VMWARE VSPHERE 8.

0
INSTALL, CONFIGURE, MANAGE

Lab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

Document Version: 2023-03-08

Copyright © 2023 Network Development Group, Inc.

www.netdevgroup.com

NETLAB+ is a registered trademark of Network Development Group, Inc.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc.

84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Objective ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Lab Topology ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Lab Settings ............................................................................................................................................... 5
1 Examine a Virtual Machine Configuration ......................................................................................... 6
2 Add Virtual Hard Disks to the Virtual Machine .................................................................................. 9
3 Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks ................................................................. 12

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

Introduction

In this lab, you will use the vSphere Client to examine a Virtual Machine (VM) configuration and add
virtual hardware to the VM.

To view a VM configuration, you can navigate to the VM in the vSphere Client and select the Summary
tab. This will provide you with information such as the VM name, operating system, number of CPUs,
memory, and network adapters. You can also view the VM storage, power state, and resource usage.

To add virtual hardware to a VM, you can select the VM and click on the Edit Settings button. This will
open the VM settings, where you can add or remove virtual hardware such as CPUs, memory, network
adapters, and storage. You can also add or remove virtual devices such as CD/DVD drives, serial and
parallel ports, and USB controllers. Once you have made the necessary changes, you can click the OK
button to save the changes and apply them to the VM. It is important to be aware that adding or
removing virtual hardware to a running VM may require a reboot of the VM.

Objective

• Examine a VM Configuration
• Add Virtual Hard Disk to the VM
• Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks

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Lab Topology

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Lab Settings

The information in the table below will be needed to complete the lab. The task sections further below
provide details on the use of this information.

Virtual Machine IP Address Account Password

sa-student eth0: 172.20.10.80 sysadmin NDGlabpass123!

sa-vcsa eth0: 172.20.10.94 [email protected] NDGlabpass123!

sa-esxi-01 eth0: 172.20.10.51 root NDGlabpass123!

sa-esxi-02 eth0: 172.20.10.52 root NDGlabpass123!

sa-aio eth0: 172.20.10.10 sysadmin NDGlabpass123!

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

1 Examine a Virtual Machine Configuration

In this task, you will use the vSphere Client to examine a VM configuration. Viewing a VM configuration
is useful for general VM maintenance and troubleshooting purposes.

Viewing a VM configuration can be beneficial in several ways:

• Troubleshooting: Viewing a VM configuration can be useful for troubleshooting issues related

to VM performance or functionality. It can help to identify any misconfigurations or resource
constraints that may be causing problems.
• Resource allocation: Viewing a VM configuration can help to ensure that the VM has the
appropriate amount of resources such as CPU, memory, and storage allocated to it. This can
help to ensure that the workloads are running efficiently.
• High availability: Viewing a VM configuration can help to ensure that the VM is configured to
use features such as vSphere High Availability (HA) and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
(DRS), which can help ensure that the VM is running even in the event of a host failure.
• Security: Viewing a VM configuration can help ensure that the VM is configured with the
appropriate security settings to meet the security needs of the workloads that will be running
on the VM.
• Compliance: In certain cases, organizations have compliance requirements that VMs be
configured in a certain way. Viewing VM configuration can help ensure compliance with these
regulations.
• Planning: Viewing a VM configuration can help you plan for future changes or upgrades.

It is important to note that viewing a VM configuration can help identify any issues or
misconfigurations that may be causing problems, and can help ensure that the VM is configured
correctly to meet the needs of the workloads that will be running on it.

In summary, viewing a VM configuration can be beneficial for troubleshooting, resource allocation,

ensuring high availability, ensuring security, ensuring compliance with regulations, and planning for
future changes or upgrades. It is important to identify any issues or misconfigurations that may be
causing problems, and to ensure that the VM is configured correctly to meet the needs of the
workloads that will be running on it.

1. Launch the sa-student VM to access the graphical login screen.

To launch the console window for a VM, either click on the machine’s
graphic image from the topology page, or click on the machine’s
respective tab from the Navigator.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

2. Launch the Mozilla Firefox web browser by either clicking on the icon found on the bottom toolbar
or by navigating to Start Menu > Internet > Firefox Web Browser.

3. In Firefox, click LAUNCH VSPHERE CLIENT.

If the VMware Getting Started webpage does not load, please wait an
additional 3 - 5 minutes, and refresh the page to continue. This is
because the vCenter Server Appliance is still booting up and requires
extra time to initialize.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

4. To log in to the vCenter Server Appliance, enter [email protected] as the username and
NDGlabpass123! as the password. Click LOGIN.

You may ignore the “browser-OS combination” warning message

presented on the VMware vCenter Single Sign-On page and continue
moving forward with the lab.

5. In the Navigator, select the VMs and Templates tab. Expand sa-vcsa.vclass.local and ICM-
Datacenter. Right-click the LinuxGUI-01 VM and navigate to Power > Power On.

6. In the LinuxGUI-01 window, review the Virtual Machine Hardware pane.

7. In the LinuxGUI-01 window, review the Capacity and Usage pane.

8. In the LinuxGUI-01 window, review the Virtual Machine Details pane.

9. Leave the vSphere Client open, and continue to the next task.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

2 Add Virtual Hard Disks to the Virtual Machine

In this task, you will familiarize yourself with the process of adding virtual hardware. You will add two
virtual hard disks to the VM. You will configure one hard disk as thin-provisioned and the other as
thick-provisioned.

Virtual hardware in a VM refers to the virtualized versions of the physical hardware components that
are used. These virtual hardware components are provided by the virtualization platform (such as
VMware) and are used by the VM to interact with the host's physical hardware.

Examples of virtual hardware in a VM include:

• Virtual CPU (vCPU): A virtual CPU is a software-based implementation of a physical CPU that is
allocated to a VM. It allows the VM to access CPU resources on the host in a way that is similar
to how a physical machine would access a physical CPU.
• Virtual memory (vRAM): vRAM is a software-based implementation of physical memory that is
allocated to a VM. It allows the VM to access memory resources on the host in a way that is
similar to how a physical machine would access physical memory.
• Virtual disk (vDisk): vDisk is a software-based implementation of a physical disk that is
allocated to a VM. It allows the VM to access storage resources on the host in a way that is
similar to how a physical machine would access physical storage.
• Virtual network card (vNIC): vNIC is a software-based implementation of a physical network
card that is allocated to a VM. It allows the VM to access network resources on the host in a
way that is similar to how a physical machine would access a physical network.
Virtual hardware can be added, removed, or modified according to the needs of the VM. This allows
the VM to have the resources it needs to run efficiently, while also providing a level of isolation and
abstraction that allows multiple VMs to share the same physical resources.

1. In the Navigation pane, right-click LinuxGUI-01 and select Edit Settings.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

2. In the Edit Settings window, Virtual Hardware tab, click ADD NEW DEVICE and select Hard Disk.

3. Change the disk size and disk provisioning type of the new hard disk.

a. Expand New Hard disk and change the size of the new hard disk to 1 GB.
b. Select Thin Provision from the Disk Provisioning drop-down menu.

c. Collapse New Hard disk.

4. In the Edit Settings window, Virtual Hardware tab, click ADD NEW DEVICE and select Hard Disk.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

5. Change the disk size and disk provisioning type of the second new hard disk.

a. Expand the second New Hard disk and change the size of the new hard disk to 1 GB.
b. Select Thick Provision Eager Zeroed from the Disk Provisioning drop-down menu.

6. In the Edit Settings window, click OK.

7. Leave the vSphere Client open, and LinuxGUI-01 selected. Continue to the next task.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

3 Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks

In this task, you will view and compare thin-provisioned and thick-provisioned virtual disk files. Being
aware of the differences between these two disk types is useful for planning your storage needs and
for troubleshooting storage problems.

Thin-provisioned disks are virtual disks that are created with less physical storage space than the
maximum disk size specified. This allows for more efficient use of storage resources, as the disk is only
allocated the space it needs as data is written to it. The disk can grow as needed, up to the maximum
size specified, but the underlying physical storage space is not fully allocated until the disk reaches its
maximum size. This can help to reduce storage costs and increase storage utilization, but it also means
that the disk can run out of space if it is not monitored and managed properly.

Thick-provisioned disks in VMware are virtual disks that are created with the maximum amount of
physical storage space specified. This means that the entire amount of storage space specified is
allocated to the disk at the time of creation, regardless of how much data is actually written to the
disk. This can provide better performance and less chance of running out of storage space, but it also
means that storage resources are less efficiently used.

There are two types of thick-provisioned disks in VMware:

• Eager Zeroed Thick: This type of disk is fully allocated, and all space is zeroed out during
creation; this process takes longer but provides better performance.
• Lazy Zeroed Thick: This type of disk is fully allocated, but does not zero out the disk space until
the first write operation; this process is faster but may have a small impact on write
performance.

In general, thick provisioned disks are used in situations where disk performance is more important
than disk space utilization or where disk space utilization is not a concern.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

1. On the Summary tab, in the VM Hardware pane, click See All Disks.

2. Verify that you have a hard disk that is a 1 GB and thin-provisioned, and a hard disk that is a 1 GB,
thick-provisioned, and eager-zeroed.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

3. In the All Hard Disks window, click OK.

4. Verify the size of the two 1 GB virtual disk files.

a. In the Navigator, click the Storage tab. Click on the VMFS01-01 datastore. You may
ignore the warning message.

b. In the VMFS01-01 window, click the Files tab, select LinuxGUI-01, and click the Filter
icon. Enter .vmdk and close the search window.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

The thin-provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk needs
(0 bytes). The thick-provisioned disk has all its space (1 GB) allocated during
creation.

5. In the VMFS01-01 pane, navigate back to the Summary tab. Click the Actions pull-down menu in
the Datastore usage on disk alarm.

6. From the Actions pop-up box, click Acknowledge.

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84BLab 14: Adding Virtual Hardware

In vCenter, an alarm notification alerts you to a specific condition or state in

your virtual environment, such as a resource constraint or a system failure.
When an alarm is triggered, you have the option to acknowledge or reset it to
green.

The difference between acknowledging and resetting an alarm is as follows:

• Acknowledge: When you acknowledge an alarm, you are letting the

system know that you have seen the alert and are aware of the issue.
This does not clear the alarm condition or resolve the underlying
problem. Instead, it serves as a way to indicate to other administrators
that the issue is being addressed.
• Reset to green: When you reset an alarm to green, you are indicating
that the underlying issue that triggered the alarm has been resolved,
and the system is no longer in an abnormal state. This clears the alarm
condition and turns off the alert, so that other administrators are
aware that the issue has been resolved.

The Datastore Usage on Disk alarm in vSphere Client is a feature that alerts
administrators when the usage of a specific datastore (a storage area for VM
files) exceeds a certain threshold. This alarm can be set to trigger when the
datastore usage reaches a certain percentage of capacity, or when there is a
certain amount of free space remaining. When the alarm is triggered, an alert
is generated that can be configured to send an email, trigger a script, or take
other actions to notify the administrator of the issue.

This alarm is useful for monitoring the storage usage of VMs, as it can help to
prevent the datastore from running out of space and causing issues with VM
performance or availability. Administrators can use this alarm to proactively
manage storage usage and ensure that there is enough space available for
VMs to run smoothly.

7. The lab is now complete; you may end your reservation.

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