Book Image

Learning VMware vSphere

By : Rebecca Fitzhugh, Abhilash G B
Book Image

Learning VMware vSphere

By: Rebecca Fitzhugh, Abhilash G B

Overview of this book

Computer virtualization is a method to enable the running of multiple application workloads on a machine to achieve efficient utilization and reduce the number of physical machines in a data center. This has now become the foundation of many modern day data centers. What began as a technology to virtualize x86 architecture has now grown beyond the limits of a server’s hardware and into the realm of storage and network virtualization. VMware is currently the market leader in developing data center virtualization solutions. This book goes into the details of designing and implementing VMware solutions that form the foundation of a VMware infrastructure. The book begins by introducing you to the concepts of server virtualization followed by the architecture of VMware’s hypervisor – ESXi and then by its installation and configuration. You then learn what is required to manage a vSphere environment and configure advanced management capabilities of vCenter. Next you are taken through topics on vSphere Networking, Storage, ESXi Clustering, Resource Management and Virtual Machine Management. You will then be introduced to SSL Certificate Management and its use in a vSphere environment. Finally, you will learn about the lifecycle management of a vSphere environment by effectively monitoring, patching and upgrading vSphere components using Update Manager. By the end of the book, you will know how to use VMware’s vSphere suite of components to lay the foundation of a modern day virtual infrastructure.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Learning VMware vSphere
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Clustering ESXi hosts for high availability


VMware vSphere HA (high availability) is a functionality that is used to configure a cluster of ESXi hosts to respond to an unplanned downtime event and ensure the availability of the virtual machines that were running on them, with very minimal downtime possible. Although that was a very simple definition, there is more to what vSphere HA can do in terms of providing high availability to the virtual machines running on the HA protected hosts. It can monitor the guest operating systems and the applications running inside of a virtual machine and then decide to restart the affected virtual machine in an effort to reduce the downtime of a service due to an affected guest operating system hosting the service, or a nonresponsive application corresponding to the service. Starting with vSphere 6.0, it can also detect APD and PDL events and choose to reset the virtual machines if necessary. However, it is important to understand that even though HA is...