk, uncheck it from the disk roster - To change the target disk size (up or down), click the Destination Size field - To change the target disk datastore, click the Destination Datastore field Module 18 vcenter Converter