VMware vSphere Introduction-0

7/31/2019 VMware vSphere Introduction-0

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VMware vSphere Introduction

Prasad Potluri Digital Terrain Inc. Page 2

VMware vSphere Hypervisor

Hypervisor is the core (host) product suite of the VMware vSphere. Hypervisors are divided in to Type 1 and Type 2.

A Type 1 Hypervisor can run on its own without an operating system or they can be considered an operating system.

A Type 2 Hypervisor needs an Operating System and its a package or software the users installs on the operating system toperform virtualization tasks.

VMware vSphere is divided in to two packages ESX and ESXi. ESX and ESXi are both considered Hypervisor Type 1.

Microsoft Hyper-VM is considered Hypervisor Type 1.

Xen Based Operating Systems are considered Type 2 Hypervisors.

ESX has a single a native kernel to perform all virtualization tasks.

Xen has two kernels, one to boot the operating system and the other to run Virtual Machines.


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ESX vs ESXi

VMware ESX is built on a Linux foundation and consists of two major components:

Service Console: The Service Console allows an administrator to manage Virtual Machines running on the server and alsoconfigure firewall and SNMP and Web Server (Web Server allows you to manage the ESX server remotely via web)

VMkernel: VMkernel is the heart of the VMware ESX server, the VMkernel acts as a mediator between the physical hardware

and the virtual machines. VMkernel can perform tasks such as CPU scheduling (control thread/task priority), memory

management, and virtual switch data processing. A diagram of the tasks VMkernel can perform is listed below:

ESX ESXi

Service ConsoleVMkernel

VMkernel

ESXi is only packaged with VMkernel which makes ESXi memory footprint relatively small at 32MB.

ESXi relies upon a centralized management console for configuration and management tasks.

VMware VSphere maximums


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Component VMware VSphere maximums

Number of virtual CPUs per host 256

Number of cores per host 64

Number of logical CPUs(hyper-threading enabled)

64

Number of virtual CPUs per core 20

Amount of RAM per host 512GB

For more information regarding VMware VSphere 4.1 maximums please refer to this document:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vSphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdfhttp://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdfhttp://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf


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VMware vSMP (Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing)

VMware vSMP allows an administrator to create virtual processor out of each core that is built in to the CPU. The servers that

are being used for this course consists of two Dell Poweredge R710 Servers with the following specs:

2-way Intel Xeon (w/ 4 cores per processor) 24GB Memory 160GB SAS Drive (x2)

With VMware vSMP operating systems and applications can be ran as virtual machines with multiple virtual CPUs and these

virtual machines (w/ multiple virtual CPUs) can also run operating systems and applications without impacting performance and

meeting SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Below is an example/diagram of VMware vSMP:


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VMware vCenter Server

VMware vCenter Server is designed to serve as a centralized management server for ESX and ESXi hosts. VMware vCenter

Server can be installed on Windows Server or Linux depending on the environment requirements.

VMware vCenter Server relies on a database like MS SQL Server or Oracle Database Server to store all its data such as hosts

and virtual machine information.

VMware vCenter Server also provides the ability to manage other VMware vSphere features such as:

VMware VMotion: VMware VMotion allows users to move virtual machines from one physical server to another without setting up

a scheduled downtime. This feature can also be used migrate virtual machines from failing physical servers.

VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler): VMware DRS allows users to manage resources on virtual machines, such as

incrementing or decrementing memory or storage on the fly as the requirements of the virtual machine changes.

VMware HA (High Availability): VMware HA allows users to setup a cluster or a resource pool of guest OS across multiple

physical servers. If a guest OS were to do go down on a physical server, VMware HA would automatically recognize the outage

with the use of heartbeat and it would automatically start (fail-over) the guest OS on another physical server. VMware HA

makes cluster management less user dependent and seamless.

VMware Fault Tolerance: VMware Fault Tolerance is very similar to VMware HA except instead of clustering it creates a replica

of a Virtual Machine on two different physical servers with only one physical server having read/write access while the other

waits on a standby with just read access. Both the running virtual machines will have exactly the same configuration (including

network information). VMware Fault Tolerance uses the same heartbeat signal in VMware HA for com munication between the

two physical servers.

VMware HA vs VMware Fault Tolerance

VMware HA VMware Fault Tolerance

Does not require Virtual Machine running constantly whichsaves resources

Does require a Virtual Machine running constantly whichwastes resources


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During the fail-over phase there is usually a minute to twominutes of downtime.

No fail-over phase

VMware vCenter Update Manager

VMware vCenter Update Manager is a feature of VMware vCenter Server which assists users in keeping their ESX/ESXi servers

and virtual machines patched with the latest updates.

Scans to identify systems that are not compliant with the latest updates User-defined rules for identifying out-of-date systems


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Automated installation of patches for ESX/ESXi hosts Full integration with other vSphere features like Distributed Resource Scheduler Support for patching Windows and Linux operating systems Support for patching select Windows applications inside virtual machines

VMware vSphere Client

VMware vSphere Client is a windows based application which lets users manage their VMware environment by having the

VMware vSphere Client connect to the VMware server.

The advantage of having this client is that it avoids users from directly opening a remote desktop session to VMware vCenter

Server.


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VMware Consolidated Backup

VMware Consolidated Backup is a very important package of VMware, VMware Consolidated Backup is a set of tools and

interfaces which provide LAN-Based and Non LAN-Based backup solutions. VMware Consolidated Backup can also

communicate with other third-party tools like Symantec NetBackup, TSM, Backup Exec and etc.

VMware Consolidated Backup is recommended to be run on a separate server to manage backups of VMware environment.


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VMware Consolidated Backup Server takes advantage ESX/ESXi feature that allows users to mount the File-System which

contains the VMware virtual machine files. Once the VMware virtual machine files are mounted, you can use third-party tools to

back up the entire VMware environment.

VMware vShield Zones

VMware vShield Zone acts as an additional firewall for the virtual machines in a VMware environment. VMware vShield allows

you to create a group of virtual machines and create a virtual network switch for the virtual machines. The user can then monitor

the in/out traffic on this virtual network switch and setup network policies which block/allow network ports as needed.


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VMware VSphere Editions


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For more information regarding this topic please refer to this white paper:

http://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdf
http://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdfhttp://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdfhttp://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdf

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VMware vSphere Introduction-0