Week 5
Readings
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_san_cfg.pdf
Study Questions and Answers
1. How do VM access virtual disks - through virtual SCSI controllers
2. how does VMFS keep multi host environments safe -- with distributed locking
3. max number of physical storage extents - 32
4. What are the performance gains of VM's on RDM's over VMFS - None
5. What is the WWPN –World Wide Port Name
6.When does the FC switch assign a port ID? – when the device logs into the fabric.
7. What are the two storage system types? -- active / active and active / passive.
8. What is the new storage pathing type in vSphere? - Round Robin
8. What is VMFS Metadata? -- holds mapping information for VMFS objects
9. VMFS Metadata is updated when what is changed? --
Creating, growing, or locking a virtual machine file
Changing a file's attributes
Powering a virtual machine on or off
10. How many VMFS datastores should a LUN contain? – one
11. Suggestion – Study the “Making LUN Decisions” section.
12. How can you prioritize disk bandwidth consumption of a VM – using Disk Shares
14. What is the VMware multiplathing module – Native Multipathing Plug-in
15. What two plug-ins are used with the native multipathing plug-in? – Storage Array Type Plug-in and Path Selection Plug-ins.
16. What tasks does storage SATP implement – monitors health of each physical path, reports changes in state and performs array specific actions, i.e., can active passive paths.
17. What is the function of path selection plug-in? – choosing the physical path for I/O requests.
18. Boot from SAN Consideration --
The HBA should be plugged into the lowest PCI bus and slot number
When you boot from an active/passive storage array, the SP whose WWN is specified in the BIOS configuration of the HBA must be active.
19. General Setup Considerations for Fibre Channel SAN Arrays
LUNs must be presented to each HBA of each host with the same LUN ID number.
Unless specified for individual storage arrays, set the host type for LUNs presented to ESX/ESXi to Linux, Linux Cluster, or, if available, to vmware or esx.
If you are using VMotion, DRS, or HA, make sure that both source and target hosts for virtual machines can see the same LUNs with identical LUN IDs.
20. For what reason would you decide to boot from SAN ?
If you do not want to handle maintenance of local storage.
If you need easy cloning of service consoles.
In diskless hardware configurations, such as on some blade systems.
21. Benefits of Boot from SAN?
Cheaper servers – Servers can be more dense and run cooler without internal storage.
Easier server replacement – You can replace servers and have the new server point to the old boot location.
Easier backup processes – The system boot images in the SAN can be backed up as part of the overall SAN backup procedures.
Improved management –Creating and managing the operating system image is easier and more
Week 4
Readings
vSphere Upgrade Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_upgrade_guide.pdf
vSphere Web Access Administrator's Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_web_access.pdf
More Information From This Week's Discussion
It doesn’t appear there is an expiration date set at this point, for more information on the VCP4 2nd change program see http://mylearn1.vmware.com/portals/certification/
Thin Provisioning Fragmentation … here is some information from the VMware product management team.
Most think of file system thin provisioning where this was more of an issue due to much smaller allocations of space to grow a thin provisioned file. In vSphere we grow the thin provisioned vmdk file in increments of whatever block size is set on the VMFS volume (1 MB by default). With a large access unit size (1 MB) the performance impact of fragmentation in the datastore is very low. Not zero, but not significant to most people. If you move the VM either with Storage VMotion or a cold migrate it will defrag.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_thinprov_perf.pdf
Study Questions and Answers
vSphere Upgrade Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_upgrade_guide.pdf
vSphere Web Access Administrator's Guide http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_web_access.pdf
1. What are the key features of vSphere Web Access (Page 10)
a. Access ESX hosts and vCenter Servers from Linux and Windows systems.
b. Access virtual machines on ESX hosts and vCenter Server instances without installing the vSphere client.
c. Create new virtual machines on ESX hosts.
d. Configure existing virtual machine settings.
e. Add virtual machines to the inventory.
f. Remove virtual machines from the inventory.
g. Perform power operations (start, stop, reset, suspend, and resume) on virtual machines.
h. Monitor the operation of datacenters, ESX hosts, and virtual machines.
i. Interact with the guest operating systems running within virtual machines that use the VMware Remote console.
j. Generate URL and desktop shortcuts for virtual machines.
k. Create and manage snapshots of virtual machines.
l. Perform complete virtual machine snapshot hierarchy management
m. Provide end users with access to virtual machines.
n. Use client devices (such as CD/DVD drives) from your own computer to install software or copy data.
2. Supported Operating Systems
a. Microsoft Windows 2003 Web Edition Service Pack 1
b. Windows 2003 Standard Edition
c. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 1
d. Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3
e. Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2
f. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4
g. Windows 2000 Server Service Pack
h. Windows 2000 Advanced Server Service Pack 4
i. Linux kernel 2.2.14 or later
j. glibc 2.3.2 or later
k. XFree86-3.3.6 or later
l. gtk2.0 or later
m. fontconfig (also known as xft)
n. libstdc+5 or later
3. Max size of a disk that can be added to new VM
a. 2047 GB
4. What does Optimize for safety mean
a. Saves all changes to the virtual disk before notifying the system.
5. What does optimize for performance mean
a. Acknowledges changes to the virtual disk immediately, but saves them at a later time.
6. Difference between persistent and non persistent disks
a. Disks in persistent mode behave like conventional disks on your physical computer.
b. Changes to disks in nonpersistent mode are discarded when you power off or reset the virtual machine. Nonpersistent mode enables you to restart the virtual machine with a virtual disk in the same state every time.
7. What hard disk types can you change capacity of
a. SCSI Only Page
8. What SCSI controller type can you select for HW version 7 only
a. LSI SAS
9. What Virtual Machine Advanced Settings can you change
a. Advanced settings include log management, enabling or disabling acceleration, paravirtualization support, MMU support, and modifying virtual machine configuration files.
10. Which Linux guest is currently VMI 3.0 enabled
a. Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) or later
11. What type of virtual disk can be added to powered on VMs with HW versions earlier than 7.0.
a. You can add a SCSI virtual disk to a powered-on virtual machine with hardware versions earlier than 7.0.
12. When Not to Take a Snapshot
a. It is best to take a snapshot when no applications in the virtual machine are sending transactions to other computers.
13. What will affect the redo log files?
a. When you remove the snapshot, the changes accumulated in the redo log files are written permanently to the base virtual disk files.
b. When you revert to the snapshot, the contents of the redo log files are discarded. Any subsequent changes are accumulated in new redo logs.
c. If you take a snapshot when the virtual machine already has a snapshot, the changes accumulated in the redo log files are written permanently to the base virtual disk files. Any subsequent changes accumulate in new redo logs.
14. Look at section on Troubleshooting vSphere Web Access Errors, pages 61 – 65.
15. When should the vSphere Host Update Utility be used and when should vCenter Update Manager be used for upgrading to vSphere.
a. Host Update Utility: This tool is for upgrading ESX 3.x/ESXi 3.5 standalone hosts to ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 and for patching ESXi 4.0
b. vCenter Update Manager is for upgrading ESX/ESXi hosts that are managed in vCenter Server.
c. With Update Manager 4.0 you can perform orchestrated upgrades of hosts and virtual machines. Orchestrated upgrades can be used to upgrade the virtual machine hardware and VMware Tools of virtual machines in the inventory
16. How does licensing change in vSPhere
a. 25 key centralized
17. What is different for VM upgrade to ESX 4.0
a. Upgrade tools then Hardware
18. The requirements for a cold migration upgrade with vCenter
a. One or more machines meeting ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 requirements.
b. Empty host storage sufficient to hold a portion of your virtual machines. Ideally, the storage should be large enough to hold all of the migrated virtual machines. A larger capacity for virtual machines on this extra storage means fewer operations are required before all your virtual machines are migrated.
19. What happens to datastores when you move from ESX to ESXI
a. VMFS datastores are overwritten unless they are moved to another host before the upgrade.
20. ESX hardware requirements
a. 64bit
b. 2 GB RAM
c. One or more network adapters.
d. sCSI, fibre Channel or internal RAID Controller
e. know the differences beween ESX and ESXi
21. vCenter Requirements
a. 32-Bit or 64-Bit Operating System for vCenter Server
b. 2 CPUs
c. 3 GB RAM
d. 2 GB disk
22. vCenter server required ports
a. 80 and 443
b. 389 – Directory Services
c. 636 – linked mode
d. 902 – host communication
e. 8080/8443 – vCenter management webservices
23. Review vCenter Server Upgrade Summary … such as
a. Vi client 1.x not supported
b. Oracle 9i not supported
24. Review Table 5-2, Configuration and Patch Requirements
25. vCenter server computer name max size
a. 15 chars
26. Downtime during vCenter Server Upgrade, what does not work and what keeps working?
a. DRS does not work, HA does.
27. What is the database upgrade log name
a. VCDatabaseUpgrade.log
28. Be familiar with tables 9-2 and 9-3, Datastore Privileges and Network Privileges.
29. Can you use DHCP IP addresses for ESX hosts during upgrade
a. - No Static only
30. What will the Host Update Utility not upgrade that Update Manager will?
a. VM hardware
b. VM Tools
c. Guest OS (SP and patches)
31. The upgrade to ESX 4.0 preserves the following files from the ESX 3.x file system
a. Basically all of them, your configuration, network, security and storage configuration is in-tact.
32. What versions of ESX/i are supported for upgrade?
a. 3.0.0 onwards
33. How much space does the service console VMDK require in ESX upgrade –
a. The service console VMDK requires at least 8.4GB of available space.
34. How do you view the Upgrade Logs?
a. Open %TEMP%\VCDatabaseUpgrade.log.
35. If you decide to roll back to ESX 3.x what will be lost?
a. Changes to service console
b. VM functionality if VM hardware was upgraded.
36. What OSes go down for VMware Tools Upgrade
a. Windows (guest OS reboot)
b. Linux, network and Solaris stay up.
37. Virtual Hardware Upgrade – what OSes stay up?
a. None.
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Week 3
Readings
vSphere Basic System Administration:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_admin_guide.pdf
Study Questions and Answers
1) The following requirements apply to each vCenter Server system that is a member of a Linked Mode group:
a) DNS must be operational for Linked Mode replication to work.
b) The vCenter Server instances in a Linked Mode group can be in different domains if the domains have a two-way trust relationship. Each domain must trust the other domains on which vCenter Server instances are installed.
c) When adding a vCenter Server instance to a Linked Mode group, the installer must be run by a domain user who is an administrator on both the machine where vCenter Server is installed and the target machine of the Linked Mode group.
d) All vCenter Server instances must have network time synchronization. The vCenter Server installer validates that the machine clocks are not more than 5 minutes apart.
2) What does vCenter Server 4.0 uses to enable Linked Mode
a) ADAM/AD LDS
3) Troubleshooting extensions
a) vCenter Server extensions running on the tomcat server have extension.xml files which contain the URL where the corresponding Web application can be accessesed (files are located in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server\extensions). Extension installers populate these XML files using the DNS name for the machine
4) How do you config snmp communities - vicfg-snmp.pl
5) What is SYSLOGD
a) All ESX/ESXi hosts run a syslog service (syslogd), which logs messages from the VMkernel and other system components to a file.
6) How do you Collect ESX Log Files Using the Service Console
a) Run the following script on the service console: /usr/bin/vm-support
7) What can you use the Datastore Browser to do:
a) View or search the contents of a datastore.
b) Add a virtual machine or template stored on a datastore to the vSphere Client inventory.
c) Copy or move files from one location to another, including to another datastore.
d) Upload a file or folder from the client computer to a datastore.
e) Download a file from a datastore to the client computer.
f) Delete or rename files on a datastore.
8) What does Enable Lockdown Mode achieve?
a) disable remote access for the administrator account after vCenter Server takes control of this host. This option is available for ESXi hosts only
9) What is the difference between disconnecting and removing a host in VC Server
a) You can disconnect and reconnect a host that is being managed by vCenter Server. Disconnecting a managed host does not remove it from vCenter Server; it temporarily suspends all monitoring activities performed by vCenter Server. The managed host and its associated virtual machines remain in the vCenter Server inventory. By contrast, removing a managed host from vCenter Server removes the managed host and all its associated virtual machines from the vCenter Server inventory.
10) What does the host health monitoring tool present
a) data gathered using Systems Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) profiles
11) Guided consolidation network ports
a) 135, 137, 138, 139 and 445
12) In guided consolidation what does Confidence show –
a) Confidence – Indicates the degree to which vCenter Server is able to gather performance data about the system and how good a candidate the system is based on the available data.
13) Virtual Machine Versions –
a) Version 4;
i) Compatible with ESX 3.0 and greater hosts and VMware Server 1.0 and greater hosts. Recommended for virtual machines that need to run on ESX 3.x hosts and for virtual machines that must share virtual hard disks with other version 4 virtual machines.
b) B. Version 7;
(1) Compatible with ESX 4.0 and greater hosts. Provides greater virtual machine functionality. Recommended for virtual machines that do not need to migrate to ESX 3.x hosts.
14) What are the OS choices when creating a new VM
a) Microsoft Windows, Linux, Novell NetWare, Solaris, Other
15) What guests support Paravirtualized SCSI
a) Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Linux (RHEL) 5
16) When can you not decide a virtual disk format
a) On NFS
17) What does vmwareUser.exe and vmware-user do?
a) The VMware user process (VMwareUser.exe on Windows guests or vmware-user on Linux and Solaris guests), which enables you to copy and paste text between the guest and managed host operating systems.
18) When can the hardware version of a virtual machine can be lower than the highest version supported by the ESX/ESXi host it is running on?
a) You migrate a virtual machine created on an ESX/ESXi 3.x or earlier host to an ESX/ESXi 4.x host.
b) You create a new virtual machine on an ESX 4.x host using an existing virtual disk that was created on an ESX/ESXi 3.x or earlier host.
c) You add a virtual disk created on an ESX/ESXi 3.x or earlier host to a virtual machine created on an ESX/ESXi 4.x host
19) What nic's support wake on lan
a) Flexible (VMware Tools required), vmxnet, Enhanced vmxnet, vmxnet 3
20) What HW version for paravirtualized scsi
a) V7
21) Virtual Hardware Requirements for Guest Customization
a) VMware Tools installed
b) 32-bit or 64-bit hardware corresponding to the 32-bit or 64-bit operating system being installed
c) SCSI disks
22) Where are windows and linux errors reported during booting
a) %WINDIR%\temp\vmware-imc.
/var/log/vmware/customization.log.
23) Discuss options for migrating VMs (page 187)
24) EVC Requirements
a) Vc 2.5 update 2
b) All virtual machines in the cluster that are running on hosts with a feature set greater than the EVC mode you intend to enable must be powered off or migrated out of the cluster before EVC is enabled. (For example, consider a cluster containing an Intel Xeon Core 2 host and an Intel Xeon 45nm Core 2 host, on which you intend to enable the Intel Xeon Core 2 baseline. The virtual machines on the Intel Xeon Core 2 host can remain powered on, but the virtual machines on the Intel Xeon 45nm Core 2 host must be powered off or migrated out of the cluster.)
c) All hosts in the cluster must have CPUs from a single vendor, either AMD or Intel.
d) All hosts in the cluster must be running ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or later.
e) All hosts in the cluster must be connected to the vCenter Server system.
f) n All hosts in the cluster must have advanced CPU features, such as hardware virtualization support (AMDV or Intel VT) and AMD No eXecute (NX) or Intel eXecute Disable (XD), enabled in the BIOS if they are available.
g) All hosts in the cluster should be configured for VMotion. See “Host Configuration for VMotion,” on page 187.
h) All hosts in the cluster must have supported CPUs for the EVC mode you want to enable.
25) Read Storage VMotion Requirements and Limitations Page 198
26) What snapshots are not supported –
a) Snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, and independent disks are not supported
27) What are the ESX/ESXi host default users
a) root and vpxuser
28) Default Roles for ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server
a) No access, read only, administrator, VM power user, VM user, resource pool admin, vm consolidated backup user, datastore consumer, network consumer
29) What are the 2 alarm triggers –
a) Condition or State and Event
30) By default, vCenter Server has four collection intervals:
a) Day, Week, Month, and Year.
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Week 2
Readings
ESX and vCenter Server Installation Guide:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf
ESX Configuration Guide:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_server_config.pdf
Follow up Information From Last Week's Club Meeting
vMA Resources
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/234641
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/index.html
http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/vima
Paravirtualized SCSI and Direct Path Compared
http://professionalvmware.com/2009/08/vmdirectpath-paravirtual-scsi-vsphere-vm-options-and-you/
vSphere Command Line Interface
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_vcli.pdf
vMotion and Change Management
http://viewyonder.com/2009/05/12/vmotion-and-change-management/
Fault Tolerance Resources
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf-vsphere-fault_tolerance.pdf
Performance Characterization of VMFS and RDM Using a SAN / Use Cases Also Included
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/performance_char_vmfs_rdm.pdf
Study Questions
Ports
80 - direct http, redirects to https,
389 LDAP for DS,
443 vSphere Client,
636 Linked mode SSL,
902 managed hosts, heartbeat,
902/903 vSphere client to display VM consoles
8080 WS HTTP
8443 WS HTTPS
Is IPv4 and v6 supported with PXE Boot ESX installation?
No
Difference between standard and advanced installs
Standard configures default partitions on single hd/lun, default partitions are sized based on capacity.
Advanced allows you to specify console.vmdk partition settings, kernel options, bootloader location, password.
3 ways to install
Graphical, Text, Scripted
In a scripted install what does the default ks-first.cfg script do
The default ks-first.cfg script reformats the /dev/sda disk and sets up default partitioning
Differences Between Kickstart and ESX Commands
ESX scripted installation is similar to, but incompatible with Red Hat's kickstart: In general, kickstart and ESX scripts differ as follows: ESX scripts use the UUID format for specifying disks. ESX scripts use MAC addresses to specify network adapters. ESX scripts generally allow file and NFS URLs. ESX command options and their values require an equal sign (=) instead of a space.
Required Partitions (Page 61 and 62)
/
/boot
Swap
Vmfs3
Vmkcore
Optional Partitions (Page 62)
/home
/tmp
/usr
/var/log
For remote DB's
Configure Microsoft SQL Server TCP/IP for JDBC - Protocol Keepalive must be 30000 (Page 78)
Advantages of installing vc server in a VM: (Page 89)
Rather than dedicating a separate server to the vCenter Server system, you can place it in a virtual machine running on the same ESX host where your other virtual machines run.
You can provide high availability for the vCenter Server system by using VMware HA.
You can migrate the virtual machine containing the vCenter Server system from one host to another, enabling maintenance and other activities. You can create snapshots of the vCenter Server virtual machine and use them for backups, archiving, and so on.
Networking
Name 3 types of network services in ESX
Connecting virtual machines to the physical network and to each other
Connecting VMkernel services (such as NFS, iSCSI, or VMotion) to the physical network.
Running management services for ESX via the service console.
Max number of vSwitches per host
127
Default number of ports per vSwitch
56
Max number of port groups per host
512
What type of VLANs can you see on VLAN ID 0
only see untagged (non VLAN)
What type of VLAN ID 4095 -
See traffic on any VLAN
What traffic does the VMKernel TCP/IP Stack handle -
iSCSI, NFS, and vMotion
How do you view the current CDP mode for the a vSwitch
esxcfg-vswitch -b <vSwitch> command.
How are private VLANs used between the ESX host and the rest of the network.
To use private VLANs between an ESX host and the rest of the physical network, the physical switch connected to the ESX host needs to be private VLAN-capable and configured with the VLAN IDs being used by ESX for the private VLAN functionality.
vSwitch networking policies
Load balancing and failover / Route based on the originating port ID, Route based on ip hash, Route based on source MAC hash
VLAN (vNetwork Distributed Switch only),
Security,
Traffic shaping,
Port blocking policies (vNetwork Distributed Switch only)
Traffic Shaping Policy
Average Bandwidth, Peak Bandwidth, Burst Size (Page 50)
VMDirectPAth - How many passthrough devices connected per VM?
2
WHat features are unavailable for VM's with VMDirectpath
VMotion
Hot adding and removing of virtual devices
Suspend and resume
Record and replay
Fault tolerance
High availability
DRS (limited availability; the virtual machine can be part of a cluster, but cannot migrate across hosts)
Storage
Maximum virtual disk size
2TB with 8MB block size
Maximum file size:
2TB - 512 bytes with 8MB block size
Block size:
1MB (default), 2MB, 4MB, and 8MB
Number of VMFS datastores –
You can have up to 256 VMFS datastores per system, with a minimum volume size of 1.2GB
Max Number of hosts per VMFS vol
32
Some of the vSphere Features Not Supported by Storage Type (see table 7-2 of Server Config Guide)
vMotion – No local storage
RDM or VM Cluster – No local storage or NFS
iSCSI initiator discovery methods –
Dynamic and Static
Max number of extents per datastore –
32
What is PSA
Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA). The PSA is an open modular framework that coordinates the simultaneous operation of multiple multipathing plugins (MPPs).
What is SATP
Storage Array Type Plugins
What are the 3 PSP (Path Selection Policy's)
Fixed, MRU, Round Robin
What is NPIV
N-Port ID Virtualization: Makes it possible to use the NPIV technology that allows a single Fibre Channel HBA port to register with the Fibre Channel fabric using several worldwide port names (WWPNs).
When can you use NPIV
You can use NPIV only for virtual machines with RDM disks.
Limitations of RDM's
Not available for block devices or certain RAID devices – RDM uses a SCSI serial number to identify the mapped device. Because block devices and some direct-attach RAID devices do not export serial numbers, they cannot be used with RDMs.
Available with VMFS-2 and VMFS-3 volumes only – RDM requires the VMFS-2 or VMFS-3 format. In ESX, the VMFS-2 file system is read only. Upgrade it to VMFS-3 to use the files that VMFS-2 stores.
No snapshots in physical compatibility mode – If you are using an RDM in physical compatibility mode, you cannot use a snapshot with the disk. Physical compatibility mode allows the virtual machine to manage its own snapshot or mirroring operations. Snapshots are available in virtual mode.
No partition mapping – RDM requires the mapped device to be a whole LUN. Mapping to a partition is not supported.
Security
How can using VMware assist with a DoS attack
resource limit on that machine prevents the attack from taking up so much of the hardware resources that the other virtual machines are also affected.
What do Default certificates created on ESX use for encryption
SHA-1 with RSA encryption as the signature algorithm.
What are the ports for connecting to the Virtual Machine Console through a Firewall
Port 443 communicates with - vmware-authd
Port 902 communicates with vmkauthd
Ports between hosts - 443 (server-to-server migration and provisioning traffic)
2050–2250 (for HA traffic)
8000 (for VMotion)
8042–8045 (for HA traffic)
Table 12-1. TCP and UDP Ports (Page 151)
Virtual switches and VLANs can protect against the following types of attacks.
MAC Flooding, 802.1q and ISL tagging attacks, double encapsulation, multicast brute force, spanning tree, random frame attacks
Service console security recommendations
limit user access, use vSphere client, only use vmware sources to upgrade components you run in the service console
Host Profiles
What are host profiles
The host profiles feature creates a profile that encapsulates the host configuration and helps to manage the host configuration, especially in environments where an administrator manages more than one host or cluster in vCenter Server
What format is a host profile when you export it
Vpf
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Week 1
Readings
http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_40_new_feat.html – This is the vSphere 4.0 What’s New Features Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_get_start.pdf -- Getting Started with ESX.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esxi_i_get_start.pdf - Getting Started with ESXi Installable
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_intro_vs.pdf - Introduction to VMware vSphere (up to page 27).
Study Questions & Answers
What standard does vApps use - Open Virtualization Format (OVF) 1.0 standard
What is the requirement for the new Machine Performance Counters Integration into Perfmon - Latest VMware Tools installed in the guest OS
What is the new vMA - virtual machine which includes vSphere Command-Line Interface and other prepackaged software that developers and administrators can use to run agents and scripts to manage ESX and ESXi systems. Functions of vMA include noninteractive login, which allows you to use vSphere CLI without entering passwords on command lines and to collect log files from ESX and ESXi servers
Name a new feature of VMware Data Recovery - data deduplication
Name the 3 new Virtual Hardware features
New Virtual Hardware — ESX/ESXi 4.0 introduces a new generation of virtual hardware (virtual machine hardware version 7), which adds significant new features including
New storage virtual devices
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) virtual devices — Provides support for running Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering configurations.
IDE virtual device — Ideal for supporting older operating systems that lack SCSI drivers.
VMXNET Generation 3 — See the vNetwork section of this feature list.
Hot plug support for virtual devices and hot add support for memory and virtual CPUs
Maximum amount of host memory: 1TB
What is VMware Paravirtualized SCSI (PVSCSI) — Paravirtualized SCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that offer greater throughput and lower CPU utilization for virtual machines. These adapters are best suited for environments in which guest applications are very I/O intensive.
Name the 3 vNetwork Distributed Switch enhancements: Private VLAN Support, Network VMotion, 3rd Party Distributed Switch Support
What are the 3 new guests that can be customized: * Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit), Ubuntu 8.04, Debian 4.0
Name some of the new commands in the vSphere Command-Line Interface: vicfg-dns, vicfg-ntp, vicfg-user, vmware-cmd, and vicfg-iscsi
Describe DRS - VMware DRS helps you manage a cluster of physical hosts as a single compute resource. You can assign a
virtual machine to a cluster and DRS finds an appropriate host on which to run the virtual machine. DRS places
virtual machines in such a way as to ensure that load across the cluster is balanced, and cluster-wide resource
allocation policies (for example, reservations, priorities, and limits) are enforced.
Describe HA - VMware HA enables quick restart of virtual machines on a different physical server within a cluster
automatically if a host fails. All applications within the virtual machines have the high availability benefit,
through application clustering.
Describe FT - Using VMware vLockstep technology, VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) on the ESX/ESXi host platform provides
continuous availability by protecting a virtual machine (the Primary VM) with a shadow copy (Secondary VM)
that runs in virtual lockstep on a separate host.
Describe DPM - When DPM is enabled, the system compares cluster-level and host-level capacity to the demands of virtual
machines running in the cluster. If the resource demands of the running virtual machines can be met by a
subset of hosts in the cluster, DPM migrates the virtual machines to this subset and powers down the hosts
that are not needed.
What is the DVS - A vNetwork Distributed Switch (dvSwitch) functions as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts
Layer 2 security options - Enforces what vNICs attached to a port group in a virtual machine can do by controlling capabilities for a promiscuous mode, MAC address changes, or forged transmissions.
If a LUN fails when will all VM's fail - if the LUN that has the first extent of the spanned volume. (find blog on extents)
When is RDM's useful- SAN snapshot, MSCS
Describe vApp - A vApp has the same basic operation as a virtual machine, but can contain multiple virtual machines or appliances. With vApps, you can perform operations on multi-tier applications as separate entities (for example, clone, power on and off, and monitor). vApps package and manage those applications.
How does vCenter Server communicate with ESX/i host agents - Throught the vSphere API
ESX Hardware req: 64bit, 2GB ram, 1 or more supported net adapters (Broadcom 570xx, Intel Pro 1000), SCSI Adapter, Fibre Channel Adapter, or Internal RAID Controller
vSphere client req - 266mhz+, 200MB RAM, 1GB free hd for full, 400mb on temp, gb ethernet recommended
Minimum Requirements for vCenter Server
CPU – 2 CPUs
Processor – 2.0GHz or faster Intel or AMD processor. Processor requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
Memory – 3GB RAM. Memory requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
Disk storage – 2GB. Disk requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express disk requirements – Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted after the installation is complete.
Networking – Gigabit connection recommended.
vCenter Server domain account permissions, Member of the Administrators group, Act as part of the operating system, Log on as a service
Weekly WebEx Session
Topic: VMware VCP4 Study Club
Date: Every Thursday, from Thursday, November 12, 2009 to Thursday, December 24, 2009
Time: 3:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (GMT -05:00, New York)
Meeting Number: 921 510 655
Meeting Password: vcp4
Please click the link below to see more information, or to join the meeting.-----
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones too!)-----
1. Go to https://vmware.webex.com/vmware/j.php?ED=124023097&UID=0&PW=44e03d2d3e77
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: vcp4
4. Click "Join Now".-----
To join the teleconference only-----
Provide your phone number when you join the meeting to receive a call back. Alternatively, you can call:
Call-in toll-free number (Premiere): 1-877-647-3411
Attendee access code: 104265-----
For assistance-----
1. Go to https://vmware.webex.com/vmware/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click "Support".
You can contact me or Trevor Davis at:
1-980-722-5131
Or
1- 954-854-2362
To add this meeting to your calendar program (for example Microsoft Outlook), click this link:
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