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VMware vCenter Cookbook

By : Kostantin Kuminsky
Book Image

VMware vCenter Cookbook

By: Kostantin Kuminsky

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VMware vCenter Cookbook
Kostantin Kuminsky
May, 2015 | 302 pages
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Table of Contents (15 chapters)
VMware vCenter Cookbook
VMware vCenter Cookbook
Credits
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
vCenter Basic Tasks and Features
vCenter Basic Tasks and Features
Introduction
Choosing the right vSphere and vCenter editions
Booting a VM from a virtual CD-ROM
Using hosts with different CPUs in one cluster
Fixing VMware tools to autostart after Linux updates
Running vCenter on a VM
Managing several vCenter Servers from one client
Accessing new vCenter features
Accessing hosts via SSH
Securing host management access
Storing host logs on a shared datastore
Configuring remote logging
2
Increasing Environment Availability
Increasing Environment Availability
Introduction
Configuring the HA feature
Prioritizing VMs for recovery
Tuning up vSphere HA
Ensuring 100 percent uptime for critical VMs
Protecting host redundancy for equally sized hosts
Protecting host redundancy for significantly different hosts
Protecting host redundancy with failover hosts
Backing up/restoring .vmdk files
Restoring VM backup without vCenter
Configuring the backup retention policy
Protecting the vCenter VM
3
Increasing Environment Scalability
Increasing Environment Scalability
Introduction
Delivering new VMs faster with templates
Delivering new VMs faster with customizations
Troubleshooting customizations
Keeping templates up to date
Utilizing host local storage
Automating VM deployments
Deploying new hosts faster with scripted installation
Deploying new hosts faster with auto deploy
Keeping host configuration consistent
Increasing a VM's RAM and CPU online
4
Improving Environment Efficiency
Improving Environment Efficiency
Introduction
Meeting higher I/O needs with the VMware Paravirtual controller
Improving network performance with the VMXNET 3 network adapter
Using new virtual hardware
Controlling storage space used by virtual disks
Managing the space used by snapshots
Improving host productivity with Flash Read Cache
Speeding up VMs with Flash Read Cache
Optimizing host power consumption
Considering NUMA when configuring RAM
vCPU versus pCPU and time slots
5
Optimizing Resource Usage
Optimizing Resource Usage
Introduction
Prioritizing VMs with shares
Ensuring VMs have enough resources to run
Limiting resources used by VMs
Grouping VMs by resource usage
Balancing loads between hosts
Balancing loads between datastores
Configuring storage load balancing thresholds
Limiting VM storage I/O consumption
Limiting VM network I/O consumption
6
Basic Administrative Tasks
Basic Administrative Tasks
Introduction
Improving visibility with email alerts
Controlling the space used by snapshots
Controlling datastore space utilization
Automating VM placement with storage profiles
Automating VM placement with VM affinity
Automating VM placement with storage affinity
Automating tasks with a scheduler
Keeping hosts up to date
7
Improving Environment Manageability
Improving Environment Manageability
Introduction
Categorizing objects in the environment
Scheduling the VM clone
Redirecting VMkernel dumps to another server
Gathering network traffic
VDS configuration backup and restore
Management network configuration recovery
Choosing a MAC address prefix
Getting familiar with new CLI
Configuring the firewall from CLI
Bypassing "hostd" when it's unresponsive with CLI
Index
Index

Automating VM deployments

In situations when there is a requirement to deploy many VMs in a short period of time, the process can be automated using PowerCLI scripts.

Note

PowerCLI is not the only way to automate deployments in vSphere. VMware provides an Application Program Interface (API) and Software Development Kit (SDK), which can be used in conjunction with several languages to automate a broad range of tasks in vSphere. More information is available at https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/.

PowerCLI is a snap-in for Windows PowerShell to manage the vSphere environment. It allows administrators to automate any management tasks, including tasks related to guest OS and storage. The tool comes with over 300 cmdlets as well as documentation and examples. PowerCLI is free and can be downloaded from http://my.vmware.com.

Note

Make sure the version being installed is compatible with the vSphere and PowerShell versions in the environment.

Getting ready

Before creating and testing a VM...

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