VMware vsphere Beginner s Guide

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2 The latest version of VMware s virtualization platform, vsphere 5, builds on the already solid foundation of. With the growth of cloud computing and the move from ESX to ESXi, it s imperative for IT pros to refresh their knowledge. In this expert e- guide from SearchVMware.com, you ll be provided with resources on the newest features and the most important changes that have come about since vsphere 4.1 and vsphere 5. By: Alyssa Wood Last year, 4.1 improved VMware High Availability (HA) and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and added I/O control and memory compression. Other highlights of include built-in virtual machine (VM) performance monitoring tools, vshield Zones, VMsafe application programming interfaces (APIs), Storage vmotion integration, vstorage thin provisioning and Fault Tolerence. Now, 5 offers new storage management features and hostbased replication. This version is also the first without the ESX hypervisor, because VMware is focusing solely on ESXi from here on out. Our VMware vsphere guide provides you with resources on the newest features and the most important changes that have come about since vsphere 4.1 and vsphere 5. Going forward: 5 and the cloud VMware released vsphere 5, with plenty of new features, in July VSphere 5 saw many changes to the overall platform and improved automation and granular controls. Plus, this version relies on ESXi. With the Page 2 of 6

3 latest version out, it s also important to understand how you can use VMware vsphere to create a private cloud. 5: Special report After months of vsphere 5 speculation, VMware unveiled its new server virtualization platform, which focuses on scalability and automation. VSphere 5 supports VMs with up to 1 TB of RAM and 32 virtual CPUs. Plus, VMware extended its Distributed Resource Scheduler technology to storage, where it will automatically load-balance overloaded disks using Storage vmotion. Using as a private cloud computing platform VMware designed vsphere to be a private cloud computing platform. VSphere resource controls help distribute workloads dynamically and allocate to VMs on an as-needed basis. VSphere also includes many APIs and scripts for automation, and you can use Lab Manager, Lifecycle Manager and vcloud Director for higher levels of self service -- a key tenet of the cloud. Security is always a major concern for cloud users, but VMware vsphere has built-in security controls through features such as vshield Zones. Boosting VM performance and monitoring with With, performance is paramount. To optimize VM performance, vsphere has built-in monitoring tools that can prevent resource bottlenecks and monitor the VM, host, networking and storage traffic. 4.1 also amped up the platform s HA and DRS features to improve VM performance. Maximizing 4 performance The first key to boosting VM performance with is getting the right VM-to-host ratio. Then, use DRS to allocate resources to highpriority VMs. Also remember that activities in your guest operating system can affect host and VM performance. For instance, you wouldn t want to run Page 3 of 6

4 antivirus software or a backup service on all 10 hosts in one cluster at one time. s built-in performance monitoring tools If your VMs run Windows, you can use Perfmon for VM performance monitoring. The Client helps monitor performance outside VMs -- in clusters or hosts. Another monitoring tool, resxtop, runs remotely and can connect to both ESX and ESXi hosts. Lastly, vcenter Server alarms alert you to problems and allow you specify the length of time for which a condition must persist before it triggers an alert. VMware boosts VM performance with vsphere added Storage I/O Control, which allows admins to control shared I/O among VMs on one host. This feature ensures that one VM won t hog throughput and weaken VM performance for all the guests on one host. VSphere also offers Network I/O Control for distributed vswitches, allowing you to control the aggregated bandwidth for different traffic types. Another feature, memory compression, takes blocks of memory that haven't been used recently and compresses the data to recoup the memory blocks to the wider system. 4.1 HA and DRS clustering improvements Throughout its evolution, has made a few changes to its availability features and DRS. VSphere 4.1 added a health status report to High Availability clusters and improved the algorithm that connects HA and DRS. VMware also overhauled Fault Tolerance in recent years, increasing the throughput and decreasing the CPU overhead in the network logging process, as well as improving the integration with DRS. Utilizing vsphere features, resource controls for VM priority In, you can set memory and CPU amounts using resource controls called shares, limits and reservations. Shares assign a level of importance to each VM, limits provide a maximum CPU and memory amount that a VM can use, and reservations guarantee that the VM always gets the amount of resources it needs. In server clusters, you can create resource pools that allocate CPU and memory from hosts to VMs. Page 4 of 6

5 How it all started: VSphere features and requirements Since its early days, has provided stability, availability and security. But its licensing, pricing and installation requirements weren t always so clear -- and vsphere 5 brought more licensing changes. It s easy to get lost in the details of s many features, so sometimes you just need a refresher. 5 licensing sets virtual RAM limits VMware s new licensing model for vsphere 5 limits the amount of virtual RAM available to VMs, regardless of the host s physical memory. VMware vsphere 5 licensing changes probably won t add costs for most organizations, but it could change consolidation ratios and the use of advanced features in some shops. : Got 64-bit hardware? only runs on 64-bit CPU hardware, so you need to make sure your hardware has 64-bit capable CPUs. Use tools such as VMware s CPU Identification Utility to determine whether you have 64-bit CPUs, and remember that they can still run either 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems and applications. VStorage thin-provisioned disks and the Cisco Nexus vswitch With s vstorage thin provisioning feature, you can provision disk space without wasting unused space. To easily convert your existing disks to thin-provisioned disks, use Storage vmotion to simply move them to another data store. also integrates with Cisco s Nexus vswitch. It comes in every installation of ESX and ESXi and unlocks once you re licensed for the vswitch. Page 5 of 6

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