VMware vsphere Using vsphere 2010 VMware Inc. All rights reserved
Migrating VMs VMs Move from one host to another Powered on VM requires VMware vmotion VM Files in Datastores Move from one datastore to another Option for changing disk format (thick versus thin) Powered on VM requires Storage vmotion S-2
vmotion Requirements Hosts have access to shared storage Hosts have supported CPUs Same vendor and similar instruction sets Optional Enhanced vmotion Compatibility (EVC) for newer hosts Gigabit VMkernel network between hosts VM not tied to host Not connected to host device Not connected to host internal-only vswitch Not using VMware DirectPath for network or storage device vsphere 4.1 Improvements 4 concurrent vmotion migrations over 1 Gbps network 8 concurrent vmotion migrations over 10 Gbps network S-3
Storage vmotion Requirements Host has access to both datastores Host must be configured for vmotion VM has no VM snapshots VM hard disks must be in persistent mode S-4
DRS Clusters Load Balancing of VMs Intelligence Initial placement when powering on VM Which VMs to migrate and to where Automation levels Fully automated VM placement and migration - Migration thresholds conservative to aggressive Partially automated VM placement only, migration recommendation Manual recommendations only Rules Affinity and anti-affinity (keep VMs together or apart if same host) New in vsphere 4.1 Host Affinity Rules VMs can be restricted to specific hosts within a cluster VM-VM anti-affinity rules can now incorporate more than two VMs S-5
DRS Clusters DRS Host Affinity VMs VM groups APP APP APP APP APP OS OS OS OS OS A B A A B Hosts ChassisA ChassisA ChassisB ChassisB 4-host DRS/HA cluster Host groups A a ChassisA B a ChassisB S-6
DRS Clusters DPM Power savings Consolidate VMs onto fewer hosts Power off unnecessary hosts Power on hosts using Wake-on-LAN, IPMI, or ilo as needed Automation levels Automatic hosts powered off and on as needed Manual recommendations only Off Thresholds conservative to aggressive New in vsphere 4.1 Can be enabled or disabled by a scheduled task Disabling DPM brings all hosts in the cluster out of Standby mode S-7
VMware ESX /ESXi Advanced Memory Management Transparent Page Sharing Identical memory pages collapsed Automatic per ESX/ESXi host Ballooning Balloon driver via VMware Tools inflated in underutilized VMs to free up physical memory for other VMs Swap to Disk Swap file per running VM Used as a last resort for graceful degradation Memory Compression vsphere 4.1 only Compresses physical memory Minimal performance impact Definition Limit Reservation VM Guest OS VMware Tools VM RAM Shared RAM No free RAM results in swap RAM exclusive to VM VMs ESX/ESXi Host RAM.vswp S-8
Resource Management Resources CPU Memory Allocations Shares Reservation Limit S-9
Resource Management Shape Resources of VMs On a standalone host In a resource pool within a host or cluster In a vapp Resource Pools Separate and allocate Can span multiple hosts Aggregate resources can exceed individual VM limits A VM can only run on one host at a time Can be nested Example Resource Pool 1 = SF Marketing Dept Resource Pool 2 = SF Operations Dept Example Parent Resource Pool = Americas Operations Child Resource Pool = SF Operations Dept S-10
Network I/O Control (NetIOC) vsphere 4.1 Only Requires vnetwork Distributed Switch Features Limits specify the absolute maximum bandwidth for a flow over a team Specified in Mbps Traffic from a given flow never exceeds its specified limit Shares specify the relative importance of an egress flow on a vmnic (guaranteed minimum) Specified in abstract units from 1-100 Presets for Low (25 shares), Normal (50 shares), High (100 shares), plus Custom Bandwidth divided between flows based on their relative shares Controls apply to output from ESX host Shares apply to a given vmnic Limits apply across the team S-11
Network I/O Control Network I/O Control Limits specify the absolute maximum bandwidth for a flow over a team Specified in Mbps Traffic from a given flow never exceeds its specified limit Shares specify the relative importance of an egress flow on an individual vmnic (guaranteed minimum) Specified in abstract units from 1-100 Presets for Low (25 shares), Normal (50 shares), High (100 shares), plus Custom Bandwidth divided between flows based on their relative shares Controls apply to output from ESX host Requires vnetwork Distributed Switch vsphere 4.1 only S-12
Network I/O Control Configuration from vsphere Client Limits Shares vds only feature Preconfigured Traffic Classes Sample VM traffic in this example: - limited to max of 500 Mbps (aggregate of all VMs) - with minimum of 50/400 of pnic bandwidth (50/(100+100+50+50+50+50) S-13
HA Clusters Automatic VM Restart Failover triggers Host failure (isolated from cluster) VM failure (loss of VMware Tools heartbeat) Failover responses Restart VM on new host if sufficient resources available Restart priority specified per VM Requirements Hosts in cluster have access to shared storage and network DNS resolution for hosts S-14
Storage I/O Control (SIOC) vsphere 4.1 Only Enable for Each Datastore Containing VMs that Require SIOC Configure SIOC Settings for Each Virtual Disk of Each VM Shares Limits (in IOPS) I/O Control Enforced at a Cluster-wide Level I/O bandwidth is distributed across all ESX servers that have access to a shared datastore S-15
Enabling Storage I/O Control Storage I/O Control Enabled S-16
Setting I/O Controls S-17
HA Clusters Admission Control Policies Host failures tolerated (number) Percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover capacity Specify a failover host S-18
HA Clusters Monitoring Options Host Enable/disable VM Enable/disable Host isolation response Monitoring sensitivity S-19
vsphere 4.1 HA Improvements HA Healthcheck Status HA provides an ongoing healthcheck facility to ensure that the required cluster configuration is met at all times. Deviations result in an event or alarm on the cluster. HA Operational Status A new Cluster Operational Status window displays more information about the current HA operational status, including the specific status and errors for each host in the HA cluster. Improved HA-DRS Interoperability During HA Failover DRS perform vmotion migration to free up contiguous resources (on one host) so that HA can place a VM that needs to be restarted. HA Application Awareness Expose APIs for Third Party Application Developers S-20
HA Clusters vsphere 4.1 Improvements HA Healthcheck Status Provides an ongoing healthcheck facility to ensure that the required cluster configuration is met at all times Deviations result in an event or alarm on the cluster HA Operational Status Cluster Operational Status window displays information about the current HA cluster Includes specific status and errors for each host in the cluster Improved HA-DRS Interoperability During HA Failover DRS performs vmotion migration to free up contiguous resources (on one host) so that HA can place a VM that needs to be restarted HA Application Awareness Exposes APIs for third party app developers S-21
Fault Tolerance (FT) Continuous Availability Protected VM running a shadow copy on another host Zero downtime protection for VM in the event of host failure Automatic restart of secondary protected VM after failover Requirements Hosts enabled for Hardware Virtualization in BIOS Hosts must be in HA cluster Dedicated gigabit VMkernel network for FT S-22
Fault Tolerance vsphere 4.1 Improvements DRS FT Primary VM FT Secondary VM FT fully integrated with DRS DRS load balances FT Primary and Secondary VMs. EVC required Versioning control lifts requirement on ESX build consistency Resource Pool Primary VM can run on host with a different build # as Secondary VM Events for Primary VM versus Secondary VM differentiated Events logged and stored differently S-23
Fault Tolerance Limitations No vsmp VM No VM snapshot No thin provisioned disk or RDM in physical compatibility mode No connected host devices or VM DirectPath I/O devices VM cannot be migrated using Storage vmotion No hot add device support No Nested Page Tables/Extended Page Tables (NPT/EPT) No NPIV VM cannot be clustered using MSCS No paravirtualized guest OS S-24
VMware vcenter Server Plugin Guided Consolidation Service Physical Computer Analysis Discover physical Windows machines Analyze workloads Physical to Virtual (P2V) Process Discover Analyze Convert S-25
vcenter Plugin VMware vcenter Converter Import Machine Convert physical machines to VMware virtual machines Convert virtual machine formats Resize virtual disks and volumes Use Cases Server consolidation VM mobility across VMware products Restore VCB full VM backup S-26