VMware vSphere 6.7 Free Sample .pdf

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

e

M

at

er

ia
l

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Get your own copy. Visit
http://www.esxlab.com
or e-mail lkarnis@esxlab.com

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

ia
l

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

er

VMware vSphere 6.7 with ESXi and vCenter – Study Guide
Copyright © 2009 – 2019 by ESXLab.com – All rights reserved. No reproduction by any means,
mechanical, electronic or otherwise, without prior written permission from the authors.

Phone:
Toll Free:
Facsimile:
LinkedIn
E-mail:
Web:
Twitter:

(905) 451-9488 x100
(888) 451-3131
(905) 451-7823
ca.linkedin.com/larrykarnis
Larry.Karnis@esxlab.com
www.esxlab.com
@ESXLab

M

Larry Karnis, ESXLab.com
20 Regan Road, Unit 1
Brampton, Ontario Canada
L7A 1C3

at

Researched, written, published by:

C
ou

rs

e

First edition published October 2009
…
Seventh edition updated for vSphere 5.5, December 2014
Tenth edition updated for vSphere 6.0, November 2016
Eleventh edition updated for vSphere 6.5, April 2017
Fourteenth edition updated for vSphere 6.7, August 2018
Latest vSphere 6.7 update (to correct typos, improve content, etc.), April 2019
To find out more about our products and services including consulting services, renting our
remote lab facilities, running your own VMware class or custom training and content solutions,
please visit our website www.esxlab.com or e-mail the author: larry.karnis@esxlab.com.

pl
e

This document was prepared using the open source LibreOffice 5.4.x office suite. LibreOffice
can be freely downloaded for free from www.LibreOffice.org. Microsoft Visio™ 2007 was used
to create some of the slide graphics. Final PDF assembly was performed with PDFFactory Pro™
available at www.FinePrint.com. Screen grabs were captured with Snagit from TechSmith.com.
This document, the images, screen grabs, etc. are original works. This document is copyright 2009-2015 by
ESXLab.com. All rights reserved. No reproduction by any means including photo-copying or electronic imaging is
permitted without prior written authorization from the copyright holder.

Sa
m

This training material is provided 'as is', without any warranty either expressed or implied. ESXLab.com prepared this
material with due care for accuracy and completeness, but does not warrant that the content is either error free or
suitable for any specific use. By using this courseware, the user agrees to accept responsibility for all results – desirable
or otherwise. Customer agrees that all lab exercises are for illustration purposes only, and assumes all risks including
but not limited of data damage or loss, resulting from such use. Customer agrees to indemnify ESXLab.com and its
employees/contractors from all claims arising out of the use or misuse of the material in our courseware.
Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Windows Server 2000/2003/2008/2012, etc. are registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. GroupWise and NetMail are trademarks of
Novell Inc. Lotus Domino is a trademark of IBM Corporation. RedHat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora are trademarks of
RedHat Inc. VMware, VMware Workstation, VMware Server, VMware Player, VMware ESX, VMotion, vSphere, etc. are
registered trademarks of VMware Corporation. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
ESXLab.com is an independent training and content development company that is in no way affiliated with or in any
way related to VMware Inc. In no case is any such relationship either implied or intended.

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Time Line & Table of Contents
Day 1 Topics

er

ia
l

Course Overview
VMware vSphere Overview
Install and Configure Standalone ESXi
Virtual & Physical Networking

at

Day 2 Topics

M

Connecting to and Using NAS Shared Storage
Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines
Installing and Configuring vCenter Server Appliance
Day 3 Topics

rs

e

Virtual Machine Rapid Deployment
vCenter and ESXi Permission Model
Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage

C
ou

Day 4 Topics

VMware's Cluster File System
vCenter Alarms
Resource Management and Resource Pools
VM Cold, Hot and Storage Migration

pl
e

Day 5 Topics

Sa
m

Load Balanced Distributed Resource Scheduler Clusters
VMware High Availability Clusters
Performance Monitoring and Tuning
Final Thoughts
Appendix
Appendix 1 – Definitions & Acronyms

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

ia
l

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

er

Author's Note

M

at

Twenty five years ago, I started my IT career as a UNIX/C programmer. By 1992, I was working
as a very busy UNIX administrator so I gave up the safety of full time work for consulting. As a
hedge against down time, I contacted a major training company and offered my services. Soon,
I was teaching their UNIX and C programming classes (very popular at the time). Over time, my
love of UNIX morphed into a love of Linux so by 2002 I was teaching Linux for RedHat.

e

In 2004, I had the very good fortune to be contacted by VMware. Would I like a job working as a
trainer? I said “no” and asked if they wanted a contractor. They said no. I had this conversation
with VMware three times in 2004 until they finally agreed to hire me as a contractor. I sat the
ESX I & II classes and earned my VMware Certified Professional on ESX 2.0 (VCP# 993).

C
ou

rs

I worked as a contract resource for VMware for about 4 years. I got to watch ESX grow from a
niche product used primarily for testing into a full blown production platform. VMware was a
young, company creating technical magic (VMotion was absolutely unbelievable in 2003). IMHO,
their software magicians were, and still are without equal. They have since delivered Storage
VMotion, High Availability, DRS clusters, Fault Tolerant VMs and much, much more.
In 2008, I left VMware to work again as an independent. I enjoy training and was still a huge
advocate of VMware's technology, so I decided to start a company to provide vendor
independent VMware training courses that anyone could run. The result is this book set.

pl
e

This Study Guide fully explains how each vSphere feature works. The accompanying Lab Guide
takes you through the mechanics. Each lab starts at the very beginning and takes you through
all the steps needed to complete the job. There is no magic in this course because nothing is
done for you. In most cases, you can perform the labs at work exactly the same way and get
the same result (just be careful and don't break anything!).

Sa
m

Developing courseware is much like developing software (my first job). You write, re-write,
review, edit update, test until you truly believe that it is bug free. The reality is that bugs
exist – and no doubt, some are still lurking in this book set. If you find one, please let me
know. I'll fix the issue and the next version of the courseware will be better for your input. As a
bonus, I will provide a free ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam voucher to the first
person who reports each unique bug
VMware vSphere has rekindled my love of IT, and I've seen it do the same for others. Demand
for VMware vSphere skills is growing – and so will your career once you master VMware vSphere
6.0. My hope is that this class will help you get there much faster.

Larry Karnis
E-mail: larry.karnis@esxlab.com Phone: 1 (905) 451-9488 x100

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

ia
l

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

er

vSphere 6.7 – Author's Note

at

vSphere 6 was officially announced in November 2016. Due to work commitments, I didn’t start
my course book refresh of my vSphere 6.5 courses until late January 2017

M

There are many new things to like in vSphere 6.7. DRS and HA clusters have new features to
better load balance and recover VMs. VMFS 6 was introduced. While I don’t address VMFS 6
(much) in this course, it does hold a lot of promise for better storage management.

rs

e

VMware now officially backs Host Client as the new management tool for stand alone ESXi
hosts. The good news is that it provides a simple, web based interface that works with any
HTML 5 compliant browser. The bad news is that it is not feature complete compared to
vSphere Client. Even worse, it is buggy and can crash without much provocation. To address
this issue, I added an extra lab step to have you download and install the latest version of Host
Client.

C
ou

Even better, Web Client is now actually pleasant to use. The slow, clunky and somewhat
disorganized (IMHO) experience of 6.0 Web Client was (mostly) gone... replaced with a layout
that is faster, easier to use, with flatter, better organized navigation. VMware vSphere (C#)
client is officially gone. Unofficially, vSphere Client 6.0 does work with with ESXi 6.5 but simply
refuses to work with vCenter 6.5. If you are still using vSphere Client, it is time to abandon it
in favor of newer, web based clients.

pl
e

Ironically, VMware does not really teach students how to install either ESXi or the vCenter
Server Appliance in their own Authorized training. Instead, pre-installing them for you. My class
takes you through the complete install process for all software used – including ESXi and vCSA.
In my view, that's why people spend good money for training; to learn how to work around the
issues and get the job done... and that's what I have tried to deliver in my course.
I hope you enjoy this course. Please e-mail me (larry.karnis@esxlab.com) if you would like to
provide feedback, suggest improvements or to let me know what you think.

Sa
m

Larry

May, 2018

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

ia
l

Self Paced VMware
Video On Demand
Training

Training on the VMware licenses you actually own
Practical, real world training that offers tips, best practices and actionable advice
Training by topic or on a learning paths tailored to help you reach your training objectives

at

✔
✔
✔

er

ESXLab offers Video On Demand training for all of its training classes.

M

Free Video Lectures of Your Course

e

If you have attended an ESXLab based VMware training class that uses both ESXLab course books and ESXLab
remote lab rentals, you are entitled to FREE access to the Video On Demand version of the course you
attended. This is an excellent opportunity to review content, refresh your knowledge and get insights offered
by the course author. Please email sales@esxlab.com to get your free course access coupon.

rs

VMware Video On Demand Training

C
ou

ESXLab offers video on demand vSphere training on the features and functions you
need to know. We have training packages that are ideal for new or experienced
VMware vSphere administrators
Each class teaches specific set of vSphere features and capabilities. ESXLab offers
Video On Demand training that covers all of the major capabilities of the vSphere
license you own. The benefit is you get training on the features and functions you own without wasting your
time (and money) getting training on features that are not included in your license.

pl
e

Benefits of Video On Demand Training

Video on Demand training provides you with the following benefits:
Save money. Video on demand training is much less expensive than instructor led live training
Get training only on the topics you need
Train on your own schedule including evenings and weekends
Get training now rather than waiting for a training class
Train from work or home as time permits
Review topics as often as you like
Ask questions on any topic

Sa
m

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

For course outlines, pricing and lab rental details, please visit
contact ESXLab.

Toll Free: 1 (888) 451-3131
Web: www.esxlab.com

https://vmware-training.esxlab.com or

Phone: 1 (905) 451-9488

E-mail: sales@esxlab.com

Video on Demand: http://vmware-training.esxlab.com

(c) Copyright 2018 by ESXLab.

Revised: April 2018

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

er

ia
l

vSphere 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 6.7
Self Study
Virtual Lab Rentals

•
•
•

M

e

•

rs

•

Purchased our course books from one of
our publishing partners, and need
servers to run through the labs
Would like to run through the labs a 2nd
time to improve your familiarity and
skill with vSphere
Would like to prepare for VMware or
Certified Virtualization Professional
(CVP) certification
Run your own training events
To experiment with vSphere features
To practice migrations, upgrades, etc.
before trying them on your own
production machines

C
ou

•

at

ESXLab.com has over 150 servers available
for rent... Rent our servers if you:

What's Included in my Server Pod Rental
Servers with Quad Core pCPU, 12GB RAM, 150GB of disk, etc.
4 NICs for NFS, iSCSI SAN, management, VMotion, Fault Tolerant logging and VM use
All needed infrastructure services such as DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, etc.
An NFS service with all media images needed to complete our labs
An iSCSI SAN service for shared access storage
Access from any device through any HTML 5 compliant web browser
Live support to help run through our labs

pl
e

•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Sa
m

Get a Quote

We offer low cost lab rentals cost for 7 day, 14 day or for 30 day intervals. To get a kit
rental quote, please contact us or visit http://esxlab-com.3dcartstores.com.
Toll Free: 1 (888) 451-3131
Web: www.esxlab.com

Phone: 1 (905) 451-9488

E-mail: sales@esxlab.com

Video on Demand: http://vmware-training.esxlab.com

(c) Copyright 2018 by ESXLab.

Revised: April 2018

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

M

at

er

VMware vSphere 6.7
with ESXi and vCenter

ia
l

Class Overview

Overview-1

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Virtualization
➲

M

at

er

ia
l

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7 features
Class Overview

Overview-2

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VMware vSphere
VMware ESXi
Management, Performance, Monitoring
●

CPU / Memory Resource Balancing
●

➲
➲

Permissions and Access Controls
Storage Resource Balancing
●
●

➲

VMotion, DRS Load Balancing Clusters

Storage VMotion, Storage DRS
Storage Profiles

Virtual Machine High Availability
●

er

➲

vCenter Server, vCenter Server Appliance

at

➲

Enterprise class server virtualization software

HA Clusters, Fault Tolerant VMs

Overview-3

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

VMware provides a complete suite of products both for virtualization as well as for
management, back up, disaster recovery, testing, replication and much more. These
products make migrating to virtualization deployments very beneficial.
The primary risk of virtualization is too many eggs in one basket... That is, you create risk if you consolidate workloads into virtual machines but lack the ability to:

pl
e

- Load balance your VMs across physical servers
- Load balance storage capacity and performance across storage volumes
- Rapidly recover VMs that fail when a physical host fails
- Easily manage and monitor VMs
- Deploy VMs from known good images
If you cannot load balance, then you run the risk of poor VM performance (due to
host resource over-commit).
If you cannot automatically place and restart VMs due to a physical server failure,
then you may have critical production VMs down for hours if a host fails. Furthermore, if a physical host that supports a large VM population fails catastrophically,
then your VMs might be down for days (until the hardware can be repaired).

Sa
m

ia
l

●

M

➲

VMware Virtual Infrastructure provides solutions for all of the above. Other products
are maturing but do not yet offer the same breadth or depth of functionality as
VMware.

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Virtualization – Before & After
App
O/S

App
O/S

ia
l

App
O/S

er

VMware vSphere

➲

A software abstraction that creates virtual
hardware & maps it to physical hardware
Is completely transparent to guest OS
and applications

M

➲

at

Before Virtualization

Overview-4

Notes
Traditional PC Server Deployments

●

C
ou

One O/S and Application per server
Captive local disk
●
Workloads locked to server
●

rs

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

Virtual Deployment
●
Require fewer physical servers
●
Can run many workloads as Virtual Machines
●
Workloads not locked to server (cold migration, VMotion, Storage VMotion)
●
Load balancing and high availability options depend on shared disk
●
Higher hardware utilization rates
●
Lower marginal cost to deploy new workloads (just make a new VM)
●
Better reliability and performance due to more capable hardware
●
New options for Disaster Recovery, Back Up

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

➲
➲

er

➲
➲
➲

at

➲
➲
➲
➲

Virtualization Overview
Stand Alone ESXi
Virtual & Physical Networking
Virtual Machines, Rapid Deployment
vSphere Management
NAS and SAN Shared Storage
Resource management and delegation
VM Migration, Load Balanced Clusters
Virtual Machine High Availability Clusters
Scalability and Performance

M

➲

Overview-5

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

pl
e

C
ou

The above items are key topics in this class but not a complete list of topics. For a
complete list of topics, please consult the Table of Contents.

Sa
m

ia
l

Key Topics

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Public Class Daily Timetable
●

Ask questions anytime

Attending remotely?

●

at

➲

er

Start
➲ Classrooms
Break
● Cell phones on
Lunch
vibrate please
Resume
● Please take calls
Break
outside class
End of Day

Please mute your mic
when not speaking
●

So local conversations
stay private

M

09:00 a.m.
10:30 a.m.
12:00 p.m.
01:00 p.m.
03:00 p.m.
05:00 p.m.

Informal

Overview-6

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

pl
e

C
ou

The above schedule is for public classes based on our standard timetable. Your training
company/partner may set a different schedule.

Sa
m

ia
l

➲

Schedule

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Problems & Opportunities
Identify common
pain points. E.g.
●
●
●
●
●
●

Provisioning
Deployment
Management
Imaging
Back Up & DR
Etc.

Explain how Virtual
Infrastructure
addresses the
problem
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

New methods
Streamlined
procedures
Less risk
Faster results
Reduced costs
Simplify
Etc.

Overview-7

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

pl
e

C
ou

Virtualization addresses most of the common pain points experienced by modern PC
server deployments. As we go through this class you will learn how virtualization delivers the above benefits – and much more.

Sa
m

ia
l

●

er

●

Virtual Solution

➲

at

Business or IT
problem we face

M

➲

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Introductions
Who
●

Prior experience with
●
●
●
●
●

➲

Official reason, then the honest reason!
Personal goals for this class

er

➲

ia
l

Why are you here?
●
●

Windows
Linux/UNIX
VMware hosted products (Player, Server, etc.)
vSphere 6.x, 5.x, 4.x, etc.
3rd party Virtualization (XenServer or Hyper-V)

at

➲

Name and current job

M

➲

Favorite vacation destination?

Overview-8

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

Experience with virtualization is not a prerequisite for this class... If you do have
prior virtualization experience either with VMware products or other products –
please feel free to share them with the class.

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

➲
➲

New certification track for
IT virtualization pros
Two tracks
1. CVP Level 1

For vSphere operators and
entry level admins

2. CVP Level 2

This course teaches you
everything you need to
successfully challenge
these two certificates

M

➲

For more experienced
vSphere admins

at

●

er

●

Overview-9

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

CVP provides you with an affordable way to achieve vSphere certification
without the need to attend high-cost classes that VMware’s VCP-DCV certification requires.
You can purchase CVP exam vouchers here:

http://esxlab-com.3dcartstores.com/vSphere-Exam-Vouchers_c_30.html
Use the Promo Code ESXCVP to save 25% off the cost of the voucher

pl
e

You can find out more about Certified Virtualization certification at:
http://cvpcertified.com

Sa
m

ia
l

Certified Virtualization Professional

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Review & Questions
VMware vSphere...
●

A suite of software products that improves

Resource usage – consolidation, load balancing
Availability – rapid recovery, FT duplication
Scalability – DRS clusters, Storage clusters
Management – vCenter Server

M

at

er

●
●
●
●

ia
l

➲

Overview-10

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Class Introduction / Overview

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Introduction to

M

at

er

VMware vSphere 6.7

ia
l

Introduction

Introduction-1

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VMware vSphere
➲

Major features of vSphere 6.7
Common IT problems
●

➲

Scaling vSphere deployments
On premise private cloud computing

M

at

er

➲

vSphere solutions to these problems

ia
l

➲

Introduction-2

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Workload Consolidation

●

VMs compete for available ESXi
host CPU, RAM, Disk, Network
VMs get the resources they need
●
●

VMware ESXi Hypervisor

Not declared resources
Idling VMs may give up CPU, RAM

●

●

Share Ethernet, storage bandwidth

Administrators can tune VMs
●
●

Weighted scheduling for CPU
memory, disk I/O bandwidth
Tune critical VMs for better service

M

●

at

●

Ensures active VMs run well under
CPU, memory over commit
i.e.:when virtual resource declaration
exceed physical host resources

Introduction-3

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

Virtualization solves the one-workload/server problem without the traditional costs,
risks or complexities of installing many applications on a single server.
A PC server running VMware ESXi is capable of running many virtual machines concurrently. Each virtual machine is an independent software entity that functions as a
complete, generic PC server. Each virtual machine has:

pl
e

- A virtual hardware layer that includes a generic motherboard, chipset, keyboard,
mouse, video controller, IDE controller, CD/DVD device, NIC, PCI bus, SCSI
controller, SCSI disk(s), CPU(s) and memory sized appropriately for the intended
operating system and application
- An operating system that recognizes and can drive virtual hardware
- One or more applications

Sa
m

ia
l

Many VM's/physical server
●

er

➲

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

ESXi Host Over Commit

●

M

at

●

CPU Over Commit – boot and run a mix of
VMs whose vCPU core count exceeds the
server's pCPU core count
Memory Over Commit – boot and run a
mix of VMs whose memory declaration
exceeds physical server RAM
Storage Over Commit – create many
virtual disks on a single storage volume
whose collective declared size exceeds the
size of the physical storage volume

ia
l

At the ESXi host level you can safely:
●

er

➲

Introduction-4

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

CPU & Memory Management
VMotion, Load Balanced DRS Clusters
Hot migrate VMs between ESXi hosts
●

●

With no risk, no loss of responsiveness

Create clusters of 2-64 ESXi hosts that can
●
●

Start VMs on the least busy ESXi host
Automatically move VMs to balance out

●
●

Migrate a VM to a new host, new datastore
at the same time

M

at

●

ESXi host CPU load
ESXi host Memory load

ia
l

●

er

➲

Introduction-5

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VM Availability Management

●

Create a fully replicated VM on a secondary
ESXi host in an HA cluster
Keep replicate VM fully synchronized
●

●

er

Fault Tolerant VMs (FT)
●

at

➲

Automatically detect an ESXi host failure
Assign failed VMs to healthy ESXi hosts
Tell new VM owner to power on VMs
Assign VMs to ensure resource availability

CPU state, Memory state, copy of VM's .vmdks

If ESXi host running the primary VM fails:
●
●

Connect and run secondary VM image
Result is no visible down time by network peers

Introduction-6

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Sa
m

ia
l

High Availability Clusters (HA)
●
●
●
●

M

➲

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VM Storage Management
Manually Hot migrate the disk state of a VM
to another datastore
●

Automated storage load balanced clusters
●

Balance storage capacity and I/O load

Storage Profiles
●

Assign a Storage Profile to a datastore
●

●

Assign a Storage Profile to a VM
●

●

E.g.: High Performance, High Density,
Replicated Storage, Non-Replicated Storage...

at

➲

Balances storage volumes for capacity, I/O load

E.g.: VM belongs on High Density, Replicated

Perform compliance checks. Remediate

Introduction-7

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Sa
m

er

●

ia
l

Storage VMotion, Storage Clusters
●

M

➲

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Back Up & Recovery
Virtual Solutions
File system back ups
Expensive, complex, not always 100% reliable

●
●

VMware Storage APIs
●
●
●
●

●

er

●

Backup/recovery/application/open file agents, etc.
May be difficult to do both bare metal, file restores

AKA Disk Block Change Tracking
Marks disk blocks changed since last back up
Snapshot VM, copy changed blocks, commit
Full virtual disk image and file recovery

Many solutions use this approach
●
●
●

VMware Data Protection (retired August 2017)
Veeam, Naviko, Phd Virtual / Unitrends
Many others...

Introduction-8

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

VMs work with traditional LAN based back up tools – so you can continue to use these if
you like. However, VM networking is not as efficient as pure physical networking, so you
should expect your back up windows (time to complete a back up) to increase when using network based back up tools in a VM.
There are a number of solutions to this problem...

VMware Data Protection (VDP) performs snapshot based back ups with full virtual disk
de-duplication, so backups are fast and complete. And Data Recovery provides you with
the ability to do both file level and full virtual machine level recoveries.

pl
e

Third party back up tools such as VRanger Pro (www.vizioncore.com), PHD Virtual Back
Up (www.phdvirtual.com) or Veeam Backup & Replication (www.veeam.com) leverage
ESXi storage APIs to quickly and safely back up VMs. These tools are easy to install and
use, are (relatively) low in cost (unlike traditional network back up tools) and make it
easy to recover individual files or complete VMs.

Sa
m

ia
l

Legacy LAN backup tools work in VMs
●
●

at

●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VM Disaster Preparedness
Hot, reliable, periodic replication of running
VMs to another ESXi host
●

Within the same site or to a remote site

●
●

er

Replicated VMs can be manually recovered
in your target site

Prior replications can be presented to recovered
VMs as snapshots
Allows you to revert to earlier replications to
back out of unwanted changes

●
●
●

●

at

●

Viruses attacks
Mis-configurations
etc.

Facilitates very rapid VM recovery

Introduction-9

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Sa
m

ia
l

vSphere Replication
●

M

➲

Chapter 1 - Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Server Refresh
PC servers have a
short life span

●

Virtual hardware

3-5 yrs depending on
available maintenance ● Easy to migrate VMs
support contracts
to another ESXi host

OS, application
migrations are time
consuming, risky
●
●
●
●

VM H/W is independent
of physical hardware

●

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Workload down during
migration
Done off hours
Hard to do remotely
Inherently risky

●

Buy new server
Install, configure ESXi
Add ESXi host to cluster
Migrate VMs to new host
When old ESXi host is
fully evacuated of VMs,
shutdown, power off host

er

●

Virtual Solution
●

at

●

➲

Can be performed
remotely
Introduction-10

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

Virtual Machine hardware is a software abstraction that is independent of physical
PC server hardware. ESXi maps virtual hardware operations to physical hardware activity.
Virtual machines see:

A virtual motherboard with a chipset, keyboard, mouse, IDE, floppy controller
A virtual PCI video controller
●
One to four virtual IDE CD/DVD devices
●
One to two virtual floppy drives
●
A virtual PCI bus
●
Up to 10 virtual Network Interface Cards (NICs)
●
One to 4 virtual SCSI Host Bus Adapters (SCSI HBAs)
●
Up to 15 virtual SCSI disks per SCSI HBA
●
Up to 8-64 virtual CPUs that map to physical CPU cores (depending on your vSphere
license and cannot exceed the physical cores in your ESXi host)
●
Virtual memory that is indistinguishable from physical memory
●

pl
e

●

Virtual hardware presented to VMs is the same regardless of the underlying physical
hardware. Therefore a VM can migrate from ESXi host to ESXi host (even if the ESXi
hosts are different makes or models of hardware) without issue.

Sa
m

ia
l

Problems

M

➲

The only exception is CPU. The make, model and stepping, but not cores or hyperthreading, of the physical CPU is exposed to the Guest OS at boot time. These properties must not change (due to VM migration) as the VM runs.

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Test, Development & QA

●

●

●

Clone - Exact copy of
the source VM
Test changes on clone

●
●
●
●

Too costly to deploy
an exact match
Differences introduce
variation, risk

●

Hot clone VMs
●

●

Hard to validate
changes, test software,
catch errors if production, test/development
environments differ

Configuration changes
OS patches
Application upgrades
Validate procedures

VM snapshots let you
back out of changes
●
●

Saves VM state
No need to re-image if
problems encountered
● Revert back to original
● Try again!

Introduction-11

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

ia
l

Development, test
environments don't
match production
environment
●

Virtual Solutions

er

●

➲

at

Problems

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Windows Licensing for VMs
Windows Server 2008 license editions
●

Windows Server Enterprise
●

●

Each license key licenses 2 pCPUS and up to
four VMs per host at no additional charge

Windows Server Datacenter
●

●

Each VM needs its own license

Each license entitles one pCPU, unlimited VMs
per licensed pCPU at no additional charge

Always check your license agreements
●

er

●

If possible, use volume license keys or multiple
activation keys

Introduction-12

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

Microsoft may grant you the right to run additional instances of Windows 2003/2008
Server depending on the base license installed...
Windows 2003/2008 Standard licenses do not permit additional VM instances so every
VM would require a unique Windows Standard license.
Windows 2003/2008 Enterprise permits a limited number of Windows VMs (up to 4) to
be run on the same machine running the original license without additional charge.
Windows 2003/2008 Datacenter permits an unlimited number of Windows VMs to run
on the same host running the original Windows license at no additional cost.

pl
e

As VM consolidation rates go up (more VMs/ESXi host), the cost to license Windows per
VM can go down dramatically if you select the appropriate Windows edition (Enterprise
or Datacenter). You also get the added benefit of the enhanced features (e.g.: Clustering) offered by premium Windows editions).
Windows Datacenter simplifies license compliance because you are entitled to run an
unlimited number of VMs/server. You are also entitled to downgrade your Windows editions in the same family (e.g.: If you have W2k8 Datacenter, you can deploy W2k8 Standard or Enterprise in your VMs).

Sa
m

ia
l

Windows Server 2k8 Standard

at

●

M

➲

For more information on licensing Windows Server 2003/2008 for VMs, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/calc_2.htm

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Windows Server 2012
Standard Edition license entitlements
●
●
●

2 pCPU sockets per license
2 VMs permitted per license
You must buy more W2k12 Standard licenses if

●
●

Enterprise Edition - no longer available
Datacenter Edition license entitlements
●
●

at

●
●

If you have > 2 processors in your server, or
You want to run > 2 VMs in your server

er

●

One license required for every 2 pCPUs
Unlimited number of VMs / licensed pCPUs

Source: ws2012_licensing-pricing_faq.pdf from
download.microsoft.com
Introduction-13

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

The following is quoted directly from the ws2012_licensing-pricing_faq.pdf
document provided by Microsoft:

pl
e

“Both Standard and Datacenter editions provide the same set of features; the only
thing that differentiates the editions is the number of Virtual Machines (VMs). A
Standard edition license will entitle you to run up to two VMs on up to two processors (subject to the VM use rights outlined in the Product Use Rights document). A
Datacenter edition license will entitle you to run an unlimited number of VMs on up
to two processors.”

Sa
m

ia
l

Windows Server 2k12 Virtualization
entitlements

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Windows Server 2016
W2k16 now licenses pCores, not sockets

Each host must be licensed for the maximum
number of VMs to run on that host
●

●

Standard Edition: Max. 2 VMs / licensed host
●

●

For 2 more VMs, you must license all pCores again

Datacenter Edition: No VM limit
●

●

This includes VMotion, hosts down for mtce, etc.

er

●

Minimum license purchase is 16 cores across one
or more pSockets

All pCores must be licensed with DataCenter

Downgrade rights are typically offered

Source: WindowsServer2016VirtualTechVLBrief.pdf
Download from http://download.microsoft.com
Introduction-14

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

The following is quoted directly from the ws2012_licensing-pricing_faq.pdf
document provided by Microsoft:

pl
e

“Both Standard and Datacenter editions provide the same set of features; the only
thing that differentiates the editions is the number of Virtual Machines (VMs). A
Standard edition license will entitle you to run up to two VMs on up to two processors (subject to the VM use rights outlined in the Product Use Rights document). A
Datacenter edition license will entitle you to run an unlimited number of VMs on up
to two processors.”

Sa
m

ia
l

Every pair of pCores requires a license
●

at

●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

vSphere Small Business Licenses
Essentials Essentials +
3
no limit
3
128

3
no limit
3
128

ia
l

ESXi Servers (2 sockets)
Processor Cores/socket
vCenter Server Nodes
VSMP (Max vCPUs/VM)
VMware HA
vSphere Replication
VM Hot Add CPU, Memory
VMotion

●
●
●

M

at

●

er

vSphere Small Business

Features from www.vmware.com as of May, 2018
Search for VMware-vSphere_Pricing_Whitepaper.pdf

Introduction-15

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

VMware has created special license bundles that are targeted at small business.
These license bundles provide smaller customers with virtualization and management
capabilities for less than the cost of one (competent) PC server.
The Essentials Plus bundle adds hot migration (VMotion) rapid VMware failure recovery (VMware HA), automated patching and updating capability for ESXi hosts and
Windows (Update Manager). These added features make Essentials Plus a compelling
offering.

pl
e

VMware doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) publicly disclose product prices for
their mid tier to enterprise licenses. To get retail pricing information on VMware licenses and add-ons, please visit:

Sa
m

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/
vsphere/vmw-flyr-vspherecomparekits-uslet.pdf

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

VMware vSphere 6.7 Editions
128
12TB
●
●
●
●
8 vCores
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

Introduction-16

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

VMwars e discontinued vSphere Enterprise licensing in 2015.

C
ou

For a full set of feature and capabilities of each license tier, please see
https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere.html
VMware doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) publically disclose product prices for
their mid tier to enterprise licenses. To get retail pricing information on VMware licenses and add ons, please visit:

pl
e

http://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/products/software/license-configurator.html

Sa
m

ia
l

128
12TB
●
●
●
●
8 vCores
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

er

128
12TB
●
●
●
●
2vCores
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

at

Maximum vCPUs per VM
128
Maximum Physical RAM per ESXi host
6TB
Update Manager
●
VMotion
Storage VMotion, Encrypted VMotion
High Availability Clusters
Fault Tolerance
vSphere VM Hot Replication
vShield Endpoint Antivirus Support
Virtual Volumes. Policy Based Mgt
APIs for Storage Awareness
vCenter Backup / Restore
vCenter High Availability
Content Library
APIs for Array Integration / Multipathing
Big Data Hypervisor Extensions
DRS Load Balancing, Power Mgt
vNetwork Distributed vSwitches
Network, Storage I/O Control
Cross vCenter VMotion, Long Distance VMotion
Auto Deploy ESXi Hosts, Host Profiles
Storage DRS / Profile Driven Storage

vSphere
vSphere
vSphere
Standard Enterprise + Platinum

M

Free
ESXi

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

vSphere Platinum Edition
Combines native security with integrated
VMware AppDefense technology

●

●

●
●
●

er

●

Uses Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning,
Behavioral Analytics to monitor VMs
Establishes VM baselines that describe VM
known good behaviors
Will alert administrators to observed suspicious
VM behaviors

Enables quick administrator responses to unusual VM
behavior

at

●

Auto-discovery of VMs, apps, behaviors
Orchestrated or auto response to issues
Integrates with 3rd party operations tools

Introduction-17

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

For more information on vSphere Platinum, please visit:

pl
e

C
ou

https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere.html?
cid=70134000001kwF0&src=ps_5c0aa8a8c486e&kw=vsphere
%20platinum&mt=p&k_clickid=_k_CjwKCAjwycfkBRAFEiwAnLX5IcacW4Zsz7ce_sO3U28GgDwNDU7s47yOqDP_pfors0NxIgMnvRabBoCg_EQAvD_BwE_k_

Sa
m

ia
l

New vSphere edition released in 2018
●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

vSphere Acceleration Kits
Acceleration Kits typically include:
●

May also include add-on licenses such as:
●
●

VMware vSAN
vRealize Operations Management

pCPU entitlements can be added
●
●

Buy additional CPU entitlements as your
server population grows
Not available for Small Business Essentials,
Essentials Plus license bundles
●
●

at

➲

One vCenter Server license

These max out at 3 servers of 2 pCPUs each
vCenter for SBE, SBE+ is ESXi host limited to
managing a maximum of 3 ESXi hosts
Introduction-18

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

For full VMware product bundling, pricing and support costs, please visit:

pl
e

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/pricing.html

Sa
m

ia
l

Fixed number of pCPU license entitlements
●

er

●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Support And Subscription (SnS)
●

Provides 1-3 years of unlimited support
●

●

Upgrades included with current SnS contracts

For non-active licenses (SnS expired)
Minor releases upgrades OK (e.g. 6.0 → 6.5)
No major releases upgrades (e.g. 5.5 → 6.x)
Out of support customers may reactivate by:

er

●
●
●

●
●
●

at

➲

No per-incident support charges

Paying all back support
Paying for the next year(s) support
A 20% reinstatement penalty is also charged on

●
●

All back support
Next full year of support

Introduction-19

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

VMware sells its licenses with Service and Support (SnS) as a non-optional component. This entitles you to one year of support with unlimited incidents within the
support hours specified in your support contract.
Software support must be renewed yearly. If you keep support renewed, you are entitled to upgrade vSphere licenses to future releases both within the same major release number (e.g.: upgrade from vSphere 5.0/5.1 to vSphere 6.5) or across major
release numbers (e.g.: upgrade from vSphere 5.x to vSphere 6.5 when it becomes
available).

pl
e

If you let support lapse, you are no longer entitled to upgrades and VMware may
block you from downloading newer versions of the software.
You may bring your licenses back into support by paying:
- support for the current year
- support for all years your licenses were out of support
- a 20% penalty on top of the above

Sa
m

ia
l

Support contracts are included in all new
vSphere license purchases

M

➲

Note: VMware acknowledges that bringing licenses back into support may, in some
extreme cases, cost more than purchasing brand new licenses!

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Other Licensing Options
vSphere 6.7 evaluation mode
60-day use of entire vSphere 6.7 suite
●
●
●

●

Register, download at http://www.vmware.com

●

Enables stand alone ESXi hosts
●

●

License does not permit
●
●
●

●

Unlimited pCPU, vRAM, storage on the host

Managing the ESXi host with vCenter
Access to vCenter, cluster features, capabilities
Use of advanced storage capabilities

https://www.vmware.com/go/get-free-esxi

Introduction-20

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Sa
m

er

Free ESXi single host, permanent license

at

➲

Unlimited feature access, hosts, VMs, etc.
Cannot be extended
At end of free trial period, all VMs stop running

ia
l

●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

$200/year subscription license
●

➲

Intended for non-production use, home labs

M

➲

at

er

ia
l

VMware Eval Experience

Provides access to vSphere, vSAN, NSX
●

https://www.vmug.com/Join/EVALExperience

Introduction-21

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Single Host Deployment

●

●

ESXi or vSphere
Standard Edition

Benefits
●
●
●
●

er

●

at

●

VMs share ESXi host
pCPU, pRAM, Disk,
Network
Manage with Host
Client
Low-cost or free

Lower capital cost
Lowers power use
Faster deployments
Easier upgrades

Introduction-22

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

The primary benefit that moves most organizations to virtualization is server consolidation (replacing physically deployed servers/workloads with virtual machines). While
there are many benefits to consolidating onto ESXi there is one major risk – you have
many workloads now dependent on the health of a single machine.

pl
e

In the past, if a server failed, only one group of users were inconvenienced. With virtualization, a physical server failure has the potential to impact many more users.

Sa
m

ia
l

Single ESXi host
●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Migrated VMs
onto shared
SAN storage

➲

●

er

➲

No VMotion, DRS, HA
without vCenter
Some fault tolerance
If an ESXi host fails
Use Datastore Browser
to import VMs onto
surviving host(s)

M

●
●

at

➲

VMs still run on
single host

Introduction-23

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

By moving your VMs onto shared storage, you untie your VMs from a single physical host.
You also break the storage limits that may be imposed on you by your server platform.
But, best of all, you now have a simple way to recover VMs that fail due to a server
failure. As we will see later, VMware provides a piece of software called the Datastore
Browser. The Datastore Browser has the ability to reassign ownership of powered off
VMs to other hosts.
So, if a server does fail...

pl
e

- Log into a surviving ESXi host
- Launch the Datastore Browser
- Identify the VMs that failed when the ESXi host failed
- Take ownership of these VMs using the Datastore Browser by adding them to the
surviving ESXi host's inventory
- Power on these VMs on the new host
While this approach is somewhat labor intensive, it does solve the problem of VMs being
down because a host is down. You can automate VM recovery with VMware HA.

Sa
m

ia
l

Multiple ESXi w. Shared Storage

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

vSphere Private Cloud
ESXi, VM, LAN,
Storage mgt.

Enables
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

VMotion
Storage VMotion
High Availability
Load balancing
Fault Tolerance
vSphere Storage APIs
etc.
Introduction-24

at

●

Tasks & Events, Logs
Cold migration
Monitoring, Alarms
Scheduled Tasks

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

er

●
●
●
●

ia
l

Add vCenter
●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

On Premise Private Cloud
Dynamically provision hardware on demand
Provision what's needed, when needed...
Storage – Storage Area Networks (SANs)
●
●

●

Provision, grow LUNs on demand
LUNs usable by any or all ESXi hosts

er

●

For as long as needed
Physical hardware abstracted, shared

PC Servers – install ESXi to deploy, run VMs
●
●
●

Size servers for high VM tenancy
Provision new ESXi hosts as VM population grows
Dynamically load balance to maintain performance

Introduction-25

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Sa
m

ia
l

●
●

at

●

M

➲

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Storage Cloud
Storage Area
Networks (SANs)
Aggregate physical disks
into LUNs
Presents LUNs to ESXi
VMFS cluster filesystem
●

●
●
●
●

Safe concurrent access

Grow LUNs as needed
Provision LUNs on
demand
Snapshot, back up LUNs
Shadow (replicate)
LUNs

at

●
●

er

ia
l

●

M

➲

Introduction-26

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Add new PC Servers
to meet capacity,
recovery, performance
needs
●
●

●

er

Install ESXi
Add to DRS cluster:

VMs rebalance by migrating onto new server
Reduces CPU, memory
use on other servers

at

●
●

Add to HA cluster:
●

Restarts VMs if an ESXi
host fails

M

➲

Introduction-27

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

ia
l

Server Cloud

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Year Released

ESX
2.x

ESXi
3.x

ESXi
4.x

ESXi
5.0, 5.1

ESXi
5.5

ESXi
6.0, 6.5

ESXi
6.7

2002

2003

2005

2008

2011

2013

2015

2018

1

2

4

8

32/64

64

128

128

Max RAM/VM

2GB

3.6GB

64GB

256GB

1TB

1TB

4TB

6TB

Network I/O

.5Gb

.9Gb

9Gb

30Gb

>36Gb

>80Gb >160Gb

>320Gb

Storage IOp/s

< 5k

7k

100k

300k

1,000k

1,000k

1,000k

>2,000k

4

8

96

128

160

320

480

768

64GB

256GB

1TB

2TB

4TB

12TB

CPU Cores/ESXi
Max RAM/ESXi

16TB

●

at

VMs – get bigger and faster over time

Eliminate hardware virtualization capacity
and performance limitations
●
●

Resources – make VMs any size you want
Performance – VMs more than fast enough for
> 99% of all enterprise workloads
Introduction-28

M

➲

er

Max vCPUs/VM

ESX
1

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

C
ou

VMware's goal is to scale up VM performance and size beyond the need of any single
enterprise workload.
Over time, VMware has significantly increased the maximum virtual hardware available to a VM (more vCPUs, more RAM, more NICs, etc.). VMware has improved the
throughput of virtual networks and virtual disks (as vCPU speed is determined by the
speed and capabilities of the physical CPUs and virtual memory speed is determined
by the speed of physical RAM).

pl
e

Virtual networking performance is dependent on the capabilities of the underlying
physical network. For fastest virtual networking speed, deploy teamed 10Gb or 40Gb
NICs.
Virtual storage performance is improved through the use of very high speed storage
adapters (8/16Gb Fibre cards, 10Gb iSCSI adapters) and through the use of virtualization aware Storage Area Networks (SANs). For example, VMware can now delegate
many storage operations directly to the back end SAN (including file copy for VM
cloning) using VMware APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). This dramatically improves
storage performance because the VM being copied can be copied within the SAN (and
doesn't have to be copied to the ESXi host and back to the SAN as part of the copy
operation).

Sa
m

ia
l

Virtualization Over Time

Source: http://www.techhead.co.uk/vmware-vsphere-5-0-whats-new-exciting

http://longwhiteclouds.com/2013/09/23/vsphere-5-5-record-breaking-network-performance/

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

What's New in vSphere 6.7
vCenter improvements
Resource use and performance

●

Simpler vCenter scalability
●

Security improvements
●
●

➲

Multiple stand alone vCenter appliances can
now link to improve service availability

VMotions can now be encrypted
VM encryption now easier to implement

at

➲

Reduced vCenter appliance memory needs
2x increase in vCenter operations/second

ia
l

●
●

er

●

Works with updated VMware products
●
●
●

vRealize
vSAN
NSX

M

➲

Introduction-29

e

Copyright © 2018 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

rs

Notes

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

The maximum amount of physical RAM ESXi can use in a regular PC server is 6TB (will
likely be less due to server restrictions). However, VMware and a select number of
hardware partners support up to 12TB of RAM in very high end PC servers.

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

e

M

at

er

ia
l

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Introduction to vSphere 6.7

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

M

at

er

How to Install, Configure
VMware ESXi 6.7

ia
l

VMware ESXi 6.7

ESXi-1

e

Copyright © 2019 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Installing and Configuring ESXi

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

Stand Alone ESXi
●
●

Perform the initial install
Post-install steps
●

Best Practices

M

at

➲

Configure Networking, Time Services, Security

ia
l

➲

ESXi Overview
ESXi Installation Procedures

er

➲

ESXi-2

e

Copyright © 2019 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Installing and Configuring ESXi

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely

Sample Course Material (Stand Alone ESXi Chapter / Lab Only)

ESXi

er

ESXi

at

By the end of this chapter, we will have
●
●
●
●

Installed ESXi onto a stand alone server
Partitioned local storage for ESXi, VM use
Connected to ESXi using Host Client
Configured ESXi using the DCUI

M

➲

ia
l

Project Plan

ESXi-3

e

Copyright © 2019 by ESXLab.com. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without prior written authorization.

Sa
m

pl
e

C
ou

rs

Notes

Installing and Configuring ESXi

Photocopying this book in whole or in part is not permitted

For Evaluation Only. Please distribute freely