VMware ESX Standard (from HP) - Installation proc guide-lines...

[agorts]

Hello,

We have purchased from HP (with some blades):

-) 430343-B21#01 - VMware ESX Standard 2P Lic (VMware ESX Standard 1P Lic + PEVMS N

-) 430343-B21#02 Server Migration Pack X2V (VMware ESX Standard 21 Lic + PEVMS Nm

-) 430343-B21#03 Virtual Machine Manager (VMware ESX Standard 2P 1ic + PEVMS Nm S

I have downloaded from HP:

-) esx-3_5_0-64607a.iso

-) VMware-esx-upgrade-from-esx3-3_5_0-64607a

-) VMware-VIMSetup-2_5_0-64201

I am a little lost out here...

Can you please give me some guide-lines on the required steps in order to install it and start using it?

Thank you for your help

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

You'll find documentation for ESX / VirtualCenter here - http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vi_pages/vi_pubs_35.html.

To begin with you can discard VMware-esx-upgrade-from-esx3-3_5_0-64607a. You won't need it. You can then

1) Burn the esx-3_5_0-64607a.iso image to a CD (make sure you burn it as a CD image rather than as a file) and then insert that into your first blade. Or you can mount the ISO image so that your blade will boot from the ISO file (I'm not all that familiar with HP blades so I'm assuming that's possible).

2) Have you configured your storage yet? How many blades do you have? Looking at your prior post did you still go with the SD40c? If so, you'll want to configure the 6 drives in the RAID array of your choice (I would lean to all 6 in a RAID 10 or 5 array). Once you have that done you'll be ready to install ESX.

3) Boot the blade from the ISO or burnt CD and the ESX installer will launch. The install in fairly straight forward and it's pretty easy to redo should you find you want to do it again. You'll assign an IP address that you'll access later to manage and you'll also assign a password for the root account. You'll also get a partitioning screen. If you don't plan to install HP agents onto ESX for monitoring then the default is OK. Otherwise take a the partitioning suggestions here - http://communities.vmware.com/message/845678. The last 2 suggestions are good to use (just take note of not using capitals).

4) For the rest of the install options you can stick with the defaults.

5) Once the install in done, reboot the server and you should see a screen with an IP address (the one you assigned during the install). Can you ping it? If so then open the URL in a web browser from a PC that has access to the blade. (For IE make the URL a local Intranet site or trusted). From the main page of the URL you can download the Virtual Intrastructure client. Install that on your PC and then start it. You'll be prompted to logoin to a host (you can use the IP again) and you'll use the root login with password that you assigned during the install. At that point you'll be ready to configure your server further - take a look at this guide - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_quickstart.pdf

6) With your install you'll have a 60 eval so you don't have to worry about licensing right away. You'll be able to switch to permanent licensing once you have your VirtualCenter server up.

The VMware-VIMSetup-2_5_0-64201 image will be used to install VirtualCenter. You'll need a Windows host for it. Are you going to use a physical host or VM for that? Also are you going to using SQL server or SQL Express (SQL Express is OK for small installs - 5 servers / 50 VMs)?

A few other questions:

- how many blades in total will have ESX

- any shared storage (NFS / SAN / iSCSI)

- how many NIC ports will each blade have

- do you have any special networking requirements - VLAN / DMZ?

- how many users will manage your ESX hosts?

[agorts]

Hello,

Thank you very much for your time and the detailed info!

1) Answers:

• how many blades in total will have ESX: Just one for now

• any shared storage (NFS / SAN / iSCSI): I have an HP Proliant DL380 G4

Storage Server also

• how many NIC ports will each blade have: 2 NICs

• do you have any special networking requirements - VLAN / DMZ?: Yes I

would like to have VLANs and a DMZ (but not for now)

• how many users will manage your ESX hosts?: Do you mean the VMs

inside the ESX server? For the ESX, just me...

2) Is it possible to install now the ESX server on the one logical disk

(from 2 HDDs of bl460c) and then attach the SD40c with the configured

drives? In other words is it possible for an existing ESX installation

to add more storage if need it?

3) Can I re-arrange the storage usage in the ESX server after the

installation?

4) What is the best way to use the 2 NICs in the ESX server?

5) During the installation I will have to make some choices. If later I

want to change something, is it allowed? Are there any choices that for

changing them I must re-install the ESX server?

6) Are there any issues about regional settings?

Thank you again for your help!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I have an HP Proliant DL380 G4 Storage Server also

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_san_guide.pdf -- I don't see the storage server listed on the supported list so that could be a bit of a concern. It is likely that it would work (I use Services for Unix on a W2K3 server at home as an NFS server as do others and it is fine). It would just not be a supported configuration by VMware.

NIC ports will each blade have: 2 NICs / Yes I would like to have VLANs and a DMZ (but not for now)

I'd suggest creating a new discussion for this part as you'll likely get some more feedback on it. As mentioned I'm not that familiar with HP blades but I thought with the newer blades you could get more that 2 NICs per blade. Ideally you would have 6 for your config

- 2 NIC ports in a virtual switch (vSwitch) for the ESX management port - this way you could isolate the management of ESX from your production LAN

- 2 NIC ports in a vSwitch for VM traffic

- 2 NIC ports in a vSwitch for NFS traffic

You could do this all with 2 NIC ports in a single vswitch and seperate the traffic with VLANs (even to provide DMZ access) but you would risk performance issues (i.e. VM traffic interferring with NFS (VM disk) traffic). If you do use your storage server or other device I would want to seperate that traffic out so that disk I/O for your VMs is not degraded by high network traffic on the service console (i.e. ESX management) or by high network traffic by the VMs.

2) Is it possible to install now the ESX server on the one logical disk (from 2 HDDs of bl460c) and then attach the SD40c with the configured drives? In other words is it possible for an existing ESX installation to add more storage if need it?

Yes - you can add additional local or SAN / iSCSI / NFS storage.

3) Can I re-arrange the storage usage in the ESX server after the installation?

If you start adding drives to RAID arrays then it is easier to reinstall - is that what you mean?

5) During the installation I will have to make some choices. If later I want to change something, is it allowed? Are there any choices that for changing them I must re-install the ESX server?

For the most part you can change setting - except to change drive partitions it is faster to reinstall

6) Are there any issues about regional settings?

There are some daylight savings time patches but nothing major - did you have something in mind?

[agorts]

Hello,

Thank you for your help!

I have installed the ESX server with the default settings... After installation I installed in my XP the "VMWare Infrastrcture Client"...

1) Can I use this client to connect to a VMWare Server v 1.0.3 or 1.0.5? I try it and it report me (login):

"VMWare Infrastracture Client could not establish the initial connection with server xxxx -

Details: A connection failure occured"

2) I only have one ESX server... Do I have to install the Virtual Center Server? What are the pros and cons for it? What you suggest me?

Thank you again

[lamw]

Question1

I believe you can connect to your VMware Server but you need a license for it, I've read about it on VMware's site but I have not done it personally. If this is possible, you'll probably need Virtual Center to do so, you won't be able to use the standard VI Client to manage both your ESX Host & VMware Server, hence the second answer below. I would probably call VMware SR or Sales to see if this is possible if you plan on managing your ESX host and multiple VMware Servers. If you've already decided to use ESX, you can always consolidate them to ESX and maybe get an extra host for redudancy and additonal resources, but that will be based on the number of VMs you require.

Question2

If you only have 1 ESX Host, you will not gain in purchasing Virtual Center license, it's really use to manage multiple hosts and allowing for advanced features such as DRS / HA / VMotion. Once you start to build out a larger farm, you may want to cluster multiple hosts and manage their resources and that's when you'll want to look at using VC versus using VIC to directly connect to each host and managing them.

[jhanekom]

The VI client is only for use with the Virtual Infrastructure products - that is, VMware ESX Server and VirtualCenter. The only external management tool currently available from VMware that manages VMware Server is the VirtualCenter 1.4.x stream. (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_compat_matrix.pdf)

VirtualCenter (both 1.4.x and 2.x) is an additional component that provides centralised configuration, administration and monitoring capabilities. It is licensed separately. It does not appear from the list you provided above that you have a license for it.

There aren't many benefits to having VirtualCenter in a single-server implementation, so you don't need it right away. The feature missed soonest from VirtualCenter at new deployments is usually the ability to create and deploy template virtual machines.