Cloud and Virtualization

Concepts
From NDG In partnership with VMware IT
Academy
www.vmware.com/go/academy
Why learn virtualization?
• Modern computing is more efficient due to virtualization

• Virtualization can be used for mobile, personal and cloud

computing

• You can also use virtualization in your personal life

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This content will cover
• Understand the benefits of virtualization

• Be able to describe virtualization, virtual machines and

hypervisors

• Describe typical data center components that are virtualized

• Become familiar with VMware technology popular in industry

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Virtualization Benefits
• Have you ever wished you could clone yourself?

• If you could, would you be more efficient? Would you do more?

• Virtualization enables computers to be more efficient in a similar fashion

• Computers that use virtualization optimize the available compute

resources

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What is
virtualization?
Hardware and Software
• Do you use a smartphone, laptop or home computer?

• Smartphones, laptops or home computers are hardware

• Similar to how your brain controls your actions, software controls

hardware

• There are different types of software that control computer actions

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Hardware
Processor - Also called CPU (Central Processing Unit)

RAM - Random Access Memory

Read-Only - Non-volatile memory that stores BIOS

Memory *BIOS is type of software responsible for turning on
(booting) computer
Motherboar -Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that holds processor, RAM,
d ROM, network and Input/Output (I/O) and other
components.
Chipset -Collection of microchips on motherboard that manage
specific functions.
Storag
e -A persistent (non-volatile) storage device such as a Hard Drive
Disk or Solid State Drive

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Software
• System software is necessary for hardware to function

• Operating system controls the hardware

• Application software tells your system to execute a task you

want

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Now that you are aware of the roles of hardware and software, the concept
of virtualization will be easier to grasp. Virtualization is the “layer” of
technology that goes between the physical hardware of a device and the
operating system to create one or more copies of the device.

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What is a VM?
• Virtualization creates virtual hardware by cloning physical hardware

• The hypervisor uses virtual hardware to create a virtual machine (VM)

• A VM is a set of files

• With a hypervisor and VMs, one computer can run multiple OS

simultaneously

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The
Hypervisor
What is a Hypervisor?
• Software installed on top of hardware that created virtualization
layer

• Hosts VMs

• Type 1 Hypervisor – Bare metal hypervisor (VMware ESXi)

• Type 2 Hypervisor – Hosted hypervisor (VMware Workstation)

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Virtual Machine Files
• VMs can be exported and moved to other hosts

• Files are created by the hypervisor and stored in a

directory

• Example
File TypeVM files: File Name Description

Log File <vmname>.log Keeps a log of VM activity

Disk File <vmname>.vmdk Stores content of VM’s disk drive

Snapshot Files <vmname>.vmsd and Stores information about VM

<vmname>.vmsn snapshots (saved VM state)
Configuration File <vmname>.vmx Stores information about VM
name, BIOS, guest OS, and
memory

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What is a snapshot?
• Working on a VM and need to save progress or state

• Snapshots are saved as files in the VM folder

(<vmname>.vmx)

• What is saved by a snapshot?

- State of VM disks
- Contents of VM memory
- VM settings

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The Data
Center
What is a Data Center?
• Hardware infrastructure
that supports virtualization

• Focus is on processing large

amounts of data

• What are the three

main components?
- Compute
- Storage
- Networks

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Compute Systems
• Hardware and operating system software that runs applications

• Difference between a PC and a server

- PCs have user-friendly interface while servers focus on running
programs

• Types of servers:
- Tower
- Blade server
- Rack-mounted server

• What is the architecture of a server?

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Networks
• Transfer data across the data center so devices can
communicate

• What type of hardware is used for networking?

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Storage
• Data center storage should have two features: availability and
redundancy

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Storage - RAID
• Redundant Array of Independent Disks

• Hard drives linked together to create a large volume of redundant

storage

• What are the three methods of writing to RAID?

- Mirroring
- Striping
- Parity

• What do the RAID numbers mean (i.e., 0, 1, 5)?

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 Storage - Block vs. File Level
• Block-Level Storage – Data is written to and accessed from storage volumes
(blocks)

• File-Level Storage – Data is written to disks but accessed from default file system

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Storage – Types of Data Center Storage
• DAS – Storage device is directly attached to a server (block-level)

• NAS – Storage device is attached to a network, servers on the network

can access device (file-level)

• SAN – Clustered storage devices on their own network that servers

can connect to (block-level)

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Common Data Center Storage Protocols
Protocol Application

SCSI (Internet Small Computer System Medium-sized blade servers, Enterprise

Interface servers, DAS
FC (Fiber Channel) Enterprise servers, SAN

FCoE (Fiber Channel over Ethernet) Enterprise servers, SAN

iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Enterprise servers, NAS

Interface)

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Storage Provisioning
• Thick provisioning: Disk space is strategically pre-allocated to a server,
or a VM. This means that the logical space provided by partitioning is
equal to the amount of actual physical space set aside on the physical
disk.

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Virtual Data
Center
Benefits of a Virtual Data Center
• Data centers use a lot of hardware and virtualization makes hardware
more efficient

• Increased computing resources results in higher availability of

applications

• Less labor needed to monitor data center (administrator can monitor from
desk using a program)

• Software-defined data center (SDDC): Hypervisor pools physical data

center resources into a virtual data center

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What is vSphere?
• Suite of virtualization technology designed for larger enterprise data
center management

• vSphere virtualization tools include:

- ESXi: Type 1 Hypervisor
- vCenter: Management software (installed on management server)
- vSphere Client: Program that controls host servers and VMs

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vSphere

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What is ESXi?
• ESXi is VMware’s Type 1 hypervisor software installed directly on the
physical server and creates the virtual layer

• Components of ESXi:
- Unix Microkernel
- VMware Kernel (VMkernel)

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vCenter and vSphere Client
• vCenter: Software installed on a
dedicated server to manage ESXi
servers and other components of a
virtualized data center

• vSphere Client: Program with a

graphical user interface (GUI) that
allows data center administrators to
connect to vCenter and ESXi remotely

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Server Virtualization
• Results in increased efficiency of data center servers because multiple
VMs can be hosted on one server

• Computing resources can be distributed to customers using less

hardware

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Storage Virtualization
• Storage capacity is pooled and distributed
to the VMs
- Physical storage devices are
partitioned into logical
storage (LUNs)
- LUNs are used to create a
datastore

• How do VMs access data center

storage?
- VMs are stored as VMDK
(.vmdk) files on datastore
- VM configuration files (VM settings)
are stored as VMX (.vmx) files
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Network Virtualization
• Physical components that make up the physical
network are virtualized to create a virtual
network

• What is a vSwitch?
- Virtual switch that virtual devices can
connect to in order to communicate
with each other

• What is a vLAN?
- Virtual Local Area Network that is
segmented into groups of ports
isolated from one another, creating
different network segments
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Types of Virtual Networks
• Bridged Network: The host server and the VM are
connected to the same network, and the host
shares its IP address with the VM

• NAT: VMs use an IP translated from the host’s

IP (using NAT device) and communicate on a
private network set up on the host computer

• Host-only Network: VMs use a private network but

do not have translated IP addresses to connect to
external network, therefore can only communicate
to other VMs on the isolated host network

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Application and Desktop Virtualization
• Why use virtualized applications?
- Some applications have specific system requirements
- VMware Thinapp creates a packaged virtual app, that contains
the
program and system requirements, and delivers it to the end-user

• What is desktop virtualization?

- Designed to solve computing resource issues faced by the mobile
workforce (workers that need computing without the hardware)
- VMware Horizon takes the resources needed to create a desktop
environment from data centers and delivers it to the end-user’s
device
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Convergence
• Convergence: Moving from a traditional hardware-based server model to
a virtual data center

• Two strategies:
- Containment: Not deploying any existing applications for customers on
virtual servers. Maintain applications running on the hardware-based
data center.
- Consolidation: Moving applications that are running in the old
hardware-based data center model using VMware P2V technology

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What is the
Cloud?
The Cloud

• Cloud computing is the delivery

of shared computing resources
(software and/or data) on-
demand through the internet

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Types of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is categorized into
different service models. The major types
of cloud computing are:

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Cloud Deployment Models
Cloud deployment includes an emphasize on where
the hardware or software is running and who is
controlling it.

• Private Cloud
• Community Cloud
• Public Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

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VMware
Solutions
vMotion
• Move running virtual machines from one ESXi host to another ESXi host
without service interruption (live migration)

• Increases availability of data and computing resources

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Storage vMotion
• Move the disks and configuration files of a running virtual machine from
one datastore to another datastore without service interruption

• Increases availability of storage

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High Availability (HA)
• Pools servers (hosts) and the VMs that reside on them in a cluster so that in
the event of a failure, the virtual machines on a failed host are restarted on
alternate hosts

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Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
• What problem does DRS solve?

• HA clusters need to be monitored and managed. DRS implements a

shared management interface so that the cluster’s resources can be
monitored and managed

• vSphere Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler provides the same solution

for storage clusters

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Fault Tolerance (FT)
• A secondary copy of that virtual machine and its files is created on another
ESXi host and datastore

• Using FT, the transfer to a different server is seamless and will not be
noticeable to the end-user

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Replication
• vSphere Replication makes copies of
VMs in a different physical location,
useful for data protection and
disaster recovery

• Works with vSphere Client to

allow admins to monitor

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VSAN
• VMware VSAN (Virtual Storage Area
Network) virtualizes existing storage in data
center servers

• Creates a hyper-converged infrastructure;

integrated virtualized data center
components from one vendor (i.e., VMware)
(Do you recall what a converged
infrastructure is?)

• Interacts with vSphere to create one layer

of virtualization software, which is
managed by the vCenter management
layer
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NSX
• Suite of virtualization solutions for
data center networking

• VMware NSX creates a ‘software

network’ on top of the physical
network that can be divided up into
many virtual networks

• Virtual networking components

included

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VMware Cloud Foundation
• Suite of virtualization solutions for
data center migration

• VMware Cloud Foundation makes it

easy to transition from an existing
system to a virtual data center

• Can be used to virtualize on-premises

or to migrate off-premises to cloud
environments such as Amazon Web
Services (AWS)

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vCloud Automation Center
• Cloud management product to quickly
deliver and easily manage the
personalized infrastructure, applications,
and services for business needs

• Individuals can have access to a user-

friendly self-service portal to create
their own machines

• Ability to deliver services on

different platforms such as AWS
and Azure

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CloudHealth
• Analyze and report your cloud
costs, usage, performance, and
security

• Monitor groups of resources or specific

resources such as CPU, memory, and
disk usage

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