Learning Path: VMware vSphere Unlocked

Learning vSphere 6 35 lectures 08:10:52 Course Overview and Virtualization Concepts For viewers who are new to virtualization or for those who are not familiar with VMware vSphere, we'll introduce some of the key information you'll need to orient yourself for the rest of the course.

• Discuss virtual machines, containers, and software-defined infrastructure
• Explore VMware vSphere 6 and the features it offers
• Introduce many of the vSphere features we'll be looking at throughout this course

Installing ESXi ESXi is VMware's hypervisor and hosts virtual machines running on servers with ESXi installed.

• Look at the options available for installation
• Talk about how Auto Deploy can be used in large environments
• Perform a simple installation of ESXi

Welcome to ESXi A new installation of ESXi doesn't let us do much from the host. When we connect using a browser, the Welcome to ESXi provides some simple but relatively unknown features.

• Check the links for installing the vSphere Client
• View the web-based Datastore Browser
• Discuss the Managed Object Browser

DCUI To configure networking and other core configuration, DCUI provides a simple interface.

• Examine the features offered by DCUI
• Discuss initial network configuration
• Enable access to the shell locally and via SSH

Using vSphere Desktop Client To do anything useful in ESXi, we'll need to use either the vSphere Desktop Client or the HTML5 Host Client.

• Look at installing the client
• Get connected to ESXi using the client
• Take a quick tour of what's available when connected to ESXi

Datastore Browser VMFS is commonly used as the filesystem for virtual machine storage. We are able to use the Datastore Browser to manage virtual machine and other files stored on VMFS and other type of datastores.

• Talk briefly about VMFS and Datastores
• Open the Datastore browser and look around
• Upload some ISO media to use for future virtual machine installations

ESXi and ESXi Shell ESXi is an operating system designed for hosting virtual machines, and uses various components such as Linux, Vmkernel and the busybox embedded platform.

• Log in to the shell locally and using SSH
• Look at the filesystem layout and key commands
• Highlight some issues and concepts to be aware of compared to working on a standard Linux distribution

Installing VIBs VMware Installation Bundles are used to update ESXi.

• Review the VIBs and discuss host acceptance levels
• Look at some commands associated with VIBs if vSphere Update Manager is not being used
• Install ESXi 6.0 U2 using a VIB

Host Client Beginning with ESXi 6.0 Update 2, the HTML5 Host Client is installed automatically.

• Talk about future support for the desktop client
• Log in to the HTML5 Host Client and take a tour of the layout and features
• Look at the VIB, which can be removed or updated independently of ESXii

Basic VM A number of techniques exist for provisioning virtual machines, but we'll first look at the basics of a creating a single virtual machine.

• Create the initial virtual machine and configure hardware settings
• Select a storage location and talk about thick/thin provisioning
• Install Windows Server 2012 R2 and install VMware Tools

VM Operations Virtual machines have many of the same challenges as physical machines, and also some new ones.

• Talk about the files associated with virtual machines and startup and shutdown procedures.
• Highlight the potential for timekeeping issues and some of the solutions available
• Talk about virtual machine IDs and the effect of copying or moving virtual machines

OVF Templates We previously installed a virtual machine manually, but we are able to import/export virtual machines using the Open Virtualization Format.

• Look at the OVF format
• Export our newly created virtual machine
• Import OVF templates

Snapshots Snapshots are very helpful for managing virtual machine state but there are some things to beware of.

• Talk about the snapshot architecture
• Take a look at performing snapshots
• Look at managing snapshot trees

Hot Add Hardware To support growth, we can add hardware such as disks, network interfaces and potentially CPU and memory to a running virtual machine.

• Look at the options available for adding different types of hardware
• Discuss the potential issues with hot add CPU and memory support
• Add hardware to a running virtual machine

VMXNET3 and PVSCSI Virtual machines can potentially benefit from using native VMware device drivers, rather than a driver provided for compatibility. The VMXNET3 and PVSCSI paravirtualized devices are provided for this purpose.

• Talk about the benefits of using paravirtualized devices
• Look at scenarios where these devices should or shouldn't be used
• See how to provide the required drivers to support guest operating system installation to PVSCSI-based virtual disks

Working with Standard vSwitches Virtual switches are used to provide internal and external connectivity between virtual machines, VMkernel adapters and external networks. Proper network functionality depends not only on vSphere configuration but also on external physical switches.

• Look at vSphere networking concepts related to switches and port groups
• Review the differences between the standard and distributed virtual switches

Teaming and Load-Balancing Managing virtual machine traffic load is a key consideration, and there are a number of options available to distribute traffic load across multiple uplinks.

• Review the options available and the requirements to support them
• Review the difference in LACP support between the standard and virtual switch
• Look at active/standby configuration and how link failure detection can be configured

VMKernel Adapters In order to provide IP services that vSphere requires for management, storage and other system networking, Vmkernel Adapters are needed. It is critical to understand the application of Vmkernel IP networking. We will look at core utilization scenarios and best practices, and will also re-visit some of these areas when we discuss storage and vMotion in later sections.

• Take a look at how Vmkernel adapters are used
• Discuss using multiple TCP/IP stacks to logically separate routing, DNS and other IP functions
• Look at the differences between managing networking through the desktop and web clients

VMFS and VAAI We briefly introduced VMFS and the datastore concept earlier, but it is important to understand not only how to work with VMFS but also how vSphere will interact with storage. We'll review various mechanisms that vSphere uses to provide deep storage integration.

• vSphere Advanced Array Integration features are key to unlocking maximum performance, scalability and manageability
• Discuss the new concept of Virtual Volumes and vSphere API for Storage Awareness
• Discuss the use of the vmkfstools utility

Configuring NFS The Network File System is commonly used for simplicity and does not require the use of VMFS or volume management. NFS is broadly supported, but vSphere has specific compatibility requirements.

• Explore vSphere NFS compatibility
• Review how to configure and work with NFS shares
• Review some of the troubleshooting considerations

Configuring iSCSI NFS provides a solid base for IP-based storage, but vSphere does not provide native multipathing support for NFS. iSCSI is also a viable alternative for IP storage that provides performance and security benefits, although with some additional complexity.

• Analyse iSCSI concepts and configuring iSCSI software adapter
• Discuss optimizing iSCSI
• We'll review some of the security considerations

Path Balancing and Failover As the number of datastores and storage paths available increases, it is important to optimize storage I/O effectively. vSphere does not use optimal methods by default, and vendors may provide their own extensions.

• Look at multipathing scenarios in vSPhere and how they apply in different environments
• Study the configuration required for multipathing for IP Storage
• Inspect closely at the differences between different path selection policies

Installing vCenter Any environment with more than a single host will be well served by adding vCenter, and all the interesting vSphere features require it. vCenter and Platform Services Controller provide a highly scalable infrastructure, but configurations with multiple vCenter and PSC servers can get quite complex.

• Analyse the different deployment models for vSphere and some of the differences between the vCenter appliance and vCenter for Windows
• Go through the server sizing and database requirements
• Perform an installation of vCenter for Windows using the Embedded Services model

Configuring Single Sign-On For convenience and in order to support the centralization of Identity and Access Management, various identity sources can be integrated with the Single Sign-On service.

• Review the role of Single Sign-On
• Look at the options available for adding Identity Sources
• Configure integration with an Active Directory domain

Roles and Permissions Once integration with an external identity source is available, it is highly beneficial to follow a least privilege model and identity.

• Define roles and assign permissions
• Explore how permissions are applied in different scenarios
• Define roles and permissions using the vSphere Web Client

Adding ESXi Hosts to vCenter Adding a host to vCenter is simple, but it is useful to understand how it works and what changes are made to the host. It's also sometimes necessary to restart the management agents if the host does not respond to vCenter.

• Look at changes made to a host
• We'll discuss potential issues with vCenter task timeouts
• See how to restart Management Agents

Using and Configuring vCenter with vSphere Desktop Client The vSphere Desktop Client will be very familiar to anyone who's used any version of vSphere, but its days are numbered.

• However, the vSphere Desktop Client is still in common use
• Look at what is not supported by the Vsphere Desktop Client when using it with vCenter
• Take a brief tour, but will primarily stick to the Web Client from this point

Using and Configuring vCenter with vSphere Web Client The vSphere Web Client has been put forward as an alternative to the Desktop Client but has been plagued with plugin and performance issues. Currently, vSphere Web Client is the official web client, but vCenter HTML5 Client is also coming along rapidly.

• Talk about the different Web Clients
• Look at Remote Console and the Client Integration Plugin
• Take a tour of the vSphere Web Client, and then we'll install and use the Remote Console

Working with Templates Deploying virtual machines quickly and consistently is key to providing rapid, secure provisioning. Virtual machine templates can be used to provide a partially configured, updated base image which can be cloned and customized at deployment time.

• Prepare a virtual machine for using it as a template and putting it in template mode
• Deploy and customize virtual machines from templates
• Discuss about managing Customization Specifications

Cold Migration and vMotion vMotion is the absolute rock star feature that truly rocked the industry. Host and storage portability of running virtual machines makes all of vSphere's advanced workload management features possible. It works like magic, but like all magic, it requires careful preparation and some behind-the-scenes tricks.

• Look at how vMotion functions and the requirements to support it for hosts and virtual machines
• Configure networking for vMotion and discuss how to support vMotion in a complex network environment
• See how to perform different types of migration

HA and FT In a non-virtual deployment, high availability is expensive, complicated and requires unique solutions for each protected operating system and application. vSphere's HA features are transparent, are cross-platform, and can be configured in minutes. As your environment gets larger, it's important to think about the impact of the loss of multiple servers and how to accomodate workload demands during large restart events.

• Look at how HA can be used to handle different forms of failure
• Configure an HA cluster and simulate some failures to see how HA responds
• Discuss how fault tolerance works and the dependencies

DRS Distributed Resource Scheduler allows you to define clusters of hosts and datastores, which can then be treated as a shared pool of resources. Depending on the cluster configuration, we can handle initial and ongoing placement of virtual machines to hosts and datastores based on their utilization rates.

• Discuss how DRS can be used to dynamically manage workload placement
• Configure our HA cluster for DRS
• Observe how different DRS modes work

Performance Monitoring vSphere integrates a large number of infrastructure components and requires capacity and load management in order to ensure best performance and avoid problems.

• Highlight some of the key performance indicators for hosts and virtual machines
• Look at how we can review real-time and historical performance data charts
• Take a peek under the hood with the esxtop utility

Alarms When the unexpected occurs, you should know about it. vSphere provides a relatively simple system for notification by mail, visible alarm and SNMP trap. Alarms can also be configured to take action in response to virtual machine and host conditions.

• Discuss how we can use alarms to trigger notifications and actions
• Explore How we can create alarms for various conditions and events
• See how to manage Alarms and Alarm actions

Useful ESXi Commands By this point in the course, you'll have seen that you can do (almost) anything you need using the vSphere Desktop or Web clients. However, for troubleshooting and advanced configuration, you may need to get on the shell and use the various utilities available. We'll also discuss how we can access these functions remotely, with vCenter and Single sign-on integration for security and authentication.

• Review the various esxcfg-* commands
• Look at esxcli and some of the unique networking and storage things we can do with it
• See the vim-cmd commands and their use for performing host and virtual machine operations

Learning vSphere 6 r viewers who are new to virtualization or for those who are not familiar with VMware vSphere, we'll introduce some of the key information you'll need to orient yourself for the rest of the course.

• Discuss virtual machines, containers, and software-defined infrastructure
• Explore VMware vSphere 6 and the features it offers
• Introduce many of the vSphere features we'll...