Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe list of the vExpert 2011 is now available on line. But note that this list could not cover all the vExpert people (the list is not automatic but each vExpert must add his entry) and, of course, do not include the vExpert 2009 and 2010.
See also those similar posts: Objective 3.3 – Create and Configure VMFS and NFS Datastores and Objective 3.3 – Create and Configure VMFS and NFS Datastores.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 21). NFS as quite the same functions (also hardware acceleration introducted in vSphere 5), but still cannot implement a RDM disk, and for this reason cannot implement a guest cluster solution (like Microsoft MSCS).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 114) and vSphere 5.0 Storage Features Part 1 – VMFS-5.
VMFS5 provides many improvements in scalability and performance over the previous version. The following improvements can be found in VMFS5:
Differences between newly created and upgraded VMFS-5 datastores:
For RDM – Raw Device Mappings:
Note that:
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 115, 129, 123 and 131).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 128).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 119). Note that two methods are availabe (as also in vSphere 4.x):
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 121). For VMFS3 the upgrade can be done with VM running on it (different from VMFS2 to VMFS3 upgrade). Of course all hosts accessing the datastore must support VMFS5.
See the vSphere Resource Management Guide (page 83). Maintenance mode is available to datastores within a Storage DRS-enabled datastore cluster. Standalone datastores cannot be placed in maintenance mode.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 158).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 163).
Understand the limits (quite few now) of NFS, but also the benefits. See also: http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2010/01/vmfs-or-nfs.html.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 159).
This objective is related to a new product: the VMware Storage Virtual Appliance 1.0 (SVA or usually called also VSA) for vSphere 5. Note that this product is not included in vSphere editions, but is a separate product with his specific license (see the VMware site for more details).
Note: to make a virtual environment to test VSA see the blog Getting the VMware VSA running in a nested ESXi environment.
See also this post: Objective 3.2 – Configure the Storage Virtual Appliance for vSphere.
See the vSphere Storage Appliance 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide (page 9) and the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Technical Whitepaper (page 3) and vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) – Introduction.
VSA can be deployed in a two-node or three-node configuration. Collectively, the two or three nodes in the VSA implementation are known as a VSA storage cluster. Each VMware ESXi server has a VSA instance deployed to it as a virtual machine. The VSA instance will then use the available space on the local disk(s) of the VMware ESXi servers to present one mirrored NFS volume per VMware ESXi. The NFS volume is presented to all VMware ESXi servers in the datacenter.
The VSA can be deployed in two configurations:
The two different configurations are identical in the way in which they present storage. The only difference is in the way that they handle VSA storage cluster membership. The two-node VSA configuration uses a special VSA cluster service, which runs on the VMware vCenter Server. This behaves as a cluster member and is used to make sure that there is still a majority of members in the cluster, should one VMware ESXi server VSA member fail. There is no storage associated with the VSA cluster service.
See the vSphere Storage Appliance 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide (page 21). It require 2 different networks (front-end and back-end network).
A VSA installation is started by installing the VSA manager software on an existing VMware vCenter Server. Once completed, a vSphere client is opened and pointed to the VMware vCenter Server, and the VSA manager plug-in is enabled. This creates a VSA manager tab in the vSphere client.
NOTE: In this release of VSA, an instance of VMware vCenter Server 5.0 can only manage a single VSA storage cluster.
See the vSphere Storage Appliance 1.0 Administration.
VSA enables users to get the full range of vSphere features, including vSphere HA, vMotion, and vSphere DRS, without having to purchase a physical storage array to provide shared storage, making VSA a very cost-effective solution (IMHO price is not so cost effective, also in the bundle with Essential+).
VSA is very easy to deploy. Many of the configuration tasks, such as network setup and vSphere HA deployment, are done by the installer. The benefit here is that this product can be deployed by customers who might not be well versed in vSphere. It gives them a good first-time user experience.
VSA is very resilient. If a VMware ESXi server that is hosting one of the VSAs goes down, or one VSA member suffers an outage, with the redundancy built into the VSA, the NFS share presented from that VSA will be automatically and seamlessly failed over to another VSA in the cluster.
About calculating the VSA Cluster Capacity, see the vSphere Storage Appliance 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide (page 15).
About the requirements for the hosts see the vSphere Storage Appliance 1.0 Installation and Configuration Guide (page 17). Note that the actual HCL is very small and that RAID10 is the only supported RAID configuration for the VSA cluster.
See also those similar posts: Objective 3.1 – Configure Shared Storage for vSphere and Objective 3.1 – Configure Shared Storage for vSphere
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 10). Storage adapters provide connectivity for your ESXi host to a specific storage unit (block oriented) or network.
ESXi supports different classes of adapters, including SCSI, SATA, SAS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). ESXi accesses the adapters directly through device drivers in the VMkernel.
Notice that (block oriented) storage can be local (SCSI, SAS o SATA) or SAN oriented (iSCSI, FC, FCoE). Local storage can also be shared with special type of enclouse (like those LSI based), intead the SAN oriented storages is (usually) shared. In order to use serveral vSphere features (like vMotion, HA, DRS, DPM, …) a shared storage is needed.
Note also that RAID functions must be implemented in hardware (VMware does not support at all neither software RAID and “fake” RAID): or in the host storage controller/adapter (for local and not shared storage) or in the storage.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 17). Each storage device, or LUN, is identified by several names:
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 63) and also http://vinfrastructure.it/vdesign/vstorage-software-vs-hardware-iscsi/
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 183). With ESXi, you can use two models of thin provisioning, array-level (depends on storage functions) and virtual disk-level (using the thin format).
One issue with array level approach, is that vSphere was previsously not notified of storage type of LUN and storage was not able to track the real usage (and reclaim the free space). With the new VAAI primitives for Thin Provisioning and also with new VASA APIs this problem is solved.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 32). Zoning provides access control in the SAN topology. Zoning defines which HBAs can connect to which storage interfaces.
When you configure a SAN (usually FC) by using zoning, the devices outside a zone are not visible to the devices inside the zone. Zoning has the following effects:
LUN masking is instead a way to hide some LUN to a host and can be applied both on storage side (usually the preferred solution) or on host side. The effect is that it can reduces the number of targets and LUNs presented to a host and, for example, make a rescan faster.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 124). Can be done for each host, but if you want to rescan storage available to all hosts managed by your vCenter Server system, you can do so by right-clicking a datacenter, cluster, or folder that contains the hosts and selecting Rescan for Datastores.
Note that, by default, the VMkernel scans for LUN 0 to LUN 255 for every target (a total of 256 LUNs). You can modify the Disk.MaxLUN parameter to improve LUN discovery speed.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 21 and 37). The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) procotocol encapsulates Fibre Channel frames into Ethernet frames. As a result, your host does not need special Fibre Channel links to connect to Fibre Channel storage, but can use 10Gbit lossless Ethernet to deliver Fibre Channel traffic.
In vSphere 5 two type of adapters can be used: Converged Network Adapter (hardware FCoE, as the hardware independent iSCSI adapter) or NIC with FCoE support (software FCoE, similar as the hardware dependent iSCSI adapter).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 128).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 128).
Note: in vSphere 5 there is the Hardware Acceleration on NAS Devices (but must be provided from the storage vendor). NFS datastores with Hardware Acceleration and VMFS datastores support the following disk provisioning policies: Flat disk (old zeroedthick format), Thick Provision (the old eagerzeroedthick) and Thin Provisioning. On NFS datastores that do not support Hardware Acceleration, only thin format is available.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 126). By using the vCenter advanced settings: config.vpxd.filter.vmfsFilter, config.vpxd.filter.rdm, …
Vedere the vSphere Storage Guide (pag. 126). Use advanced settings of vCenter Server: config.vpxd.filter.vmfsFilter, config.vpxd.filter.rd, …
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 70).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 72).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 72).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 78). This is required for some type of storage and previosly was only possible from the CLI. Now it can simple be set from the vSphere Client.
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 83).
See the vSphere Storage Guide (page 63) and also http://vinfrastructure.it/vdesign/vstorage-software-vs-hardware-iscsi/
See previous point about thin provisiong.
In this page are described the different type of iSCSI inititators supported in vSphere and how to choose and use them:
http://vinfrastructure.it/vdesign/vstorage-software-vs-hardware-iscsi/
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAlthough still there isn’t any news about the VCDX5 certification (and there are only few info about VCAP5-DCA and VCAP5-DCD), I would like to bring to your attention some interesting threads about the VCDX program:
There is also a great podcast about the VCDX Program with also some great questions.Podcast #134 on: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=19367
Still work in progress to the VCP5 Blueprint study notes, but first two objectives are (quite) completed. Stay tuned for the next objectives!
For the blueprint see: http://vinfrastructure.it/certifications-on-virtualization/vcp/vcp5/
See also those similar posts: Objective 2.3 – Configure vSS and VDS Policies and Objective 2.3 – Configure vSS and vDS Policies
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 43). Policies set at the standard switch or distributed port group level apply to all of the port groups on the standard switch or to ports in the distributed port group. The exceptions are the configuration options that are overridden at the standard port group or distributed port level.
The blueprint does not cover the NIOC and Monitor policies, but I suggest to study them as well.
For network security policy see: http://vinfrastructure.it/2011/08/vcp5-exam-prep-part-1-4/.
For port blocking policies see the vSphere Networking Guide (page 59).
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 43). Load balancing and failover policies allow you to determine how network traffic is distributed between adapters and how to re-route traffic in the event of adapter failure. The Failover and Load Balancing policies include the following parameters:
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 50). In the VLAN ID field of a port group (or distribuited port group) set a value between 1 and 4094 (0 disable the VLAN and 4095 is the same as trunk all the VLANs).
For vDS other two options are available: VLAN Trunking (to specify a range) and Private VLAN (for more info see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010691)
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 54). A traffic shaping policy is defined by average bandwidth, peak bandwidth, and burst size. You can establish a traffic shaping policy for each port group and each distributed port or distributed port group.
ESXi shapes outbound network traffic on standard switches and inbound and outbound traffic on distributed switches. Traffic shaping restricts the network bandwidth available on a port, but can also be configured to allow bursts of traffic to flow through at higher speeds.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 38). TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO) is enabled on the VMkernel interface by default, but must be enabled at the virtual machine level.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 39). Now it’s possible configure the MTU from GUI also in standard vSwitch and on vmkernel interfaces.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 66). VLAN tagging is possible at diffent level: External Switch Tagging (EST), Virtual Switch Tagging (VST), and Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT).
The blueprint does not cover port Mirroring and NetFlow (new from vSphere 5)… but I suggest to study them as well. Note that also a new (and standard) discover protocol (LLDP) has been added (but only to vDS).
See also this similar post: Objective 2.2 – Configure vNetwork Distributed Switches and Objective 2.2 – Configure vNetwork Distributed Switches
Official page with features of vDS:
See also: vSphere 5 new Networking features.
For this and next points see the vSphere Networking Guide and http://thevirtualheadline.com/2011/07/11/vsphere-vnetwork-distributed-switches/.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 21).
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 25).
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 29).
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 30).
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 31) and VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch: Migration and Configuration
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 33) and VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch: Migration and Configuration
See also those similar posts: Objective 2.1 – Configure vNetwork Standard Switches e Objective 2.1 – Configure vNetwork Standard Switches and Objective 2.1 – Configure vNetwork Standard Switches.
See: VMware Virtual Networking Concepts and VMware Virtual Networking.
See the vSphere Networking Guide. No need to know the CLI…
Note that now also from the GUI the vSwitch MTU can be changed.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 16 and 17). Each physical NIC act as a vSwitch uplink.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 14). The VMkernel port groups can be used for:
Note that now also from the GUI the MTU can be changed.
See the vSphere Networking Guide (page 12).
A VLAN ID, which restricts port group traffic to a logical Ethernet segment within the physical network, is optional. For a port group to reach port groups located on other VLANs, the VLAN ID must be set to 4095. If you use VLAN IDs, you must change the port group labels and VLAN IDs together so that the labels properly represent connectivity.
Both standard (vSS) and distributed (vDS) switches can exist at the same time. Note that vDS can give more functions that vSS. But vDS license require the Enterprise+ edition, so for all other editions the only way is use vSS.
For very small environment vSS could be most simple: everything should be controlled on local host. Basically, you go to Local Host->Configuration->Networking. Then, you start everything from there.
Reading Time: 3 minutesIntroduced for the first time in vSphere the vStorage API are specific functions to permit an integration more thight with external storage functions. Note that there also other integration module that are coverd in the PSA framework. For more information see:
This is a new set of APIs introduced in vSphere 5.0 that will enable VMware vCenter Server to detect the capabilities of the storage array LUNs/datastores, making it much easier to select the appropriate disk for virtual machine placement or the creation of datastore clusters. vSphere Storage APIs – Storage Awareness can also provide help in facilitating, for example, the troubleshooting process or conversations between vSphere and storage administrators. Storage capabilities, such as RAID level, thin or thick provisioned, replication state and much more, can now be made visible within VMware vCenter Server either via “system-defined capabilities,” which are per-datastore descriptors, or via attributes that are exposed via Storage Views and SMS API. vSphere Storage APIs – Storage Awareness aims to eliminate the need for maintaining massive spreadsheets detailing the storage capabilities of each LUN that are needed to guarantee the correct SLA to virtual machines.
For other info see: Overview vSphere Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) e A Deeper Look at VASA.
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe vCenter Server availability could be necessary in most cases and critical for large environment (or where a lot of services depends on it). In small environment, usually, this not so critical, because most of the VMware functions still work also without vCenter Server (for more info see vCenter Server Design: Physical vs Virtual).
There are at least four solutions to increase the availability for vCenter Server:
See also: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1024051 – Supported vCenter Server high availability options. Also see this post on Yellow Bricks (Protecting vCenter Server – HA or Heartbeat?) updated to Sep 2012.
For more information see the official VMware HA web page. This solution is only usable when vCenter Server is a VM!
VMware HA require vCenter Server only for the initial setup and configuration. Than it can work on the hosts in a distributed mode, and vCenter Server is not needed to ensure the correct work of VMware HA. For this reason VMware HA can handle also vCenter Server restart (in this case the downtime could be some minutes…)
IMHO, for small/medium environment I prefer the VMware HA solution… very simple and cheap (it’s included in all editions exept the Essential). To take it simple be sure to have also the vCenter DB on your VM, or you have to find a HA solution also for your VCDB.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-server-heartbeat/
In this case vCenter Server (the primary instance) could be a VM or a physical system. The secondary must be a VM!
Optimize availability and resiliency for VMware vCenter Server in any situation. VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat delivers the maximum uptime for your virtual datacenter infrastructure, ensuring consistent operation, even when VMware vCenter Server is threatened by unplanned or planned downtime.
See also: VMware to tackle vCenter availability with new Server Heartbeat.
This solution is now unsupported!
See: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VC_MSCS.pdf and Reference Implementation: Clustering VirtualCenter 2.5 Using Microsoft Cluster Services.
In this case vCenter Server (both the primary or the secondary node) could be a VM or also a physical system. To implement a Microsoft cluster solution you also need at least Windows Server Enterprise Edition (required to build a Microsoft Cluster).
Note that vCenter Server 2.5 is supported only on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2. Instead vCenter Server 4.0 is supported also on Windows Server 2008.
Similar to this solution is the usage of other cluster solutions, for example Veritas Cluster: http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid94_gci1341780,00.html (but still will not be supported).
Note: vCenter Server 4.x has not been qualified with third party clustering products such as Microsoft Clustering Service and Veritas Cluster Services. VMware does not support third party clustering products.
This solution is now unsupported!
Why not use VMware FT for virtual vCenter server availability? Simple because vCenter Server 4.0 require minimum 2 vCPU (expecially if you have also a local DB).
VMware FT actually can work only with VM single vCPU. So or you keep an unsupported vCenter Server (because for a small environment vCenter Server may “work” also with a single vCPU), or you cannot use VMware FT.
For more information on FT see: VMware FT
For a list of the solutions to increase the availability for vCenter Server see this dedicated page.
From the version VI 3.x the vCenter Server can be deployed or on a physical server or on a virtual machine (both solutions are supported by VMware).
In this page pros and cons are analyzed.
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