Book Image

VMware vSphere 6.7 Data Center Design Cookbook - Third Edition

By : Mike Brown, Hersey Cartwright
Book Image

VMware vSphere 6.7 Data Center Design Cookbook - Third Edition

By: Mike Brown, Hersey Cartwright

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. This book uses proven infrastructure design principles and applies them to VMware vSphere 6.7 virtual data center design through short and focused recipes on each design aspect. The second edition of this book focused on vSphere 6.0. vSphere features released since then necessitate an updated design guide, which includes recipes for upgrading to 6.7, vCenter HA; operational improvements; cutting-edge, high-performance storage access such as RDMA and Pmem; security features such as encrypted vMotion and VM-level encryption; Proactive HA; HA Orchestrated Restart; Predictive DRS; and more. By the end of the book, you will be able to achieve enhanced compute, storage, network, and management capabilities for your virtual data center.

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Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Sections
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
The Virtual Data Center
The Virtual Data Center
Benefits and technologies of virtualization
Becoming a virtual data center architect
Using a holistic approach to data center design
Passing the VMware VCAP6-DCV Design exam
Becoming a VMware Certified Design Expert
Identifying what's new in vSphere 6.7
Planning a vSphere 6.7 upgrade
2
The Discovery Process
The Discovery Process
Identifying the design factors
Identifying stakeholders
Conducting stakeholder interviews
Using VMware Capacity Planner
Using Windows Performance Monitor
Conducting a VMware optimization assessment
Identifying dependencies
3
The Design Factors
The Design Factors
Identifying design requirements
Identifying design constraints
Making design assumptions
Identifying design risks
Considering infrastructure design qualities
Creating the conceptual design
4
vSphere Management Design
vSphere Management Design
Identifying vCenter components and dependencies
Selecting a vCenter deployment option
Determining vCenter resource requirements
Selecting a database for the vCenter deployment
Determining database interoperability
Choosing a vCenter deployment topology
Designing for management availability
Designing a separate management cluster
Configuring vCenter mail, SNMP, and alarms
Using Enhanced Linked Mode
Using the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix
Backing up the vCenter Server components
Planning vCenter HA to increase vCenter availability
Upgrading vCenter Server
Designing a vSphere Update Manager Deployment
5
vSphere Storage Design
vSphere Storage Design
Identifying RAID levels
Calculating storage capacity requirements
Determining storage performance requirements
Calculating storage throughput
Storage connectivity options
Storage path selection plugins
Sizing datastores
Designing VSAN for virtual machine storage
Using VMware Virtual Volumes
Incorporating storage policies into a design
NFS version 4.1 capabilities and limits
Using persistent memory to maximize VM performance
6
vSphere Network Design
vSphere Network Design
Determining network bandwidth requirements
Standard or distributed virtual switches
Providing network availability
Network resource management
Using private VLANs
IP storage network design considerations
Using jumbo frames
Creating custom TCP/IP stacks
Designing for VMkernel services
vMotion network design considerations
Using 10 GbE converged network adapters
IPv6 in a vSphere design
Remote direct memory access options
7
vSphere Compute Design
vSphere Compute Design
Calculating CPU resource requirements
Calculating memory resource requirements
Transparent page sharing
Scaling up or scaling out
Determining the vCPU-to-core ratio
Clustering compute resources
Reserving HA resources to support failover
Using distributed resource scheduling to balance cluster resources
Ensuring cluster vMotion compatibility
Using resource pools
Providing Fault Tolerance protection
Leveraging host flash
8
vSphere Physical Design
vSphere Physical Design
Using the VMware Hardware Compatibility List
Understanding the physical storage design
Understanding the physical network design
Creating the physical compute design
Creating a custom ESXi image
The best practices for ESXi host BIOS settings
Upgrading an ESXi host
9
Virtual Machine Design
Virtual Machine Design
Right-sizing virtual machines
Enabling CPU hot add and memory hot plug
Using paravirtualized VM hardware
Creating virtual machine templates
Upgrading and installing VMware Tools
Upgrading VM virtual hardware
Using vApps to organize virtualized applications
Using VM affinity and anti-affinity rules
Using VM to Host affinity and anti-affinity rules
Converting physical servers with vCenter Converter Standalone
Migrating servers into vSphere
10
vSphere Security Design
vSphere Security Design
Managing the single sign-on password policy
Managing single sign-on identity sources
Security design with the VMware Certificate Authority
Using Active Directory for host authentication
ESXi firewall configuration
ESXi Lockdown Mode
Configuring role-based access control
Virtual network security
Using the VMware vSphere 6 Hardening Guide
11
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Backing up ESXi host configurations
Configuring ESXi host logging
Backing up virtual distributed switch configurations
Deploying Veeam Backup and Replication
Using Veeam Backup and Replication to back up virtual machines
Replicating virtual machines with vSphere Replication
Protecting the virtual data center with Site Recovery Manager
12
Design Documentation
Design Documentation
Creating the architecture design document
Writing an implementation plan
Developing an installation guide
Creating a validation test plan
Writing operational procedures
Presenting the design
Implementing the design
13
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Designing for management availability

The availability of the management functions of an environment becomes more critical in environments like those that support virtual desktops or self-service provisioning. In these environments, if the vCenter Server is unavailable, so is the ability to provide the provisioning of services.

If the environment does not provide these types of services, the ability to manage the environment, especially during a failure or disaster, is also critical. How can you troubleshoot an issue with a virtual machine (or a group of virtual machines) if the primary tool that is used to manage the environment is unavailable?

How to do it...

To properly design for management availability, follow these steps...

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