Book Image

VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Hersey Cartwright, kim bottu
Book Image

VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Hersey Cartwright, kim bottu

Overview of this book

VMware is the industry leader in data center virtualization. The vSphere 6.x suite of products provides a robust and resilient platform to virtualize server and application workloads. With the release of 6.x a whole range of new features has come along such as ESXi Security enhancements, fault tolerance, high availability enhancements, and virtual volumes, thus simplifying the secure management of resources, the availability of applications, and performance enhancements of workloads deployed in the virtualized datacenter. This book provides recipes to create a virtual datacenter design using the features of vSphere 6.x by guiding you through the process of identifying the design factors and applying them to the logical and physical design process. You’ll follow steps that walk you through the design process from beginning to end, right from the discovery process to creating the conceptual design; calculating the resource requirements of the logical storage, compute, and network design; mapping the logical requirements to a physical design; security design; and finally creating the design documentation. The recipes in this book provide guidance on making design decisions to ensure the successful creation, and ultimately the successful implementation, of a VMware vSphere 6.x virtual data center design.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Upgrading an ESXi host


Many environments have already adopted some level of virtualization. A datacenter design will most likely have to include the upgrading of the current infrastructure in order to leverage new features and functionality. Upgrading ESXi is a simple process, but it requires planning in order to ensure compatibility and support ability. Chapter 4, vSphere Management Design, provides details on upgrading vCenter Server; this recipe provides details on planning an upgrade of ESXi hosts.

ESXi 5.0, ESX 5.1, and ESXi 5.5 can be upgraded directly to ESXi 6. Earlier versions of ESX/ESXi must first be upgraded to 5.x before upgrading to ESXi 6.

How to do it…

When preparing to upgrade ESXi hosts, use the following steps:

  1. Identify the methods available to upgrade ESXi.

  2. Verify hardware and firmware compatibility using the VMware Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl.

How it works…

The following methods are available to upgrade ESXi:

  • Interactive upgrade: An interactive...