Unit 2

Chapter 1: Installing and Configuring vCenter Server

1. What is vCenter Server. List down various services offered by vCenter Server.
 vCenter Server is an application that serves as a centralized management tool for ESXi
hosts and their respective VMs. vCenter Server acts as a proxy that performs tasks on the
individual ESXi hosts that have been added as members of a vCenter Server installation.
vCenter Server offers core services in the following areas:
 Resource management for ESXi hosts and VMs
 Template management
 VM deployment
 VM management
 Scheduled tasks
 Statistics and logging
 Alarms and event management
 ESXi host management
Below figure illustrates the core services available through vCenter Server.

Fig: vCenter Server provides a full spectrum of virtualization management functions.

vCenter Server also provides an extensible framework that has various services like vSphere
Update Manager, vRealize automation, Third-Party applications via API & VMWare site
Recovery Manager.
The below core services are supported by the following features of vCenter Server
a. Centralized User Authentication
b. Web Client Server
c. Extensible Framework
 2. Short Note on Platform Service Controller.
 vSphere 6.0 introduced a new component called the Platform Services Controller (PSC).
This component has remained in the vSphere architecture up through vSphere 6.5, and now
vSphere 6.7. It is used to run common components for VMware products in a central or
distributed location(s). The PSC offers multiple services;

 Single Sign-On (SSO):- A Service offered via the PSE authentication brokering and
secure token exchange, and can be shared to multiple vCenter instances or other
VMWare products.
 Licensing:- holds all licensing information for the vSphere environment and
potentially other products, removes the dependency where vCenter must be available
for licensing operations to occur
 Certificate Authority & Store:- is the SSL certificate mint and wallet for your vSphere
Environment. These services will allow you to create your own or store and assign
third-party certificates for both vCenter and ESXi hosts.
 Service Registry:- it is a registration index of all VMware services available in this
environment. This index will be particularly powerful when all VMware products also
register their existence with the PSC, or more specifically, the Service Registry

3. Planning and Designing vCenter Server Deployment.



a. Sizing Hardware for vCenter Server:- The amount of hardware that vCenter Server
requires is directly related to the number of hosts and VMs it will be managing. This
planning and design consideration applies not only to the appliance–based version of
vCenter Server but also to the Windows Server–based version. The minimum
hardware requirements for the Linux–based version of vCenter Server are as follows:
 Two vCPUs
 10 GB of RAM
 300 GB of disk space
 A network adapter (Gigabit Ethernet is strongly recommended).
The above configuration of the vCenter Server can accommodate 10 ESXi hosts and 100
VMs.
 b. Planning for vCenter Server Availability:-
a. Protect PSC:- There are 3 methods for ensuring you have a PSE node
available to you with little time or no downtime: deploying in an HA-enabled
cluster, deploying multiple nodes, and having a solid backup plan.
b. Protecting vCenter Server:- Provides availability by creating a stand-by
vCenter Server System that you can turn on in the event of failure of the
online vCenter Server computer. After failure, you bring the standby server
online and attach it to the existing SQL server database, and then the host can
be added to the new vCenter Server Computer.
c. Protecting the vCenter Database:- Create a database cluster and use SQL log-
shipping or database mirroring to create a database replica on a separate
system.

4. Exploring/Elaborate the interface of vCenter Server.



a. Navigator:- The leftmost column is used for showing inventory and for navigation. It
is the primary item selection tool.
b. Content Area:- Once an item is selected, the larger middle column shows the content
or configuration options for that item.
c. Alarms and Work in Progress:- On the right is a column that brings potential problems
to your attention and also shows any current wizards that are in progress but put to the
side for completion at a later time.
d. Recent Tasks:- The Recent Tasks bar shows anything that is currently or has recently
occurred within vCenter. Recent Tasks can be swapped between My Tasks and All
Users.
e. Recent Objects:- The Recent Objects bar shows the last 10 objects that you have
recently viewed or created within vCenter. The Recent Viewed Objects can be
swapped with Recent Created Objects by clicking on the opposite tab.

5. Exploring vCenter Server Management Features (Refer notes)

6. Managing vCenter Server Settings (Refer notes)
 Chapter 2: vSphere Update Manager
1. Short Note on vSphere Update Manager and explain commonly used terms in vSphere
Update Manager. (Refer Notes)
2. What are Baselines and how to create a baseline? (Refer Notes)
3. How to upgrade ESXi Host using vSphere Update Manager (Ref book pg 148, pdf
171)
 Upgrading vSphere ESXi to the newest versions when they become available is
principally a three-stage process. ESXi 5.x and 6.x are fundamentally the same hypervisors,
VUM 6.7 has been designed to only upgrade 6.x hosts to 6.7. You can upgrade either version
of ESXi, but you will need to perform an additional step to get older 5.x hosts upgraded to
6.0 or 6.5 and then on to 6.7.
It is a process that requires a VUM 6.x server to get the 5.x hosts upgraded to 6.x before
upgrading VUM itself to 6.7. You may then update any 6.x to 6.7 with ease.
The following steps to upgrade a host server with VUM 6.0:
a. Import an ESXi image and create a host upgrade baseline:-
Steps:
1. Launch the vSphere Web Client if it is not already running, and connect to an
instance of the vCenter Server.

2. Navigate to the Update Manager Administration area by using the Home menu ➢
Update Manager, and selecting the vCenter’s associated Update Manager.
3. Click the ESXi Images tab.
4. Click the orange-and-green Import ESXi Image link in the top-left corner of this
area.
5. Use the Browse button, to select the new ESXi ISO file. This will immediately start
the upload of the ISO and display a progress bar that can be monitored. This might take a few
minutes to complete.
6. Once the file import is complete, verify the summary information and click Close.
7. Click your newly imported image in the list, and to the right of the Import ESXi
Image, click Create Baseline. Give the baseline a name and appropriate description, and then
click OK. It shows an image uploaded into the list of imported images. When an image is
selected, the lower pane lists all the software packages included in the image and their
version numbers.
b. Upgrade the host by remediating with the upgrade baseline:-
After you’ve created a host upgrade baseline, you can use this baseline to upgrade an ESXi
host following the same basic sequence of steps outlined previously to remediate other
vSphere objects:
 1. Attach the baseline to the ESXi hosts that you want to upgrade. Refer to the
previous section, “Attaching and Detaching Baselines or Baseline Groups,” for a review of
how to attach a baseline to an ESXi host or several hosts.
2. Scan the ESXi hosts for compliance with the baseline. Don’t forget to select to scan
for upgrades when presented with the scan options.
3. Remediate the host
c. Upgrade the VMs’ VMware Tools and Hardware:- VUM already comes with a VM
upgrade baseline that addresses this: the VM Hardware Upgrade To Match Host baseline.
This baseline is predefined and can’t be changed or deleted from within the vSphere Desktop
Client. The purpose of this baseline is to determine whether a VM’s hardware is current.
To upgrade the virtual VM version, you again follow the same general sequence:
1. Attach the baseline.
2. Perform a scan.
3. Remediate.

4. Short Note on Auto Deploy. (Refer Diagram from your Notebook)

 vSphere Auto Deploy—often just referred to as Auto Deploy—is, like vSphere Update
Manager, a tool designed to help VMware administrators rapidly automate and streamline the
process of deploying ESXi images to physical hosts within their vSphere environment. By
combining the boot infrastructure abilities of PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) with
vSphere Host Profiles, an administrator is no longer required to build a kickstart file or
directly install ESXi on each host. Auto Deploy provides a centralized configuration plane for
the state of the hosts. Each time a host is rebooted, its image and configuration will be picked
up from the Auto Deploy services and the associated Host Profile, respectively, and loaded
into memory, resulting in no physical state being preserved on the hosts. The following
requirements must be met before using Auto Deploy to install ESXi on your hosts:
 PXE and TFTP boot environment
 ESXi Image Profiles created with Image Builder
 Host Profiles to attach to newly deployed hosts
 Deployment Rule to help the hosts get the right image and configuration

Chapter 3: Creating and Configuring vSphere Network

1. Explain the Components of Virtual Network. (Refer notes)