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

Storage Protocols


When designing a vSphere infrastructure, it is important to understand that there is a variety of industry standard Storage Pprotocols to choose from. VMware supports the use of the most common ones that include Fiber Channel (FC), Internet SCSI (iSCSI), Network File System (NFS), and Fiber Channel Over Ethernet (FCoE).

The Fiber Channel (FC) protocol is used to encapsulate SCSI frames and send them natively over FC cables:

Any device that requires accessing data on an FC array will need a hardware initiator device called the Host Bus Adapter (HBA). The endpoint at the storage array is called storage processor, storage controller, or service processor. HBAs and the storage controllers connect to an FC Switch:

The FC storage fabric management is performed at the Fabric Switches (FC Switch) by creating access zones or segments for the initiators accessing the storage array. Figure FC Infrastructure shows eight possible access paths to each of the array controllers. VMware...