VMware vSphere:

Install, Configure, Manage

Lecture Manual
ESXi 7 and vCenter Server 7

VMware® Education Services

VMware, Inc.
www.vmware.com/education
VMware vSphere:
Install, Configure, Manage
Lecture Manual
ESXi 7 and vCenter Server 7
Part Number EDU-EN-VSICM7-LECT (4/2020)
Copyright © 2020 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual and its accompanying materials
are protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products
are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware,
Enhanced vMotion™ Compatibility, vCenter Linked Mode, VMware ESX®, VMware ESXi™,
VMware Horizon®, VMware Horizon® 7, VMware Horizon® 7 on VMware Cloud™ on AWS,
VMware Horizon® View™, VMware Host Client™, VMware Photon™, VMware PowerCLI™,
VMware Remote Console™, VMware Site Recovery Manager™, VMware Site Recovery™,
VMware Skyline Advisor™, VMware Skyline™, VMware Tools™, VMware vCenter Server®,
VMware vCenter Server® High Availability, VMware vCenter® Lifecycle Manager™, VMware
vCenter® Server Appliance™, VMware vCenter® Single Sign-On, VMware Verify™, VMware
View®, VMware vRealize®, VMware vRealize® Log Insight™, VMware vRealize® Log Insight™
for vCenter™, VMware vRealize® Operations Manager™, VMware vRealize® Operations
Manager™ for Horizon®, VMware vRealize® Operations™, VMware vRealize® Operations™
Advanced, VMware vRealize® Operations™ Enterprise, VMware vRealize® Operations™
Standard, VMware vRealize® Orchestrator™, VMware vRealize® Suite Lifecycle Manager™,
VMware vSAN™, VMware vSphere®, VMware vSphere® API, VMware vSphere® API for
Storage Awareness™, VMware vSphere® Client™, VMware vSphere® Command-Line
Interface, VMware vSphere® DirectPath I/O™, VMware vSphere® Distributed Power
Management™, VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™, VMware vSphere®
ESXi™ Dump Collector, VMware vSphere® ESXi™ Shell, VMware vSphere® Fault Tolerance,
VMware vSphere® High Availability, VMware vSphere® Replication™, VMware vSphere®
Standard Edition™, VMware vSphere® Storage APIs - Array Integration, VMware vSphere®
Storage APIs - Data Protection, VMware vSphere® Storage vMotion®, VMware vSphere® Virtual
Symmetric Multiprocessing, VMware vSphere® Virtual Volumes™, VMware vSphere® VMFS,
and VMware vSphere® vMotion® are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the
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trade secrets and confidential information proprietary to, VMware, Inc., and may not be
reproduced, copied, disclosed, transferred, adapted or modified without the express written
approval of VMware, Inc.

www.vmware.com/education
CONTENTS

Module 1 Course Introduction 1

1-2 Course Introduction................................................................................................2
1-3 Importance .............................................................................................................3
1-4 Learner Objectives (1) ............................................................................................4
1-5 Learner Objectives (2) ............................................................................................5
1-6 Course Outline ........................................................................................................6
1-7 Typographical Conventions ....................................................................................7
1-8 References (1).........................................................................................................8
1-9 References (2).........................................................................................................9
1-10 VMware Online Resources ...................................................................................10
1-11 VMware Education Overview ...............................................................................11
1-12 VMware Certification Overview ...........................................................................12
1-13 VMware Badge Overview .....................................................................................13
1-14 Virtual Beans: Introduction ..................................................................................14

Module 2 Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data

Center 15
2-2 Importance ...........................................................................................................16
2-3 Module Lessons ....................................................................................................17
2-4 Virtual Beans: Data Center ...................................................................................18
2-5 Lesson 1: Overview of vSphere and Virtual Machines .........................................19
2-6 Learner Objectives................................................................................................20
2-7 Terminology (1) ....................................................................................................21
2-8 Terminology (2) ....................................................................................................22
2-9 About Virtual Machines........................................................................................23
2-10 Benefits of Using Virtual Machines ......................................................................24
2-11 Types of Virtualization ..........................................................................................26

Contents i
2-12 About the Software-Defined Data Center ............................................................27
2-13 vSphere and Cloud Computing .............................................................................29
2-14 About VMware Skyline .........................................................................................31
2-15 VMware Skyline Family ........................................................................................32
2-16 Review of Learner Objectives ...............................................................................34
2-17 Lesson 2: vSphere Virtualization of Resources .....................................................35
2-18 Learner Objectives................................................................................................36
2-19 Virtual Machine: Guest and Consumer of ESXi Host ............................................37
2-20 Physical and Virtual Architecture .........................................................................38
2-21 Physical Resource Sharing ....................................................................................39
2-22 CPU Virtualization.................................................................................................41
2-23 Physical and Virtualized Host Memory Usage ......................................................42
2-24 Physical and Virtual Networking ..........................................................................43
2-25 Physical File Systems and Datastores ...................................................................45
2-26 GPU Virtualization ................................................................................................47
2-27 Review of Learner Objectives ...............................................................................48
2-28 Lesson 3: vSphere User Interfaces .......................................................................49
2-29 Learner Objectives................................................................................................50
2-30 vSphere User Interfaces .......................................................................................51
2-31 About VMware Host Client...................................................................................52
2-32 About vSphere Client............................................................................................53
2-33 About PowerCLI and ESXCLI .................................................................................54
2-34 Lab 1: Accessing the Lab Environment .................................................................55
2-35 Review of Learner Objectives ...............................................................................56
2-36 Lesson 4: Overview of ESXi ...................................................................................57
2-37 Learner Objectives................................................................................................58
2-38 About ESXi ............................................................................................................59
2-39 Configuring an ESXi Host ......................................................................................61
2-40 Configuring an ESXi Host: Root Access .................................................................62
2-41 Configuring an ESXi Host: Management Network................................................63
2-42 Configuring an ESXi Host: Other Settings .............................................................64

ii Contents
2-43 Controlling Remote Access to an ESXi Host .........................................................65
2-44 Managing User Accounts: Best Practices .............................................................66
2-45 ESXi Host as an NTP Client ....................................................................................67
2-46 Demonstration: Installing and Configuring ESXi Hosts .........................................68
2-47 Lab 2: Configuring an ESXi Host ............................................................................69
2-48 Review of Learner Objectives ...............................................................................70
2-49 Virtual Beans: Data Center ...................................................................................71
2-50 Key Points .............................................................................................................72

Module 3 Virtual Machines 73

3-2 Importance ...........................................................................................................74
3-3 Module Lessons ....................................................................................................75
3-4 Virtual Beans: Virtualizing Workloads ..................................................................76
3-5 Lesson 1: Creating Virtual Machines ....................................................................77
3-6 Learner Objectives................................................................................................78
3-7 About Provisioning Virtual Machines ...................................................................79
3-8 Creating VMs with the New Virtual Machine Wizard (1) .....................................81
3-9 Creating VMs with the New Virtual Machine Wizard (2) .....................................82
3-10 New Virtual Machine Wizard Settings..................................................................84
3-11 Installing the Guest Operating System .................................................................85
3-12 Deploying OVF Templates ....................................................................................86
3-13 About VMware Tools ............................................................................................87
3-14 Installing VMware Tools .......................................................................................89
3-15 Downloading VMware Tools ................................................................................90
3-16 Labs.......................................................................................................................91
3-17 Lab 3: Creating a Virtual Machine ........................................................................92
3-18 Lab 4: Installing VMware Tools ............................................................................93
3-19 Review of Learner Objectives ...............................................................................94
3-20 Lesson 2: Virtual Machine Hardware Deep Dive ..................................................95
3-21 Learner Objectives................................................................................................96
3-22 Virtual Machine Encapsulation.............................................................................97

Contents iii
3-23 About Virtual Machine Files .................................................................................98
3-24 About VM Virtual Hardware ...............................................................................100
3-25 Virtual Hardware Versions .................................................................................102
3-26 About CPU and Memory.....................................................................................103
3-27 About Virtual Storage .........................................................................................105
3-28 About Thick-Provisioned Virtual Disks ...............................................................107
3-29 About Thin-Provisioned Virtual Disks .................................................................108
3-30 Thick-Provisioned and Thin-Provisioned Disks ...................................................109
3-31 About Virtual Networks ......................................................................................110
3-32 About Virtual Network Adapters ........................................................................111
3-33 Other Virtual Devices .........................................................................................114
3-34 About the Virtual Machine Console ...................................................................115
3-35 Lab 5: Adding Virtual Hardware .........................................................................116
3-36 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................117
3-37 Lesson 3: Introduction to Containers .................................................................118
3-38 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................119
3-39 Traditional Application Development ................................................................120
3-40 Modern Application Development .....................................................................122
3-41 Benefits of Microservices and Containerization ................................................123
3-42 Container Terminology .......................................................................................124
3-43 About Containers................................................................................................125
3-44 Rise of Containers...............................................................................................126
3-45 About Container Hosts .......................................................................................127
3-46 Containers at Runtime........................................................................................128
3-47 About Container Engines ....................................................................................129
3-48 Virtual Machines and Containers (1) ..................................................................130
3-49 Virtual Machines and Containers (2) ..................................................................131
3-50 About Kubernetes ..............................................................................................132
3-51 Challenges of Running Kubernetes in Production ..............................................134
3-52 Architecting with Common Application Requirements......................................135
3-53 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................136

iv Contents
3-54 Virtual Beans: Virtualizing Workloads ................................................................137
3-55 Key Points ...........................................................................................................138

Module 4 vCenter Server 139

4-2 Importance .........................................................................................................140
4-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................141
4-4 Virtual Beans: vCenter Server Requirements .....................................................142
4-5 Lesson 1: Centralized Management with vCenter Server ..................................143
4-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................144
4-7 About the vCenter Server Management Platform .............................................145
4-8 About vCenter Server Appliance ........................................................................146
4-9 vCenter Server Services ......................................................................................147
4-10 vCenter Server Architecture ...............................................................................148
4-11 About vCenter Single Sign-On ............................................................................149
4-12 About Enhanced Linked Mode ...........................................................................150
4-13 ESXi and vCenter Server Communication...........................................................151
4-14 vCenter Server Appliance Scalability ..................................................................153
4-15 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................154
4-16 Lesson 2: Deploying vCenter Server Appliance ..................................................155
4-17 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................156
4-18 Preparing for vCenter Server Appliance Deployment ........................................157
4-19 vCenter Server Appliance Native GUI Installer ...................................................158
4-20 vCenter Server Appliance Installation ................................................................159
4-21 vCenter Server Appliance Installation: Stage 1 ..................................................160
4-22 vCenter Server Appliance Installation: Stage 2 ..................................................161
4-23 Getting Started with vCenter Server ..................................................................162
4-24 Configuring vCenter Server Using the vSphere Client ........................................163
4-25 vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface .............................................164
4-26 vCenter Server Appliance Multihoming .............................................................165
4-27 Demonstration: Deploying vCenter Server Appliance .......................................166
4-28 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................167

Contents v
4-29 Lesson 3: vSphere Licensing ...............................................................................168
4-30 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................169
4-31 vSphere Licensing Overview ...............................................................................170
4-32 vSphere License Service .....................................................................................171
4-33 Adding License Keys to vCenter Server ..............................................................172
4-34 Assigning a License to a vSphere Component ....................................................173
4-35 Viewing Licensed Features .................................................................................174
4-36 Lab 6: Adding vSphere Licenses..........................................................................175
4-37 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................176
4-38 Lesson 4: Managing the vCenter Server Inventory ............................................177
4-39 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................178
4-40 vSphere Client Shortcuts Page ...........................................................................179
4-41 Using the Navigation Pane .................................................................................180
4-42 vCenter Server Views for Hosts, Clusters, VMs, and Templates ........................181
4-43 vCenter Server Views for Storage and Networks ...............................................182
4-44 Viewing Object Information ...............................................................................183
4-45 About Data Center Objects.................................................................................184
4-46 Organizing Inventory Objects into Folders .........................................................185
4-47 Adding a Data Center and Organizational Objects to vCenter Server................187
4-48 Adding ESXi Hosts to vCenter Server ..................................................................188
4-49 Creating Custom Tags for Inventory Objects......................................................189
4-50 Labs.....................................................................................................................190
4-51 Lab 7: Creating and Managing the vCenter Server Inventory ............................191
4-52 Lab 8: Configuring Active Directory: Joining a Domain ......................................192
4-53 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................193
4-54 Lesson 5: vCenter Server Roles and Permissions ...............................................194
4-55 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................195
4-56 About vCenter Server Permissions .....................................................................196
4-57 About Roles ........................................................................................................197
4-58 About Objects .....................................................................................................199
4-59 Adding Permissions to the vCenter Server Inventory ........................................200

vi Contents
4-60 Viewing Roles and User Assignments.................................................................201
4-61 Applying Permissions: Scenario 1 .......................................................................202
4-62 Applying Permissions: Scenario 2 .......................................................................203
4-63 Activity: Applying Group Permissions (1) ...........................................................204
4-64 Activity: Applying Group Permissions (2) ...........................................................205
4-65 Applying Permissions: Scenario 3 .......................................................................206
4-66 Applying Permissions: Scenario 4 .......................................................................207
4-67 Creating a Role ...................................................................................................208
4-68 About Global Permissions ..................................................................................209
4-69 Labs.....................................................................................................................210
4-70 Lab 9: Configuring Active Directory: Adding an Identity Source ........................211
4-71 Lab 10: Users, Groups, and Permissions ............................................................212
4-72 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................213
4-73 Lesson 6: Backing Up and Restoring vCenter Server Appliance .........................214
4-74 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................215
4-75 Virtual Beans: vCenter Server Operations..........................................................216
4-76 About vCenter Server Backup and Restore ........................................................217
4-77 Methods for vCenter Server Appliance Backup and Restore .............................218
4-78 File-Based Backup of vCenter Server Appliance .................................................219
4-79 File-Based Restore of vCenter Server Appliance ................................................220
4-80 Scheduling Backups ............................................................................................221
4-81 Viewing the Backup Schedule ............................................................................222
4-82 Demonstration: Backing Up and Restoring a vCenter Server Appliance
Instance ..............................................................................................................223
4-83 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................224
4-84 Lesson 7: Monitoring vCenter Server and Its Inventory.....................................225
4-85 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................226
4-86 vCenter Server Events ........................................................................................227
4-87 About Log Levels.................................................................................................228
4-88 Setting Log Levels ...............................................................................................229
4-89 Forwarding vCenter Server Appliance Log Files to a Remote Host ....................230

Contents vii
4-90 vCenter Server Database Health ........................................................................231
4-91 Monitoring vCenter Server Appliance ................................................................232
4-92 Monitoring vCenter Server Appliance Services ..................................................233
4-93 Monthly Patch Updates for vCenter Server Appliance ......................................234
4-94 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................235
4-95 Lesson 8: vCenter Server High Availability .........................................................236
4-96 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................237
4-97 Importance of Keeping vCenter Server Highly Available ...................................238
4-98 About vCenter Server High Availability ..............................................................239
4-99 Scenario: Active Node Failure ............................................................................240
4-100 Scenario: Passive Node Failure ...........................................................................241
4-101 Scenario: Witness Node Failure .........................................................................242
4-102 Benefits of vCenter Server High Availability.......................................................243
4-103 vCenter Server High Availability Requirements .................................................244
4-104 Demonstration: Configuring vCenter Server High Availability ...........................245
4-105 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................246
4-106 Virtual Beans: vCenter Server Maintenance and Operations ............................247
4-107 Key Points ...........................................................................................................248

Module 5 Configuring and Managing Virtual Networks 249

5-2 Importance .........................................................................................................250
5-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................251
5-4 Virtual Beans: Networking Requirements ..........................................................252
5-5 Lesson 1: Introduction to vSphere Standard Switches .......................................253
5-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................254
5-7 About Virtual Switches .......................................................................................255
5-8 Types of Virtual Switch Connections ..................................................................256
5-9 Virtual Switch Connection Examples ..................................................................257
5-10 About VLANs.......................................................................................................258
5-11 Types of Virtual Switches ...................................................................................260
5-12 Adding ESXi Networking .....................................................................................261

viii Contents
5-13 Viewing the Configuration of Standard Switches ...............................................262
5-14 Network Adapter Properties ..............................................................................263
5-15 Distributed Switch Architecture .........................................................................264
5-16 Standard and Distributed Switches: Shared Features ........................................265
5-17 Additional Features of Distributed Switches ......................................................266
5-18 Lab 11: Using Standard Switches........................................................................267
5-19 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................268
5-20 Lesson 2: Configuring Standard Switch Policies .................................................269
5-21 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................270
5-22 Network Switch and Port Policies ......................................................................271
5-23 Configuring Security Policies ..............................................................................272
5-24 Traffic-Shaping Policies.......................................................................................274
5-25 Configuring Traffic Shaping ................................................................................275
5-26 NIC Teaming and Failover Policies......................................................................277
5-27 Load-Balancing Method: Originating Virtual Port ID ..........................................279
5-28 Load-Balancing Method: Source MAC Hash.......................................................281
5-29 Load-Balancing Method: Source and Destination IP Hash .................................283
5-30 Detecting and Handling Network Failure ...........................................................285
5-31 Physical Network Considerations .......................................................................287
5-32 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................288
5-33 Virtual Beans: Networking Requirements ..........................................................289
5-34 Key Points ...........................................................................................................290

Module 6 Configuring and Managing Virtual Storage 291

6-2 Importance .........................................................................................................292
6-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................293
6-4 Virtual Beans: Storage ........................................................................................294
6-5 Lesson 1: Storage Concepts ................................................................................295
6-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................296
6-7 About Datastores................................................................................................297
6-8 Storage Overview ...............................................................................................298

Contents ix
6-9 Storage Protocol Overview.................................................................................300
6-10 About VMFS ........................................................................................................302
6-11 About NFS ...........................................................................................................304
6-12 About vSAN.........................................................................................................305
6-13 About vSphere Virtual Volumes .........................................................................306
6-14 About Raw Device Mapping ...............................................................................307
6-15 Physical Storage Considerations.........................................................................308
6-16 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................309
6-17 Lesson 2: Fibre Channel Storage ........................................................................310
6-18 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................311
6-19 About Fibre Channel ...........................................................................................312
6-20 Fibre Channel SAN Components ........................................................................313
6-21 Fibre Channel Addressing and Access Control ...................................................315
6-22 Multipathing with Fibre Channel........................................................................317
6-23 FCoE Adapters ....................................................................................................319
6-24 Configuring Software FCoE: Creating VMkernel Ports .......................................320
6-25 Configuring Software FCoE: Activating Software FCoE Adapters .......................321
6-26 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................322
6-27 Lesson 3: iSCSI Storage .......................................................................................323
6-28 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................324
6-29 iSCSI Components...............................................................................................325
6-30 iSCSI Addressing .................................................................................................327
6-31 Storage Device Naming Conventions .................................................................329
6-32 iSCSI Adapters.....................................................................................................330
6-33 ESXi Network Configuration for IP Storage ........................................................332
6-34 Activating the Software iSCSI Adapter ...............................................................333
6-35 Discovering iSCSI Targets....................................................................................334
6-36 iSCSI Security: CHAP ...........................................................................................335
6-37 Multipathing with iSCSI Storage .........................................................................337
6-38 Binding VMkernel Ports with the iSCSI Initiator .................................................338
6-39 Lab 12: Accessing iSCSI Storage ..........................................................................339

x Contents
6-40 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................340
6-41 Lesson 4: VMFS Datastores ................................................................................341
6-42 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................342
6-43 Creating a VMFS Datastore ................................................................................343
6-44 Browsing Datastore Contents.............................................................................344
6-45 About VMFS Datastores .....................................................................................345
6-46 Managing Overcommitted Datastores ...............................................................346
6-47 Increasing the Size of VMFS Datastores .............................................................347
6-48 Datastore Maintenance Mode ...........................................................................348
6-49 Deleting or Unmounting a VMFS Datastore .......................................................349
6-50 Multipathing Algorithms ....................................................................................351
6-51 Configuring Storage Load Balancing ...................................................................352
6-52 Lab 13: Managing VMFS Datastores...................................................................354
6-53 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................355
6-54 Lesson 5: NFS Datastores ...................................................................................356
6-55 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................357
6-56 NFS Components ................................................................................................358
6-57 NFS 3 and NFS 4.1 ...............................................................................................359
6-58 NFS Version Compatibility with Other vSphere Technologies ...........................360
6-59 Configuring NFS Datastores................................................................................362
6-60 Configuring ESXi Host Authentication and NFS Kerberos Credentials ...............363
6-61 Configuring the NFS Datastore to Use Kerberos ................................................365
6-62 Unmounting an NFS Datastore ...........................................................................366
6-63 Multipathing and NFS Storage ...........................................................................367
6-64 Enabling Multipathing for NFS 4.1......................................................................369
6-65 Lab 14: Accessing NFS Storage ...........................................................................370
6-66 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................371
6-67 Lesson 6: vSAN Datastores .................................................................................372
6-68 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................373
6-69 About vSAN Datastores ......................................................................................374
6-70 Disk Groups.........................................................................................................375

Contents xi
6-71 vSAN Hardware Requirements ...........................................................................376
6-72 Viewing the vSAN Datastore Summary ..............................................................378
6-73 Objects in vSAN Datastores ................................................................................379
6-74 VM Storage Policies ............................................................................................380
6-75 Viewing VM Settings for vSAN Information .......................................................381
6-76 Lab 15: Using a vSAN Datastore .........................................................................382
6-77 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................383
6-78 Virtual Beans: Storage ........................................................................................384
6-79 Activity: Using vSAN Storage at Virtual Beans (1) ..............................................385
6-80 Activity: Using vSAN Storage at Virtual Beans (2) ..............................................386
6-81 Key Points ...........................................................................................................387

Module 7 Virtual Machine Management 389

7-2 Importance .........................................................................................................390
7-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................391
7-4 Virtual Beans: VM Management ........................................................................392
7-5 Lesson 1: Creating Templates and Clones ..........................................................393
7-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................394
7-7 About Templates ................................................................................................395
7-8 Creating a Template: Clone VM to Template .....................................................396
7-9 Creating a Template: Convert VM to Template .................................................397
7-10 Creating a Template: Clone a Template .............................................................398
7-11 Updating Templates ...........................................................................................399
7-12 Deploying VMs from a Template ........................................................................400
7-13 Cloning Virtual Machines....................................................................................401
7-14 Guest Operating System Customization.............................................................402
7-15 About Customization Specifications ...................................................................403
7-16 Customizing the Guest Operating System ..........................................................404
7-17 About Instant Clones ..........................................................................................405
7-18 Use Cases for Instant Clones ..............................................................................406
7-19 Lab 16: Using VM Templates: Creating Templates and Deploying VMs ............407

xii Contents
7-20 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................408
7-21 Lesson 2: Working with Content Libraries..........................................................409
7-22 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................410
7-23 About Content Libraries .....................................................................................411
7-24 Benefits of Content Libraries ..............................................................................412
7-25 Types of Content Libraries..................................................................................413
7-26 Adding VM Templates to a Content Library .......................................................415
7-27 Deploying VMs from Templates in a Content Library ........................................416
7-28 Lab 17: Using Content Libraries..........................................................................417
7-29 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................418
7-30 Lesson 3: Modifying Virtual Machines ...............................................................419
7-31 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................420
7-32 Modifying Virtual Machine Settings ...................................................................421
7-33 Hot-Pluggable Devices ........................................................................................423
7-34 Dynamically Increasing Virtual Disk Size ............................................................425
7-35 Inflating Thin-Provisioned Disks .........................................................................426
7-36 VM Options: General Settings ............................................................................427
7-37 VM Options: VMware Tools Settings .................................................................428
7-38 VM Options: VM Boot Settings...........................................................................429
7-39 Removing VMs....................................................................................................431
7-40 Lab 18: Modifying Virtual Machines...................................................................432
7-41 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................433
7-42 Lesson 4: Migrating VMs with vSphere vMotion ...............................................434
7-43 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................435
7-44 About VM Migration...........................................................................................436
7-45 About vSphere vMotion .....................................................................................437
7-46 Enabling vSphere vMotion .................................................................................438
7-47 vSphere vMotion Migration Workflow ..............................................................439
7-48 VM Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration ...........................................441
7-49 Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (1) ....................................442
7-50 Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (2) ....................................443

Contents xiii
7-51 Checking vSphere vMotion Errors ......................................................................444
7-52 Encrypted vSphere vMotion ...............................................................................445
7-53 Cross vCenter Migrations ...................................................................................446
7-54 Cross vCenter Migration Requirements .............................................................447
7-55 Network Checks for Cross vCenter Migrations ..................................................448
7-56 VMkernel Networking Layer and TCP/IP Stacks .................................................449
7-57 vSphere vMotion TCP/IP Stacks .........................................................................451
7-58 Long-Distance vSphere vMotion Migration .......................................................452
7-59 Networking Prerequisites for Long-Distance vSphere vMotion.........................453
7-60 Lab 19: vSphere vMotion Migrations .................................................................454
7-61 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................455
7-62 Lesson 5: Enhanced vMotion Compatibility .......................................................456
7-63 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................457
7-64 CPU Constraints on vSphere vMotion Migration ...............................................458
7-65 About Enhanced vMotion Compatibility ............................................................459
7-66 Enhanced vMotion Compatibility Cluster Requirements ...................................461
7-67 Enabling EVC Mode on an Existing Cluster .........................................................462
7-68 Changing the EVC Mode for a Cluster ................................................................463
7-69 Virtual Machine EVC Mode ................................................................................464
7-70 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................465
7-71 Lesson 6: Migrating VMs with vSphere Storage vMotion ..................................466
7-72 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................467
7-73 About vSphere Storage vMotion ........................................................................468
7-74 vSphere Storage vMotion In Action ...................................................................469
7-75 Identifying Storage Arrays That Support vSphere Storage APIs - Array
Integration ..........................................................................................................471
7-76 vSphere Storage vMotion Guidelines and Limitations .......................................472
7-77 Changing Both Compute Resource and Storage During Migration (1) ..............473
7-78 Changing Both Compute Resource and Storage During Migration (2) ..............474
7-79 Lab 20: vSphere Storage vMotion Migrations ....................................................475
7-80 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................476

xiv Contents
7-81 Lesson 7: Creating Virtual Machine Snapshots ..................................................477
7-82 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................478
7-83 VM Snapshots .....................................................................................................479
7-84 Taking Snapshots ................................................................................................480
7-85 Types of Snapshots .............................................................................................481
7-86 VM Snapshot Files ..............................................................................................483
7-87 VM Snapshot Files Example (1) ..........................................................................485
7-88 VM Snapshot Files Example (2) ..........................................................................486
7-89 VM Snapshot Files Example (3) ..........................................................................487
7-90 Managing Snapshots ..........................................................................................488
7-91 Deleting VM Snapshots (1) .................................................................................490
7-92 Deleting VM Snapshots (2) .................................................................................491
7-93 Deleting VM Snapshots (3) .................................................................................492
7-94 Deleting All VM Snapshots .................................................................................493
7-95 About Snapshot Consolidation ...........................................................................494
7-96 Discovering When to Consolidate Snapshots.....................................................495
7-97 Consolidating Snapshots ....................................................................................496
7-98 Lab 21: Working with Snapshots ........................................................................497
7-99 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................498
7-100 Lesson 8: vSphere Replication and Backup ........................................................499
7-101 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................500
7-102 About vSphere Replication .................................................................................501
7-103 About the vSphere Replication Appliance ..........................................................502
7-104 Replication Functions .........................................................................................504
7-105 Deploying the vSphere Replication Appliance ...................................................505
7-106 Configuring vSphere Replication for a Single VM...............................................506
7-107 Configuring Recovery Point Objective and Point in Time Instances ..................507
7-108 Recovering Replicated VMs ................................................................................508
7-109 Backup and Restore Solution for VMs................................................................510
7-110 vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection: Offloaded Backup Processing ............511
7-111 vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection: Changed-Block Tracking ....................513

Contents xv
7-112 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................514
7-113 Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (1) ......................................................515
7-114 Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (2) ......................................................516
7-115 Activity: Virtual Beans VM Management (3) ......................................................517
7-116 Key Points ...........................................................................................................518

Module 8 Resource Management and Monitoring 519

8-2 Importance .........................................................................................................520
8-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................521
8-4 Virtual Beans: Resource Management and Monitoring .....................................522
8-5 Lesson 1: Virtual CPU and Memory Concepts ....................................................523
8-6 Learner Objectives ..............................................................................................524
8-7 Memory Virtualization Basics .............................................................................525
8-8 VM Memory Overcommitment ..........................................................................526
8-9 Memory Overcommit Techniques......................................................................528
8-10 Configuring Multicore VMs ................................................................................530
8-11 About Hyperthreading........................................................................................532
8-12 CPU Load Balancing ............................................................................................533
8-13 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................534
8-14 Lesson 2: Resource Controls...............................................................................535
8-15 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................536
8-16 Reservations, Limits, and Shares ........................................................................537
8-17 Resource Allocation Reservations: RAM ............................................................538
8-18 Resource Allocation Reservations: CPU .............................................................539
8-19 Resource Allocation Limits .................................................................................540
8-20 Resource Allocation Shares ................................................................................541
8-21 Resource Shares Example (1) .............................................................................542
8-22 Resource Shares Example (2) .............................................................................543
8-23 Resource Shares Example (3) .............................................................................544
8-24 Resource Shares Example (4) .............................................................................545
8-25 Defining Resource Allocation Settings for a VM.................................................546

xvi Contents
8-26 Viewing VM Resource Allocation Settings..........................................................547
8-27 Lab 22: Controlling VM Resources .....................................................................548
8-28 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................549
8-29 Lesson 3: Resource Monitoring Tools ................................................................550
8-30 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................551
8-31 Performance-Tuning Methodology ....................................................................552
8-32 Resource-Monitoring Tools ................................................................................553
8-33 Guest Operating System Monitoring Tools ........................................................554
8-34 Using Perfmon to Monitor VM Resources .........................................................555
8-35 Using esxtop to Monitor VM Resources.............................................................556
8-36 Monitoring Inventory Objects with Performance Charts ...................................557
8-37 Working with Overview Performance Charts.....................................................558
8-38 Working with Advanced Performance Charts ....................................................559
8-39 Chart Options: Real-Time and Historical ............................................................560
8-40 Chart Types: Bar and Pie ....................................................................................562
8-41 Chart Types: Line ................................................................................................563
8-42 Chart Types: Stacked ..........................................................................................564
8-43 Chart Types: Stacked Per VM .............................................................................565
8-44 Saving Charts ......................................................................................................566
8-45 About Objects and Counters ..............................................................................567
8-46 About Statistics Types ........................................................................................568
8-47 About Rollup .......................................................................................................569
8-48 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................571
8-49 Lesson 4: Monitoring Resource Use ...................................................................572
8-50 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................573
8-51 Interpreting Data from Tools ..............................................................................574
8-52 CPU-Constrained VMs (1) ...................................................................................575
8-53 CPU-Constrained VMs (2) ...................................................................................577
8-54 Memory-Constrained VMs (1) ............................................................................578
8-55 Memory-Constrained VMs (2) ............................................................................579
8-56 Memory-Constrained Hosts ...............................................................................580

Contents xvii
8-57 Disk-Constrained VMs ........................................................................................581
8-58 Monitoring Disk Latency.....................................................................................582
8-59 Network-Constrained VMs .................................................................................583
8-60 Lab 23: Monitoring Virtual Machine Performance ............................................584
8-61 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................585
8-62 Lesson 5: Using Alarms .......................................................................................586
8-63 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................587
8-64 About Alarms ......................................................................................................588
8-65 Predefined Alarms (1).........................................................................................589
8-66 Predefined Alarms (2).........................................................................................590
8-67 Creating a Custom Alarm....................................................................................591
8-68 Defining the Alarm Target Type .........................................................................592
8-69 Defining the Alarm Rule: Trigger (1) ...................................................................593
8-70 Defining the Alarm Rule: Trigger (2) ...................................................................594
8-71 Defining the Alarm Rule: Setting the Notification ..............................................595
8-72 Defining the Alarm Reset Rules ..........................................................................596
8-73 Enabling the Alarm .............................................................................................597
8-74 Configuring vCenter Server Notifications ...........................................................598
8-75 Lab 24: Using Alarms ..........................................................................................599
8-76 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................600
8-77 Activity: Virtual Beans Resource Monitoring (1) ................................................601
8-78 Activity: Virtual Beans Resource Management and Monitoring (2) ..................602
8-79 Key Points ...........................................................................................................603

Module 9 vSphere Clusters 605

9-2 Importance .........................................................................................................606
9-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................607
9-4 Virtual Beans: vSphere Clusters .........................................................................608
9-5 Lesson 1: vSphere Clusters Overview .................................................................609
9-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................610
9-7 About vSphere Clusters ......................................................................................611

xviii Contents
9-8 Creating a vSphere Cluster and Enabling Cluster Features ................................612
9-9 Configuring the Cluster Using Quickstart ...........................................................613
9-10 Configuring the Cluster Manually .......................................................................615
9-11 Adding a Host to a Cluster ..................................................................................616
9-12 Viewing Cluster Summary Information ..............................................................617
9-13 Monitoring Cluster Resources ............................................................................618
9-14 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................619
9-15 Lesson 2: vSphere DRS........................................................................................620
9-16 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................621
9-17 About vSphere DRS.............................................................................................622
9-18 vSphere DRS: VM Focused..................................................................................623
9-19 About the VM DRS Score ....................................................................................624
9-20 VM DRS Score List ...............................................................................................625
9-21 Viewing VM DRS Scores Using Performance Charts (1) .....................................626
9-22 Viewing VM DRS Scores Using Performance Charts (2) .....................................627
9-23 Viewing vSphere DRS Settings ............................................................................628
9-24 vSphere DRS Settings: Automation Level ...........................................................629
9-25 vSphere DRS Settings: Migration Threshold.......................................................630
9-26 vSphere DRS Settings: Predictive DRS ................................................................632
9-27 vSphere DRS Settings: VM Swap File Location ...................................................633
9-28 vSphere DRS Settings: VM Affinity .....................................................................634
9-29 vSphere DRS Settings: DRS Groups.....................................................................635
9-30 vSphere DRS Settings: VM-Host Affinity Rules ...................................................636
9-31 VM-Host Affinity Preferential Rules ...................................................................637
9-32 VM-Host Affinity Required Rules........................................................................638
9-33 vSphere DRS Settings: VM-Level Automation ....................................................639
9-34 vSphere DRS Cluster Requirements ...................................................................640
9-35 Viewing vSphere DRS Cluster Resource Utilization ............................................641
9-36 Viewing vSphere DRS Recommendations ..........................................................642
9-37 Maintenance Mode and Standby Mode ............................................................643
9-38 Removing a Host from the vSphere DRS Cluster ................................................644

Contents xix
9-39 vSphere DRS and Dynamic DirectPath I/O .........................................................645
9-40 Adding a Dynamic DirectPath I/O Device to a VM .............................................646
9-41 Lab 25: Implementing vSphere DRS Clusters .....................................................647
9-42 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................648
9-43 Lesson 3: Introduction to vSphere HA ................................................................649
9-44 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................650
9-45 Protection at Every Level ....................................................................................651
9-46 About vSphere HA ..............................................................................................653
9-47 vSphere HA Scenario: ESXi Host Failure .............................................................654
9-48 vSphere HA Scenario: Guest Operating System Failure .....................................655
9-49 vSphere HA Scenario: Application Failure ..........................................................656
9-50 vSphere HA Scenario: Datastore Accessibility Failures ......................................657
9-51 vSphere HA Scenario: Protecting VMs Against Network Isolation .....................659
9-52 Importance of Redundant Heartbeat Networks ................................................660
9-53 Redundancy Using NIC Teaming.........................................................................661
9-54 Redundancy Using Additional Networks ............................................................662
9-55 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................663
9-56 Lesson 4: vSphere HA Architecture ....................................................................664
9-57 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................665
9-58 vSphere HA Architecture: Agent Communication ..............................................666
9-59 vSphere HA Architecture: Network Heartbeats .................................................669
9-60 vSphere HA Architecture: Datastore Heartbeats ...............................................670
9-61 vSphere HA Failure Scenarios .............................................................................671
9-62 Failed Subordinate Hosts....................................................................................672
9-63 Failed Master Hosts ............................................................................................674
9-64 Isolated Hosts .....................................................................................................675
9-65 VM Storage Failures ...........................................................................................676
9-66 Protecting Against Storage Failures with VMCP .................................................677
9-67 vSphere HA Design Considerations ....................................................................678
9-68 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................679
9-69 Lesson 5: Configuring vSphere HA......................................................................680

xx Contents
9-70 Learner Objectives ..............................................................................................681
9-71 vSphere HA Prerequisites ...................................................................................682
9-72 Configuring vSphere HA Settings........................................................................683
9-73 vSphere HA Settings: Failures and Responses....................................................684
9-74 vSphere HA Settings: VM Monitoring ................................................................686
9-75 vSphere HA Settings: Heartbeat Datastores ......................................................687
9-76 vSphere HA Settings: Admission Control............................................................688
9-77 Example: Admission Control Using Cluster Resources Percentage ....................690
9-78 Example: Admission Control Using Slots (1).......................................................691
9-79 Example: Admission Control Using Slots (2).......................................................692
9-80 vSphere HA Settings: Performance Degradation VMs Tolerate .........................693
9-81 vSphere HA Setting: Default VM Restart Priority ...............................................695
9-82 vSphere HA Settings: Advanced Options............................................................696
9-83 vSphere HA Settings: VM-Level Settings ............................................................697
9-84 About vSphere HA Orchestrated Restart ...........................................................698
9-85 VM Dependencies in Orchestrated Restart (1) ..................................................699
9-86 VM Dependencies in Orchestrated Restart (2) ..................................................700
9-87 Network Configuration and Maintenance .........................................................701
9-88 Monitoring vSphere HA Cluster Status...............................................................702
9-89 Using vSphere HA with vSphere DRS ..................................................................703
9-90 Lab 26: Using vSphere HA...................................................................................704
9-91 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................705
9-92 Lesson 6: Introduction to vSphere Fault Tolerance............................................706
9-93 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................707
9-94 About vSphere Fault Tolerance ..........................................................................708
9-95 vSphere Fault Tolerance Features ......................................................................709
9-96 vSphere Fault Tolerance with vSphere HA and vSphere DRS.............................710
9-97 Redundant VMDK Files .......................................................................................711
9-98 vSphere Fault Tolerance Checkpoint ..................................................................712
9-99 vSphere Fault Tolerance: Precopy ......................................................................713
9-100 vSphere Fault Tolerance Fast Checkpointing .....................................................714

Contents xxi
9-101 vSphere Fault Tolerance Shared Files.................................................................715
9-102 Enabling vSphere Fault Tolerance on a VM........................................................716
9-103 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................717
9-104 Activity: Virtual Beans Clusters (1) .....................................................................718
9-105 Activity: Virtual Beans Clusters (2) .....................................................................719
9-106 Key Points ...........................................................................................................720

Module 10 vSphere Lifecycle Management 721

10-2 Importance .........................................................................................................722
10-3 Module Lessons ..................................................................................................723
10-4 Virtual Beans: Lifecycle Management ................................................................724
10-5 Lesson 1: vCenter Server Update Planner ..........................................................725
10-6 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................726
10-7 Overview of vCenter Server Update Planner .....................................................727
10-8 Update Planner Requirements ...........................................................................728
10-9 Update Planner View in the vSphere Client .......................................................729
10-10 Interoperability View in vSphere Client .............................................................730
10-11 Exporting Report Results ....................................................................................731
10-12 Managing the vCenter Server Life Cycle.............................................................732
10-13 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................733
10-14 Lesson 2: Overview of vSphere Lifecycle Manager ............................................734
10-15 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................735
10-16 Introduction to vSphere Lifecycle Manager .......................................................736
10-17 Baselines and Images .........................................................................................737
10-18 vSphere Lifecycle Manager Home View .............................................................738
10-19 Patch Settings .....................................................................................................739
10-20 vSphere Lifecycle Manager Integration with vSphere DRS ................................740
10-21 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................741
10-22 Lesson 3: Working with Baselines ......................................................................742
10-23 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................743
10-24 Baselines and Baseline Groups ...........................................................................744

xxii Contents
10-25 Creating and Editing Patch or Extension Baselines ............................................745
10-26 Creating a Baseline .............................................................................................746
10-27 Creating a Baseline: Name and Description .......................................................747
10-28 Creating a Baseline: Select Patches Automatically.............................................748
10-29 Creating a Baseline: Select Patches Manually ....................................................749
10-30 Updating Your Host or Cluster with Baselines ...................................................750
10-31 Remediation Precheck........................................................................................751
10-32 Remediating Hosts..............................................................................................752
10-33 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................753
10-34 Lesson 4: Working with Images ..........................................................................754
10-35 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................755
10-36 Elements of ESXi Images.....................................................................................756
10-37 Image Depots......................................................................................................758
10-38 Importing Updates .............................................................................................759
10-39 Using Images to Perform ESXi Host Life Cycle Operations .................................760
10-40 Creating an ESXi Image for a New Cluster ..........................................................761
10-41 Checking Image Compliance...............................................................................762
10-42 Running a Remediation Precheck.......................................................................763
10-43 Hardware Compatibility .....................................................................................764
10-44 Standalone VIBs ..................................................................................................765
10-45 Remediating a Cluster Against an Image ............................................................766
10-46 Reviewing Remediation Impact..........................................................................767
10-47 Recommended Images .......................................................................................768
10-48 Viewing Recommended Images .........................................................................769
10-49 Selecting a Recommended Image ......................................................................771
10-50 Customizing Cluster Images ...............................................................................772
10-51 Lab 27: Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager ..........................................................773
10-52 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................774
10-53 Lesson 5: Managing the Life Cycle of VMware Tools and VM Hardware ...........775
10-54 Learner Objectives..............................................................................................776
10-55 Keeping VMware Tools Up To Date ....................................................................777

Contents xxiii
10-56 Upgrading VMware Tools (1)..............................................................................778
10-57 Upgrading VMware Tools (2)..............................................................................779
10-58 Keeping VM Hardware Up To Date ....................................................................780
10-59 Upgrading VM Hardware (1) ..............................................................................781
10-60 Upgrading VM Hardware (2) ..............................................................................782
10-61 Review of Learner Objectives .............................................................................783
10-62 Virtual Beans: Conclusion ...................................................................................784
10-63 Key Points ...........................................................................................................785

xxiv Contents
Module 1
Course Introduction

Module 1: Course Introduction1

1-2 Course Introduction

2 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-3 Importance

Module 1: Course Introduction3

1-4 Learner Objectives (1)

4 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-5 Learner Objectives (2)

Module 1: Course Introduction5

1-6 Course Outline

6 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-7 Typographical Conventions

Module 1: Course Introduction7

1-8 References (1)

8 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-9 References (2)

Module 1: Course Introduction9

1-10 VMware Online Resources

10 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-11 VMware Education Overview

Module 1: Course Introduction11

1-12 VMware Certification Overview

VMware certification sets the standards for IT professionals who work with VMware technology.
Certifications are grouped into technology tracks. Each track offers one or more levels of
certification (up to five levels).
For the complete list of certifications and details about how to attain these certifications, see
https://vmware.com/certification.

12 Module 1: Course Introduction

1-13 VMware Badge Overview

Digital badges have the following features:

 Easy to share in social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and so on)

 Tethered to VMware to validate and verify achievement

 Contain metadata with skill tags and accomplishments

 Based on Mozilla's Open Badges standard

For the complete list of digital badges, see http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/badging.

Module 1: Course Introduction13

1-14 Virtual Beans: Introduction

14 Module 1: Course Introduction

Module 2
Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data
Center

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 15

2-2 Importance

16 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-3 Module Lessons

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 17

2-4 Virtual Beans: Data Center

18 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-5 Lesson 1: Overview of vSphere and Virtual Machines

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 19

2-6 Learner Objectives

20 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-7 Terminology (1)

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 21

2-8 Terminology (2)

22 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-9 About Virtual Machines

A virtual machine (VM) includes a set of specification and configuration files and is supported by
the physical resources of a host. Every VM has virtual devices that provide the same functionality
as physical hardware but are more portable, more secure, and easier to manage.
VMs typically include an operating system, applications, VMware Tools, and both virtual
resources and hardware that you manage in much the same way as you manage a physical
computer.
VMware Tools is a bundle of drivers. Using these drivers, the guest operating system can interact
efficiently with the guest hardware. VMware Tools adds extra functionality so that ESXi can
better manage the VM's use of physical hardware.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 23

2-10 Benefits of Using Virtual Machines

In a physical machine, the operating system (for example, Windows or Linux) is installed directly
on the hardware. The operating system requires specific device drivers to support specific
hardware. If the computer is upgraded with new hardware, new device drivers are required.
If applications interface directly with hardware drivers, an upgrade to the hardware, drivers, or
both can have significant repercussions if incompatibilities exist. Because of these potential
repercussions, hands-on technical support personnel must test hardware upgrades against a wide
variety of application suites and operating systems. Such testing costs time and money.
Virtualizing these systems saves on such costs because VMs are 100 percent software.
Multiple VMs are isolated from one another. You can have a database server and an email server
running on the same physical computer. The isolation between the VMs means that software-
dependency conflicts are not a problem. Even users with system administrator privileges on a
VM’s guest operating system cannot breach this layer of isolation to access another VM. These
users must explicitly be granted access by the ESXi system administrator. As a result of VM

24 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

isolation, if a guest operating system running in a VM fails, other VMs on the same host are
unaffected and continue to run.
A guest operating system failure does not affect access and performance:

 Users can still access the other VMs.

 The operational VMs can access the resources that they need.

 The other VMs can still perform.

With VMs, you can consolidate your physical servers and make more efficient use of your
hardware. Because a VM is a set of files, features that are not available or not as efficient on
physical architectures are available to you, for example:

 You can rapidly and consistently provision VMs.

 With VMs, you can use live migration, fault tolerance, high availability, and disaster recovery
scenarios to increase uptime and reduce recovery time from failures.

 You can use multitenancy to mix VMs into specialized configurations, such as a DMZ.

With VMs, you can support legacy applications and operating systems on newer hardware when
maintenance contracts on the existing hardware expire.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 25

2-11 Types of Virtualization

Server virtualization addresses inefficiencies by allowing multiple operating systems to run on a

single physical server as VMs, each with access to the underlying server’s computing resources.
Network virtualization is the complete reproduction of a physical network in software.
Applications run on the virtual network exactly as if on a physical network.
Storage virtualization is the process of creating a software-based representation of network storage
devices into what appears to be a single unit.
By deploying desktops as a managed service, you can respond more quickly to changing needs
and opportunities.

26 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-12 About the Software-Defined Data Center

A software-defined virtual data center (SDDC) is deployed with isolated computing, storage,
networking, and security resources that are faster than the traditional, hardware-based data center.
All the resources (CPU, memory, disk, and network) of a software-defined data center are
abstracted into files. This abstraction brings the benefits of virtualization at all levels of the
infrastructure, independent of the physical infrastructure.
An SDDC can include the following components:

 Service management and automation: Use service management and automation to track and
analyze the operation of multiple data sources in the multiregion SDDC. Deploy vRealize
Operations Manager and vRealize Log Insight across multiple nodes for continued availability
and increased log ingestion rates.

 Cloud management layer: This layer includes the service catalog, which houses the facilities
to be deployed. The cloud management layer also includes orchestration, which provides the

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 27

 workflows to deploy catalog items, and the self-service portal for end users to access and use
the SDDC.

 Virtual infrastructure layer: This layer establishes a robust virtualized environment that all
other solutions integrate with. The virtual infrastructure layer includes the virtualization
platform for the hypervisor, pools of resources, and virtualization control. Additional
processes and technologies build on the infrastructure to support Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

 Physical layer: The lowest layer of the solution includes compute, storage, and network
components.

 Security: Customers use this layer of the platform to meet demanding compliance
requirements for virtualized workloads and to manage business risk.

28 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-13 vSphere and Cloud Computing

As defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing is a
model for the ubiquitous, convenient, and on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources.
For example, networks, servers, storage, applications, and services can be rapidly provisioned and
released with minimal management effort or little service provider interaction.
vSphere is the foundation for the technology that supports shared and configurable resource pools.
vSphere abstracts the physical resources of the data center to separate the workload from the
physical hardware. A software user interface can provide the framework for managing and
maintaining this abstraction and allocation.
VMware Cloud Foundation is the unified SDDC platform that bundles vSphere (ESXi and
vCenter Server), vSAN, and NSX into a natively integrated stack to deliver enterprise-ready cloud
infrastructure. VMware Cloud Foundation discovers the hardware, installs the VMware stack
(ESXi, vCenter Server, vSAN, and NSX), manages updates, and performs lifecycle management.
VMware Cloud Foundation can be self-deployed on compatible hardware or preloaded by partners

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 29

and can be used in both private and public clouds (VMware Cloud on AWS or VMware cloud
providers).
Use cases:

 Cloud infrastructure: Exploit the high performance, availability, and scalability of the SDDC
to run mission-critical applications such as databases, web applications, and virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI).

 IT automation: Automate infrastructure and application delivery with self-service capabilities.

 VDI: Provide a complete solution for VDI deployment at scale. It simplifies the planning and
design with standardized and tested solutions fully optimized for VDI workloads.

 Hybrid cloud: Build a hybrid cloud with a common infrastructure and a consistent operational
model, connecting your on-premises and off-premises data center that is compatible,
stretched, and distributed.

To find out more about VMware cloud computing, go to http://www.vmware.com/cloud-

computing/overview.html.

30 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-14 About VMware Skyline

VMware Skyline shortens the time it takes to resolve a problem so that you can get back to
business quickly. VMware Technical Support engineers can use VMware Skyline to view your
environment's configuration and the specific, data-driven analytics to help speed up problem
resolution.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 31

2-15 VMware Skyline Family

With Basic Support, you can access Skyline findings and recommendations for vSphere and
vSAN by using Skyline Health in the vSphere Client (version 6.7 and later).
With Production or Premier Support, you must use Skyline Advisor and the full functionality of
Skyline (including Log Assist).

32 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

With Premier Support, you receive additional Skyline features that are not available with
Production Support, for example:

 An advanced set of proactive findings and recommendations

 Scheduled and custom operational summary reports that provide an overview of the proactive
findings and recommendations

 All additional benefits of Premier Support, including the following services:

– Designated support team

– Direct access to senior-level technical support engineers
– Assistance with multivendor troubleshooting
– Onsite support services, such as Mission Critical Support (MCS), Healthcare Critical
Support (HCS), and Carrier Grade Support (CGS)
Skyline supports vSphere, NSX for vSphere, vSAN, VMware Horizon, and vRealize Operations
Manager. A Skyline management pack for vRealize Operations Manager is also available. If you
install this management pack, you can see Skyline proactive findings and recommendations within
the vRealize Operations Manager client.
The identification and tagging of VxRail and VMware Validated Design deployments help you
and VMware Technical Support to better understand and support multiproduct solutions.
Skyline identifies all ESXi 5.5 objects within a vCenter Server instance and provides additional
information in VMware knowledge base article 51491 at https://kb.vmware.com/kb/51491. This
article details the end of general support for vSphere 5.5.
For versions of vSphere, vSAN, NSX for vSphere, VMware Horizon, and vRealize Operations
Manager that are supported by Skyline, see the Skyline Collector Release Notes at
https://docs.vmware.com.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 33

2-16 Review of Learner Objectives

34 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-17 Lesson 2: vSphere Virtualization of Resources

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 35

2-18 Learner Objectives

36 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-19 Virtual Machine: Guest and Consumer of ESXi Host

A virtual machine is an abstraction in software of a physical machine. A VM turns components

into files that act like physical components.
For the list of all supported operating systems, see VMware Compatibility Guide at
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 37

2-20 Physical and Virtual Architecture

You can use virtualization to consolidate and run multiple workloads as VMs on a single
computer.
The slide shows the differences between a virtualized and a nonvirtualized host.
In traditional architectures, the operating system interacts directly with the installed hardware. The
operating system schedules processes to run, allocates memory to applications, sends and receives
data on network interfaces, and both reads from and writes to attached storage devices.
In comparison, a virtualized host interacts with the installed hardware through a thin layer of
software called the virtualization layer or hypervisor.
The hypervisor provides physical hardware resources dynamically to VMs as needed to support
the operation of the VMs. With the hypervisor, VMs can operate with a degree of independence
from the underlying physical hardware. For example, a VM can be moved from one physical host
to another. In addition, its virtual disks can be moved from one type of storage to another without
affecting the functioning of the VM.

38 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-21 Physical Resource Sharing

With virtualization, you can run multiple VMs on a single physical host, with each VM sharing
the resources of one physical computer across multiple environments. VMs share access to CPUs
and are scheduled to run by the hypervisor.
In addition, VMs are assigned their own region of memory to use and share access to the physical
network cards and disk controllers. Different VMs can run different operating systems and
applications on the same physical computer.
When multiple VMs run on an ESXi host, each VM is allocated a portion of the physical
resources. The hypervisor schedules VMs like a traditional operating system allocates memory
and schedules applications. These VMs run on various CPUs. The ESXi hypervisor can also
overcommit memory. Memory is overcommitted when your VMs can use more virtual RAM than
the physical RAM that is available on the host
VMs, like applications, use network and disk bandwidth. However, VMs are managed with
elaborate control mechanisms to manage how much access is available for each VM. With the

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 39

default resource allocation settings, all VMs associated with the same ESXi host receive an equal
share of available resources.

40 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-22 CPU Virtualization

The virtualization layer runs instructions only when needed to make VMs operate as if they were
running directly on a physical machine. CPU virtualization is not emulation. With a software
emulator, programs can run on a computer system other than the one for which they were
originally written.
Emulation provides portability but might negatively affect performance. CPU virtualization is not
emulation because the supported guest operating systems are designed for x64 processors. Using
the hypervisor the operating systems can run natively on the hosts’ physical x64 processors.
When many virtual VMs are running on an ESXi host, those VMs might compete for CPU
resources. When CPU contention occurs, the ESXi host time slices the physical processors across
all virtual machines so that each VM runs as if it had a specified number of virtual processors.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 41

2-23 Physical and Virtualized Host Memory Usage

When an application starts, it uses the interfaces provided by the operating system to allocate or
release virtual memory pages during the execution. Virtual memory is a decades-old technique
used in most general-purpose operating systems. Operating systems use virtual memory to present
more memory to applications than they physically have access to. Almost all modern processors
have hardware to support virtual memory.
Virtual memory creates a uniform virtual address space for applications. With the operating
system and hardware, virtual memory can handle the address translation between the virtual
address space and the physical address space. This technique adapts the execution environment to
support large address spaces, process protection, file mapping, and swapping in modern computer
systems.
In a virtualized environment, the VMware virtualization layer creates a contiguous addressable
memory space for the VM when it is started. The allocated memory space is configured when the
VM is created and has the same properties as the virtual address space. With this configuration,
the hypervisor can run multiple VMs simultaneously while protecting the memory of each VM
from being accessed by others.

42 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-24 Physical and Virtual Networking

A VM can be configured with one or more virtual Ethernet adapters. VMs use virtual switches on
the same ESXi host to communicate with one another by using the same protocols that are used
over physical switches, without the need for additional hardware.
Virtual switches also support VLANs that are compatible with standard VLAN implementations
from other networking equipment vendors. With VMware virtual networking, you can link local
VMs together and link local VMs to the external network through a virtual switch.
A virtual switch, like a physical Ethernet switch, forwards frames at the data link layer. An ESXi
host might contain multiple virtual switches. The virtual switch connects to the external network
through outbound Ethernet adapters, called vmnics. The virtual switch can bind multiple vmnics
together, like NIC teaming on a traditional server, offering greater availability and bandwidth to
the VMs using the virtual switch.
Virtual switches are similar to modern physical Ethernet switches in many ways. Like a physical
switch, each virtual switch is isolated and has its own forwarding table. So every destination that

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 43

the switch looks up can match only ports on the same virtual switch where the frame originated.
This feature improves security, making it difficult for hackers to break virtual switch isolation.
Virtual switches also support VLAN segmentation at the port level, so that each port can be
configured as an access or trunk port, providing access to either single or multiple VLANs.
However, unlike physical switches, virtual switches do not require the Spanning Tree Protocol
because a single-tier networking topology is enforced. Multiple virtual switches cannot be
interconnected, and network traffic cannot flow directly from one virtual switch to another virtual
switch on the same host. Virtual switches provide all the ports that you need in one switch. Virtual
switches do not need to be cascaded because virtual switches do not share physical Ethernet
adapters, and leaks do not occur between virtual switches.

44 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-25 Physical File Systems and Datastores

To store virtual disks, ESXi uses datastores, which are logical containers that hide the specifics of
physical storage from VMs and provide a uniform model for storing VM files. Datastores that you
deploy on block storage devices use the VMFS format, a special high-performance file system
format that is optimized for storing virtual machines.
VMFS is designed, constructed, and optimized for a virtualized environment. It is a high-
performance cluster file system designed for virtual machines. It functions in the following ways:

 Uses distributed journaling of its file system metadata changes for fast and resilient recovery
if a hardware failure occurs

 Increases resource usage by providing multiple VMs with shared access to a consolidated
pool of clustered storage

 Is the foundation of distributed infrastructure services, such as live migration of VMs and VM
files, dynamically balanced workloads across available compute resources, automated restart
of VMs, and fault tolerance

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 45

VMFS provides an interface to storage resources so that several storage protocols (Fibre Channel,
Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and iSCSI) can be used to access datastores on which VMs can
reside. With the dynamic growth of VMFS datastores through aggregation of storage resources
and dynamic expansion of a VMFS datastore, you can increase a shared storage resource pool with
no downtime.
With the distributed locking methods, VMFS forges the link between the VM and the underlying
storage resources. VMs can use the unique capabilities of VMFS to join a cluster seamlessly, with
no management overhead.

46 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-26 GPU Virtualization

GPUs can be used by developers of server applications. Although servers do not usually have
monitors, GPU support is important and relevant to server virtualization.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 47

2-27 Review of Learner Objectives

48 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-28 Lesson 3: vSphere User Interfaces

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 49

2-29 Learner Objectives

50 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-30 vSphere User Interfaces

VMware Host Client provides direct management of individual ESXi hosts. VMware Host Client
is generally used only when management through vCenter Server is not possible.
With the vSphere Client, an HTML5-based client, you can manage vCenter Server Appliance and
the vCenter Server object inventory.
VMware Host Client and the vSphere Client provide the following benefits:

 Clean, modern UI

 No browser plug-ins to install or manage

 Integrated into vCenter Server and ESXi

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 51

2-31 About VMware Host Client

VMware ESXi in the upper-left corner of the banner on the VMware Host Client interface helps
you to differentiate VMware Host Client from other clients.

52 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-32 About vSphere Client

vSphere Client, which in the upper-left corner of the banner on the vSphere Client interface, helps
you differentiate vSphere Client from other clients.
When you use https://vCenter_Server_Appliance_FQDN_or_IP_Address/ui to access the vSphere
Client, the URL internally redirects to port 9443 on your vCenter Server system.
With the vSphere Client, you can manage vCenter Server Appliance through a web browser, and
Adobe Flex does not have to be enabled in the browser.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 53

2-33 About PowerCLI and ESXCLI

You can install ESXCLI on a Windows or Linux system. You can run ESXCLI commands from
the Windows or Linux system to manage ESXi systems.
For more information about ESXCLI, see https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/7.0/esxcli.
For more information about PowerCLI, see https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/12.0.0/vmware-
powercli.

54 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-34 Lab 1: Accessing the Lab Environment

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 55

2-35 Review of Learner Objectives

56 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-36 Lesson 4: Overview of ESXi

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 57

2-37 Learner Objectives

58 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-38 About ESXi

To ensure that your physical servers are supported by ESXi 7.0, check VMware Compatibility
Guide at https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
You can obtain a free version of ESXi, called vSphere Hypervisor, or you can purchase a licensed
version with vSphere. ESXi can be installed on a hard disk, a USB device, or an SD card. ESXi
can also be installed on diskless hosts (directly into memory) with vSphere Auto Deploy.
ESXi has a small disk footprint for added security and reliability. ESXi provides additional
protection with the following features:

 Host-based firewall: To minimize the risk of an attack through the management interface,
ESXi includes a firewall between the management interface and the network.

 Memory hardening: The ESXi kernel, user-mode applications, and executable components,
such as drivers and libraries, are located at random, nonpredictable memory addresses.
Combined with the nonexecutable memory protections made available by microprocessors,
memory hardening provides protection that makes it difficult for malicious code to use
memory exploits to take advantage of vulnerabilities.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 59

 Kernel module integrity: Digital signing ensures the integrity and authenticity of modules,
drivers, and applications as they are loaded by the VMkernel.

 Trusted Platform Module: TPM is a hardware element that creates a trusted platform. This
element affirms that the boot process and all drivers loaded are genuine.

 UEFI secure boot: This feature is for systems that support UEFI secure boot firmware, which
contains a digital certificate that the VMware infrastructure bundles (VIBs) chain to. At boot
time, a verifier is started before other processes to check the VIB’s chain to the certificate in
the firmware.

 Lockdown modes: This vSphere feature disables login and API functions from being executed
directly on an ESXi host.

 ESXi Quick Boot: With this feature, ESXi can reboot without reinitializing the physical
server BIOS. Quick Boot reduces remediation time during host patch or host upgrade
operations. Quick Boot is enabled by default on supported hardware.

60 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-39 Configuring an ESXi Host

You use the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) to configure certain settings for ESXi hosts.
The DCUI is a low-level configuration and management interface, accessible through the console
of the server, that is used primarily for initial basic configuration. You press F2 to start
customizing system settings.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 61

2-40 Configuring an ESXi Host: Root Access

The administrative user name for the ESXi host is root. The root password must be configured
during the ESXi installation process.

62 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-41 Configuring an ESXi Host: Management Network

You must set up your IP address before your ESXi host is operational. By default, a DHCP-
assigned address is configured for the ESXi host. To change or configure basic network settings,
you use the DCUI.
In addition to changing IP settings, you perform the following tasks from the DCUI:

 Configure VLAN settings.

 Configure IPv6 addressing.

 Set custom DNS suffixes.

 Restart the management network (without rebooting the system).

 Test the management network (using ping and DNS requests).

 Disable a management network.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 63

2-42 Configuring an ESXi Host: Other Settings

From the DCUI, you can change the keyboard layout, view support information, such as the host’s
license serial number, and view system logs. The default keyboard layout is U.S. English.
You can use the troubleshooting options, which are disabled by default, to enable or disable
troubleshooting services:

 vSphere ESXi Shell: For troubleshooting issues locally

 SSH: For troubleshooting issues remotely by using an SSH client, for example, PuTTY

The best practice is to keep troubleshooting services disabled until they are necessary, for
example, when you are working with VMware technical support to resolve a problem.
By selecting the Reset System Configuration option, you can reset the system configuration to its
software defaults and remove custom extensions or packages that you added to the host.

64 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-43 Controlling Remote Access to an ESXi Host

An ESXi host includes a firewall as part of the default installation. On ESXi hosts, remote clients
are typically prevented from accessing services on the host. Similarly, local clients are typically
prevented from accessing services on remote hosts.
To ensure the integrity of the host, few ports are open by default. To provide or prevent access to
certain services or clients, you must modify the properties of the firewall.
You can configure firewall settings for incoming and outgoing connections for a service or a
management agent. For some services, you can manage service details.
For example, you can use the Start, Stop, or Restart buttons to change the status of a service
temporarily. Alternatively, you can change the startup policy so that the service starts with the host
or with port use. For some services, you can explicitly specify IP addresses from which
connections are allowed.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 65

2-44 Managing User Accounts: Best Practices

On an ESXi host, the root user account is the most powerful user account on the system. The user
root can access all files and all commands. Securing this account is the most important step that
you can take to secure an ESXi host.
Whenever possible, use the vSphere Client to log in to the vCenter Server system and manage
your ESXi hosts. In some unusual circumstances, for example, when the vCenter Server system is
down, you use VMware Host Client to connect directly to the ESXi host.
Although you can log in to your ESXi host through the vSphere CLI or through vSphere ESXi
Shell, these access methods should be reserved for troubleshooting or configuration that cannot be
accomplished by using VMware Host Client.
If a host must be managed directly, avoid creating local users on the host. If possible, join the host
to a Windows domain and log in with domain credentials instead.

66 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-45 ESXi Host as an NTP Client

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is an Internet standard protocol that is used to synchronize
computer clock times in a network. The benefits of synchronizing an ESXi host’s time include:

 Performance data can be displayed and interpreted properly.

 Accurate time stamps appear in log messages, which make audit logs meaningful.

 VMs can synchronize their time with the ESXi host. Time synchronization is beneficial to
applications, such as database applications, running on VMs.

NTP is a client-server protocol. When you configure the ESXi host to be an NTP client, the host
synchronizes its time with an NTP server, which can be a server on the Internet or your corporate
NTP server.
For information about NTP, see http://www.ntp.org.
For more information about timekeeping, see VMware knowledge base article 1318 at
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1318.

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 67

2-46 Demonstration: Installing and Configuring ESXi Hosts

68 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-47 Lab 2: Configuring an ESXi Host

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 69

2-48 Review of Learner Objectives

70 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

2-49 Virtual Beans: Data Center

Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center 71

2-50 Key Points

72 Module 2: Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

Module 3
Virtual Machines

Module 3: Virtual Machines 73

3-2 Importance

74 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-3 Module Lessons

Module 3: Virtual Machines 75

3-4 Virtual Beans: Virtualizing Workloads

76 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-5 Lesson 1: Creating Virtual Machines

Module 3: Virtual Machines 77

3-6 Learner Objectives

78 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-7 About Provisioning Virtual Machines

The optimal method for provisioning VMs for your environment depends on factors such as the
size and type of your infrastructure and the goals that you want to achieve.
You can use the New Virtual Machine wizard to create a single VM if no other VMs in your
environment meet your requirements, such as a particular operating system or hardware
configuration. For example, you might need a VM that is configured only for testing purposes.
You can also create a single VM, install an operating system on it, and use that VM as a template
from which to clone other VMs.
Deploy VMs, virtual appliances, and vApps stored in Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) to use
a preconfigured VM. A virtual appliance is a VM that typically has an operating system and other
software preinstalled. You can deploy VMs from OVF templates that are on local file systems (for
example, local disks such as C:), removable media (for example, CDs or USB keychain drives),
shared network drives, or URLs.
In addition to using the vSphere Client, you can also use VMware Host Client to create a VM by
using OVF files. However, several limitations apply when you use VMware Host Client for this

Module 3: Virtual Machines 79

deployment method. For information about OVF and OVA limitations for the VMware Host
Client, see vSphere Single Host Management - VMware Host Client at
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.hostclient.doc/GUID-
509C12B2-32F2-4928-B81B-DE87C7B2A5F6.html.

80 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-8 Creating VMs with the New Virtual Machine Wizard (1)

Module 3: Virtual Machines 81

3-9 Creating VMs with the New Virtual Machine Wizard (2)

The New Virtual Machine wizard prompts you for standard information:

 The VM name
If using the vSphere Client, you can also specify the folder in which to place the VM.

 The resource on which the VM runs

If using VMware Host Client, you create the VM on the host that you are logged in to.
If using the vSphere Client, you can specify a host, a cluster, a vApp, or a resource pool. The
VM can access the resources of the selected object.

 The datastore on which to store the VM’s files

Each datastore might have a different size, speed, availability, and other properties. The
available datastores are accessible from the destination resource that you select.

 The guest operating system to be installed into the VM

82 Module 3: Virtual Machines

 The number of NICs, the network to connect to, and the network adapter type

 Virtual disk provisioning choice

Module 3: Virtual Machines 83

3-10 New Virtual Machine Wizard Settings

84 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-11 Installing the Guest Operating System

To install the guest operating system, you interact with the VM through the VM console. Using
the vSphere Client, you can attach a CD, DVD, or ISO image containing the installation image to
the virtual CD/DVD drive.
On the slide, the Windows Server 2008 guest operating system is being installed. You can use the
vSphere Client to install a guest operating system. You can also install a guest operating system
from an ISO image or a CD. Installing from an ISO image is typically faster and more convenient
than a CD installation.
For more information about installing guest operating systems, see vSphere Virtual Machine
Administration at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-
vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-55238059-912E-411F-A0E9-
A7A536972A91.html.
For more about the supported guest operating systems, see VMware Compatibility Guide at
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

Module 3: Virtual Machines 85

3-12 Deploying OVF Templates

A virtual appliance is a preconfigured VM that typically includes a preinstalled guest operating

system and other software. A virtual appliance is usually designed for a specific purpose, for
example, to provide a secure web browser, a firewall, or a backup and recovery utility.
A virtual appliance can be added or imported to your vCenter Server system inventory or ESXi
inventory. Virtual appliances can be imported from websites such as the VMware Virtual
Appliance Marketplace at https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/.
Virtual appliances are deployed as OVF templates. OVF is a platform-independent, efficient,
extensible, and open packaging and distribution format for VMs. OVF files are compressed,
resulting in faster downloads. The vSphere Client validates an OVF file before importing it and
ensures that it is compatible with the intended destination server. If the appliance is incompatible
with the selected host, you cannot import it.

86 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-13 About VMware Tools

VMware Tools improves management of the VM by replacing generic operating system drivers
with VMware drivers tuned for virtual hardware. You install VMware Tools into the guest
operating system. When you install VMware Tools, you install these items:

 The VMware Tools service: This service synchronizes the time in the guest operating system
with the time in the host operating system.

 A set of VMware device drivers, with additional Perfmon monitoring options.

 A set of scripts that helps you automate guest operating system operations: You can configure
the scripts to run when the VM's power state changes.

VMware Tools enhances the performance of a VM and makes many of the ease-of-use features in
VMware products possible:

 Faster graphics performance and Windows Aero on operating systems that support Aero

 Shared folders between host and guest file systems

Module 3: Virtual Machines 87

 Copying and pasting text, graphics, and files between the virtual machine and the host or
client desktop

 Scripting that helps automate guest operating system operations

Although the guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, many VMware features are
not available until you install VMware Tools. For example, if VMware Tools is not installed in
your VM, you cannot use the shutdown or restart options from the toolbar. You can use only the
power options.

88 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-14 Installing VMware Tools

For more information about using Open VM tools, see VMware Tools User Guide at
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tools/index.html.

Module 3: Virtual Machines 89

3-15 Downloading VMware Tools

90 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-16 Labs

Module 3: Virtual Machines 91

3-17 Lab 3: Creating a Virtual Machine

92 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-18 Lab 4: Installing VMware Tools

Module 3: Virtual Machines 93

3-19 Review of Learner Objectives

94 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-20 Lesson 2: Virtual Machine Hardware Deep Dive

Module 3: Virtual Machines 95

3-21 Learner Objectives

96 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-22 Virtual Machine Encapsulation

vSphere encapsulates each VM into a few files or objects, making VMs easier to manage and
migrate. The files and objects for each VM are stored in a separate folder on a datastore.

Module 3: Virtual Machines 97

3-23 About Virtual Machine Files

The slide lists some of the files that make up a VM. Except for the log files, the name of each file
starts with the VM's name <VM_name>. A VM consists of the following files:

 A configuration file (.vmx).

 Swap files (.vswp) used to reclaim memory during periods of contention.

 A file containing the VM's BIOS settings (.nvram).

 A VM's current log file (.log) and a set of files used to archive old log entries (-#.log).

In addition to the current log file, vmware.log, up to six archive log files are maintained at
one time. For example, -1.log to -6.log might exist at first.

The next time an archive log file is created, for example, when the VM is powered off and
powered back on, the following actions occur: The -6.log is deleted, the -5.log is

98 Module 3: Virtual Machines

 recalled to -6.log, and so on. Finally, the previous vmware.log is recalled to the -
1.log.

 One or more virtual disk files. The first virtual disk has files VM_name.vmdk and
VM_name-flat.vmdk.

If the VM has more than one disk file, the file pair for the subsequent disk files is called
VM_name_#.vmdk and VM_name_#-flat.vmdk. # is the next number in the sequence,
starting with 1. For example, if the VM called Test01 has two virtual disks, this VM has the
Test01.vmdk, Test01-flat.vmdk, Test01_1.vmdk, and Test01_1-
flat.vmdk files.

 If the VM is converted to a template, a VM template configuration file (.vmtx) replaces the

VM configuration file (.vmx). A VM template is a master copy of the VM.

The list of files shown on the slide is not comprehensive. For a complete list of all the types of
VM files, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-
vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-55238059-912E-411F-A0E9-
A7A536972A91.html.

Module 3: Virtual Machines 99

3-24 About VM Virtual Hardware

Each guest OS sees ordinary hardware devices. The guest OS does not know that these devices are
virtual. All VMs have uniform hardware, except for a few variations that the system administrator
can apply. Uniform hardware makes VMs portable across VMware virtualization platforms.
You can configure VM memory and CPU settings. vSphere supports many of the latest CPU
features, including virtual CPU performance counters. You can add virtual hard disks and NICs.
You can also add and configure virtual hardware, such as CD/DVD drives, and SCSI devices. Not
all devices are available to add and configure. For example, you cannot add video devices, but you
can configure available video devices and video cards.
You can add multiple USB devices, such as security dongles and mass storage devices, to a VM
that resides on an ESXi host to which the devices are physically attached. When you attach a USB
device to a physical host, the device is available only to VMs that reside on that host. Those VMs
cannot connect to a device on another host in the data center. A USB device is available to only
one VM at a time. When you remove a device from a VM, it becomes available to other VMs that
reside on the host.

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You can add up to 16 PCI vSphere DirectPath I/O devices to a VM. The devices must be reserved
for PCI passthrough on the host on which the VM runs. Snapshots are not supported with vSphere
DirectPath I/O pass-through devices.
The SATA controller provides access to virtual disks and CD/DVD devices. The SATA virtual
controller appears to a virtual machine as an AHCI SATA controller.
The Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) is an infrastructure that provides a high-
speed communication channel between a VM and the hypervisor. You cannot add or remove
VMCI devices.
The VMCI SDK facilitates the development of applications that use the VMCI infrastructure.
Without VMCI, VMs communicate with the host using the network layer. Using the network layer
adds overhead to the communication. With VMCI, communication overhead is minimal and tasks
that require communication can be optimized. VMCI can go up to nearly 10 Gbit/s with 128 K
sized queue pairs.
The following types of communication are available:

 Datagrams: Connectionless and similar to UDP queue pairs

 Connection oriented: Similar to TCP

VMCI provides socket APIs that are similar to APIs that are used for TCP/UDP applications. IP
addresses are replaced with VMCI ID numbers. For example, you can port netperf to use VMCI
sockets instead of TCP/UDP. VMCI is disabled by default.
For more information about virtual hardware, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration at
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-
55238059-912E-411F-A0E9-A7A536972A91.html.

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3-25 Virtual Hardware Versions

Each release of a VMware product has a corresponding VM hardware version included. The table
shows the latest hardware version that each ESXi version supports. Each VM compatibility level
supports at least five major or minor vSphere releases.
For a complete list of virtual machine configuration maximums, see VMware Configuration
Maximums at https://configmax.vmware.com.

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3-26 About CPU and Memory

You size the VM's CPU and memory according to the applications and the guest operating system.
You can use the multicore vCPU feature to control the number of cores per virtual socket in a VM.
With this capability, operating systems with socket restrictions can use more of the host CPU’s
cores, increasing overall performance.
A VM cannot have more virtual CPUs than the number of logical CPUs on the host. The number
of logical CPUs is the number of physical processor cores, or twice that number if hyperthreading
is enabled. For example, if a host has 128 logical CPUs, you can configure the VM for 128
vCPUs.
You can set most of the memory parameters during VM creation or after the guest operating
system is installed. Some actions require that you power off the VM before changing the settings.
The memory resource settings for a VM determine how much of the host’s memory is allocated to
the VM.

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The virtual hardware memory size determines how much memory is available to applications that
run in the VM. A VM cannot benefit from more memory resources than its configured virtual
hardware memory size.
ESXi hosts limit the memory resource use to the maximum amount useful for the VM so that you
can accept the default of unlimited memory resources. You can reconfigure the amount of memory
allocated to a VM to enhance performance. Maximum memory size for a VM depends on the
VM’s compatibility setting.

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3-27 About Virtual Storage

Storage adapters provide connectivity for your ESXi host to a specific storage unit or network.
ESXi supports different classes of adapters, including SCSI, iSCSI, RAID, Fibre Channel, Fibre
Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Ethernet. ESXi accesses the adapters directly through device
drivers in the VMkernel:

 BusLogic Parallel: The latest Mylex (BusLogic) BT/KT-958 compatible host bus adapter.

 LSI Logic Parallel: The LSI Logic LSI53C10xx Ultra320 SCSI I/O controller is supported.

 LSI Logic SAS: The LSI Logic SAS adapter has a serial interface.

 VMware Paravirtual SCSI: A high-performance storage adapter that can provide greater
throughput and lower CPU use.

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 AHCI SATA controller: Provides access to virtual disks and CD/DVD devices. The SATA
virtual controller appears to a VM as an AHCI SATA controller. AHCI SATA is available
only for VMs with ESXi 5.5 and later compatibility.

 Virtual NVMe: NVMe is an Intel specification for attaching and accessing flash storage
devices to the PCI Express bus. NVMe is an alternative to existing block-based server storage
I/O access protocols.

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3-28 About Thick-Provisioned Virtual Disks

In a lazy-zeroed thick-provisioned disk, space required for the virtual disk is allocated during
creation. Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation. Later, the data is
zeroed out on demand on first write from the VM. This disk type is the default.
In an eager-zeroed thick-provisioned disk, the space required for the virtual disk is allocated
during creation. Data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out when the disk is created.

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3-29 About Thin-Provisioned Virtual Disks

A thin-provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin
disk needs more space later, it can expand to the maximum capacity allocated to it.
Thin provisioning is often used with storage array deduplication to improve storage use and to
back up VMs.
Thin provisioning provides alarms and reports that track allocation versus current use of storage
capacity. Storage administrators can use thin provisioning to optimize the allocation of storage for
virtual environments. With thin provisioning, users can optimally but safely use available storage
space through overallocation.

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3-30 Thick-Provisioned and Thin-Provisioned Disks

Module 3: Virtual Machines109

3-31 About Virtual Networks

For more information about virtual networks, see vSphere Networking at

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-
35B40B0B-0C13-43B2-BC85-18C9C91BE2D4.html.

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3-32 About Virtual Network Adapters

The types of network adapters that are available depend on the following factors:

 VM compatibility level (or hardware version), which depends on the host that created or most
recently updated it. For example, the VMXNET3 virtual NIC requires hardware version 7
(ESX/ESXi 4.0 or later).

 Whether the VM compatibility is updated to the latest version for the current host.

 Guest operating system

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The following NIC types are supported:

 E1000E: Emulated version of the Intel 82574 Gigabit Ethernet NIC. E1000E is the default
adapter for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

 E1000: Emulated version of the Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet NIC, with drivers available
in most newer guest operating systems, including Windows XP and later and Linux versions
2.4.19 and later.

 Flexible: Identifies itself as a Vlance adapter when a VM starts, but initializes itself and
functions as either a Vlance or a VMXNET adapter, depending on which driver initializes it.
With VMware Tools installed, the VMXNET driver changes the Vlance adapter to the higher
performance VMXNET adapter.

 Vlance: Emulated version of the AMD 79C970 PCnet32 LANCE NIC, an older 10 Mbps NIC
with drivers available in 32-bit legacy guest operating systems. A VM configured with this
network adapter can use its network immediately.

 VMXNET2 (Enhanced): Based on the VMXNET adapter but provides high-performance

features commonly used on modern networks, such as jumbo frames and hardware offloads.
VMXNET2 (Enhanced) is available only for some guest operating systems on ESX/ESXi 3.5
and later. It is not supported for ESXi 6.7 and later.

 VMXNET3: A paravirtualized NIC designed for performance. VMXNET3 offers all the
features available in VMXNET2 and adds several new features, such as multiqueue support
(also known as Receive Side Scaling in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt
delivery.

 SR-IOV pass-through: Representation of a virtual function on a physical NIC with SR-IOV

support. This adapter type is suitable for VMs that require more CPU resources or where
latency might cause failure. If VMs are sensitive to network delay, SR-IOV can provide direct
access to the virtual functions of supported physical NICs, bypassing the virtual switches and
reducing overhead.
SR-IOV pass-through is available in ESXi 6.0 and later for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and
later, and Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP2. An operating system release might contain a
default virtual function driver for certain NICs. For others, you must download and install it
from a location provided by the NIC or host vendor.

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 vSphere DirectPath I/O allows a guest operating system on a VM to directly access physical
PCI and PCIe devices connected to a host. Pass-through devices help your environment use
resources efficiently and improve performance. You can configure a pass-through PCI device
on a VM by using the vSphere Client. VMs configured with vSphere DirectPath I/O do not
have the following features:
– Hot adding and removing of virtual devices
– Suspend and resume
– Record and replay
– Fault tolerance
– High availability
– vSphere DRS: Limited availability
The VM can be part of a cluster but cannot migrate across hosts.
– Snapshots.

 With PVRDMA, multiple guests can access the RDMA device by using verbs API, an
industry-standard interface. A set of these verbs was implemented to expose an RDMA-
capable guest device (PVRDMA) to applications. The applications can use the PVRDMA
guest driver to communicate with the underlying physical device. PVRDMA supports
RDMA, providing the following functions:

– OS bypass
– Zero-copy

– Low latency and high bandwidth

– Less power use and faster data access

Module 3: Virtual Machines113

3-33 Other Virtual Devices

Virtual CPU (vCPU) and virtual memory are the minimum required virtual hardware. Having a
virtual hard disk, virtual NICs, and other virtual devices make the VM more useful.
For information about adding virtual devices to a VM, see vSphere Virtual Machine
Administration at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-
vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-55238059-912E-411F-A0E9-
A7A536972A91.html.

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3-34 About the Virtual Machine Console

You can open the VM console from the vSphere Client.

You use the VM console to access the BIOS of the VM, install an operating system on a VM,
power the VM on and off, and reset the VM.
The VM console is normally not used to connect to the VM for daily tasks. Remote Desktop
Connection, Virtual Network Connection, or other options are normally used to connect to the
virtual desktop. The VM console is used for tasks such as power cycling, configuring hardware,
and troubleshooting network issues.

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3-35 Lab 5: Adding Virtual Hardware

116 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-36 Review of Learner Objectives

Module 3: Virtual Machines117

3-37 Lesson 3: Introduction to Containers

118 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-38 Learner Objectives

Module 3: Virtual Machines119

3-39 Traditional Application Development

Waterfall development: Waterfall development cycles take from 6 to 12 months to deliver a

product. Because this cycle is relatively long in the context of software development, requirements
are at risk of changing. In addition, initial requirements might be misunderstood, but this
misunderstanding might be realized only at the end of the project.
Handover to the operations team: When a product is ready for production, it is handed over to the
operations team. The operations team deploys and manages the software from that point. Without
proper training and documentation, the team can find it difficult to skill up and effectively manage
the software.
Monolithic applications: Traditional applications are developed to run as a single large monolithic
process. Large does not refer to the lines of code but to the large number of functionalities and
responsibilities. Typically, traditional applications are deployed to a single VM using manual
processes. And they are not typically designed to be scalable. The only option is to increase CPU,
disk, and memory to achieve higher performance.
Separate environments: Developers start developing on their workstations. Eventually, code
moves to testing, staging, and production environments. Each environment is manually

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configured, resulting in a relatively large amount of effort in all identical environments. Each
environment creates different software libraries, packages, and configurations. This variation
causes issues for developers who must determine why the application works in one environment
but not in the others.

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3-40 Modern Application Development

122 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-41 Benefits of Microservices and Containerization

Applications that run on cloud-based environments are designed with failure in mind. They are
built to be resilient, to tolerate network or database outages, and to degrade gracefully.
Typically, cloud-native applications use microservice-based architectures. The term micro does
not correlate to lines of code. It refers to functionality and responsibility.
Each microservice should be responsible for specific parts of the system.
In the example, the application is broken into multiple services, including a UI and user, order, and
product services. Each service has its own database. With this architecture, each service can be
scaled independently. For example, during busy times, the order service might need to be scaled to
handle high throughput.
The Twelve-Factor App principles describe characteristics of microservice and cloud-native
applications.

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3-42 Container Terminology

124 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-43 About Containers

Module 3: Virtual Machines125

3-44 Rise of Containers

Containers are a new format of virtualized workload. They require CPU, memory, network,
security, and storage.
Containers satisfy developers’ need for speed by removing dependencies on underlying operating
systems:

 Change the paradigm on security by using a discard and restart approach to patching and
upgrades.

 Use structured tooling to fully automate updates of application logic running inside.

 Provide an easy user experience for developers that is infrastructure-agnostic (meaning that it
can run on any cloud).

The opportunities containers present are many, given the infrastructure and operational complexity
that they offer.

126 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-45 About Container Hosts

Administrators provide container hosts, which are the base structure that developers use to run
their containers. A robust microservices system includes more deliverables, many of which are
built using containers.
For developers to focus on providing services to customers, operations must provide a reliable
container host infrastructure.
In vSphere with Kubernetes, the container hosts are Photon-based VMs.

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3-46 Containers at Runtime

128 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-47 About Container Engines

Docker is the most commonly used container engine.

The container engine runs as a daemon process on the container host OS. When a user requests
that a container is run, the container engine gets the container image from an image registry (or
locally, if already downloaded) and runs the container as a process.

Module 3: Virtual Machines129

3-48 Virtual Machines and Containers (1)

With virtualization, multiple physical machines can be consolidated into a single physical machine
that runs multiple VMs. Each VM provides virtual hardware that the guest OS uses to run
applications. Multiple applications run on a single VM but these applications are still logically
separated and isolated.
A concern about VMs is that they are hundreds of megabytes to gigabytes in size and contain
many binaries and libraries that are not relevant to the main application running on them.
With containers, developers take a streamlined base OS file system and layer on only the required
binaries and libraries that the application depends on. When a container is run as a process on the
container host OS, the container can see its dependencies and base OS packages. The container is
isolated from all other processes on the container host OS. The container processes are the only
processes that run on a minimal system.
From the container host OS perspective, the container is another process that is running, but it has
a restricted view of the file system and potentially restricted CPU and memory.

130 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-49 Virtual Machines and Containers (2)

Containers are the ideal technology for microservices because the goals of containers (lightweight,
easily packaged, can run anywhere) align with the goals and benefits of the microservices
architecture.
Operators get modularized application components that are small and can fit into existing
resources.
Developers can focus on the logic of modularized application components, knowing that the
infrastructure is reliable and supports the scalability of modules.

Module 3: Virtual Machines131

3-50 About Kubernetes

Kubernetes automates many key operational responsibilities, providing the developer with a
reliable environment.
Kubernetes performs the following functions:

 Groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and
discovery

 Automatically places containers based on their resource requirements

 Restarts failed containers, replaces and reschedules containers when hosts fail, and stops
containers that do not respond to your user-defined health check

 Progressively rolls out changes to your application, ensuring that it does not stop all your
instances at the same time and enabling zero downtime

 Allocates IP addresses, mounts the storage system of your choice, load balances, and
generally looks after the containers

132 Module 3: Virtual Machines

Kubernetes manages containers across multiple container hosts, similar to how vCenter Server
manages all ESXi hosts in a cluster. Running Docker without Kubernetes is like running ESXi
hosts without vCenter Server to manage them.

Module 3: Virtual Machines133

3-51 Challenges of Running Kubernetes in Production

Kubernetes orchestrates containers that support the application. However, running Kubernetes in
production is not easy, especially for operations teams. The top challenges of running Kubernetes
are related to reliability, security, networking, scaling, logging, and complexity. How do you
monitor Kubernetes and the underlying infrastructure? How do you build a reliable platform to
deploy your applications? How do you handle the complexity that this layer of abstraction
introduces?
For years, VMware has helped to solve these types of problems for IT. VMware can offer its
expertise and solutions in this area.

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3-52 Architecting with Common Application Requirements

Application developers prefer using Kubernetes rather than programming to the infrastructure. For
example, an application developer must build an ELK stack. The developer prefers to deal with
the Kubernetes API. The developer wants to use the resources, load balancer, and all the
primitives that Kubernetes constructs, rather than worry about the underlying infrastructure.
But the infrastructure is still there. It must be mapped for Kubernetes to use it. Usually, that
mapping is done by a platform operator so the developer can use the Kubernetes constructs.
The slide shows how the mapping is done with the VMware software-defined data center (SDDC).
The resources and availability zones map to vSphere clusters, security policy and load-balancing
map to NSX, persistent volumes map to vSphere datastores and metrics map to Wavefront. Each
of these items provides value.

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3-53 Review of Learner Objectives

136 Module 3: Virtual Machines

3-54 Virtual Beans: Virtualizing Workloads

Module 3: Virtual Machines137

3-55 Key Points

138 Module 3: Virtual Machines

Module 4
vCenter Server

Module 4: vCenter Server 139

4-2 Importance

140 Module 4: vCenter Server

4-3 Module Lessons

Module 4: vCenter Server 141

4-4 Virtual Beans: vCenter Server Requirements

142 Module 4: vCenter Server

4-5 Lesson 1: Centralized Management with vCenter
Server

Module 4: vCenter Server 143

4-6 Learner Objectives

144 Module 4: vCenter Server

4-7 About the vCenter Server Management Platform

With vCenter Server, you can pool and manage the resources of multiple hosts.
You can deploy vCenter Server Appliance on an ESXi host in your infrastructure. vCenter Server
Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine that is optimized for running vCenter
Server and the vCenter Server components.
vCenter Server Appliance provides advanced features, such as vSphere DRS, vSphere HA,
vSphere Fault Tolerance, vSphere vMotion, and vSphere Storage vMotion.

Module 4: vCenter Server 145

4-8 About vCenter Server Appliance

vCenter Server is a service that runs in vCenter Server Appliance. vCenter Server acts as a central
administrator for ESXi hosts that are connected in a network.

146 Module 4: vCenter Server

4-9 vCenter Server Services

Although installation of vCenter Server services is not optional, administrators can choose
whether to use their functionalities.

Module 4: vCenter Server 147

4-10 vCenter Server Architecture

The vCenter Server architecture relies on the following components:

 vSphere Client: You use this client to connect to vCenter Server so that you can manage your
ESXi hosts centrally. When an ESXi host is managed by vCenter Server, you should always
use vCenter Server and the vSphere Client to manage that host.

 vCenter Server database: The vCenter Server database is the most important component. The
database stores inventory items, security roles, resource pools, performance data, and other
critical information for vCenter Server.

 Managed hosts: You can use vCenter Server to manage ESXi hosts and the VMs that run on
them.

148 Module 4: vCenter Server

4-11 About vCenter Single Sign-On

Module 4: vCenter Server 149

4-12 About Enhanced Linked Mode

You cannot create an Enhanced Linked Mode group after you deploy vCenter Server Appliance.
Enhanced Linked Mode provides the following features:

 You can log in to all linked vCenter Server instances simultaneously with a single user name
and password.

 You can view and search the inventories of all linked vCenter Server instances in the vSphere
Client.

 Roles, permission, licenses, tags, and policies are replicated across linked vCenter Server
instances.

To join vCenter Server instances in Enhanced Linked Mode, connect the vCenter Server instances
to the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain.
Enhanced Linked Mode requires the vCenter Server Standard licensing level. This mode is not
supported with vCenter Server Foundation or vCenter Server for Essentials.

150 Module 4: vCenter Server