Book Image

The Complete VMware vSphere Guide

By : Mike Brown, Hersey Cartwright, Martin Gavanda, Andrea Mauro, Karel Novak, Paolo Valsecchi
Book Image

The Complete VMware vSphere Guide

By: Mike Brown, Hersey Cartwright, Martin Gavanda, Andrea Mauro, Karel Novak, Paolo Valsecchi

Overview of this book

vSphere 6.7 is the latest release of VMware's industry-leading virtual cloud platform. By understanding how to manage, secure, and scale apps with vSphere 6.7, you can easily run even the most demanding of workloads. This Learning Path begins with an overview of the features of the vSphere 6.7 suite. You'll learn how to plan and design a virtual infrastructure. You'll also gain insights into best practices to efficiently configure, manage, and secure apps. Next, you'll pick up on how to enhance your infrastructure with high-performance storage access, such as remote direct memory access (RDMA) and Persistent memory. The book will even guide you in securing your network with security features, such as encrypted vMotion and VM-level encryption. Finally, by learning how to apply Proactive High Availability and Predictive Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), you'll be able to achieve enhanced computing, storage, network, and management capabilities for your virtual data center. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll be able to build your own VMware vSphere lab that can run high workloads. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: VMware vSphere 6.7 Data Center Design Cookbook - Third Edition by Mike Brown and Hersey Cartwright Mastering VMware vSphere 6.7 - Second Edition by Martin Gavanda, Andrea Mauro, Karel Novak, and Paolo Valsecchi

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The Complete VMware vSphere Guide
Mike Brown | Hersey Cartwright | Martin Gavanda | Andrea Mauro | Karel Novak | Paolo Valsecchi
Nov, 2019 | 12 hours 48 minutes
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Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
The Virtual Data Center
The Virtual Data Center
Benefits and technologies of virtualization
Becoming a virtual data center architect
Using a holistic approach to data center design
Passing the VMware VCAP6-DCV Design exam
Becoming a VMware Certified Design Expert
Identifying what's new in vSphere 6.7
Planning a vSphere 6.7 upgrade
2
The Discovery Process
The Discovery Process
Identifying the design factors
Identifying stakeholders
Conducting stakeholder interviews
Using VMware Capacity Planner
Using Windows Performance Monitor
Conducting a VMware optimization assessment
Identifying dependencies
3
The Design Factors
The Design Factors
Identifying design requirements
Identifying design constraints
Making design assumptions
Identifying design risks
Considering infrastructure design qualities
Creating the conceptual design
4
vSphere Management Design
vSphere Management Design
Identifying vCenter components and dependencies
Selecting a vCenter deployment option
Determining vCenter resource requirements
Selecting a database for the vCenter deployment
Determining database interoperability
Choosing a vCenter deployment topology
Designing for management availability
Designing a separate management cluster
Configuring vCenter mail, SNMP, and alarms
Using Enhanced Linked Mode
Using the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix
Backing up the vCenter Server components
Planning vCenter HA to increase vCenter availability
Upgrading vCenter Server
Designing a vSphere Update Manager Deployment
5
vSphere Storage Design
vSphere Storage Design
Identifying RAID levels
Calculating storage capacity requirements
Determining storage performance requirements
Calculating storage throughput
Storage connectivity options
Storage path selection plugins
Sizing datastores
Designing VSAN for virtual machine storage
Using VMware Virtual Volumes
Incorporating storage policies into a design
NFS version 4.1 capabilities and limits
Using persistent memory to maximize VM performance
6
vSphere Network Design
vSphere Network Design
Determining network bandwidth requirements
Standard or distributed virtual switches
Providing network availability
Network resource management
Using private VLANs
IP storage network design considerations
Using jumbo frames
Creating custom TCP/IP stacks
Designing for VMkernel services
vMotion network design considerations
Using 10 GbE converged network adapters
IPv6 in a vSphere design
Remote direct memory access options
7
vSphere Compute Design
vSphere Compute Design
Calculating CPU resource requirements
Calculating memory resource requirements
Transparent page sharing
Scaling up or scaling out
Determining the vCPU-to-core ratio
Clustering compute resources
Reserving HA resources to support failover
Using distributed resource scheduling to balance cluster resources
Ensuring cluster vMotion compatibility
Using resource pools
Providing Fault Tolerance protection
Leveraging host flash
8
vSphere Physical Design
vSphere Physical Design
Using the VMware Hardware Compatibility List
Understanding the physical storage design
Understanding the physical network design
Creating the physical compute design
Creating a custom ESXi image
The best practices for ESXi host BIOS settings
Upgrading an ESXi host
9
Virtual Machine Design
Virtual Machine Design
Right-sizing virtual machines
Enabling CPU hot add and memory hot plug
Using paravirtualized VM hardware
Creating virtual machine templates
Upgrading and installing VMware Tools
Upgrading VM virtual hardware
Using vApps to organize virtualized applications
Using VM affinity and anti-affinity rules
Using VM to Host affinity and anti-affinity rules
Converting physical servers with vCenter Converter Standalone
Migrating servers into vSphere
10
Deployment Workflow and Component Installation
Deployment Workflow and Component Installation
vSphere components and workflow
ESXi deployment plan
ESXi installation
vCenter Server components
vCenter Server Appliance deployment
vCSA HA
11
Configuring and Managing vSphere 6.7
Configuring and Managing vSphere 6.7
Using the VMware vSphere HTML5 client
Configuring ESXi
Backing up and restoring ESXi
Configuring vCSA
Exporting and importing the vCSA configuration
Managing data centers, clusters, and hosts
Automating tasks with scripts
12
Life Cycle Management, Patching, and Upgrading
Life Cycle Management, Patching, and Upgrading
Patching a vSphere 6.7 environment
Upgrade flow to vSphere 6.7
Upgrading vCSA 6.5 to vCSA 6.7
Upgrading vCenter 6.5 for Windows to vCenter  6.7 for Windows
Migrating vCenter 6.5 for Windows to vCSA 6.7
Upgrading standalone ESXi servers
VUM
Updating the vCSA
13
VM Deployment and Management
VM Deployment and Management
The components of a virtual machine
Deploying VMs
Content library
Managing VMs
Importing and exporting VMs
Converting VMs
14
VM Resource Management
VM Resource Management
Virtual machine resource management
Virtual machine migration
DRS
Resource pools and vApps
Network and storage resources
15
Availability and Disaster Recovery
Availability and Disaster Recovery
VMware vSphere HA
VMware vSphere FT
Virtual machine clustering
Virtual machine backup
VMware vSphere Replication
Disaster recovery and disaster avoidance
VMware solutions
16
Securing and Protecting Your Environment
Securing and Protecting Your Environment
Security and hardening concepts in vSphere
Authentication and identity
Active directory integration
vCenter Server, ESXi, and VM hardening
Encryption options of the vSphere
17
Analyzing and Optimizing Your Environment
Analyzing and Optimizing Your Environment
Monitoring a virtual environment
VM optimization
Log management
vRealize Operations
Other monitoring tools
18
Troubleshooting Your Environment
Troubleshooting Your Environment
What is troubleshooting?
Troubleshooting a virtual environment
Logs
Troubleshooting vSphere components
19
Building Your Own VMware vSphere Lab
Building Your Own VMware vSphere Lab
The importance of lifelong learning
Choosing the right platform
Software components and licensing
Architecture and logical design
A detailed implementation guide
20
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Patching a vSphere 6.7 environment

Keeping ESXi hosts and vCenter Servers up-to-date is not only an essential best practice, but it's strongly recommended to ensure the correct functionality of the virtual platform and protection from bugs. Several methods are available for patching ESXi hosts via the use of  VUM (this will be discussed later in this chapter) to update all hosts automatically. Alternatively, if no vCenter Servers are present in the network, the command line of the ESXi server can be used as well. Also, the vCSA can be patched in different ways, all of which will be analyzed later on.

There are two different upgrade types:

  • Minor updates: From one build to a higher one, but still within the same major version. For example, from ESXi 6.5 U1 (build 5969303) to ESXi 6.5 U2 GA (build 8294253).
  • Major updates: From one major version to a higher major version...
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