VMware vSphere Introduction

Contents:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESX vs ESXi VMware VSphere maximums VMware vSMP (Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing) VMware vCenter Server VMware HA vs VMware Fault Tolerance VMware vCenter Update Manager VMware vSphere Client VMware Consolidated Backup VMware vShield Zones VMware vSphere Editions

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware vSphere Hypervisor
Hypervisor is the core (host) product suite of the VMware vSphere. Hypervisors are divided in to Type 1 and Type 2. A Type 1 Hypervisor can run on its own without an operating system or they can be considered an operating system. A Type 2 Hypervisor needs an Operating System and its a package or software the users installs on the operating system to perform virtualization tasks. VMware vSphere is divided in to two packages ESX and ESXi. ESX and ESXi are both considered Hypervisor Type 1. Microsoft Hyper-VM is considered Hypervisor Type 1. Xen Based Operating Systems are considered Type 2 Hypervisors.

ESX has a single a native kernel to perform all virtualization tasks. Xen has two kernels, one to boot the operating system and the other to run Virtual Machines.

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

ESX vs ESXi
VMware ESX is built on a Linux foundation and consists of two major components: Service Console: The Service Console allows an administrator to manage Virtual Machines running on the server and also configure firewall and SNMP and Web Server (Web Server allows you to manage the ESX server remotely via web) VMkernel: VMkernel is the heart of the VMware ESX server, the VMkernel acts as a mediator between the physical hardware and the virtual machines. VMkernel can perform tasks such as CPU scheduling (control thread/task priority), memory management, and virtual switch data processing. A diagram of the tasks VMkernel can perform is listed below:

ESX Service Console VMkernel

ESXi VMkernel

ESXi is only packaged with VMkernel which makes ESXi memory footprint relatively small at 32MB. ESXi relies upon a centralized management console for configuration and management tasks.

VMware VSphere maximums

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

Component Number of virtual CPUs per host Number of cores per host Number of logical CPUs (hyper-threading enabled) Number of virtual CPUs per core Amount of RAM per host VMware VSphere maximums 256 64 64 20 512GB

For more information regarding VMware VSphere 4.1 maximums please refer to this document: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vSphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware vSMP (Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing)
VMware vSMP allows an administrator to create virtual processor out of each core that is built in to the CPU. The servers that are being used for this course consists of two Dell Poweredge R710 Servers with the following specs: 2-way Intel Xeon (w/ 4 cores per processor) 24GB Memory 160GB SAS Drive (x2)

With VMware vSMP operating systems and applications can be ran as virtual machines with multiple virtual CPUs and these virtual machines (w/ multiple virtual CPUs) can also run operating systems and applications without impacting performance and meeting SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Below is an example/diagram of VMware vSMP:

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware vCenter Server
VMware vCenter Server is designed to serve as a centralized management server for ESX and ESXi hosts. VMware vCenter Server can be installed on Windows Server or Linux depending on the environment requirements. VMware vCenter Server relies on a database like MS SQL Server or Oracle Database Server to store all its data such as hosts and virtual machine information. VMware vCenter Server also provides the ability to manage other VMware vSphere features such as: VMware VMotion: VMware VMotion allows users to move virtual machines from one physical server to another without setting up a scheduled downtime. This feature can also be used migrate virtual machines from failing physical servers. VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler): VMware DRS allows users to manage resources on virtual machines, such as incrementing or decrementing memory or storage on the fly as the requirements of the virtual machine changes. VMware HA (High Availability): VMware HA allows users to setup a cluster or a resource pool of guest OS across multiple physical servers. If a guest OS were to do go down on a physical server, VMware HA would automatically recognize the outage with the use of heartbeat and it would automatically start (fail-over) the guest OS on another physical server. VMware HA makes cluster management less user dependent and seamless. VMware Fault Tolerance: VMware Fault Tolerance is very similar to VMware HA except instead of clustering it creates a replica of a Virtual Machine on two different physical servers with only one physical server having read/write access while the other waits on a standby with just read access. Both the running virtual machines will have exactly the same configuration (including network information). VMware Fault Tolerance uses the same heartbeat signal in VMware HA for communication between the two physical servers.

VMware HA vs VMware Fault Tolerance

VMware HA Does not require Virtual Machine running constantly which saves resources VMware Fault Tolerance Does require a Virtual Machine running constantly which wastes resources

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

During the fail-over phase there is usually a minute to two minutes of downtime. No fail-over phase

VMware vCenter Update Manager

VMware vCenter Update Manager is a feature of VMware vCenter Server which assists users in keeping their ESX/ESXi servers and virtual machines patched with the latest updates. Scans to identify systems that are not compliant with the latest updates User-defined rules for identifying out-of-date systems

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

Automated installation of patches for ESX/ESXi hosts Full integration with other vSphere features like Distributed Resource Scheduler Support for patching Windows and Linux operating systems Support for patching select Windows applications inside virtual machines

VMware vSphere Client

VMware vSphere Client is a windows based application which lets users manage their VMware environment by having the VMware vSphere Client connect to the VMware server. The advantage of having this client is that it avoids users from directly opening a remote desktop session to VMware vCenter Server.

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware Consolidated Backup

VMware Consolidated Backup is a very important package of VMware, VMware Consolidated Backup is a set of tools and interfaces which provide LAN-Based and Non LAN-Based backup solutions. VMware Consolidated Backup can also communicate with other third-party tools like Symantec NetBackup, TSM, Backup Exec and etc. VMware Consolidated Backup is recommended to be run on a separate server to manage backups of VMware environment.

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware Consolidated Backup Server takes advantage ESX/ESXi feature that allows users to mount the File-System which contains the VMware virtual machine files. Once the VMware virtual machine files are mounted, you can use third-party tools to back up the entire VMware environment.

VMware vShield Zones

VMware vShield Zone acts as an additional firewall for the virtual machines in a VMware environment. VMware vShield allows you to create a group of virtual machines and create a virtual network switch for the virtual machines. The user can then monitor the in/out traffic on this virtual network switch and setup network policies which block/allow network ports as needed.

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

VMware VSphere Editions

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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VMware vSphere Introduction

For more information regarding this topic please refer to this white paper: http://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdf

Prasad Potluri

Digital Terrain Inc.

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