Index

1. Introduction of VMWare

2. Difference between various versions

3. Installation of ESX & ESXi

4. Installing & configuring of vCenter Server & vSphere Client

5. P2v Migration

6. Installing /upgrading vmware tool

7. VM Creation

8. VM Deletion

9. VM migration across hosts

10. VM migration across LUNs

11. Resource Allocation of CPU

12. Resource Allocation of Memory

13. Resource Allocation of Network

14. VM Performance Tuning - I/O - Share Allocation

15. VM Performance Tuning - CPU shares

16. VM Performance Tuning - Memory Shares

17. Creation of management template.

18. Cloning

19. Snapshot creation

20. Snapshot Deletion

21. Manage HA in clusters

22. Manage DRS in cluster

23. Data store size to increase or decrease.

24. Health Checks of ESX hosts

25. Reboots of ESX host for Maintenance

What Is VMware Workstation?
VMware Workstation is powerful virtual machine software for developers and
system administrators who want to revolutionize software development, testing
and deployment in their enterprise. VMware Workstation enables software
developers to develop and test the most complex networked server-class
applications running on Microsoft Windows, Linux or NetWare all on a single
desktop. Essential features of VMware include virtual networking, live snapshots,
drag and drop and shared folders, and PXE support.

How Does VMware Workstation Work?

VMware Workstation works by enabling multiple operating systems and their
applications to run

1998

 VMware founded by Diane Greene, Dr. Mendel Rosenblum and Ed Bugnion

1999

 VMware Workstation 1.0 released for Windows and Linux

2000

 VMware Workstation 2.0 released

2001

 VMware ESX 1.0 (Elastic Sky X) and VMware GSX 1.0 (Ground Storm X)
released
 VMware Workstation 3.0 released

2002

 VMware ESX 1.5 released

 VMware GSX Server 2.0 released
2003

 VMware VirtualCenter 1.0 released with VMotion

 VMware ESX 2.0 released with vSMP support
 P2V Assistant 1.0 released
 VMware GSX Server 2.5 released
 VMware Workstation 4.0 released

2004

 1st VMworld conference in San Diego, CA (1,400 attendees)

 VMware ESX 2.5 released
 VMware GSX Server 3.0 released
 VMTN technical communities launched
 EMC acquires VMware

2005

 VMware Player 1.0 released

 P2V Assistant 2.0 released
 Second VMworld conference (3,500 attendees)
 VMware Workstation 5.0 and 5.5 released

2006

 Third VMworld conference (6,700 attendees)

 VMware Infrastructure 3 released with VMware ESX 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0
 VMware Server 1.0 released, VMware GSX dropped from product line

2007

 Fourth VMworld conference (10,800 attendees)

 VMware ESX 3i released
 VMware Converter 3.0 released (formerly P2V Assistant)
 VMware Fusion 1.0 for Mac released
 VMware ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 released
 VMware Workstation 6.0 released

2008

 Fifth VMworld conference (14,000 attendees)

 VMware Fusion 2.0 released
  VMware Server 2.0 released
 VMware Workstation 6.5 released
 VMware ESXi becomes available for free
 Paul Maritz takes over as CEO

2009

 VMware Converter 4.0 released

 VMware Infrastructure 4 released

VMware GSX Server

VMware Workstation supports only one CPU and up to 1 GB of RAM. GSX Server
supports 2 CPUs and up to 2 GB of RAM. GSX Server is very similar to Workstation in
most other ways, but one of its coolest features is the Remote Console that allows you to
remotely manage and access your virtual machine from anywhere on your network. In
addition, it's much easier to work with in a high availability configuration.

While VMware Workstation is mostly used by a single user to run multiple instances of
operating systems for testing and support purposes, GSX Server is often used for server
consolidation by running virtual machines of server operating systems that simply appear
to be stand-alone servers to clients on the network.

GSX Server needs a hosting OS like Linux or Windows where it runs on, while ESX
Server uses it's own, very small OS (based on BSD i think). That makes the requirements
of the server hardware for the Host OS to be minimal. Vmware server running on a full
windows or Linux OS that OS itself will take up plenty of RAM and CPU power.

ESX server can run up to 128 VM's at the same time. Your main limits are determined by
how much RAM and CPU Power you have.

Capability ESX 4.0 ESX 4.1 ESXi 4.0 ESXi 4.1

Service Console Present Present Removed Removed
Admin/config CLIs COS + vCLI COS + vCLI PowerCLI PowerCLI
+ vCLI + vCLI
Advanced Troubleshooting COS COS Tech Support Mode Tech SM
Scripted Installation Supported Supported Not Supported Supported
Boot from SAN Supported Supported Not Supported Supported
SNMP Supported Supported Supported Supported
(limited ) (limited)
Active Directory 3rd party in COS Integrated Not Supported Integrated
HW Monitoring 3rd party 3rd party CIM providers CIM providers
agents in COS agents in COS
Web Access Supported Not Supported Not Supported Not Supported
Serial Port Connectivity Supported Supported Not Supported Not Supported
Jumbo Frames Supported Supported Supported Supported

Definition: VMware is a company it allows to run multiple Operating systems &

‘ manage ‘n’ of Servers through only one server.

Virtualization : It is a technology that allows to transfer H/w into S/W. to run multiple
O/S at a time with out interruption.

Virtual layer: It is a layer which allows to run Vm’s on a physical box.

Esx Installation :-

Processor must have VT technology in intel and V technology in AMD

Cpu : 1500 Mhz

Memory : Min 1GB to max 256 GB

Disk : Local/SAN/NAS

NIc : 1Gbps or more or e1000

Speed :2.4 Ghz or Higher

Width : 32 bit or 64 bit (ESX 4.0 64 bit )

Esx uses 32 Nic cards

Partition Table :

Mount poaint File Type Size Use

/boot ext3 100MB boot
- Swap Min 544 Mb Recom1GB
/ ext3 5 GB root
/var/log ext3 Min 500MB-Rec 2GB log files
- Vmkcore Rec-100MB –Max 110 MB Coredumb Vmkernel
- VMFS 3 Max Allowsize All vms & ISO Images
VM Max ESX 3.5U2 and Up vSphere 4
SCSI Controllers per vir machine 4 4
Devices Per SCSI Controller 15 15
SCSI Devices Per Virtual Machine 60 60
Max Disk Size 2TB 2TB minus 512B
Number of VCPU's per VM 4 8
RAM per Virtual Machine 65GB 255GB
Number of NICs per Virtual Machine 4 10
Number of IDE Devices 4 4
Number of floppy devices per Virtual Machine 2 2
Number of Parallel ports per Virtual Machine 3 3
Sereial Ports per Virtual Machine 4 4
Virtual Machine Swap Size 65GB 255GB
Number of Virtual PCI Devices 6
VMDirectPath PCI/PCIe devices per VM NA 2
VMDirectPath SCSI targets per Virtual Machine NA 60
Concurrent remote desktop sessions 10 40
Storage Maximums ESX 3.5U2 and Up vSphere 4
Max I/O Size (Before Splits) 32MB
Raw device mapping size 2TB 2TB minus 512B
Hosts per volume 32 64
Hosts per cluster 32 32
Volimes per host 256 256
Extents per volume 32 32
Extent Size 2TB 2TB minus 512B
Virtual Machines per Volume 64
Number of HBA's of any type 16 16
Number of targets per HBA (iSCSI HBA) 15 (64) 15 (64)
Fibre Channel
HBA's per host 8
HBA Ports 16
Targets per HBA 256
LUNs per server 256 256
LUN Size 2TB 2TB min512 MB
Default No of NFS datastores (Maximum 8 (32) 8 (64
Number of VM's Registered on a server 170 320
Number of virtual CPU's per server 192 512
Number of cores per server 32 64
Number of logical pocessors per server 32 64
Number of virtual cpu's per core 8 (U1,2) 20 (U3,4 20

RAM per server 256 GB 1 TB

RAM Allocated to Service Console 800MB 800MB
Minimum RAM to Service Console 272 MB 4000MB
Physical NICS
Number of e1000 NICs 32 32
Virtual NICs/switches/VLANs
Number of virtual switch ports 1016 4088
Number of virtual switches 127 248
Number of portgroups (VLANS) 4096 512
Total virtual network switch ports per host 4096
vNetwork Distributed Switch
Distributed virtual switch ports per vCenter 6000
Distributed port groups per vCenter 512
Distributed switches per vCenter 16
Hosts per distributed switch 64
HA / DRS Cluster
Hosts per HA / DRS cluster 32 32
Virtual machines per HA / DRS cluster 1280
Virtual machines per host in HA cluster 100
Virtual machines per host in DRS cluster 256
Failover hosts per cluster 4
Failover as percentage of cluster 50%
Resource Pool Maximums
Number of Resource Pools Per host 512 4096
Number of children per resource pool 256 1024
Number of resource pools per cluster 128 512
vCenter Maximums
Hosts (32-bit ) 200 200
Powered-on virtual machines (32-bit ) 2000 2000
Registered virtual machines (32-bit) 2000 3000
Hosts (64-bit) 300
Powered-on virtual machines (64-bit) 3000
Registered virtual machines (64-bit) 4500
Linked vCenter Server systems 10
Hosts in Linked-mode environment 100
Hosts per datacenter 100

VM: (Virtual Machine) It is a Software generated computer works like your physical box.

VMware Products
Datacenter & Cloud Infrastructure

 VMware vSphere
 VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)
 VMware Go
 VMware vCloud Product Family
 VMware vCloud Director
 VMware vCloud Request Manager
 VMware vCenter Product Family
 VMware Server

Other

 Volume Purchasing Program

 VMware Data Recovery
 VMware VMmark
 VMware Capacity Planner
 Cisco Nexus 1000V
 VMware Compliance Checker
 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware

Desktop & End-user Computing

 VMware View
 VMware ThinApp
 VMware ACE
 VMware Workstation
 VMware Player
 Zimbra
 VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP)

 VMware Service Manager

Infrastructure & Operations Management

 VMware vCenter Server

 VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat
 VMware vCenter Orchestrator
 VMware vCenter Capacity IQ
 VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
 VMware vCenter Lab Manager
 VMware vCenter Configuration Manager
 VMware vCenter Converter
VMware Installation

Core Components

Processor, Storage

Pre-installaton considerations

Installation of ESX4.0
Press Enter
RAID hardware identified and drivers loaded for the same.
Click on ―Next
Accept agreement and click on “Next”.
Click on Next
Select “NO” and click on ―Next.
After drivers loaded click on ―Next.
 If serial available at the time of installation provide that or else select 2 nd option.

Click on ―Next..
IP Address :- 10.200.0.151
Subnet Mask :- 255.255.255.128
Gateway :- 10.200.0.129
PDNS :- 10.200.0.137
SDNS :- 10.200.0.150
HostName :- BLRESXVM001
For network settings if you are using DHCP IP for server checks DHCP and goes
ahead,
In case you are using Static IP Address for Virtual Infrastructure Server, mention
details and Click on ―Test these settings‖ if it shows Ok that means network setting
are ok if not then check the IP configuration and network card availability.
click on ―Next.
Click On ―Next.
Click On ―Next‖.
Select Time Zone and Click on ―Next‖.
Check the setting is ok and Click on “Next”.
Enter password for default user ―root‖ and add a new user also.
Password:-password
Setup will display all selected configuration options. Click on “Next” to proceed.
Click on ―Next
Click on finish.

After system reboot above screen appear on vSphere Server. This means operating system is Up
and available. Remaining all settings and operations will be done from Virtual Infrastructure client.
Networking Components

Virtual Ethernet Adapters

There are three types of adapters available for virtual machines in VMware vSphere:

1. vmxnet is a paravirtualized device that works only if VMware Tools is installed

on the Operating System. This adapter is optimized for virtual environments and
designed for high performance.
2. vlance emulates the AMD Lance PCNet32 Ethernet adapter. It is compatible with
most 32-bit guest operating systems and can be used without VMware Tools.
3. e1000 emulates the Intel E1000 Ethernet adapter and is used in either 64-bit or
32-bit virtual machines.

There are two other virtual adapters that are available through VMware technology.
Vswif is a paravirtualized device similar to vmxnet that is used by the VMware ESX
service console. Vmknic is a device in the VMkernal that is used by the TCP/IP stack to
serve NFS and software iSCSI clients.
Virtual Switches
1. Layer 2 forwarding.
2. VLAN tagging, stripping and filtering.
3. Layer 2 security, checksum and segmentation offloading.

 Virtual ports: The ports on a virtual switch provide logical connection points
among virtual devices and between virtual and physical devices. Each virtual
switch can have up to 1,016 virtual ports, with a limit of 4,096 ports on all virtual
switches on a host. The virtual ports provide a rich control channel for
communication with the virtual Ethernet adapters attached to them.
 Uplink ports: Uplink ports are associated with physical adapters, providing a
connection between the virtual network and the physical networks. They connect
to physical adapters when they are initialized by a device driver or when the
teaming policies for virtual switches are reconfigured. Virtual Ethernet adapters
connect to virtual ports when you power on the virtual machine, when you take an
action to connect the device or when you migrate a virtual machine using
VMware VMotion. A virtual Ethernet adapter updates the virtual switch port with
MAC filtering information when it is initialized or when it changes.
 Port groups: Port groups make it possible to specify that a given virtual machine
should have a particular type of connectivity on every host, and they contain
enough configuration information to provide persistent and consistent network
access for virtual Ethernet adapters. Some of the information contained in a port
group includes virtual switch name, VLANIDs and policies for tagging and
filtering, the teaming policy and traffic shaping parameters. This is all the
information needed for a switch port.
 Uplinks: With VMware technology, uplinks are the physical Ethernet adapters
that serve as bridges between the virtual and physical network. The virtual ports
connected to them are called uplink ports. A host may have up to 32 uplinks.

Virtual Switches

A virtual switch is a software program that allows one virtual machine (VM) to
communicate with another.

Virtual Ports
The ports on a virtual switch provide logical connection points among virtual devices and between virtual
and physical devices. You can think of them as virtual RJ-45connectors. Each virtual switch can have up to
1,016 virtual ports, with a limit of 4,096 ports on all virtual switches on a host.

The virtual ports in ESX Server provide a rich control channel for communication with the virtual Ethernet adapters
attached to them. ESX Server virtual ports

Virtual NIC Addressing

VMware ESX Server automatically generates MAC addresses for the virtual network
adapters in each virtual machine.

assigned the same MAC address, causing a conflict.

A MAC address is a six-byte number. Each network adapter manufacturer gets a unique
three-byte prefix called an OUI - organizationally unique identifier - that it can use to
generate unique MAC addresses. VMware has two OUIs - one for automatically
generated MAC addresses and one for manually set addresses.

The VMware OUI for automatically generated MAC addresses is 00:05:69. Thus the first
three bytes of the MAC address that is automatically generated for each virtual network
adapter have this value. ESX Server then uses a MAC address generation algorithm to
produce the other three bytes. The algorithm guarantees unique MAC addresses within a
machine and attempts to provide unique MAC addresses between ESX Server machines.
Connectivity to Storage Devices

Fibre Channel SAN

Storage Area Networks (SANs) provide powerful features for a VMware vSphere
environment, including VMware VMotion and VMware DRS
iSCSI SAN

iSCSI is a key technology that delivers scalable, cost-effective, high-performance

virtualized SAN environments.

NAS

Network attached storage (NAS) devices offer all VMware vSphere capabilities. Network
Attached Storage provides file level access to storage over a standard LAN or WAN
network. Typically NAS units are customized to just data storage, data access and storage
and access management. NAS systems usually contain one to many hard disks and offer
some level of redundancy (RAID).

What is a World Wide Name (WWN)?

A World Wide Name, or WWN, is a 64-bit address used in fibre channel networks to
uniquely identify each element in a Fibre Channel network.

Soft Zoning utilizes World Wide Names to assign security permissions.

The use of World Wide Names for security purposes is inherently insecure, because the
World Wide Name of a device is a user-configurable parameter.
For example, to change the World Wide Name (WWN) of an Emulex HBA, the users
simply needs to run the `elxcfg` command.

What are hard and soft zoning?

Hard zoning is zoning which is implemented in hardware. Soft zoning is zoning which is
implemented in software.

Hard zoning physically blocks access to a zone from any device outside of the zone.

Soft zoning uses filtering implemented in fibre channel switches to prevent ports from
being seen from outside of their assigned zones. The security vulnerability in soft zoning
is that the ports are still accessible if the user in another zone correctly guesses the fibre
channel address.

What is WWN zoning?

WWN zoning uses name servers in the switches to either allow or block access to
particular World Wide Names (WWNs) in the fabric.

A major advantage of WWN zoning is the ability to recable the fabric without having to
redo the zone information.

WWN zoning is susceptible to unauthorized access, as the zone can be bypassed if an

attacker is able to spoof the World Wide Name of an authorized HBA.

What is a World Wide Name (WWN)?

A World Wide Name, or WWN, is a 64-bit address used in fibre channel networks to
uniquely identify each element in a Fibre Channel network.

Soft Zoning utilizes World Wide Names to assign security permissions.

The use of World Wide Names for security purposes is inherently insecure, because the
World Wide Name of a device is a user-configurable parameter.

For example, to change the World Wide Name (WWN) of an Emulex HBA, the users
simply needs to run the `elxcfg` command.

How Is VMware VirtualCenter Used in the Enterprise?

VirtualCenter delivers centralized management, operational automation, resource
optimization and high availability to IT environments.

• Centralized management capabilities allow IT organizations to organize, monitor, and

configure the entire IT environment through a single interface resulting in lower
operating costs.

• Rapid provisioning with deployment wizard and virtual machine templates reduces the
time and effort for creating and deploying virtual machines to a few mouse clicks.

• Performance monitoring capabilities, including utilization graphs of CPU, memory,

Disk I/O, and Network I/O provide the detail needed to analyze the performance of
physical servers, and the virtual machines they are running.

• Operational automation through task scheduling and alerting improves responsiveness

to business needs and prioritizes actions needing the most urgent attention.

• Secure access control, robust permissions mechanisms, and integration with Microsoft®
Active Directory guarantee authorized access to the environment and its virtual machines.
Responsibilities can be delegated to tiers of system administrators.

• Resource optimization through performance monitoring, multiserver resource pools,

and dynamic workload balancing delivers the highest virtual machine to physical server
ratio while improving service levels to software applications. Automated data centerwide
resource optimization with VMware DRS aligns available resources with pre-defined
business priorities while streamlining labor and resource intensive operations across
disparate hardware, operating system, and software applications.

• Migration of live virtual machines across entirely separate physical servers with
VMware VMotion makes the maintenance of IT environments non-disruptive.

• High availability provided by VMware HA enables broad-based, cost-effective

application failover independent of hardware and operating systems.

• Integration with third party systems management products through Web services APIs
provided by the VMware Infrastructure SDK.

VMware Tools

The first set of tools you want to familiarize yourself with is VMware Tools. VMware
Tools is a set of enhanced drivers and applications that installs on your virtual machine's
(VMs) operating system. As a best practice, you should make a habit of always installing
VMware Tools to ensure the optimal performance and stability of your VM. Also, double
check to make sure that you're running the latest vers...

VMWARE VCENTER 4 INSTALLATION

vCenter Server is a service that acts as a central administrator for ESX/ESXi hosts
connected on a network. This service directs actions on the virtual machines and the
hosts. The vCenter Server is the working core of vCenter. You can have multiple
vCenter Server systems joined to a Linked Mode group. This allows you to log in to
any single instance of vCenter Server and view and manage the inventories of all the
vCenter Server systems in the group.
vCenter Server additional modules provides additional capabilities and features to
vCenter Server. Generally, additional modules (sometimes called plug-ins) are
released separately, install on top of vCenter Server, and can be upgraded
independently. You can install additional modules on the same computer as the
vCenter Server system or on a separate one. After the additional module is installed,
you can activate the module’s client component, which enhances the vSphere Client
with user interface (UI) options. Additional modules include vCenter Update
Manager, vCenter Converter, and vCenter Guided Consolidation Service.
vCenter Server Prerequisites
Before installing vCenter Server, review the prerequisites.
Your hardware must meet the requirements listed below
CPU – 2 CPUs

Processor – 2.0GHz or faster Intel or AMD processor. Processor requirements
might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
Memory – 3GB RAM. Memory requirements might be higher if the database runs
on the same machine. vCenter Server includes a service called VMware VirtualCenter
Management Webservices. This servicerequires 128MB to 1.5GB of additional
memory. The VirtualCenter Management Webservices process allocates the required
memory at startup.
Disk storage – 2GB. Disk requirements might be higher if the database runs on
the same machine.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express disk requirements – Up to 2GB free disk
space to decompress the installation archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are
deleted after the installation is complete.
Networking – Gigabit connection recommended.
If the machine on which you are installing vCenter Server has VirtualCenter
installed, you might want to upgrade instead of performing a fresh installation of
vCenter Server.
There must be no Network Address Translation (NAT) between the vCenter
Server system and the hosts it will manage.
Create a vCenter Server database, unless you plan to install the bundled SQL
Server 2005 Express.
The system that you use for your vCenter Server installation must belong to a
domain rather than a workgroup. If assigned to a workgroup, the vCenter Server
system is not able to discover all domains and systems available on the network
when using such features as vCenter Guided Consolidation Service. To determine
whether the system belongs to a workgroup or a domain, right-click My Computer
and click Properties and the Computer Name tab. The Computer Name tab
displays either a Workgroup label or a Domain label.
During the installation, the connection between the machine and the domain
controller must be working.

The computer name cannot be more than 15 characters.

The DNS name of the machine must match the actual computer name.
Make sure the system on which you are installing vCenter Server is not an Active
Directory domain controller.
On each system that is running vCenter Server, make sure that the domain user
account has the following permissions:
Member of the Administrators group
Act as part of the operating system
Log on as a service
Assign a static IP address and host name to the Windows server that will host the
vCenter Server system. This IP address must have a valid (internal) domain name
system (DNS) registration that resolves properly
from all managed ESX hosts.
Start the installation of the vCenter Server, insert the DVD and run autorun.exe if
the autorun is disabled.

Click on vCenter Server.

Click on Next.
Select the ―I agree to the terms in the License Agreement” and click Next.
Insert the appropriate information here and click Next.
Installer will going to install Microsoft SQL server express addition and automatically configure it.
Click Next.

Click Next.
Click Next.

Click Next.
Click Next.

Click Install and wait to finish.

Click Finish to complete the vCenter Server installation.

After completing the installation of vCenter Server, start the installation of vSphere Client.
Select vSphere

Click Next.
Select the ―I agree to the terms in the License Agreement” and click Next.

Insert the appropriate information here and click Next.

By default "Install vSphere Host Update Utility 4.0” is uncheck, check this and click Next.
Click Next.

Click Install and wait for finish.

Click Finish to complete the installation of vSphere Client.

After completing the installation of vSphere Client, we have to configure vCenter Server, so open

the vSphere Client and give the ip address or hostname of vCenter Server, User name, Password

and login.
After logging into vCenter Server right click on hostname and select New Datacenter.
Give the name of the datacenter.
Name:-DHFLBLR Datacenter

Adding an ESX 4.x host to vCenter :-

In order to manage your ESX host using vCenter, you need to add it to the vCenter

console. This process (basically) connects to the host server, then adds a local user

(vpxuser) that will act as a service account for VC instructions. To add the host you’ll

need to connect to the vCenter server using the vSphere Client. Once in the vSphere

Client (if you haven’t done so already) make a new datacenter (DC) by right-clicking

on Hosts & Clusters. Name the DC for the location the host is located in (when

adding more hosts from this datacenter, just repeat the steps below).

After the datacenter is created, right-click on the datacenter object and select Add

Host.
Enter your host’s FQDN (if you’ve added an entry for it in your DNS server) or the IP

address along with root for the user name and root’s password. This will allow the

creation of the service account that is used for future authentication.

Adding hosts to vCenter will not affect the VMs that are running on the hosts.

Host Name:-BLRESXVM001

User Name: - root

Password: - password
 VMware HA

Introduction to VMware Infrastructure and VMware HA

With VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware extends the evolution of virtual infrastructure
and virtual machines that began with VMware ESX Server 1.0. VMware Infrastructure
3 brings a revolutionary new set of infrastructure wide services for resource
optimization, high availability, and data protection that deliver capabilities that
previously required complex or expensive solutions to implement using only physical
machines.
Use of these services provides significantly higher hardware utilization and better
alignment of IT resources with business goals and priorities.
VMware Infrastructure introduces two new concepts:
A) Clusters that aggregate and manage the combined resources of multiple hosts as
a single collection.
B) Resource pools that simplify control over the resources of a host or a cluster.
VMware Infrastructure virtualizes and aggregates industry-standard servers
(processors, memory, their attached network and storage capacity) into logical
resource pools (from a single ESX Server host or from a VMware cluster) that can be
allocated to virtual machines on demand.
Resource pools can also be nested and organized hierarchically so that the IT
environment matches company organization. Individual business units can receive
dedicated infrastructure while still profiting from the efficiency of resource pooling.
A set of virtualization-based distributed infrastructure services provides virtual
machine monitoring and management to automate and simplify provisioning,
optimize resource allocation, and provide operating system and application-
independent high availability to applications at lower cost and without the complexity
of solutions used with static, physical infrastructure. One of these distributed
services, VMware HA, provides easy-to-manage, cost-effective high availability for all
applications running in virtual machines. In the event of server hardware failure,
affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on other physical servers.

VMware HA minimizes downtime and IT service disruption while eliminating the need
for dedicated standby hardware and installation of additional software. VMware HA
also protects against multiple server failures in the cluster. Virtual machines are
protected as long as there is spare capacity in the cluster.
Click on Next.

CLUSTER NAME :- DHFLBLR_CLUSTER

Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Next.
Click on Finish to complete the process of the VMware HA creation.

Please find IP Host name IP ADRESS SERVICE VM KERNEL IP

CONSOLE 2 IP
ADRESS AND
ADRESS
SERVERS
NAMES FOR
VMware
Setup. Model
IBM X3850 BLRESXVM001 10.200.0.151 10.200.0.152 10.200.0.153
IBM X3850 BLRESXVM002 10.200.0.154 10.200.0.155 10.200.0.156
IBM X3850 BLRESXVM003 10.200.0.157 10.200.0.158 10.200.0.159
IBM X3650 dhfl-vmconsole 10.200.0.134

Either Run or Save the download. Once downloaded, click Run, like this:
You'll be taken to the VMware Converter Installation Wizard, like this

Now click Next, accept the license agreement again, take the default installation

directory, and take the Typical (Recommended) installation method by clicking

Next. Next, click Install. When installation completes, you should see this. Check the

checkbox for Run VMware Converter and click Finish.

Finally, after VMware Converter starts, you should see this screen

To Import a virtual machine, just click on the Import Machine button the top left side of
the interface.
Next, you'll see the Import dialog box come up. Click Next twice. Select the type of
source to import from:

In our case, we selected physical computer but notice all the different sources you can

import virtual machines from. You could import an existing virtual machine, a physical

machine that this program is running on, or a remote machine over the network.
We filled out the remote IP address and administrator username/password, then click

Next. The VM Converter will connect to the remote machine over the network at this

time. You will get the message that the VM Converter agent needs to be installed on the

remote machine.
Click Yes After the agent install is done, you will see a window that looks like this
Here you need to select the volumes you want to convert and if you want them to be

resized. I chose to only convert the C drive and to reduce the size to the smallest size

possible. After doing that, click Next.

Next you will need to choose a destination, click Next.

We will choose to put this physical machine on our standalone VMware Server

(as that is all we have installed).

Click Next.
Now you will need to specify a name for this virtual server and a shared folder that is

accessible to both virtual machines. To do this, I created a folder called C:\SharedVM

and opened it up to full control for everyone (see below).

After you fill out the new name and the share, click Next.

Now, take the default to allow the disk space to grow (that is really up to you)
Click Next.
Take the default network options and click Next. Take the default on customizations and
click Next.

You are now ready to import the virtual machine!

Click Finish

Monitoring & Verifying the Import

The import will now begin. Here is what it looks like

In my case, because I chose to transfer a physical machine over the LAN (with one
device using wireless), it took me 2 hours and 6 minute to transfer the complete 8GB
image. When it was done, here were the results:
There was also the Task Progress Tab on the bottom. Here is what it told me.

Also, if you go and look at the C:\SharedVM folder, you will see that there is indeed a
folder there with the name "Converted Win2003 Server". Inside that folder, is your
VMware VMDK virtual disk and a basic VMware VMX configuration file.

Configuring the Machine

The next step it to make this image you have created a bootable image. This involves
installing drivers in that cloned OS to make the virtual disk, network, and CPU all
VMware devices. To do this, click on the Configure Machine.
Click Next, then select that you want to use this on VMware Server.
Browse to the path of the new VMX file and click Next
On the next screen, if you click the Customize checkbox, you will be given the option to
change a long list of computer settings. For example, the Windows license, time zone,
network settings, or workgroup & domain info.

If you choose to customize a virtual machine in this way, you will need to have sysprep
files. You may want to change the IP address of this new server before bringing it up on
the network. You want to make sure that you don't have an IP address conflict if the
cloned machine had a static IP address. As an alternative to this, I could put this machine
on a VMware private network and just bring it up with the old IP address or shutdown the
old machine before you bring up the new machine.

In our case, we will choose NOT to customize and click Next.

On the Converter console, you should now see this:

Booting the new Virtual Machine

At this point, you can boot the new virtual machine with VMware. Go to your VMware
Server console. Click on File, Open, Browse, and browse to the VMX file for the new
virtual machine (you may want to move the VM from the SharedVM folder to your
default VMware folder).

You should now see that it is a virtual machine inside VMware Server, like this:
Press the Start button to boot the new VM.

You may get this message.

If so, just click Create and Ok.

Here is what our new server looks like when booted

After logging in, I can tell that our custom applications and server changes are still here

Summary

VMware Converter is an amazing product. To be able to quickly, with a few points and
clicks, bring a physical server (or other imaged server) into VMware and boot them is
really fantastic! The best thing about this conversion was that the physical source
computer never had to be brought down to make this virtual image. Also, you never had
to login to that physical computer or boot it to a CD for cloning purposes. I believe that
VMware Converter has a strong future, helping us all convert to a more virtualized data
center..
1. vSphere has 33 Pre-Configured and Enabled Alarms
Like many network management systems, I would assume that when you go to the list of
alarms in a new vSphere infrastructure, that it would be blank. However, VMware is
trying to look out for us by creating 33 pre-configured and already enabled alarms.
Almost all of these are configured on ESX hosts and virtual machines but there is one
pre-configured alarm on your vSphere storage.

All of these pre-configured alarms are configured at the highest level - the vCenter
server.
2. Alarms Trickle Down the vSphere Inventory Hierarchy
As I said, the default alarms are configured at the vCenter level. However, vSsphere
alarms trickle down the inventory hierarchy. Thus, an alarm defined at the datacenter
level for a virtual machine, will apply to all virtual machines in the entire inventory
because that alarm "trickles down". In Figure 2 below, you can see how the alarms on a
VM say that they are defined at the vCenter level. The "defined in" link is a link to where
the alarm is defined so that if you click on the "vCenter40.wiredbraincoffee.com" in
Figure 2, will be taken to the vCenter server level and to that particular alarm.

3. vSphere has a Triggered Alarms and an Alarm Definitions

View

Just like Tasks & Events, you will find an Alarms tab at every level of the hosts &
clusters inventory, the VMs & Templates, the Datastores inventory, and the Networks
inventory. This tells you that alarms can be configured (defined) and triggered at every
level of the vSphere infrastructure. For you, as a vSphere Admin, this is a great feature.
Once you select the Alarms tab, you will notice that there are two views. You can view
the Triggered Alarms and the Alarm Definitions. As we talked about, in point #1 and
#2 in this article, as there are 33 default alarms and they trickle down the inventory
hierarchy, it is very likely that you will see defined alarms for just about any inventory
item you select. However, it is unlikely that you will see triggered alarms unless your
infrastructure has an issue that has triggered a default alarm. As the default alarms are
pretty conservative, I highly recommend that you checkout the reason the alarm was
triggered as there could be a serious issue you need to resolve.

To create (define) a new alarm, you (obviously) need to go into the Defined alarms view.
From there, you can right-click, select New Alarm, and follow the procedure in point #5
of this article. The alarm definitions view will look just like it does in Figure 2.

One more place that you can always go to see alarms is the Triggered Alarm pane at the
bottom of the vSphere client. By default, this pane will show only Tasks. Here is where
you click to view the triggered alarms in every windows of the vSphere client:

4. vSphere has 8 Alarm Monitoring Types

When you go to create an alarm, as I will walk you through in point #5 below, you will
find that there are 8 different vSphere alarm monitoring types. This is important for a
couple of reasons. First, these alarm monitoring types tell you what vSphere alarms can
monitor (just about everything). Second, these alarm monitoring types must be set right
for you to be able to select the right trigger when you get to the second tab on this
window, the Triggers tab. In other words, say that you select a Hosts alarm type, when
you go into the Triggers tab, you will only see the option to create alarm triggers based
on things that would affect hosts. You won't have any options to monitor VMs, cluster,
datastores, networks, or other inventory items. So, when you go to create your alarm
make sure that you are at the right level of the vSphere infrastructure. In other words, if
you are going to create an alarm on a VM called "Windows 7", you need to go to that
VM and go to the Alarms tab for that VM. You won't be able to create an alarm for that
VM if you have selected, say, the Datacenter or the cluster that the VM is located in.

5. An Alarm is defined by with a type, trigger, and action

Finally, how do you create an alarm? Simple.
STEP 1 - go to the level of the vSphere infrastructure that you want to create an alarm
on. If it is on a particular VM, go to the alarms tab on that VM. If it is for all hosts in the
datacenter, go to the datacenter view, then click on alarms.

STEP 2 - go to the Alarm Definitions view

STEP 3 - Right-click and click New Alarm

STEP 4 - Give the alarm a useful and descriptive name (to you and others) and select the
correct alarm type

STEP 5 - Select between Monitor for conditions / state and Monitor for specific
Events and go to the next tab, Triggers
STEP 6 - Add a new Trigger. Set the Trigger Type, Condition, Warning, and Alert
levels. Note that this may take some tweaking over time to get the warning and alert
levels correct.

STEP 7 - Add a new Action. This could be to email you, send a SNMP notification trap,
or run a command. Let's say that you configure the alarm to email you, you would enter
your email address in the configuration as you see below in
When you are all done, click OK, and you should see the result of your work in the alarm
definitions view, as you see in Figure 8, below.
Summary
In this article, we learned the 5 things that oyu need to know about VMware vSphere
Alarms.

1. vSphere has 33 pre-configured and enabled alarms

2. Alarms trickle down the vSphere inventory hierarchy
3. vSphere has a Triggered Alarms and an Alarm Definitions View
4. vSphere has 8 Alarm monitoring types
5. An Alarm is defined by with a type, trigger, and action

. View Existing ESXi VMware Datastores

Launch vSphere Client -> Click on the top node in the left tree -> Configuration tab ->
Click on the storage menu item under “Hardware” section, as shown below. This storage
section, will display all available VMware datastores as shown below.r example, the
current VMware datastore1 on this ESXi server has following information.

 Volume Label ( Datastore ): datastore1

 device: locall dell disk ( naa.xxxx )
 Capacity: 131 G
 Free: 2.45 GB
 File system: vmfs3

Please note that the VMS file system can be created across multiple partitions to form
one logical VMFS volume.

2. Create VMFS Datastore – Select ESX Storage Type

Click on ‘Add Storage..’ link on the top right hand corner, which will display the “Add
Storage” wizard.

The first step is to specicy the esx storage type for the new ESX VMFS datastore. Select
Disk/LUN as shown below. (other option is to select network file system – nfs datastore)
. Select Disk/LUN

This step will display all the available disk groups on the server. This is a dell poweredge
2950 server, which already has a raid-1 logical disk group created at the hardware raid
level. The raid-1 diskgroup that was created at the hardware level is now visible to the
ESXi server. If you have more than one diskgroup available to the hardware, they’ll be
listed here.
. Current Disk Layout Configuration

This is only a information screen that says that the hard disk is blank etc.,. Click on Next
to continue

5. VMFS Datastore Name

Specify the VMFS datastore name in the properties screen.

6. Disk/LUN Formatting

Specify the maximum file size for this esx datastore. In this example, I selected 256GB as
maximum file size with 1MB block size. Following options are available for the
maximum file size:

 256 GB, Block size: 1 MB

 512 GB, Block size: 2 MB
 1024 GB, Block size: 4 MB
 2048 GB, Block size: 8 MB

Leave the capacity check-box as maximum capacity

. Final confirmation – Ready to Complete

The final confirmation section confirms our selection as shown below

8. New ESX datastore Created

The new datastore3 is created as shown below.

1. Launch Create VM Wizard

Login to the ESXi server using vSphere Client. Provide the ESXi root username and
password.

From the vSphere client menu, select File -> New -> Virtual Machine, which will launch
the create new virtual machien wizard as shown below. Choose “Typical” for the
configuration.
2. Specify the Virtual Machine Name

Specify the name of the VM instance in the “Name and Location” section. In this
example, I gave db-server as the VM name.
3. Choose the Datastore

vSphere client will display all the datastore available in the ESXi server. In this example,
there is only one datastore available with the name “datastore1″.

Choose Guest OS of the Virtual Machine

Choose from one of the following guest operating system that you would like to install.

 Microsoft Windows
  Linux

 Novell NetWare
 Solaris
 Other

In the following example, I choose Linux and “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (32-bit)” from
the “Version” drop-down list.

Please note that creating virtual machine does not install the guest OS for you. You still
have to do it once you’ve created the virtual machine.

5. Create a Disk for VM

Choose how much disk space you would like to allocated from the datastore for this
particular VM. In this example, the available disk-space in the “datastore1″ is 130 GB.
I’ve allocated 60 GB for the virtual disk of this particular VM.
. VM – Ready to Install

The wizard will display your choices in the “Ready to Complete” section as shown
below.
7. Virtual Machine Created – View Summary

Once the virtual machine is created, you can view the summary as shown below.
his displays following information about the VM.

 Guest OS of the VM
 CPU allocated for this VM
 Memory (RAM) allocated for this VM
 Disk space

8. Install the guest OS on the VM

Once the VM is installed, insert the guest OS CD in the cd-drive. In this example, the
guest OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. So, I inserted the RHEL 5 cd in the cd-drive.
1. Launch ESXi Console

To configure the ESXi, press F2 from the ESXi initial screen shown below.
2. Go to Network Configuration -> IP Configuration

Go to System Configuration -> Configure Management Network -> IP Configuration.

. Change IP Address of ESXi Server

This will let you set the ip-address, subnet mask and default gateway of the VMware
ESXi as shown below.
Question: How do I change root password on my VMware ESXi server?

Answer: Go to the server console and do the following to set root password for your
VMware ESX.

1. Start ESXi Configuration Menu

To configure the ESXi, press F2 from the ESXi initial screen shown below.
2. ESXi System Configuration Menu Items

From this menu, you can configure the following items:

 Configure Password
 Configure Lockdown Mode
 Configure Management Network
 Restart Management Network
 Test Management Network
 Disable Management Network
 Restore Standard Switch
 Configure Keyboard
 View Support Information
 View System Logs
 Restart Management Agents
 Reset System Configuration
 Remove Custom Extensions

3. Set Root password on Vmware ESXi

Go to System Configuration -> Configure Password.

Choose the configure password menu-item, which will let you set the root password of
ESXi as shown below.

How to Create a Snapshot :

Right-click on VM
Select Snapshot
Clik on Take Snapshot
Assign a name for it & click on OK.
Snapshot Operation Effect
Take The current state of the virtual machine and its guest operating
system is captured.
Revert The state of the virtual machine and its guest operating system
reverts back to what it was when a snapshot was taken. If there are
multiple snapshots, the snapshot taken immediately prior to the
current state is used.

Warning: All current data is permanently lost.

Delete The state of the virtual machine is changed to the current state (that
is, changes made after taking the snapshot are saved to the base
disk). In earlier versions of some products the menu option is
named Remove.
Delete (Snapshot Manager) The state of the virtual machine is changed to the current state (that
is, changes made after taking the snapshot are saved to the base
disk). The snapshot chosen to be deleted is available for selection in
a graphical display that shows all existing snapshots. This is
available only in products that support multiple snapshots.
Go To (Snapshot Manager) The state of the virtual machine and its current guest operating
system switches to the state of that of an arbitrarily chosen
snapshot. The snapshot chosen to switch to is available for
selection in a graphical display that shows all existing snapshots.
This is available only in products that support multiple snapshots.

Snapshot Trees

Snapshot trees are only available in products that support multiple snapshots. A snapshot tree
shows all snapshots for a virtual machine and the relationship between snapshots.
This an example of a snapshot tree as seen in VMware Workstation's Snapshot Manager:

Note: The graphical representation of VMware ESX's Snapshot Manager is different but the
information displayed is the same.
How to delete a snapshot of a VM ;

Right-click on VM
Select Snapshot
Clik on Snapshot Manager
Select the snapshot what ever you want delete & click on delete.

 You Are Here represents the current state of the virtual machine and its guest operating
system.
 Windows XP Profession... represents the virtual machine itself and is not a snapshot.
You cannot use Go To to switch to this state nor can it be deleted.
 To Go To one of the existing snapshots but not permanently lose the current state of the
virtual machine and its guest operating system:

1. Take a snapshot.
2. The new snapshot is shown between Snapshot for Clone of... and You Are
Here.
3. Go To the snapshot you choose. The current state of the virtual machine is lost.
4. Work on the virtual machine in its previous state.
5. When finished, use Go To to return the virtual machine to the state saved in step
1.
 Note: Any changes made to the virtual machine in step 4 are lost unless another
snapshot is taken.

 If you delete a snapshot you do not affect the current state of the virtual machine or any
other snapshot.

Warning: All data associated with the deleted snapshot is permanently committed to the
parent disk in the chain.

 Snapshots can be a simple sequential series of virtual machine states. An example of

this is just the first row above.
 To create one or more snapshots outside of a sequential series, Go To a previous
snapshot and take a new snapshot. For example, if only the first row in the above existed
Go To Test Case 1 Pass and create the new snapshot Test Case 2 Pass.

Right-click on VM

Click on Migrate

Select the option based on your activity

Vmotion :

Changing the VM from one Host to another Host(Change Host)

Select the Host & click on Next

Svmotion ;

Changing the VM files such as .vmdk,.VMX etc from one Datastore to another
Datastore.(Change Datastore)

Click on Finish .

How to Delete a VM :

Right Click on VM & Click on Delete from disk

How to Reboot ,Shutdown & Put the Server in Maintenance mode ;

Right-click on ESX Server & click on Reboot ,Shutdown & Put the Server in
Maintenance mode migrate
 Note : Before Reboot ,Shutdown & Put the Server in Maintenance mode migrate
all the Vms to another Server & then Reboot ,Shutdown & Put the Server in
Maintenance mode.

How to Clone a VM :

Right-click on VM
Click on Clone
Assign a name of a VM
Select the Cluster
Select the Datastore
Click on Don’t customize
Click on Finish.

How to Deploy a VM using template :

Right-click on Template

Click on Deploy Vm from this Template

Assign a name for it & click on Next
Select the Cluster
Select the Datastore
Click on Don’t customize
Click on Finish.

How to check the performance of a VM :

Select VM in the right side Tab

Click on Performance then use switch to check CPU ,Memory & etc details.
How to check the ESX Health Status.

Select vCenter Server & click on Hosts