Basics

Virtualization consists of three layers

Virtual layer : physical hosts, network adapters etc
Management layer : vcenter server
Interface layer : vsphere client, web client, SDK, other client
VMware vSphere components
ESX/ESXi, vCenter server, vSphere client, web client, vSphere SDKs(for
developing software to allow third party apps to connect to vsphere
environment), VMFS, virtual SMP(single virtual machine can utilize multiple
physical processors),
vMotion : Migrating of VMs to other hosts in a cluster without service
interruption.
Storage vMotion : Migrating VMs files to other datastores in a datastore cluster
without service interruption.
vSphere High Availability(HA) : if a server fails, affected services are restarted on
the available spare servers.
DRS : distributed resource scheduler distributes the physical resou0rces like
memory, cpu to the VMs as per the requirement and does the load balancing.
DPM: distributed power management, automatically makes the hosts offline or
online based on their requirements. It saves power.
Storage DRS : Allocates and dynamically controls the storage capacity and I/O
across the combined datastores.
Host profiles : This feauture makes host configuration management through user
defined policies.
These host profile policies capture the blueprint of a known, validated host
configuration and use this configuration to configure networking, storage,
security, and other settings across multiple hosts.
Fault Tolerance vFA: It allows to build a exact replica of the primary host on the
secondary host.
Replicas of all the virtual machines running on primary host are available in the
secondary host.
Hight Avaialbiliy vHA: Allows the VM to power on on different physical server in a
cluster if a host fails.

Distributed switches vDS : A single virtual switch connected to associated

multiple hosts. For maintaining consistent network configuration during
migration.
Network Architecture : main components
vNICs, vDS, distributed port groups, vSS(standard switches) and port groups
NIC teaming : Two or more physical network adapters can be used to share traffic
load or provide passive failover if one physical adapter fails.
Port groups : the virtual machines which are connected to the same port group
are belong to the same network even though they are on different physical
machines. It allows enforcing policies that provide Networking security, network
segmentation, better performance, high availability and traffic management.
Distributed port groups : one or more port groups aggregated of the same type.
VDS traffic is divided into FT traffic, iSCSI traffic, NFS traffic, VM traffic,
management traffic and vMotion traffic. You can control them.
vShiled: Suite of security VAs that are built to work with vSphere, protecting
virtualized datacentres from attacks and misuse. Its not a component of vSphere.
vShield includes vShield zones, vShield Edge, vShield App and vShield Endpoint.
Zones : provides firewall protection for traffic between VMs
Edge : provides network edge security and gateway services to isolate the VMs in
port group, distributed port group. Common deployments include in the DMZ,
VPN extranets and multitenant cloud environments.
vShield App is an interior, virtual-NIC-level firewall that allows you to create access control policies
regardless of network topology. vShield App monitors all traffic in and out of an ESXi host, including
between virtual machines in the same port group. vShield App includes traffic analysis and
containerbased
policy creation.
vShield Endpoint delivers an introspection-based antivirus solution. vShield Endpoint uses the
hypervisor
to scan guest virtual machines from the outside without an agent. vShield Endpoint avoids resource
bottlenecks while optimizing memory use.
Storage :
Storage devices maybe local SATA disk, SAS, FC SAN, iSCSI SAN, DAS and NAS.
Datastore : is a physical VMFS volume on a storage device. It can span on multiple physical storage
device.
VMFS : is a clustered file system that leverages shared storage to allow multiple physical hosts to
read and write
to the same storage simultaneously. VMFS provides on-disk locking to ensure that the same virtual
machine
is not powered on by multiple servers at the same time. If a physical host fails, the on-disk lock for
each virtual
machine is released so that virtual machines can be restarted on other physical hosts.

VMFS also features failure consistency and recovery mechanisms, such as distributed journaling, a
failureconsistent
virtual machine I/O path, and virtual machine state snapshots. These mechanisms can aid quick
identification of the cause and recovery from virtual machine, physical host, and storage
subsystem failures.
VMFS also supports raw device mapping (RDM). RDM provides a mechanism for a virtual machine
to have
direct access to a LUN on the physical storage subsystem (Fibre Channel or iSCSI only). RDM
supports two
typical types of applications:
n SAN snapshot or other layered applications that run in the virtual machines. RDM better enables
scalable
backup offloading systems using features inherent to the SAN.
n Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS) spanning physical hosts and using virtual-to-virtual clusters
as well
as physical-to-virtual clusters. Cluster data and quorum disks must be configured as RDMs rather
than
files on a shared VMFS.

vCenter server :
Virtual machine
Provisioning
resources.

Guides and automates the provisioning of virtual machines and their

Host and VM
Configuration
Resources and virtual
machine inventory
management
and facilitates their

Allows the configuration of hosts and virtual machines.

Organizes virtual machines and resources in the virtual environment

management.

Statistics and logging Logs and reports on the performance and resource use statistics of
datacenter
elements, such as virtual machines, hosts, storage, and clusters.
Alarms and event
Management
Tracks and warns users on potential resource overuse or event conditions. You
can set alarms to trigger on events and notify when critical error conditions
occur. Alarms are triggered only when they satisfy certain time conditions to
minimize the number of false triggers.
Task scheduler Schedules actions such as vMotion to occur at a given time.
vApp A vApp has the same basic operation as a virtual machine, but can contain
multiple virtual machines or appliances. With vApps, you can perform
operations on multitier applications as separate entities (for example, clone,
power on and off, and monitor). vApps package and manage those
applications.