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3.2.1 Vsphere Virtual Machines

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14 views3 pages

3.2.1 Vsphere Virtual Machines

Uploaded by

Aung Win Htut
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Module 3 Unit 2 – vSphere Virtual Machine Management

This unit will help you gain an understanding of the following:

● vSphere Virtual Machines


● Creating and Configuring vSphere Virtual Machines
● Managing vSphere Virtual Machine Hardware
● Managing vSphere Virtual Machine Storage
● Configuring vSphere Templates
● Managing vSphere Snapshots

The objectives listed below will be addressed in this unit:

● Manage vSphere virtual machines:


○ Create a vSphere virtual machine.
○ Configure vSphere virtual machine settings.
○ Install an operating system within a virtual machine.
○ Manage virtual machine hardware.
○ Manage virtual machine storage.
○ Create and manage virtual machine templates.
○ Create and manage virtual machine snapshots.

vSphere Virtual Machines


Virtual machines on vSphere work in much the same manner as they do on other hypervisor
platforms.

A vSphere virtual machine running on an ESXi hypervisor has its own virtualized hardware that is
abstracted from the physical hardware in the hypervisor host. This virtual computing
environment is almost identical to a physical computing environment. The guest operating
system running within a virtual machine sees the virtual hardware assigned to it as physical
hardware and will load hardware drivers to support each device.

vSphere Virtual Machine Configuration Files


A vSphere virtual machine is defined by several files that are stored on a datastore on an ESXi
hypervisor:

● .vmx: The virtual machine configuration file.


● .vmxf: A supplementary virtual machine configuration file.
● .vmdk: The virtual hard disk file. A given VM may have one or more .vmdk files assigned.
● .nvram: The virtual machine’s BIOS or UEFI configuration file.
● .vmsd: A list of snapshots associated with the virtual machine.
● .vmsn: The snapshot data files.
● .vswp: The virtual machine’s swap file.
● .vmss: The virtual machine’s suspend file.
● .log: The virtual machine’s current log file. Archived log files will have a number
appended to the filename to indicate the sequence in which they were archived.
Options for Creating a vSphere Virtual Machine
You have several options for creating a new virtual machine on an ESXi hypervisor:

● Manually create a new virtual machine and then install a guest operating system within
it. This option will display a wizard to configure the following:
○ The virtual machine name and location in the datacenter.
○ The hypervisor where the VM will run.
○ Which datastore its files will be saved on.
○ The guest OS that will be installed.
○ The virtual hardware that will be assigned.
● Clone an existing virtual machine. With this option, a copy is made of an existing virtual
machine. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware and
installed software as the original virtual machine. This option is usually much faster than
the previous option because the VM itself is already configured and the guest OS is
already installed within it. Be aware that several important settings will need to be
manually reconfigured after the cloning process is complete to prevent network conflicts
with the source VM:
○ The computer name must be changed.
○ Any static IP address assignments must be changed.
○ For Windows systems, the security identifier (SID) must be changed to a unique
value.
● Deploy a new virtual machine from a template. In this process, the virtualization
administrator first creates a generic base virtual machine with a guest OS installed, but
configured with very generic settings. In fact, when creating a template for Windows
virtual machines, you should run SYSPREP.EXE (located in C:\Windows\System32\
Sysprep) on the base VM before converting it to a template to remove the SID, computer
name, static IP address assignments, and any other information that uniquely identifies
that VM. Once complete, this generic VM can be cloned to a template. Then, new VMs
can be cloned from the template.

Installing VMware Tools


After deploying a vSphere virtual machine, VMware Tools should be installed within the VM.
VMware Tools provides special device drivers and services that the guest OS can load to
support the virtual hardware found within the VM environment. Installing VMware Tools
enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and also makes it
easier to manage the VM.

Unlike Hyper-V, which automatically installs Integration Services for you, vSphere requires
VMware Tools to be manually installed. To do this, select the VM in the vSphere Web Client and
then click on Actions > Guest OS > Install VMware Tools. This will mount the VMware Tools
installation ISO file as a virtual optical disc within the VM. You must then run the installer from
the root of the optical disc within the guest OS and complete the installation.

Managing Virtual Machine Hardware


After a VM has been initially deployed, you will likely need to reconfigure its virtual hardware
settings at some point to optimize its performance, increase its capacity, or reconfigure it for a
new role on the network.

To do this, select the VM in the vSphere Web Client and then click on Actions > Edit Settings.
You can edit the number of vCPUs, the amount of vRAM, etc. You can also add additional
storage devices. You can edit which virtual switch the VM’s network board is connected to. You
can also add new virtual hardware devices.

Many virtual machine settings can’t be modified if the VM is currently running. By default, the
number of vCPUs or the amount of vRAM assigned to the VM can’t be modified if it is in a
running state. However, these two parameters can be modified while the VM is running if you
enable Hot Plug hardware for each one. When enabled, the number of vCPUs and vRAM
assigned to the VM can be modified while it is running.

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