Module 7: Virtual Machine

Management

© 2020 VMware, Inc.

Importance
Virtual machines are the foundation of your virtual infrastructure. Managing VMs effectively
requires skills in creating templates and clones, modifying VMs, migrating VMs, taking snapshots,
and protecting the VMs through replication and backups.

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Module Lessons
1. Creating Templates and Clones
2. Working with Content Libraries
3. Modifying Virtual Machines
4. Migrating VMs with vSphere vMotion
5. Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
6. Migrating VMs with vSphere Storage vMotion
7. Creating Virtual Machine Snapshots
8. vSphere Replication and Backup

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Virtual Beans: VM Management
Virtual Beans wants to automate its processes. It requires the following processes for the
vSphere infrastructure:
• Provisioning and deploying VMs: Performing fast, error-free, consistent deployments
• Maintaining VMs: Patching and upgrading operating systems and applications
• Backing up VMs: Making daily backups of application data
• Disaster recovery and business continuity: Moving VMs between the primary and secondary
data center
As a Virtual Beans administrator, you must recognize the options available for these processes.
Then, you can create effective processes for managing VMs in your data center.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7-4
Lesson 1: Creating Templates and Clones

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Create a template of a virtual machine
• Deploy a virtual machine from a template
• Clone a virtual machine
• Create customization specifications for guest operating systems

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7-6
About Templates
A template is a master copy of a virtual machine. You use templates to create and provision new
VMs.
A template typically includes:
• A guest operating system
• One or more applications
• A specific VM configuration
• VMware Tools

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Creating a Template: Clone VM to Template
You can create templates using different methods. One method is to clone the VM to a template.
The VM can be powered on or off.

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Creating a Template: Convert VM to Template
You can create a template by converting a VM to a template. In this case, the VM must be
powered off.

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Creating a Template: Clone a Template
You can create a template from an existing template, or clone a template.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 10

Updating Templates
You update a template to include new patches, make system changes, and install new
applications.
To update a template:
1. Convert the template to a VM.
2. Place the VM on an isolated network to
prevent user access.
3. Make appropriate changes to the VM.
4. Convert the VM to a template.

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Deploying VMs from a Template
To deploy a VM, you must provide information such as the VM name, inventory location, host,
datastore, and guest operating system customization data.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 12

Cloning Virtual Machines
Cloning a VM creates a VM that is an exact copy of the original:
• Cloning is an alternative to deploying a VM.
• During cloning, the VM can be powered on or off.

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Guest Operating System Customization
You customize the guest operating system to make VMs, created from the same template or
clone, unique.
By customizing a guest operating system, you can change information, including the following
details:
• Computer name
• Network settings
• License settings
• Windows Security Identifier

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 14

About Customization Specifications
You can create a customization specification to prepare the guest operating system:
• Specifications are stored in the vCenter Server database.
• Windows and Linux guests are supported.

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Customizing the Guest Operating System
When cloning a VM or deploying a VM from a template, you can use a customization specification
to prepare the guest operating system.

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About Instant Clones
You can use Instant Clone Technology to create
a powered-on VM from the running state of
another powered-on VM:
• The processor state, virtual device state,
memory state, and disk state of the
destination (child) VM are identical to the
states of the source (parent) VM.
• Snapshot-based disk sharing is used to
provide storage efficiency and to improve the
speed of the cloning process.

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Use Cases for Instant Clones
Instant clone VMs have various uses:
• Virtual desktop infrastructure
• Rapid scale-out: Container hosts, big data, and Hadoop worker nodes
• DevTest: Quickly and efficiently replicate VMs and test beds with the same running state
• DevOps: Replicate VMs from staging to production, and the converse, with the identical
running state
In vSphere 6.7 and later, you can create instant clones of VMs only through API calls.
In vSphere 7, instant clone guest customization is supported (Linux only).

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Lab 12: Using VM Templates: Creating Templates and Deploying VMs

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 19

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Create a template of a virtual machine
• Deploy a virtual machine from a template
• Clone a virtual machine
• Create customization specifications for guest operating systems

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 20

Lesson 2: Working with Content Libraries

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Identify the benefits of a content library
• Recognize types of content libraries
• Deploy a virtual machine from a content library

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 22

About Content Libraries
Content libraries are repositories of OVF templates and other file types that can be shared and
synchronized across vCenter Server systems globally.

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Benefits of Content Libraries
Storage and consistency are key reasons to install and use a content library.
Using content libraries, administrators can perform the following functions:
• Store, version, and share content.
• Perform distributed file management.
• Synchronize content libraries across sites and vCenter Server instances.
• Mount an ISO file directly from a content library.
• Perform live updates of VM templates

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Types of Content Libraries
Types of content libraries are local, published, and subscribed.

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Adding VM Templates to a Content Library
Library items include VM templates, vApp templates, or other VMware objects that can be
contained in a content library.

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Deploying VMs from Templates in a Content Library
The templates in the content
library can be used to deploy
VMs and vApps.
Each VM template, vApp
template, or other type of file in
a library is a library item.
You can also mount an ISO file
directly from a content library.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 27

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Identify the benefits of a content library
• Recognize types of content libraries
• Deploy a virtual machine from a content library

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 29

Lesson 3: Modifying Virtual Machines

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe virtual machine settings and options
• Add a hot-pluggable device
• Dynamically increase the size of a virtual disk

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 31

Modifying Virtual Machine Settings
You can modify a VM’s
configuration by editing the
VM's settings:
• Add virtual hardware:
– You can add some
hardware while the VM is
powered on.
• Remove virtual hardware:
– You can remove some
hardware only when the
VM is powered off.
• Set VM options.
• Control a VM’s CPU and
memory resources.

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Hot-Pluggable Devices
With the hot plug option, you
can add resources to a running
VM.
Examples of hot-pluggable
devices:
• USB controllers
• Ethernet adapters
• Hard disk devices
With supported guest operating
systems, you can also add CPU
and memory while the VM is
powered on.

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Dynamically Increasing Virtual Disk Size
You can increase the size of a virtual disk that belongs to a powered-on VM.

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Inflating Thin-Provisioned Disks
Thin-provisioned virtual disks
can be converted to a thick,
eager-zeroed format.
To inflate a thin-provisioned
disk:
• The VM must be powered off.
• Right-click the VM’s file with
the .vmdk extension and
select Inflate.
Or you can use vSphere
Storage vMotion and select a
thick-provisioned disk as the
destination.

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VM Options: General Settings
You can use the VM Options
tab to modify properties such as
the display name for the VM
and the type of guest operating
system that is installed.

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VM Options: VMware Tools Settings
You can use the VMware Tools controls to customize the power buttons on the VM.

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VM Options: VM Boot Settings
Occasionally, you might need to set the VM boot options.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 38

Removing VMs
You can remove a VM in the following ways:
• Remove from the inventory:
— The VM is unregistered from the ESXi host and vCenter
Server.
— The VM’s files remain on the disk.
— The VM can later be registered (added) to the inventory.
• Delete from disk:
— All VM files are permanently deleted from the datastore.
— The VM is unregistered from the ESXi host and vCenter
Server.

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Lab 13: Modifying Virtual Machines

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 40

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe virtual machine settings and options
• Add a hot-pluggable device
• Dynamically increase the size of a virtual disk

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 41

Lesson 4: Migrating VMs with vSphere
vMotion

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter Server instance
and across vCenter Server instances
• Explain how vSphere vMotion works
• Verify vSphere vMotion requirements
• Migrate virtual machines using vSphere vMotion

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 43

About VM Migration
Migration means moving a VM from one host, datastore, or vCenter Server instance to another
host, datastore, or vCenter Server instance.
Depending on the power state of the VM that you migrate, migration can be cold or hot:
• A cold migration involves moving a powered-off or suspended VM to a new host.
• A hot migration involves moving a powered-on VM to a new host.
Depending on the VM resource type, you can perform different types of migrations.

Migration Type Description

Compute resource only Move VM, but not its storage, to another host.
For a hot migration, vSphere vMotion is used to move the VM.
Storage only Move a VM's storage, but not its host, to a new datastore.
For a hot migration, vSphere Storage vMotion is used to move
the VM.
Both compute resource and storage Move a VM to another host and datastore.
For a hot migration, vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage
vMotion are used to move the VM.
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About vSphere vMotion
A vSphere vMotion migration moves a powered-on VM from one host to another. vSphere
vMotion changes the compute resource only.
vSphere vMotion provides the following capabilities:
• Improvement in overall hardware use
• Continuous VM operation while accommodating scheduled hardware downtime
• vSphere DRS to balance VMs across hosts

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Enabling vSphere vMotion
To enable vSphere vMotion, you must configure a VMkernel port with the vSphere vMotion
service enabled on the source and destination host.

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vSphere vMotion Migration Workflow
The source host (ESXi01) and the destination host (ESXi02) can access the shared datastore
that holds the VM’s files.

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VM Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration
For migration with vSphere vMotion, a VM must meet these requirements:
• If it uses an RDM disk, the RDM file and the LUN to which it maps must be accessible by the
destination host.
• It must not have a connection to a virtual device, such as a CD/DVD or floppy drive, with a
host-local image mounted.
In vSphere 7, you can use vSphere vMotion to migrate a VM with a device attached through a
remote console.
Remote devices include physical devices or disk images on the client machine running the
remote console.

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Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (1)
Source and destination hosts must have the following characteristics:
• Accessibility to all the VM’s storage:
– 128 concurrent migrations are possible per VMFS or NFS datastore.
– If the swap file location on the destination host differs from the swap file location on the
source host, the swap file is copied to the new location.
• VMkernel port with vSphere vMotion enabled
• Matching management network IP address families (IPv4 or IPv6) between the source and
destination hosts

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Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (2)
• At least a 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1 GigE) network:
– Each active vSphere vMotion process requires a minimum throughput of 250 Mbit/second on
the vSphere vMotion network.
– Concurrent migrations are limited to four on a 1 Gbps network.
– Concurrent migrations are limited to eight on a 10 Gbps (or faster) network.
– For better performance, dedicate at least two port groups to the vSphere vMotion traffic.
• Compatible CPUs:
– The CPU feature sets of both the source host and the destination host must be compatible.
– Some features can be hidden by using Enhanced vMotion Compatibility or compatibility
masks.

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Checking vSphere vMotion Errors
When you select the host and
cluster, a validation check is
performed to verify that most
vSphere vMotion requirements
are met.

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Encrypted vSphere vMotion
When migrating encrypted VMs, you always use encrypted vSphere vMotion.

For VMs that are not encrypted, select one of

the following encrypted vSphere vMotion menu
items:
• Disabled.
• Opportunistic (default): Encrypted vSphere
vMotion is used if the source and destination
hosts support it.
• Required: If the source or destination host
does not support encrypted vSphere
vMotion, the migration fails.

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Cross vCenter Migrations
With vSphere vMotion, you can migrate VMs between linked vCenter Server systems.
Migration of VMs across vCenter Server instances is helpful in the following cases:
• Balancing workloads across clusters and vCenter Server instances that are in the same site or
in another geographical area.
• Moving VMs between environments that have different purposes, for example, from a
development environment to production environment.
• Moving VMs to meet different Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for storage space,
performance, and so on.

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Cross vCenter Migration Requirements
Cross vCenter migrations have the following requirements:
• ESXi hosts and vCenter Server systems must be at vSphere 6.0 or later.
• vCenter Server instances must be in Enhanced Linked Mode.
• Hosts must be time-synchronized.

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Network Checks for Cross vCenter Migrations
vCenter Server performs several network compatibility checks to prevent the following
configuration problems:
• MAC address incompatibility on the destination host
• vSphere vMotion migration from a distributed switch to a standard switch
• vSphere vMotion migration between distributed switches of different versions

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 55

VMkernel Networking Layer and TCP/IP Stacks
The VMkernel networking layer provides connectivity to hosts and handles the standard system
traffic of vSphere vMotion, IP storage, vSphere Fault Tolerance, vSAN, and others.
TCP/IP stacks at the VMkernel level:
• Default TCP/IP stack
• vSphere vMotion TCP/IP stack
• Provisioning TCP/IP stack
• Custom TCP/IP stacks

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vSphere vMotion TCP/IP Stacks
Each ESXi host has a second TCP/IP stack that is dedicated to vSphere vMotion migration.

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Long-Distance vSphere vMotion Migration
Long-distance vSphere vMotion migration is an
extension of cross vCenter migration.
vCenter Server instances are spread across
large geographic distances and where the
latency across sites is high.
Use cases for long-distance vSphere vMotion
migration:
• Permanent migrations
• Disaster avoidance
• Site Recovery Manager and disaster
avoidance testing
• Multisite load balancing
• Follow-the-sun scenario support

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Networking Prerequisites for Long-Distance vSphere vMotion
Long-distance vSphere vMotion migrations must connect over layer 3 connections:
• Virtual machine network:
— L2 connection.
— Same VM IP address is available at the destination.
• vSphere vMotion network:
— L3 connection.
— Secure (if you are not using vSphere 6.5 or later encrypted vSphere vMotion).
— 250 Mbps per vSphere vMotion operation.
— Round-trip time between hosts can take up to 150 milliseconds.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 59

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter Server instance
and across vCenter Server instances
• Explain how vSphere vMotion works
• Verify vSphere vMotion requirements
• Migrate virtual machines using vSphere vMotion

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 61

Lesson 5: Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
• Configure EVC mode on a vSphere cluster
• Explain how per-VM EVC mode works with vSphere vMotion

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 63

CPU Constraints on vSphere vMotion Migration
CPU compatibility between source and target hosts is a vSphere vMotion requirement that must
be met.
CPU Characteristics Exact Match Required By Reason
Source Host and Target Host
Clock speeds, cache sizes, N/A The VMkernel virtualizes these
hyperthreading, and number of characteristics.
cores
Manufacturer (Intel or AMD) family Applicable Instruction sets contain many small
and generation (Opteron4, Intel differences.
Westmere)
Presence or absence of SSE3, Applicable Multimedia instructions are usable
SSSE3, or SSE4.1 instructions directly by applications.
Virtualization hardware assist For 32-bit VMs: N/A The VMkernel virtualizes this
characteristic.
For 64-bit VMs on Intel: Intel 64-bit with VMware
Applicable implementation uses Intel VT.

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About Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
Enhanced vMotion Compatibility is a cluster feature that prevents vSphere vMotion migrations
from failing because of incompatible CPUs.
This feature works at the cluster level, using CPU baselines to configure all processors in the
cluster that are enabled for Enhanced vMotion Compatibility.

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Enhanced vMotion Compatibility Cluster Requirements
All hosts in the cluster must meet several requirements:
• Use CPUs from a single vendor, either Intel or AMD:
– Use Intel CPUs with Merom microarchitecture and later.
– Use AMD first-generation Opteron CPUs and later.
• Be enabled for hardware virtualization: AMD-V or Intel VT.
• Be enabled for execution-disable technology: AMD No eXecute (NX) or Intel eXecute Disable
(XD).
• Be configured for vSphere vMotion migration.
Applications in VMs must be CPU ID compatible.

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Enabling EVC Mode on an Existing Cluster
You enable EVC mode on an existing cluster to ensure vSphere vMotion CPU compatibility
between the hosts in the cluster.

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Changing the EVC Mode for a Cluster
Several EVC mode approaches are available to ensure CPU compatibility:
• If all the hosts in a cluster are compatible with a newer EVC mode, you can change the EVC
mode of an existing Enhanced vMotion Compatibility cluster.
• You can enable EVC mode for a cluster that does not have EVC mode enabled.
You can raise or lower the EVC mode, but the VMs must be in the correct power state to do so.

EVC Mode VM Power Action

Raise the EVC mode to a CPU • Running VMs can remain powered on.
baseline with more features. • New EVC mode features are not available to the VMs until they
are powered off and powered back on again (Suspending and
resuming the VM is not sufficient.)
Lower the EVC mode to a CPU • Power off VMs if they are powered on and running at a higher
baseline with fewer features. EVC mode than the one you intend to enable.

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Virtual Machine EVC Mode
EVC mode can be applied to some or all VMs in a cluster:
• At the VM level, EVC mode facilitates the migration of VMs beyond the cluster and across
vCenter Server systems and data centers.
• You can apply more granular definitions of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility for specific VMs.
• VM EVC mode is independent of the EVC mode defined at the cluster level.
• VM EVC mode requires vSphere 6.7 or later.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 69

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
• Configure EVC mode on a vSphere cluster
• Explain how per-VM EVC mode works with vSphere vMotion

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 70

Lesson 6: Migrating VMs with vSphere
Storage vMotion

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Explain how vSphere Storage vMotion works
• Recognize guidelines for using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Migrate virtual machines using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Migrate both the compute resource and storage of a virtual machine

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About vSphere Storage vMotion
With vSphere Storage vMotion, you can migrate a powered-on VM from one datastore to another.

Using vSphere Storage vMotion, you can

perform the following tasks:
• Move VMs off arrays for maintenance or to
upgrade.
• Change the disk provisioning type.
• Change VM files on the destination datastore
to match the inventory name of the VM.
• Migrate between datastores to balance traffic
across storage paths and reduce latencies.
• Redistribute VMs or virtual disks to different
storage volumes to balance capacity or
improve performance.

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vSphere Storage vMotion In Action
vSphere Storage vMotion uses an I/O mirroring architecture to copy disk blocks between the
source and destination.

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Identifying Storage Arrays That Support vSphere Storage APIs - Array Integration
vSphere Storage vMotion offloads its operations to the storage array if the array supports
VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Array Integration, also called hardware acceleration.
Use the vSphere Client to determine whether your storage array supports hardware acceleration.

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vSphere Storage vMotion Guidelines and Limitations
Guidelines:
• Plan the migration and coordinate with administrators.
• Perform migrations during off-peak hours.
Limitation:
• Independent virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode.

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 76

Changing Both Compute Resource and Storage During Migration (1)
When you change both compute resource and storage during migration, a VM changes its host,
datastores, networks, and vCenter Server instances simultaneously:
• This technique combines vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion into a single
operation.
• You can migrate VMs across clusters, data centers, and vCenter Server instances.

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Changing Both Compute Resource and Storage During Migration (2)
Compute resource and storage migration is useful for virtual infrastructure administration tasks.

Task Benefit of Using vSphere Storage vMotion

Host maintenance You can move VMs from a host when you want to perform host
maintenance.
Storage maintenance and You can move VMs from a storage device so that you can perform
reconfiguration maintenance or reconfigure the storage device without VM
downtime.
Storage load redistribution You can manually redistribute VMs or virtual disks to different
storage volumes to balance capacity or to improve performance.

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Lab 14: vSphere vMotion Migrations

© 2020 VMware, Inc. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] | 7 - 60

Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Explain how vSphere Storage vMotion works
• Recognize guidelines for using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Migrate virtual machines using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Migrate both the compute resource and storage of a virtual machine

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Lesson 7: Creating Virtual Machine
Snapshots

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Take a snapshot of a virtual machine
• Manage multiple snapshots
• Delete virtual machine snapshots
• Consolidate snapshots

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VM Snapshots
With snapshots, you can preserve the state of
the VM so that you can repeatedly return to the
same state.
For example, if problems occur during the
patching or upgrading process, you can stop
the process and revert to the previous state.
VM snapshots are not recommended as a VM
backup strategy.

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Taking Snapshots
You can take a snapshot while a VM is powered
on, powered off, or suspended.
A snapshot captures the following items:
• VM configuration
• VM memory state (optional)
• Virtual disks
A snapshot capture does not include
Independent virtual disks (persistent and
nonpersistent).

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Types of Snapshots
A delta or child disk is created when you create a snapshot:
• On the VMFS datastore, the delta disk is a sparse disk.
• Delta disks use different sparse formats depending on the type of datastore.

Snapshot Type Notes Filename Block Size

VMFSsparse VMFS5 with virtual disks smaller than 2 TB #-delta.vmdk 512 bytes
SEsparse • VMFS6 #-sesparse.vmdk 4 KB
• VMFS5 with virtual disks larger than 2 TB
• Space efficient (thin provisioned)
• Supports disk reclamation (unmap)
vsanSparse vSAN Delta object 4 MB

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VM Snapshot Files
A snapshot consists of a set of files:
• -Snapshot#.vmsn: Configuration state
• -Snapshot#.vmem: Memory state (optional)
• -00000#.vmdk: Disk descriptor
• -00000#-delta.vmdk: VMFS5 delta
• -00000#-sesparse.vmdk: VMFS6 delta
• .vmsd: Stores names, descriptions, and
relationships for all the VM's snapshots

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VM Snapshot Files Example (1)

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VM Snapshot Files Example (2)

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VM Snapshot Files Example (3)

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Managing Snapshots
In the vSphere Client, you can view snapshots for the active VM and take edit, delete, and revert
to actions.

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Deleting VM Snapshots (1)
If you delete a snapshot one or more levels above the You are here level, the snapshot state is
deleted. In this example, the snap01 data is committed into the parent (base disk), and the
foundation for snap02 is retained.

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Deleting VM Snapshots (2)
If you delete the latest snapshot, the changes are committed to its parent. The snap02 data is
committed into snap01 data, and the snap02 -delta.vmdk file is deleted.

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Deleting VM Snapshots (3)
If you delete a snapshot one or more levels below the You are here level, subsequent snapshots
are deleted, and you can no longer return to those states. The snap02 data is deleted.

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Deleting All VM Snapshots
The delete-all-snapshots mechanism uses storage space efficiently. The size of the base disk
does not increase. Snap01 is committed to the base disk before snap02 is committed.

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About Snapshot Consolidation
Snapshot consolidation is a method for committing a chain of delta disks to the base disks when
the Snapshot Manager shows that no snapshots exist but the delta disk files remain on the
datastore.

Snapshot consolidation resolves problems that might occur with snapshots:

• The snapshot descriptor file is committed correctly, and the Snapshot window shows that all
the snapshots are deleted.
• The snapshot files (-delta.vmdk) are still part of the VM.
• Delta disk files continue to expand until the datastore on which the VM is located runs out of
space.

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Discovering When to Consolidate Snapshots
On the Monitor tab under All Issues for the VM, a warning notifies you that a consolidation is
required.

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Consolidating Snapshots
After the snapshot consolidation
warning appears, you can use
the vSphere Client to
consolidate the snapshots.
All snapshot delta disks are
committed to the base disks.

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Lab 15: Working with Snapshots

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Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Take a snapshot of a virtual machine
• Manage multiple snapshots
• Delete virtual machine snapshots
• Consolidate snapshots

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Lesson 8: vSphere Replication and Backup

© 2020 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Identify the components in the vSphere Replication architecture
• Deploy and configure vSphere Replication
• Recover replicated virtual machines
• Explain the backup and restore solution for VMs
• Describe the benefits of vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection

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About vSphere Replication
vSphere Replication is an
extension for vCenter Server.
It provides hypervisor-based
VM replication and recovery.

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About the vSphere Replication Appliance
The vSphere Replication appliance provides all the components that are required to perform VM
replication.

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Replication Functions
With vSphere Replication, you can replicate a VM from a source site to a target site, monitor and
manage the replication status, and recover the VM at the target site.

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Deploying the vSphere Replication Appliance
You use the vSphere Client to deploy the vSphere Replication appliance on an ESXi host:
1. Download the installation package to a local directory or obtain its URL.
2. Use the standard vSphere OVF deployment wizard to deploy the appliance.
a. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.
b. Right-click an ESXi host and select Deploy OVF template.

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Configuring vSphere Replication for a Single VM
To configure vSphere Replication for a VM in the vSphere Client, right-click the VM in the
inventory and select All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure.

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Configuring Recovery Point Objective and Point in Time Instances
During replication configuration, you can set an RPO and enable retention of instances from
multiple points in time.

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Recovering Replicated VMs
With vSphere Replication, you can recover VMs that were successfully replicated at the target
site.
You can recover one VM at a time on the Incoming Replications tab.

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Backup and Restore Solution for VMs
To protect your VM's data, you can use a backup solution based on vSphere Storage APIs - Data
Protection.
With vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection, backup products can perform centralized, efficient,
off-host, LAN-free backups of vSphere VMs.

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vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection: Offloaded Backup Processing
Configure the storage environment so that the backup server can access the storage volumes
that are managed by the ESXi hosts.
Backup processing is offloaded from the ESXi host to the backup server, which prevents local
ESXi resources from becoming overloaded.

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vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection: Changed-Block Tracking
With changed-block tracking,
the backup solution copies only
file blocks that changed since
the last backup.
Changed-block tracking
supports faster incremental
backups.

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Review of Learner Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Identify the components in the vSphere Replication architecture
• Deploy and configure vSphere Replication
• Recover replicated virtual machines
• Explain the backup and restore solution for VMs
• Describe the benefits of vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection

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Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (1)
As a Virtual Beans administrator, you work with your team to consider which vSphere features to
use for key VM management processes. Provide one or more suggestions for each process.

Virtual Beans Process vSphere Suggestions

Provisioning and deploying VMs
Maintaining VMs (patching and upgrading
operating systems and applications)
Backing up VMs
Disaster recovery and business continuity

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Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (2)
As a Virtual Beans administrator, you work with your team to consider which vSphere features to
use for key VM management processes. Provide one or more suggestions for each process.

Virtual Beans Process vSphere Suggestions

Provisioning and deploying VMs • Use VM templates. Consider creating a template and a
customization specification for each guest operating system
type.
• Manage all templates with the content library. Have the
primary data center publish its library to the secondary data
center, when it comes online.
Maintaining VMs (patching and • Take a snapshot of the VM before applying any patches or
upgrading operating systems and updates.
applications) • Manage all templates with the content library. Using the
content library, you can update templates while VMs are
deployed from the template.
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Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (3)
As a Virtual Beans administrator, you work with your team to consider which vSphere features to
use for key VM management processes. Provide one or more suggestions for each process.

Virtual Beans Process vSphere Suggestions

Backing up VMs • Use a vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection solution.
Check knowledge base article 1021175 for backup solutions
that are currently available.
Disaster recovery and business • Use vSphere Replication, which protects VMs from partial or
continuity complete site failure.
• For planned downtime, use the various types of vSphere
vMotion migrations to move VMs between hosts, between
vCenter Server instances, and even between data centers.

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Key Points
• vCenter Server provides features for provisioning virtual machines, such as templates, cloning,
and content libraries.
• By deploying VMs from a template, you can create many VMs easily and quickly.
• You can dynamically manage a VM's configuration by adding hot-pluggable devices and
increasing the size of a VM's virtual disk.
• Hot migrations use vSphere vMotion, vSphere Storage vMotion, or both.
• You can use VM snapshots to preserve the state of the VM so that you can return repeatedly to
the same state.
• You can use vSphere Replication to protect VMs as part of a disaster recovery strategy.
• Backup products that use vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection can be used to back up VM
data.
Questions?

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