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

Networking monitoring methods on a VDS


Most environments will need a method to monitor the network traffic in one form or the other. Two of the common methods in real-world networking are SPAN (Switch Port Analyzer) and NetFlow. VMware employs both these concepts on the VDS:

  • SPAN is simply referred to as port mirroring on a VDS

  • NetFlow

Port mirroring

If there is a need to clone vNIC traffic for capturing or monitoring purposes, then that can be achieved by configuring port mirroring on a VDS. It supports four types of mirror sessions:

  1. Distributed port mirroring - this is used to mirror traffic from vNIC-assigned dvPorts to other vNIC-assigned dvPorts across hosts.

  2. Remote mirroring source - this is used to mirror traffic from vNIC-assigned dvPorts to an uplink or a set of uplinks on one or more hosts.

  3. Remote mirroring destination - this is used to mirror traffic from one or more VLANs to one or more vNIC-assigned dvPorts on one or more hosts.

  4. Encapsulated remote mirroring (L3) source - this is...