If you ask me what has been the biggest innovation in the last 10 years in IT, I'd answer—virtualization. In comparison with legacy infrastructure designs, this has enabled IT administrators to serve applications and workloads more cost-effectively. Fulfilling flexible IT requirements was never this easy before.
VMware acts as a global player in this market; they have introduced numerous innovations in the last few years and given virtualization an enormous push. VMware dominates the server as well as the desktop virtualization market. As a result, most of the major data centers are using rock-solid VMware products to suit their customers' infrastructure needs.
This book is an introduction for those who are looking forward to benefit from the proven vSphere infrastructure. You will learn how vSphere products can assist you to implement a dynamic and scalable virtual infrastructure while reducing your infrastructure costs.
So, are you ready for the takeoff?
Chapter 1, Introduction to VMware vSphere, introduces the book by covering all the essential basics including the vSphere architecture and how it differs from its competitor's products. You will also get to know about all the major components of virtual infrastructures, such as virtual machines, CPUs, memory, networks, and storage.
Chapter 2, VMware vCenter Server, will introduce the vCenter Server product family and the benefits of using them. You will learn how to install, configure, and use vCenter Server to manage your virtual infrastructure.
Chapter 3, Creating Virtual Machines, covers elementary tasks that include provisioning, configuring, and using virtual machines, clones, and templates. It is designed as a step-by-step guide for new users.
Chapter 4, Managing Virtual Network, demonstrates networking concepts for virtual infrastructures, it specifically introduces virtual switches, port groups, VLANs, and advanced technologies such as load balancing.
Chapter 5, Network Virtualization with VMware NSX, focuses on VMware's most recent technology for automating network deployment and configuration tasks. By the end of this chapter, you will learn how NSX is able to address large virtual infrastructure needs and how you can deploy NSX.
Chapter 6, Managing Virtual Storage, covers essential storage concepts, such as configuring, managing, and using VMFS and NFS data stores. To top it off, the chapter also includes implementing backup and recovery using the example of vSphere Data Protection.
Chapter 7, Working with VSAN, introduces a cost-effective and efficient way to provide high-performance storage to virtual infrastructures. Especially in combination with storage policies, VSAN is able to address the most workload's requirements.
Chapter 8, Managing Virtual Machines, demonstrates various advanced virtual machine tasks that include taking snapshots and migrating and upgrading virtual machines.
Chapter 9, Resource Management and Performance Monitoring, focuses on several ways to optimize a virtual infrastructure's resources. It is designed as a step-by-step guide that will explain how you can implement resource pools, limitations, reservations. and alarms.
Chapter 10, Incorporating vSphere High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and DRS, covers major technologies to fulfill workload's availability requirements. You will also learn how to enable automatic load balancing of computing and storage resources using vSphere DRS and vSphere Storage DRS.
Chapter 11, Securing and Updating vSphere, introduces techniques to secure virtual infrastructures such as firewalls, security profiles, and vCloud Networking and Security. It also demonstrates how you can implement patch management using vSphere Update Manager.
Chapter 12, vSphere 6.0 Overview, talks about the most recent VMware product update. The chapter is a deep-dive into all technical difference in comparison with vSphere 5.5, such as virtual hardware versions, NVIDIA GRID vCPU, vCloud Air Disaster Recovery, and VSAN All-Flash.
To readjust the major technologies and products in this book, you will need to have one or more hosts to install VMware vSphere. Ensure that you fulfill ESXi's hardware requirements, which are as follows:
64-bit x 86 CPU with at least two logical cores
At least 8 GB memory
At least one 1 Gbps network interface
An SD card, a USB flash drive, or an HDD for installing ESXi
Local hard drives for datastore or an NFS storage for advanced cluster features, such as online migrations or failover
The most standard hardware will work but VMware also offers a compatibility guide that lists tested and supported hardware components, which can be found at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
In addition, you will also need these:
VMware vSphere and vCenter Server installation files—you can download a 60-day trial after you register in the VMware portal at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=vsphere6.
VMware Data Protection for backup and recovery scenario; this is also part of the VMware vSphere trial suite.
At least three ESXi hosts with at least 1 additional HDD and SSD each if you want to try VSAN. When you use VSAN in production, make sure to check out VMwares Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=vsan.
A Windows client for accessing both the vSphere legacy client and vSphere Web Client for management purposes. (Accessing the vSphere Web Client is also possible on Mac OS X but not on Linux.)
This book is intended for administrators who aim to learn the essentials of VMware vSphere. It is sufficient to have basic understanding of virtualization concepts.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
esxcli network firewall get
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Under Manage, select Settings and go to Security Profile".
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