VMWARE vSPHERE (DCV - Data Center Virtualization)

VMware vSPHERE Fundamentals

VMware vSphere is VMware's cloud computing virtualization operating system. VMware vSphere, known in many circles as "ESXi".

Availability                  Scalability

Optimization               Management

Conversion of hardware devices into software to reduce the power consumption and cooling cost

COMPONENETS OF VMWARE VSPHERE

Hypervisor

To provide virtual hardware (resources) to VMs or to virualize the hardware.

Type 1 Hypervisor (Bare-Metal)

Installed as the operating system (VMware ESXi)

VM      VM      VM      VM

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VMware ESXi

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HARDWARE

Type 2 Hypervisor (Hosted)

Installed as application (VMware workstation)

VM      VM      VM      VM

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VMware Workstation

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Windows or Linux OS

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HARDWARE

vCenter Server

Multitier application designed keeping enterprise in mind capable of managing smallest to large organizations. If you want to manage multiple ESXi hosts through single interface then use vCenter Server

Creating VMs

Adjusting VM configurations

Monitoring Performance

Configuring and Patching hosts

Can handle 1000 ESXi hosts

Can handle 10000 VMs

Can deploy on single server or multiple

Can deploy it on windows or a virtual appliance

Components

Identity management server

Database server

Application server

Web server

VMware vSphere Web Client

vCenter is Centralized platform for management features

vMotion

DRS

DPM

Storage vMotion

Storage DRS

vSphere Data Protection

High Availability (HA)

Fault tolerance (FT)

vSphere Replication

vCenter Operations Manger

To monitor performance, capacity and risks to alert you before something occur. It dynamically adjust thresholds

vCenter Configuration Manager

It discover, review and monitor changes in ESXI and VM’s and also for compliance.

vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

To replicate the whole site for disaster recovery

VMware vCenter Server   +   Site Recovery Manager

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VM      VM      VM      VM      VM      VM      VM      VM

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VMware vSphere

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HARDWARE

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STORAGE

vMotion

Allows you to migrate running VM from one ESXi host to another

It load balance ESXi host

It can operate without shared storage

Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)

Monitors the memory and cpu load on ESXi hosts for performance.  Maintains rules to match business objective like particular VM must run on a specific ESXi host.

VMware DRS dynamically balances computing capacity across a collection of hardware resources aggregated into logical resource pools, continuously monitoring utilization across resource pools and intelligently allocating available resources among the virtual machines based on pre-defined rules that reflect business needs and changing priorities.

Distributed Power Management (DPM)

Monitor the utilization of ESXi hosts and put it down or up (lan wake) as required

Storage vMotion

Moves VM from one datastore to another in running state

Migrate from any storage type to another

Move from Local to shared storage

Storage DRS

Load balancer of storage device

Monitor I/O of storage devices and spread the load as needed for smooth working

Storage I/O Control

Feature of vCenter server to keeps all VMs to perform at normal level (balance I/O control)

vSphere Data Protection (VDP)

Help to backup VMs

Leverages data duplicaton

VADP – open set of APIs (allows third party software to create image-based backup of VMs)

VMs create image-based backup as Bare-metal backup in the physical world

Easily restore individual files from that image-based backup

High Availability (HA)

monitor the heartbeat of ESXi hosts. if it's not available then HA will start VMs on other ESXi hosts.

Fault Tolerance (FT)

It allows you to perpetually mirror your running VM to another ESXi host.

vSphere Replication (VR)

VR copies only changed blocks to the recovery site. This approach lowers bandwidth utilization and enables more aggressive recovery point objectives (RPOs) than manual, full-system virtual machine replication. 

• Repurpose older storage at protection site.
• Allow for differing storage technologies at opposite sites (e.g. SAN to NAS, FC to iSCSI).
• Use secondary storage only for protected virtual machines, not the entire environment.
• Integrate automatically with Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to ensure consistent recovery copies.
• Leverage flexible RPOs of 15 minutes to 24 hours.
• Control virtual machine replication via VMware® vCenter Server™.
• Scale to hundreds of virtual machines per cluster.
• Use multiple point–in-time snapshots to revert to previous known states.

vFlash

A pool of SSD in ESXi hosts to improve VMs disk read performance while reducing loads on the SAN

vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA)

It allows you to create share storage from the local storage devices in ESXI host. It also replicates the data between ESXI hosts.

Datastores

Datastores are logical containers, analogous to file systems, that hide specifics of each storage device and provide a uniform model for storing virtual machine files. Datastores can also be used for storing ISO images, virtual machine templates, and floppy images.

Data store types:

VMFS (Virtual Machine File System)
High-performance file system optimized for storing virtual machines. Your host can deploy a VMFS datastore on any SCSI-based local or networked storage device, including Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN equipment.

NFS (Network File System)

File system on a NAS storage device. ESXi supports NFS version 3 over TCP/IP.

Shared Storage

Multiple ESXi hosts access the same storage (storage array). It used to store VMs and ISO files.

Features that use Shared Storage

DRS – Distributed Resource Scheduler

DPM – Distributed Power Management

Storage DRS

HA – High Availability

FT – Fault Tolerance

Storage Types

FC – Fiber Channel

FCoE – Fiber Channel over Ethernet

iSCSI – internet Small Computer System Interface

NFS – Network File System

Local

VIRTUAL NETWORKING

Each VM and ESXi host from the network has an address and virtual network cards

Virtual Switch Types

Standard virtual switch architecture

Manages virtual machine and networking at the host level

Distributed virtual switch architecture

Manages virtual machine and networking at datacenter level

Features

VLANS

Traffic Shaping

Port mirroring

QoS, DSCP

CDP/LLDP

vSphere 5.5 Editions and features

vSphere Edition	ESXi hypervisor	vMotion	High Availability	Data Protection	vSphere Replication	Storage vMotion	Fault Tolerance	DRS	DPm	Storage DRS	Distributed Switch
Essentials	X
Essentials Plus	X	X	X	X	X
Standard	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Enterprise	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Enterprise Plus	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X