Book Image

Mastering VMware vSphere Storage

By : Victor Wu, Eagle Huang
Book Image

Mastering VMware vSphere Storage

By: Victor Wu, Eagle Huang

Overview of this book

<p>vSphere Storage is one of the three main infrastructure components of a vSphere deployment (Compute, Storage, and Network).</p> <p>Mastering VMware vSphere Storage begins with an insightful introduction to virtualization and creating your own virtual machines. We then talk about VMware vCenter Server and virtual machine management, as well as managing vSphere 5 using vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) and esxcli and vmware-cmd commands. We then swiftly move on to a very interesting topic, reviewing the vSphere performance and troubleshooting methodology. We then configure VM storage profiles, Storage DRS, and Storage I/O control. More significantly, we will troubleshoot and analyze storage using the VMware CLI and learn how to configure iSCSI storage.</p> <p>By the end of the book, you will be able to identify useful information to make virtual machine and virtual data center design decisions.</p>

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Mastering VMware vSphere Storage
Victor Wu | Eagle Huang
Jul, 2015 | 246 pages
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Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Mastering VMware vSphere Storage
Mastering VMware vSphere Storage
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with vSphere 5.x and vCenter 5.x
Getting Started with vSphere 5.x and vCenter 5.x
Physical and virtual architecture
A comparison between physical and virtual machines
Installing the VMware ESXi host
Installing VMware vCenter Server
Installing the VMware vCenter Server Appliance
Connecting to vCenter Server with vSphere Client
Connecting to vCenter Server with vSphere Web Client
Summary
2
Getting Started with vSphere Management Assistant
Getting Started with vSphere Management Assistant
Deploying vMA
Configuring ESXi technical support mode
Using the VMware commands
Reviewing ESXi and vCenter Server logs
Summary
3
Using the Virtual Machine Monitor
Using the Virtual Machine Monitor
The VMware vSphere ESXi architecture
Understanding the VMM
Software and hardware virtualization techniques
Using vSphere performance monitoring tools
Summary
4
Storage Scalability
Storage Scalability
vSphere storage APIs for array integration and storage awareness
Virtual machine storage profile
VMware vSphere Storage DRS
VMware vSphere Storage I/O Control
Summary
5
Optimizing Storage
Optimizing Storage
Concepts of storage virtualization
Monitoring vSphere storage
vSphere storage management using the command line
Troubleshooting vSphere storage performance problems
Summary
6
vSphere Storage Configuration Settings
vSphere Storage Configuration Settings
vSphere storage components
LUN masking
vSphere 5 storage maximums
Identifying the vSphere log used to troubleshoot a storage problem
Summary
7
Analyzing vSphere Storage by CLI
Analyzing vSphere Storage by CLI
Analyzing PSA and multipathing using esxcli
Applying VMFS volume copies resignaturing
Troubleshooting VMware snapshots and VMFS resignaturing
VMFS DataStore volume unmounting
Identifying and tagging SSD devices
Summary
8
Troubleshooting vSphere FC Storage
Troubleshooting vSphere FC Storage
The vSphere Fibre Channel storage component
A vSphere Fibre Channel storage troubleshooting example
Summary
9
Troubleshooting vSphere iSCSI Storage
Troubleshooting vSphere iSCSI Storage
vSphere iSCSI storage components
vSphere iSCSI storage troubleshooting examples
Summary
10
Troubleshooting vSphere NFS Storage
Troubleshooting vSphere NFS Storage
vSphere NFS storage components
A vSphere NFS storage case study
A vSphere NFS storage troubleshooting example
Summary
11
vSphere Storage Design
vSphere Storage Design
Storage design key points
The vSphere storage architecture
Getting started with vSphere storage design
Summary
12
ESXi Host Design
ESXi Host Design
ESXi host design key points
Host naming conventions
An ESXi host design example
Summary
13
Virtual Machine Design
Virtual Machine Design
Virtual machine design key points
A virtual machine design example
Summary
14
vSphere Virtual Datacenter Design
vSphere Virtual Datacenter Design
vSphere virtual datacenter design key points
A vSphere virtual datacenter design example
Summary
Index
Index

Installing the VMware vCenter Server Appliance

VMware vCenter installation can be deployed as a virtual appliance. You can deploy VMware vCenter Server Appliance in your virtual environment if you are not spending much of your time configuring vCenter Server on a Microsoft Windows platform. VMware vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine optimized for running vCenter Server and associated services.

Note

The embedded database is not configured to manage more than 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines. vCenter Server will stop responding if it exceeds these limits. Also, the vCenter Server Appliance does not support Linked Mode configuration. The following is the procedure required for installing VMware vCenter Server Appliance.

Download the vCenter Server Appliance (OVA) from the VMware website. Choose the product as VMware vSphere version 5.1, and select VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Appliance from https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads.

Prerequisites

The hosts should be running VMware ESX version 4.x, ESXi version 4.x, or later:

  1. Use the vSphere Client or the vSphere Web Client to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance from the OVF template. If you don't want to allocate thick disk space for the deployment, you can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance with thin provisioning.

    Deploying VMware vCenter Server Appliance from the OVF template

    Note

    • Create a virtual disk in the default thick format. The space required for the virtual disk is allocated during its creation.

    • Create a virtual disk in thin provisioning. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much data store space as it initially needs.

  2. Configure the IP address of vCenter Server Appliance and power it up:

  3. Follow the instructions on the welcome screen to open a browser window and go to the URL shown. The default username is root and password is vmware. It is highly recommended to change the password immediately after the first login:

    The Login page of VMware vCenter Server Appliance

  4. When you log in, the vCenter Server Setup wizard starts. You can select three options for installation:

    vCenter Server Appliance setup

    The options in the previous screenshot are explained as follows:

    Option

    Description

    Configure with default settings

    This sets up embedded vCenter Server and vCenter SSO databases in the vCenter Server Appliance, and configures the databases and Active Directory with default settings.

    Upgrade from previous version

    This is used to configure the vCenter Server Appliance from a prepared configuration file.

    Set custom configuration

    This is used to customize the configuration of the vCenter Server Appliance. Configure the appliance to be embedded, or the external vCenter Server and vCenter SSO databases, and to configure custom Active Directory settings.

  5. For this installation, we choose Configure with default settings. This will configure the database and the SSO type will be embedded. Then click on the Start button.

    Note

    For a small environment, you should use the embedded database. However, if your environment is large in size, you should use the other database type.

  6. After finishing the configuration of the database and SSO, it will start the service of vCenter Server:

    The installation of vCenter Server Appliance is complete

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