Chapter 10: High Availability and Business Continuity covers all of the hot topics regarding business continuity and disaster recovery. You'll get details on building highly available server clusters in virtual machines as well as multiple suggestions on how to design a backup strategy using VMware Consolidated Backup and other backup tools. In addition, this chapter discusses the use of VMware High Availability (HA) as a means of providing failover for virtual machines running on a failed ESX Server host.
Chapter 11: Monitoring Virtual Infrastructure Performance takes a look at some of the native tools in VI3 that allow virtual infrastructure administrators the ability to track and troubleshoot performance issues. The chapter focuses on monitoring CPU, memory, disk, and network adapter performance across ESX Server 3.5 hosts, resource pools, and clusters in VirtualCenter 2.5.
Chapter 12: Securing a Virtual Infrastructure covers different security management aspects, including managing direct ESX Server access and integrating ESX Servers with Active Directory.
Chapter 13: Configuring and Managing ESXi finishes the book by looking at the future of the hypervisor in ESXi. This chapter covers the different versions of ESXi and how they are managed.
Appendix A: Solutions to the Master It Problems offers solutions to the Master It problems in each chapter.
Appendix B: Common Linux and ESX Commands focuses on navigating through the Service Console command line and performing management, configuration, and troubleshooting tasks.
Appendix C: Third-Party Virtualization Tools discusses some of the virtualization tools available from third-party vendors.
Appendix D: Virtual Infrastructure 3 Best Practices serves as an overview of the design, deployment, management, and monitoring concepts discussed throughout the book. It is designed as a quick reference for any of the phases of a virtual infrastructure deployment.
The Mastering SeriesThe Mastering series from Sybex provides outstanding instruction for readers with intermediate and advanced skills, in the form of top-notch training and development for those already working in their field and clear, serious education for those aspiring to become pros. Every Mastering book includes:
♦ Real-World Scenarios, ranging from case studies to interviews, that show how the tool, technique, or knowledge presented is applied in actual practice
♦ Skill-based instruction, with chapters organized around real tasks rather than abstract concepts or subjects
♦ Self-review test questions, so you can be certain you're equipped to do the job right
The Hardware Behind the BookDue to the specificity of the hardware for installing VMware Infrastructure 3, it might be difficult to build an environment in which you can learn by implementing the exercises and practices detailed in this book. It is possible to build a practice lab to follow along with the book; however, the lab will require very specific hardware and can be quite costly. Be sure to read Chapter 2 before attempting to construct any type of environment for development purposes.
For the purpose of writing this book, we used the following hardware configuration:
♦ Three Dell PowerEdge 2850 servers for ESX
♦ Two Intel Xeon 2.8GHz processors
♦ 4GB of RAM
♦ Two hard drives in RAID-1 Array (Mirror)
♦ QLogic 23xx iSCSI HBA
♦ Four Gigabit Ethernet adapters: two on-board, two and two in a dual-port expansion card
♦ QLogic 40xx iSCSI HBA
♦ EMC CX-300 storage device
♦ Two Brocade fibre channel switches
♦ LeftHand Networks iSCSI virtual storage appliance
As we move through the book, we'll provide diagrams to outline the infrastructure as it progresses.
Who Should Buy This BookThis book is for IT professionals looking to strengthen their knowledge of constructing and managing a virtual infrastructure on VMware Infrastructure 3. While the book can be helpful for those new to IT, there is a strong set of assumptions made about the target reader:
♦ A basic understanding of networking architecture
♦ Experience working in a Microsoft Windows environment
♦ Experience managing DNS and DHCP
♦ A basic understanding of how virtualization differs from traditional physical infrastructures
♦ A basic understanding of hardware and software components in standard x86 and x64 computing
How to Contact the AuthorI welcome feedback from you about this book or about books you'd like to see from me in the future. You can reach me by writing to chris.mccain@nittci.com or by visiting my blog at http://www.getyournerdon.com.
Chapter 1 Introducing VMware Infrastructure 3
VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) is the most widely used virtualization platform available today. The lineup of products included in VI3 makes it the most robust, scalable, and reliable server virtualization product on the market. With dynamic resource controls, high availability, distributed resource management, and backup tools included as part of the suite, IT administrators have all the tools they need to run an enterprise environment consisting of anywhere from ten to thousands of servers.
In this chapter you will learn to:
Identify the role of each product in the VI3 suite Discriminate between the different products in the V13 suite Understand how V13 differs from other virtualization products
Exploring VMware Infrastructure 3
The VI3 product suite includes several products that make up the full feature set of enterprise virtualization. The products in the VI3 suite include:
♦ VMware ESX Server
♦ VMware Virtual SMP
♦ VMware VirtualCenter
♦ Virtual Infrastructure Client
♦ VMware VMotion
♦ VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
♦ VMware High Availability (HA)
♦ VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)
Rather than wait to introduce the individual products in their own chapters, I'll introduce each product so I can refer to the products and explain how they affect each piece of the design, installation, and configuration of your virtual infrastructure. Once you understand the basic functions and features of each product in the suite, you'll have a better grasp of how that product fits into the big picture of virtualization, and you'll more clearly understand how each of the products fits into the design.
VMware ESX Server
VMware ESX Server 3.5 and ESXi are the core of the VI3 product suite. They function as the hypervisor, or virtualization layer, that serves as the foundation for the whole VI3 package. Unlike some virtualization products that require a host operating system, ESX Server is a bare metal installation, which means no host operating system (Windows or Linux) is required. ESX Server is a leaner installation than products requiring a host operating system, which allows more of its hardware resources to be utilized by virtual machines rather than by processes required to run the host. The installation process for ESX Server installs two components that interact with each other to provide a dynamic and robust virtualization environment: the Service Console and the VMkernel.
The Service Console, for all intents and purposes, is the operating system used to manage ESX Server and the virtual machines that run on the server. The console includes services found in other operating systems, such as a firewall, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agents, and a web server. At the same time, the Service Console lacks many of the features and benefits that other operating systems offer. This deficiency, however, serves as a true advantage in making the Service Console a lean, mean, virtualization machine.