vSphere 5.0 Install, Configure, Manage Training Day 1

I have been using VMware vSphere for many years, and always plan to get my certificate since VCP 3. Now eventually I get the chance to attend a 5 days’ training, and will take the VCP 5 exam after the training. In these 5 days, I will keep the notes in my blog for future reference. It will cover the knowledge that I think should be kept here.

Module 1: Course Overview

Online resources:
VMware Communities: http://communities.vmware.com
VMware Support: http://www.vmware.com/support
VMware Education: http://www.vmware.com/education
VMware Documentations: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs
VCP: http://mylearn.vmware.com/portals/certification

Module 2: Introduction to Virtualization

The swap file within VM folder, identified by a .vswp file extension, is a file that is always created for virtual machines but only used if a host exhausts all of its allocated memory.

vCenter Server (on Windows)/ vCenter Appliance (on SUSE)

ESXi System Logs: /var/log/hostd.log, /var/log/vmkernel.log and /var/log/vpxa.log

VMware licensing mode

Command lines: vCLI, vSphere SDK for Perl, vSphere API, PowerCLI

Enhancement in ESXi 5.0:
– Supports booting from UEFI
– Supports up to 512 VM totaling a maximum of 2048 vCPU per host
– Supports system up to 160 logical CPUs and up to 2TB RAM

VMkernel receives requests from virtual machines for resources from VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor)

CIM: Common Information Model for hardware management

DCUI: Direct Console User Interface

ESXi host uses UTC, and the time zone can not be changed

NTP client uses UDP port 123 to sync with NTP server

Lockdown mode

Module 3:  Create Virtual Machines

VM files
Configuration file: <VM_name>.vmx
Swap files: <VM_name>.vswp
BIOS file: <VM_name>.nvram
Log file: vmware.log
Disk descriptor file: <VM_name>.vmdk
Disk data file: <VM_name>.flat-vmdk
Suspend state file: <VM_name>.vmss
Snapshot data file: <VM_name>.vmsd
Snapshot disk file: <VM_name>-delta.vmdk
Snapshot state file: <VM_name>.vmsn
Template file: <VM_name>.vmtx
Raw device map file: <VM_name>-rdm.vmdk

You can add up to six PCI vSphere DirectPath devices to a virtual machine. Snapshots are not supported with DirectPath I/O pass-through devices.

vCPU: up to 32

vRAM: up to 1TB

vDISK: thin provisioning/ thick  provisioning lazy zeroed (default)/ thick provisioning eager zeroed

vNIC: Flexible/ e1000 (drivers available in most new guest OS)/ vmxnet2/ vmxnet3 (next generation of paravirtualized NIC designed for performance)

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) allows you to store virtual machine data directly on LUN

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhance the performance of the guest virtual machine

Virtual Appliance deployed as an Open Virtualization Format (OVF): http://www.vmware.com/appliances

Module 4: VMware vCenter Server

Up to 1,000 hosts per vCenter istance

Up to 10,000 powered-on virtual machines per vCenter Server instance

vCenter – vpxa – hostd

vCenter Server modules (plug-ins)

vCenter Server Appliance web interface port 5480