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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Virtualization
Benefi
• Havets
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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Hardwar
e -Also called CPU (Central Processing Unit)

RAM
Processor -Random Access Memory

Read-Only Memory -Non-volatile memory that stores BIOS

*BIOS is type of software responsible for turning on
(booting) computer
Motherboar -Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that holds processor, RAM, ROM,
d network and Input/Output (I/O) and other components.
-Collection of microchips on motherboard that manage specific
Chipset functions.

Storag -A persistent (non-volatile) storage device such as a Hard Drive Disk

e or Solid State Drive

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Softwar
e • System software is necessary for hardware to function
• Operating system controls the hardware

• Application software tells your system to execute a task you

want

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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.

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

What is Virtualization?
Due to the limitations of x86 servers, many IT organizations must deploy multiple
servers, each operating at a fraction of their capacity, to keep pace with today’s

Virtualization
high storage and processing demands. The result: huge inefficiencies and
excessive operating costs.
Virtualization relies on software to simulate hardware functionality and create a
virtual computer system. This enables IT organizations to run more than one
virtual system – and multiple operating systems and applications – on a single
server. The resulting benefits include economies of scale and greater efficiency.
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is the process of creating a software-based, or virtual, representation of
something, such as virtual applications, servers, storage and networks.

It is the single most effective way to reduce IT expenses while boosting efficiency and
agility for all size businesses.

Create a software-based (or virtual) representation of applications, servers, storage

and networks to reduce IT expenses while boosting efficiency and agility.

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

What is a
VM?
A virtual computer system is known as a “virtual machine” (VM): a tightly isolated
software container with an operating system and application inside. Each self-

Virtual Machines
contained VM is completely independent. Putting multiple VMs on a single
computer enables several operating systems and applications to run on just one
physical server, or “host.”

A thin layer of software called a “hypervisor” decouples the virtual machines from
the host and dynamically allocates computing resources to each virtual
machine as needed.
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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Key Properties of Virtual
Machines
Partitioning
Run multiple operating systems on one physical machine.

Key Properties of Virtual

Divide system resources between virtual machines.
Isolation
Provide fault and security isolation at the hardware level.
Machines
Preserve performance with advanced resource controls.
Encapsulation
Save the entire state of a virtual machine to files.
Move and copy virtual machines as easily as moving and copying files.
Hardware Independence
Provision or migrate any virtual machine to any physical server.
Types of Virtualization

Server Virtualization
Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical server as highly efficient
virtual machines.

Types of Virtualization
Network Virtualization
By completely reproducing a physical network, network virtualization allows applications to run on a virtual
network as if they were running on a physical network — but with greater operational benefits and all the
hardware independencies of virtualization.
Network virtualization presents logical networking devices and services — logical ports, switches, routers,
firewalls, load balancers, VPNs and more — to connected workloads.
Desktop Virtualization
Deploying desktops as a managed service enables IT organizations to respond faster to changing workplace needs
and emerging opportunities. Virtualized desktops and applications can also be quickly and easily delivered to
branch offices, outsourced and offshore employees, and mobile workers using iPad and Android tablets.
Benefits of Virtualization

• Virtualization can increase IT agility, flexibility and scalability

• Greater workload mobility, increased performance and availability of resources, automated

Benefits of Virtualization
operations
• Make IT simpler to manage and less costly to own and operate.
• Reduced capital and operating costs.
• Minimized or eliminated downtime.
• Increased IT productivity, efficiency, agility and responsiveness.
• Faster provisioning of applications and resources.
• Greater business continuity and disaster recovery.
• Simplified data center management.
• Availability of a true Software-Defined Data Center..
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)

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

• Files are created by the hypervisor and stored in a

directory

• Example VM files:
File Type 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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?

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Network
s • Transfer data across the data center so devices can
communicate

• What type of hardware is used for networking?

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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)?

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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)

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Common Data Center Storage
Protocols
Protocol Application

SCSI (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)

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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.

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

Virtual Data Center
Benefi ts 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

vSpher
e

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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)

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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
© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content
 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
© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content
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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

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

• Increases availability of data and computing resources

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 Replicatio
•nvSphere 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

VSA
Nvirtualizes existing storage in data center
• VMware VSAN (Virtual Storage Area Network)

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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 NS
•XSuite 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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)

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

 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

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content

CloudHealt
h
• Analyze and report your cloud
costs, usage, performance, and
security

• Monitor groups of resources or specific

resources such as CPU, memory, and disk
usage

© Network Development Group reserved for use with NDG.tech/vmware content