Day 1

Virtualization Intro
ESXi Installation
 Lesson 1:
Introduction to the Software-Defined
Data Center
Topology of a Physical Data Center

A D M I N I S T E R I N G A N D M A I N TA I N I N G A P H Y S I C A L D ATA
C E N T E R I S T I M E C O N S U M I N G A N D O F T E N I N E F F I C I E N T.
Applications
Operating System
Physical Host

Fibre
Ethernet
Channel
FCoE
Storage

iSCSI NFS Local Area Fibre Channel

Storage Storage Network Storage
 High-Level VMware vSphere Architectural Overview
VMware vSphere

VMware vCenter Server

Availability Scalability
••
Manage VMware
VMware vSphere
vMotion
vMotion
vSphere
• DRS and DPM
Application •• VMware
VMware vSphere
vSphere Storage
Storage • Hot Add
Services vMotion
vMotion • Over
•• VMware
VMware vSphere
vSphere High
High
Availability
Availability Commitment
•• VMware
VMware vSphere
vSphere FT
FT • Content Library
•• VMware
VMware Data
Data Recovery
Recovery

Cluster
Storage Networ
• vSphere VMFS k
• VMware Virtual •• Standard
Standard vSwitch
vSwitch
Infrastructure ESXi ESXi ESXi Volumes •• Distributed
Distributed vSwitch
vSwitch
Services • VMware vSAN •• VMware
VMware NSX
NSX
• Thin Provisioning •• VMware
VMware vSphere
vSphere
Network
Network I/O
I/O Control
• vSphere Storage I/O Control
Control

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Physical Resources
 Introducing the Virtual Infrastructure
Virtualization enables you to run more workloads on a single server by
consolidating the environment so that your applications run on virtual
machines.
Virtual
Machines
Hypervisor
ESXi Host

Fibre
Ethernet
Channel
FCoE
Storage

iSCSI Storage NFS Storage Local Area Fibre Channel Storage

Network
 About Virtual Machines
A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs
an operating system and applications.

Virtual Machine Virtual Machine Components

o Operating system
o VMware Tools™
o Virtual resources such as:
• CPU and memory
• Network adapters
• Disk controllers
• Parallel and serial ports
 Benefits of Using Virtual Machines
Physical Machines
Difficult to relocate:
Moves require downtime.
Specific to physical hardware.
Difficult to manage:
Require physical maintenance.
Hardware failures cause downtime.
Hardware has limitations:
Hardware changes limit application
support.
One-to-one relationship between
application and server.
• Virtual Machines
Easy to relocate:
o Encapsulated into files.
o Independent of physical hardware.
Easy to manage:
o Isolated from other virtual machines.
o Insulated from hardware changes.
Provide the ability to support legacy
applications.
Enable servers to be consolidated.
Physical Architecture and Virtual Architecture
Virtualization is a technology that decouples physical hardware from a
computer operating system and provides a solution to many of the problems
that IT staff face.
Physical Architecture Virtual Architecture

Application

Operating System vSphere

x64 Architecture x64 Architecture

Physical Resource Sharing

Virtual
Resources

vSphere
x64
Architecture
Physical
Resources
 CPU Virtualization
In a physical environment, the operating system assumes the ownership of
all the physical CPUs in the system.
CPU virtualization emphasizes performance and runs directly on the
available CPUs.
Physical Architecture Virtual Architecture

Application

Operating System vSphere

x64 Architecture x64

Architecture
 Physical and Virtualized Host Memory Usage
In a physical environment, the operating system assumes the ownership of all
physical memory in the system.
Memory virtualization emphasizes performance and runs directly on the
available RAM.

Physical Architecture Virtual Architecture

Application
1 GB 2 GB 8 GB

Operating System vSphere

x64 Architecture x64 Architecture

 Physical and Virtual Networking
Virtual Ethernet adapters and virtual switches are key virtual networking
components.
Physical Architecture Virtual Architecture

Application

Operating
Virtual Switch
System
x64
Architecture vSphere
x64
Architecture
Lesson 2:
Overview of ESXi
 ESXi 6.5
• ESXi is bare metal VMware vSphere
Hypervisor
• ESXi installs directly onto the
physical server enabling direct access
to all server resources
o ESXi is in control of all CPU, memory, network and VMware ESXi
storage resources
o Allows for virtual machines to be run at near native
performance, unlike hosted hypervisors
• ESXi 6.5allows
o Utilization of up to 576 physical CPUs per host
o Utilization of up to 12 TB of RAM per host
o Deployment of up to 1024 virtual machines per host

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 ESXi Architecture
CLI Commands
for Configuration
ESXi Host
And Support

Agentless Agentless
Systems Hardware
Management Monitoring

VMware Common VMware VMware

Management Information Management Management
Framework Model (CIM) Framework Framework

Local Support Console (ESXi Shell)

VMkernel

Network and Storage 15

 Components of ESXi
• The ESXi architecture comprises the underlying operating system, called the
VMkernel, and processes that run on top of it
• VMkernel provides a means for running all processes on the system, including
management applications and agents as well as virtual machines
• It has control of all hardware devices on the server and manages resources for the
applications
• The main processes that run on top of VMkernel are
o Direct Console User Interface (DCUI)
o Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)
o VMware Agents (hostd, vpxa)
o Common Information Model (CIM) System

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 Components of ESXi (cont.)
• Direct Console User Interface
o Low-level configuration and management interface, accessible through the console of the server, used primarily for initial
basic configuration
• Virtual Machine Monitor
o Process that provides the execution environment for a virtual machine, as well as a helper process known as VMX. Each
running virtual machine has its own VMM and VMX process
• VMware Agents (hostd and vpxa)
o Used to enable high-level VMware Infrastructure™ management from remote applications

• Common Information Model System

o Interface that enables hardware-level management from remote applications through a set of standard APIs

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 ESXi 6.5 System Requirements
When installing or upgrading to ESXi 6.5, ensure that the host meets these minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 6.5
• Compatible hardware:
Ensure your hardware is compliant on the VMware Compatibility Guide. This includes:
System compatibility - I/O compatibility (Network and HBA cards) - Storage compatibility
• Compatible CPU:
Your hosts must have a supported and compatible processor. VMware ESXi 6.5 requires:
A host with 2 or more CPU cores - A 64-bit x86 processor released -To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for
hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on x64 CPUs.
• Sufficient memory: Your hosts must have at least 4 GB of RAM, 8 GB of RAM is recommended to take advantage
of all features and run virtual machines in a typical production environment.
• Sufficient network adapters: Your host has one or more Gigabit or faster Ethernet controllers.
• Storage requirements
1 Gigabyte+ boot device: Installing or upgrading to ESXi 6.5 requires a minimum of a 1 GB boot device. 
4 GB extra for scratch partition: When booting from a local disk, a SAN or an iSCSI LUN, a 5.2 GB disk is
required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4 GB scratch partition on the boot device.

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