Is HA dependent on virtualcenter (Only for Install)

What is the Maximum Host Failure allowed in a cluster (4)

How does HA know to restart a VM from a dropped Host

storage lock will be removed from the metadata

How many iSCSI targets will ESX support 8 for 3.01, (64 for 3.5)

How Many FiberChannel targets(256) (128 on Install)

What is Vmotion (ability to move running vm from one host to another)

what is the different when you use viclient connect to VC and directly to ESX server itself.
When you connect to VC you manage ESX server via vpxa (Agent on esx server). Vpxa then pass
those request to hostd (management service on esx server).
When you connect to ESX server directly, you connect to hostd (bypass vpxa). You can extend this to
a trobleshoot case,
where connect to esx see one thing and connect to VC see another.
So the problem is most likely out of sync between hostd and vpxa, "service vmware-vpxa restart"
should take care of it.

the default partitions in vmware --/ (5 gb),/boot(100mb),/swap(544 mb) /vmkcore (100) ,/vmfs

Types of licensing : starter and standard

Starter : limited production oriented features ( Local and NAS storage only)

Standard ; production oriented features and all the add-on licenses can be configured with this
edition.
Unlimited max number of vms,san,iscsi,nas, vsmp support and VCB addon at additional cost.

Vmware vitual machine files are vmdk, vmx (configuration), nvram (BIOS file), Log file

The esx server hypervisor is known as vmkernal.

Hypervisor ESX server offers basic partition of server resources, however it also acts as the
foundation for virtual infrastructure software enabling Vmotion,DRS and so forth kerys to the dynamic,
automated datacenter.

host agent on each managed host software collects , communicates, and executes the action
recieved through the VI client. it is installed as a part of the ESX Server Installation.
Virtual Center agent : On each managed host, software that collects commmunicates and executes
the actions received from the virtual center server. Ther virtual center agent is installed the firsttime
any host is added to the virtual center inventory.

ESX server installation requirements 1500 mhz cpu intel or amd, memory 1 gb minimum up to 256
mb, 4 gb hard drive space,

The configuration file that manages the mapping of service console file system to mount point is
/etc/fstab
----
ESX mount points at the time of installaiton

/boot 100 mb ext3

/ 5 gb ext3
swap 544mb
/va/log 2 gb
/vmfs/volumes as required vmfs-3
vmkcore 100 mb vmkcore

--------------
/cciss/c0d0 consider as local SCSI storage

/dev/sda is storage network based lun

----

VI client provides direct access to an ESX server for configuration and virtual machine management

The VI Client is also used to access Vitual center to provide management configuration and monitoring
of all ESX servers and their virtual machines within the virtual infractur environment. However when
using the VI client to connect directly to the ESX server, no management of Virtual center feature is
possible.

EG; you cannot cofigure and administer, Vmware DRS or Vmware HA.

Vmware license mode : default 60 days trail. after 60 days you can create VM's but you cannot power
on VM's

---
The license types are Foundation, Standard and Enterprise

Fondation license : VMFS,Virtual SMP, Virtual center agent, Vmware update manager, VCB
VI standard license : Foundation license + HA feature

Enterprise : Foundation license + STandard license + Vmotion, VM Storage vmotion, and VMware
DRS

Virtual machines time sync with ESX host

By default the first service console network connection is always named service console. It always in
Vswitch 0. The switch always connects vmnic 0

--------

To gather vmware diagnostics information run the script vm-spport from the service console

If you generate the diagnostic information, this information will be stored in Vmware-virtualcenter-
support-date@time folder
The folder contains Viclient-support, which will holds vi client log files
Another file is esx-support-date@time.tgz, which is compressed archive file contains esx server
diagnostics information

----

The virtual switch work at layer 2 of the OSI model.

You cannot have two virtual switchs mapped to one physical NIC

You can map two or more physical NIC mapped to one virtual switch.

A swithc used by VMkernal for accessing ISCSI or NAS based storage

Virtual switch used to give the service console access to a management LaN

Vitual swich can have 1016 ports adn 8 ports used for management purpose total is 1024

Virtual switch defalt ports are 56

ESX server can have 4096 ports max

Maximum 4 virtual NIC per VM

ESX server can have 32 NIC on Intel NIC, 20 Broadcom NIC's

----
Three type of network connections

Service console port : access to ESX server management network

Vmkernal port : Access to vmotion,ISCSI,NFS/NAS networks

Virtual machine port group : Access to VM networks

Service console port requires network lable,VLAN ID optional, Static ip or DHCP

Multiple service console connections can be created only if they are configured on different network. In
addition only a single service console gateway, IP address can be defined

---------------

A VMkernal port allow to use ISCSI, NAS based networks. Vmkernal port is requied for Vmotion.
It requires network lablel, vlan id optional, IP setting

Multiple Vmkernal connections can be configured only if they are configured on a different
networks,only single vmkernal gateway Ip address can be defined.

----------

Virtual machine port group required

A network lable
VLAN id optional

-------

to list physical nics

esxcfg -nics -l
-------------

Three network policies are available for the vswitch

Security
Traffic shaping
NIC teaming

-----------
Network security policy mode

Promiscos mode : when set to reject, placing a guest adapter in promiscuous mode has no which
frames are received by the adapter

Mac address changer : when set to reject, if the guest attempts to change the MAC adress assigned to
the virtual NIC, it stops receiving frames

Forged trasmitts - When set to reject drops any frames that the guest sends, where the source
address field contains a MAC address other than the assigned virtual NIC mac addresss ( default
accept)

---------

32 ESX hosts can user a singel shared storage

-------

vmhba0�11:3

adapter 0 : target id : LUN: partition

-----------

SNMP incoming port 161 out going port 162

ISCSI client outgoing port 3260

Virtual center agent 902

ntp client 123 port

VCB 443, 902 ports

-----------

the defaul ISCSI storage adapter is vmhba32

ISCSI follow Iqn naming convention

-------------
ISCSI uses CHAP authuntication
Vmware license port is 27000

After changing made at command line for reflecting the changes you need to start the hostd daemon

service vmware-mgmt restart

----------------

Log files should be used only when you are having trouble with a virtual machine.

VMDK files – VMDK files are the actual virtual hard drive for the virtual guest operation system (virtual
machine / VM). You can create either dynamic or fixed virtual disks. With dynamic disks, the disks start
small and grow as the disk inside the guest OS grows. With fixed disks, the virtual disk and guest OS
disk start out at the same (large) disk. For more information on monolithic vs. split disks see this
comparison from sanbarrow.com.

VMEM – A VMEM file is a backup of the virtual machine’s paging file. It will only appear if the virtual
machine is running, or if it has crashed.

VMSN & VMSD files – these files are used for VMware snapshots. A VMSN file is used to store the
exact state of the virtual machine when the snapshot was taken. Using this snapshot, you can then
restore your machine to the same state as when the snapshot was taken. A VMSD file stores
information about snapshots (metadata). You’ll notice that the names of these files match the names
of the snapshots.

NVRAM files – these files are the BIOS for the virtual machine. The VM must know how many hard
drives it has and other common BIOS settings. The NVRAM file is where that BIOS information is
stored.

VMX files – a VMX file is the primary configuration file for a virtual machine. When you create a new
virtual machine and answer questions about the operating system, disk sizes, and networking, those
answers are stored in this file. As you can see from the screenshot below, a VMX file is actually a
simple text file that can be edited with Notepad. Here is the “Windows XP Professional.vmx” file from
the directory listing, above:

-------------

We can create VM
1. Vm from scratch
2.Deploy from templete
3. Cloned
4. P2V
5. ISO file
6..vmx file
Max CPU's per core is 4 to 8 vcpu's

At the time of vomotion arp notification will be released

70 to 80 % will be copied to the other ESX host

a bit map file will be created, and uses will be working on the bitmap file

and the changes will be copied to the other ESX host

How Vmotion works : --

Live migration of a virtual machine from one physical server to

another with VMotion is enabled by three underlying technologies.

First, the entire state of a virtual machine is encapsulated by a set

of files stored on shared storage such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI
Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network Attached Storage (NAS).
VMware’s clustered Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) allows
multiple installations of ESX Server to access the same virtual
machine files concurrently.

Second, the active memory and precise execution state of the

virtual machine is rapidly transferred over a high speed network,
allowing the virtual machine to instantaneously switch from
running on the source ESX Server to the destination ESX Server.
VMotion keeps the transfer period imperceptible to users by
keeping track of on-going memory transactions in a bitmap. Once
the entire memory and system state has been copied over to the
target ESX Server, VMotion suspends the source virtual machine,
copies the bitmap to the target ESX Server, and resumes the virtual
machine on the target ESX Server. This entire process takes less
than two seconds on a Gigabit Ethernet network.

Third, the networks being used by the virtual machine are also virtualized
by the underlying ESX Server, ensuring that even after the
migration, the virtual machine network identity and network connections
are preserved. VMotion manages the virtual MAC address
as part of the process. Once the destination machine is activated,
VMotion pings the network router to ensure that it is aware of the
new physical location of the virtual MAC address.
Since the migration of a virtual machine with VMotion preserves the precise execution
state, the network identity, and the active network connections,
the result is zero downtime and no disruption to users.

-----------------------------------
DRS

DRS will balance the workload across the resources you presented to the cluster. It is an essential
component of any successful ESX implementation.

With VMware ESX 3.x and VirtualCenter 2.x, it's possible to configure VirtualCenter to manage the
access to the resources automatically, partially, or manually by an administrator.

This option is particularly useful for setting an ESX server into maintenance mode. Maintenance mode
is a good environment to perform tasks such as scanning for new storage area network (SAN) disks,
reconfiguring the host operating system's networking or shutting down the server for maintenance.
Since virtual machines can't be run during maintenance mode, the virtual machines need to be
relocated to other host servers. Commonly, administrators will configure the ESX cluster to fully
automate the rules for the DRS settings. This allows VirtualCenter to take action based on workload
statistics, available resources and available host servers

An important point to keep in mind is that DRS works in conjunction with any established resource
pools defined in the VirtualCenter configuration. Poor resource pool configuration (such as using
unlimited options) can cause DRS to make unnecessary performance adjustments. If you truly need to
use unlimited resources within a resource pool the best practice would be to isolate. Isolation requires
a separate ESX cluster with a limited number of ESX hosts that share a single resource pool where
the virtual machines that require unlimited resources are allowed to operate.

Sharing unlimited setting resource pools with limited setting resource pools within the same cluster
could cause DRS to make unnecessary performance adjustments. DRS can compensate for this
scenario, but that could be by bypassing any resource provisioning and planning previously
established.

----------------------

How VMotion works with DRS

The basic concept of VMotion is that ESX will move a virtual machine while it is running to another
ESX host with the move being transparent to the virtual machine.

ESX requires a dedicated network interface at 1 GB per second or greater,

Shared storage and a virtual machine that can be moved.

Not all virtual machines can be moved. Certain situations, such as optical image binding to an image
file, prevent a virtual machine from migrating. With VMotion enabled, an active virtual machine can be
moved automatically or manually from one ESX host to another. An automatic situation would be as
described earlier when a DRS cluster is configured for full automation. When the cluster goes into
maintenance mode, the virtual machines are moved to another ESX host by VMotion. Should the DRS
cluster be configured for all manual operations, the migration via VMotion is approved within the
Virtual Infrastructure Client, then VMotion proceeds with the moves.

VMware ESX 3.5 introduces the highly anticipated Storage VMotion. Should your shared storage need
to be brought offline for maintenance,Storage VMotion can migrate an active virtual machine to
another storage location. This migration will take longer, as the geometry of the virtual machine's
storage is copied to the new storage location. Because this is not a storage solution, the traffic is
managed through the VMotion network interface.

Points to consider

One might assume that with the combined use of DRS and VMotion that all bases are covered. Well,
not entirely. There are a few considerations that you need to be aware of so that you know what DRS
and VMotion can and cannot do for you.

VMotion does not give an absolute zero gap of connectivity during a migration. In my experiences the
drop in connectivity via ping is usually limited to one ping from a client or a miniscule increase in ping
time on the actual virtual machine. Most situations will not notice the change and reconnect over the
network during a VMotion migration. There also is a slight increase in memory usage and on larger
virtual machines this may cause a warning light on RAM usage that usually clears independently.

Some virtual machines may fail to migrate, whether by automatic VMotion task or if evoked manually.
This is generally caused by obsolete virtual machines, CD-ROM binding or other reasons that may not
be intuitive. In one migration failure I experienced recently, the Virtual Infrastructure client did not
provide any information other than the operation timed out. The Virtual Center server had no
information related to the migration task in the local logs. In the database

Identification of your risks is the most important pre-implementation task you can do with DRS and
VMotion. So what can you do to identify your risks? Here are a couple of easy tasks:

Schedule VMotion for all systems to keep them moving across hosts.
Regularly put ESX hosts in and then exit maintenance mode.
Do not leave mounted CD-ROM media on virtual machines (datastore/ISO file or host device options).
Keep virtual machines up to date with VMware tools and virtual machine versioning.
Monitor the VPX_EVENT table in your ESX database for the EVENT_TYPE =
vim.event.VmFailedMigrateEvent
All in all, DRS and VMotion are solid technologies. Anomalies can happen, and the risks should be
identified and put into your regular monitoring for visibility.

VMotion usage scenarios:

Now that VMotion is enabled on two or more hosts, when should it be used? There are two primary
reasons to use VMotion: to balance the load on the physical ESX servers and eliminate the need to
take a service offline in order to perform maintenance on the server.

VI3 balances its load by using a new feature called DRS. DRS is included in the VI3 Enterprise edition
along with VMotion. This is because DRS uses VMotion to balance the load of an ESX cluster in real
time between all of the server involved in the cluster. For information on how to configure DRS see
page 95 of the VMware VI3 Resource Management Guide. Once DRS is properly configured it will
constantly be evaluating how best to distribute the load of running VMs amongst all of the host servers
involved in the DRS-enabled cluster. If DRS decides that a particular VM would be better suited to run
on a different host then it will utilize VMotion to seamlessly migrate the VM over to the other host.

While DRS migrates VMs here and there with VMotion, it is also possible to migrate all of the VMs off
of one host server (resources permitting) and onto another. This is accomplished by putting a server
into "maintenance mode." When a server is put into maintenance mode, VMotion will be used to
migrate all of the running VMs off it onto another server. This way it is possible to bring the first server
offline to perform physical maintenance on it without impacting the services that it provides.

How VMotion works

As stated above, VMotion is the process that VMware has invented to migrate, or move, a virtual
machine that is powered on from one host server to another host server without the VM incurring
downtime. This is known as a "hot-migration." How does this hot-migration technology that VMware
has dubbed VMotion work? Well, as with everything, in a series of steps:

A request has been made that VM-A should be migrated (VMotioned) from ESX-A to ESX-B

VM-A's memory is pre-copied from ESX-A to ESX-B while ongoing changes are written to a memory
bitmap on ESX-A.

VM-A is quiesced on ESX-A and VM-A's memory bitmap is copied to ESX-B.

VM-A is started on ESX-B and all access to VM-A is now directed to the copy running on ESX-B.

The rest of VM-A's memory is copied from ESX-A all the while memory is being read and written from
VM-A on ESX-A when applications attempt to access that memory on VM-A on ESX-B.

If the migration is successful VM-A is unregistered on ESX-A.

------------------------------------

For a VMotion event to be successful the following must be true:

The VM cannot be connected to an internal vswitch.

The VM cannot be connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive that is using an ISO or floppy image stored
on a drive that is local to the host server.

The VM's affinity must not be set, i.e., binding it to physical CPU(s).

The VM must not be clustered with another VM (using a cluster service like the Microsoft Cluster
Service (MSCS)).

The two ESX servers involved must both be using (the same!) shared storage.

The two ESX servers involved must be connected via Gigabit Ethernet (or better).

The two ESX servers involved must have access to the same physical networks.

The two ESX servers involved must not have virtual switch port groups that are labeled the same.

The two ESX servers involved must have compatible CPUs. (See support on Intel and AMD).
If any of the above conditions are not met, VMotion is not supported and will not start. The simplest
way to test these conditions is to attempt a manual VMotion event. This is accomplished by right-
clicking on VM in the VI3 client and clicking on "Migrate..." The VI3 client will ask to which host this VM
should be migrated. When a host is selected, several validation checks are performed. If any of the
above conditions are true then the VI3 client will halt the VMotion operation with an error.

Conclusion
The intent of this article was to provide readers with a solid grasp of what VMotion is and how it can
benefit them. If you have any outstanding questions with regards to VMotion or any VMware
technology please do not hesitate to send them to me via ask the experts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Is VMware VMotion ?

VMware® VMotion™ enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server
to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity.
VMotion allows IT organization to:
• Continuously and automatically allocate virtual machines within resource pools.
• Improve availability by conducting maintenance without disrupting business operations
VMotion is a key enabling technology for creating the dynamic, automated, and self-optimizing data
center.

How Is VMware VMotion Used?

VMotion allows users to:
• Automatically optimize and allocate entire pools of resources for maximum hardware utilization,
flexibility and
availability.
• Perform hardware maintenance without scheduled downtime.
• Proactively migrate virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers.

How Does VMotion work?

Live migration of a virtual machine from one physical server to another with VMotion is enabled by
three underlying
technologies.
First, the entire state of a virtual machine is encapsulated by a set of files stored on shared storage
such as Fibre Channel
or iSCSI Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network Attached Storage (NAS). VMware’s clustered Virtual
Machine File
System (VMFS) allows multiple installations of ESX Server to access the same virtual machine files
concurrently.
Second, the active memory and precise execution state of the virtual machine is rapidly transferred
over a high speed
network, allowing the virtual machine to instantaneously switch from running on the source ESX
Server to the destination
ESX Server. VMotion keeps the transfer period imperceptible to users by keeping track of on-going
memory transactions
in a bitmap. Once the entire memory and system state has been copied over to the target ESX Server,
VMotion
suspends the source virtual machine, copies the bitmap to the target ESX Server, and resumes the
virtual machine on
the target ESX Server. This entire process takes less than two seconds on a Gigabit Ethernet network.
Third, the networks being used by the virtual machine are also virtualized by the underlying ESX
Server, ensuring
that even after the migration, the virtual machine network identity and network connections are
preserved. VMotion
manages the virtual MAC address as part of the process.
Once the destination machine is activated, VMotion pings the network router to ensure that it is aware
of the new
physical location of the virtual MAC address. Since the migration of a virtual machine with VMotion
preserves the precise
execution state, the network identity, and the active network connections, the result is zero downtime
and no disruption
to users.

---------------------------------------------

What is VirtualCenter?

VirtualCenter is virtual infrastructure management software that centrally manages an enterprise’s

virtual machines as a single, logical pool of resources. VirtualCenter provides:
· Centralized virtual machine management. Manage hundreds of virtual machines from one location
through robust access controls.
Monitor system availability and performance. Configure automated notifications and e-mail alerts.
· Instant provisioning. Reduces server-provisioning time from weeks to tens of seconds.
· Zero-downtime maintenance. Safeguards business continuity 24/7, without service interruptions for
hardware maintenance, deployment,or migration.
· Continuous workload consolidation. Optimizes the utilization of data center resources to minimize
unused capacity.
· SDK. Closely integrates 3rd-party management software with VirtualCenter, so that the solutions you
use today will work seamlessly within virtual infrastructure.With VirtualCenter, an administrator can
manage

-------------------------------------------------

What is Storage VMotion (SVMotion) and How do you perform a SVMotion using the VI Plugin?

there are at least 3 ways to perform a SVMotion – from the remote command line, interactively from
the command line, and with the SVMotion VI Client Plugin

Note:
You need to have VMotion configured and working for SVMotion to work. Additionally, there are a ton
of caveats about SVMotion in the ESX 3.5 administrator’s guide (page 245) that could cause
SVMotion not to work. One final reminder, SVMotion works to move the storage for a VM from a local
datastore on an ESX server to a shared datastore (a SAN) and back – SVMotion will not move a VM
at all – only the storage for a VM.

----------------------------

Overview of VMware ESX / VMware Infrastructure Advanced Features

#1 ESX Server & ESXi Server

Even if all that you purchase is the most basic VMware ESXi virtualization package at a cost of $495,
you still gain a number of advanced features. Of course, virtualization, in general, offers many
benefits, no matter the virtualization package you choose. For example - hardware independence,
better utilization of hardware, ease of management, fewer data center infrastructure resources
required, and much more. While I cannot go into everything that ESX Server (itself) offers, here are
the major advanced features:

Hardware level virtualization – no based operating system license is needed, ESXi installs right on
your hardware (bare metal installation).
VMFS file system – see advanced feature #2, below.
SAN Support – connectivity to iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) SAN storage, including features like boot
from SAN
Local SATA storage support.
64 bit guest OS support.
Network Virtualization – virtual switches, virtual NICs, QoS & port configuration policies, and VLAN.
Enhanced virtual machine performance – virtual machines may perform, in some cases, even better in
a VM than on a physical server because of features like transparent page sharing and nested page
table.
Virtual SMP – see advanced feature #4, below.
Support for up to 64GB of RAM for VMs, up to 32 logical CPUs and 256GB of RAM on the host.

#2 VMFS
VMware’s VMFS was created just for VMware virtualization. Thus, it is the highest performance file
system available to use in virtualizing your enterprise. While VMFS is included with any edition or
package of ESX Server or VI that you choose, VMFS is still listed as a separate product by VMware.
This is because it is so unique.

VMFS is a high performance cluster file system allowing multiple systems to access the file system at
the same time. VMFS is what gives you a solid platform to perform VMotion and VMHA. With VMFS
you can dynamically increase a volume, support distributed journaling, and the addition of a virtual
disk on the fly.

#3 Virtual SMP
VMware’s Virtual SMP (or VSMP) is the feature that allows a VMware ESX Server to utilize up to 4
physical processors on the host system, simultaneously. Additionally, with VSMP, processing tasks will
be balanced among the various CPUs.

#4 VM High Availability (VMHA)

One of the most amazing capabilities of VMware ESX is VMHA. With 2 ESX Servers, a SAN for
shared storage, Virtual Center, and a VMHA license, if a single ESX Server fails, the virtual guests on
that server will move over to the other server and restart, within seconds. This feature works
regardless of the operating system used or if the applications support it.
#5 VMotion & Storage VMotion
With VMotion, VM guests are able to move from one ESX Server to another with no downtime for the
users. VMotion is what makes DRS possible. VMotion also makes maintenance of an ESX server
possible, again, without any downtime for the users of those virtual guests. What is required is a
shared SAN storage system between the ESX Servers and a VMotion license.

Storage VMotion (or SVMotion) is similar to VMotion in the sense that "something" related to the VM
is moved and there is no downtime to the VM guest and end users. However, with SVMotion the VM
Guest stays on the server that it resides on but the virtual disk for that VM is what moves. Thus, you
could move a VM guest's virtual disks from one ESX server’s local datastore to a shared SAN
datastore (or vice versa) with no downtime for the end users of that VM guest. There are a number of
restrictions on this. To read more technical details on how it works, please see the VMware ESX
Server 3.5 Administrators Guide.

#6 VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)

VMware Consolidated Backup (or VCB) is a group of Windows command line utilities, installed on a
Windows system, that has SAN connectivity to the ESX Server VMFS file system. With VCB, you can
perform file level or image level backups and restores of the VM guests, back to the VCB server. From
there, you will have to find a way to get those VCB backup files off of the VCB server and integrated
into your normal backup process. Many backup vendors integrate with VCB to make that task easier.

#7 VMware Update Manager

VMware Update Manager is a relatively new feature that ties into Virtual Center & ESX Server. With
Update Manager, you can perform ESX Server updates and Windows and Linux operating system
updates of your VM guests. To perform ESX Server updates, you can even use VMotion and upgrade
an ESX Server without ever causing any downtime to the VM guests running on it. Overall, Update
Manager is there to patch your host and guest systems to prevent security vulnerabilities from being
exploited.

#8 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)

VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler (or DRS) is one of the other truly amazing advanced
features of ESX Server and the VI Suite. DRS is essentially a load-balancing and resource scheduling
system for all of your ESX Servers. If set to fully automatic, DRS can recognize the best allocation of
resource across all ESX Server and dynamically move VM guests from one ESX Server to another,
using VMotion, without any downtime to the end users. This can be used both for initial placement of
VM guests and for “continuous optimization” (as VMware calls it). Additionally, this can be used for
ESX Server maintenance.

#9 VMware’s Virtual Center (VC) & Infrastructure Client (VI Client)

I prefer to list the VMware Infrastructure client & Virtual Center as one of the advanced features of
ESX Server & the VI Suite. Virtual Center is a required piece of many of the advanced ESX Server
features. Also, VC has many advanced features in its own right. When tied with VC, the VI Client is
really the interface that a VMware administrator uses to configure, optimize, and administer all of you
ESX Server systems.
With the VI Client, you gain performance information, security & role administration, and template-
based rollout of new VM guests for the entire virtual infrastructure. If you have more than 1 ESX
Server, you need VMware Virtual Center.

#10 VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

Recently announced for sale and expected to be shipping in 30 days, VMware’s Site Recovery
Manager is a huge disaster recovery feature. If you have two data centers (primary/protected and a
secondary/recovery), VMware ESX Servers at each site, and a SRM supported SAN at each site, you
can use SRM to plan, test, and recover your entire VMware virtual infrastructure.

VMware ESX Server vs. the VMware Infrastructure Suite

VMware ESX Server is packaged and purchased in 4 different packages.

VMware ESXi – the slimmed down (yet fully functional) version of ESX server that has no service
console. By buying ESXi, you get VMFS and virtual SMP only.
VMware Infrastructure Foundation – (previously called the starter kit, the Foundation package includes
ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual Center agent, Consolidated backup, and update manager.
VMware Infrastructure Standard – includes ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual center agent,
consolidated backup, update manager, and VMware HA.
VMware Infrastructure Enterprise – includes ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual center agent,
consolidated backup, update manager, VMware HA, VMotion, Storage VMotion, and DRS.
You should note that Virtual Center is required for some of the more advanced features and it is
purchased separately. Also, there are varying levels of support available for these products. As the
length and the priority of your support package increase, so does the cost

----------------------------------------

Advantages of VMFS

VMware’s VMFS was created just for VMware virtualization. VMFS is a high performance cluster file
system allowing multiple systems to access the file system at the same time. VMFS is what gives you
the necessary foundation to perform VMotion and VMHA. With VMFS you can dynamically increase a
volume, support distributed journaling, and the addition of a virtual disk on the fly.

------------------

Virtual center licenses issues

However, all licensed functionality currently operating at the time the license server
becomes unavailable continues to operate as follows:

?? All VirtualCenter licensed features continue to operate indefinitely, relying on a cached version of
the license state. This includes not only basic VirtualCenter
operation, but licenses for VirtualCenter add-ons, such as VMotion and DRS.

?? For ESX Server licensed features, there is a 14-day grace period during which hosts continue
operation, relying on a cached version of the license state, even across
reboots. After the grace period expires, certain ESX Server operations, such as powering on virtual
machines, become unavailable.

---------------

During the ESX Server grace period, when the license server is unavailable, the following operations
are unaffected:

?? Virtual machines continue to run. VI Clients can configure and operate virtual machines.

?? ESX Server hosts continue to run. You can connect to any ESX Server host in the VirtualCenter
inventory for operation and maintenance. Connections to the
VirtualCenter Server remain. VI Clients can operate and maintain virtual machines from their host
even if the VirtualCenter Server connection is also lost.

During the grace period, restricted operations include:

?? Adding ESX Server hosts to the VirtualCenter inventory. You cannot change VirtualCenter agent
licenses for hosts.

?? Adding or removing hosts from a cluster. You cannot change host membership for the current
VMotion, HA, or DRS configuration.

?? Adding or removing license keys.

When the grace period has expired, cached license information is no longer stored.

As a result, virtual machines can no longer be powered on. Running virtual machines continue to run
but cannot be rebooted.

When the license server becomes available again, hosts reconnect to the license server.

No rebooting or manual action is required to restore license availability. The grace period timer is reset
whenever the license server becomes available again.

By default, ESX has 22 different users and 31 groups.

VMware ESX Server, you have 4 Roles, by default

# vdf -h

recovery command for vmkfstools. It failed.

# vmkfstools -R /vmfs/volumes/SAN-storage-2/

ESX host's system UUID found in the /etc/vmware/esx.conf file.

Recently VMware added a some what useful command line tool named vmfs-undelete which exports
metadata to a recovery log file which can restore vmdk block addresses in the event of deletion. It's a
simple tool and at present it's experimental and unsupported and is not available on ESXi. The tool of
course demands that you were proactive and ran it's backup function in order to use it. Well I think this
falls well short of what we need here. What if you have no previous backups of the VMFS
configuration, so we really need to know what to look for and how to correct it and that's exactly why I
created this blog.

the command to scan luns --esxcfg-mpath -l and also check var\log\vmkernal

View the iSCSI name assigned to the iSCSI software adapter:

vmkiscsi-tool -I -1 vmhba40

View the iSCSI alias assigned to the iSCSI software adapter:

vmkiscsi-tool -k -1 vmhba40

----

Login to the service console as root and execute e sxc f g - vmhbadevs to identify which
LUNs are currently seen by the ESX server.
# esxcfg-vmhbadevs

Run the esxcf g-vmhbadevs command with the -m option to map VMFS names to
VMFS UUIDs. Note that the LUN partition numbers are shown in this output. The
hexidecimal values are described later.
# esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m

-------------
Use the vdf -h comand to identify disk statistics (Size, Used, Avail, Use%, Mounted
on) for all file system volumes recognized by your ESX host.

List the contents of the /vmfs/volumes directory. The hexidecimal numbers (in dark blue) are
unique VMFS names. The names in light blue are the VMFS labels. The labels are
symbolically linked to the VMFS volumes.

ls -l \vmfs\volumes

-----------

Using the Linux device name (obtained using e sxc f g - vmhbadevs command), check
LUNs A, B and C to see if any are partitioned.
If there is no partition table, example a. below, go to step 3. If there is a table, example b. go
to step 2.
# fdisk -1 /dev/sd<?>

------------

1. Format a partitioned LUN using vmkf s tool s . Use the - C and - S options respectively,
to create and label the volume. Using the command below, create a VMFS volume on LUN A.
Ask your instructor if you should use a custom VMFS label name.
# vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -S LUNc#> vmhbal:O:#:l

----------------

Now that the LUN has been partitioned and formatted as a VMFS volume, it can be used as a
datastore. Your ESX host recognizes these new volumes.

vdf -h

---------------------
Use the esxcf g-vmhbadevs command with the -m option to map the VMFS hex
names to SAN LUNs.
# esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m

--------------

It may be helpful to change the label to identify that this VMFS volume is spanned.
Add - spanned to the VMFS label name.
# In -sf /vmfs/volumes/<V~~S-UUID> /vmfs/volumes/
<New- L abel- N ame>

-------------
In order to remove a span, you must reformat LUN B with a new VMFS volume (because it
was the LUN that was spanned to).
THIS WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON BOTH LUNS IN THE SPAN !
# vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -S <label> vmhbal:O:#:l

------------------------

Enable the ntpclient service on the Service Console

# esxcfg-firewall -e ntpclient

------------

Determine if the NTP daemon starts when the system boots.

# chkconfig --list ntpd

------

Configure the system to synchronize the hwclock and the operating system clocks each time
the ESX Server host is rebooted.
# nano -w /etc/sysconfig/clock
UTC= t rue

------------

List the available services.

# esxcfg-firewall -s

-------------

Communication between VI client and ESX server the ports reqired 902, 903

Communication between VI client and virtual center 902

Communication between VI web access client and ESX 80, 443

Communication between VI client and virtual center 80, 443

Communication between ESX server and License server 27010 (in), 27000(out)

ESX server in a vmware HA cluster 2050 -5000 (in), 8042-8045 (out)

ESX serever during VMotion 8000

The required port for ISCSI 3260, NFS : 2049

Update manager SOAP port - 8086

Update manager Web port - 9084

Vmware converter SOAP port 9085

Vmware converter Web port 9084

vcbMounter is used, among other things, to create the snapshot for the 3rd party
backup software to access:
vcbMounter -h <VC - IP - address - or - hostname>
-u <VC- u ser- a ccount>
-p cVC user password>
-a ~~dzntifi-eo rf - t he- V M -t o- b ackup>
-r <Directory - on - VCB Proxy - to - putbackup>
-t <Backup - type: - file - or - fullvm>

------------------

List the different ways to identify your virtual machine. To do this, use the
vcbVmName command:
vcbVmName
-h < V i r t u a l Center - Server-IP-Address-or-Hostname>
-u < V i r t u a l c e n t e r- S e r v e r- u s e r- a ccount>
-p < V i r t u a l c e n t e r- S e r v e r- p assword>
-s ipaddr:<IP - address - of - virtual-machine - to - backup>

Unmount the virtual disk(s):

mountvm -u c:\backups\tempmnt

-----------------

VMFS Volume can be created one partition 256 GB in the maimum size of a VM

For a LUN 32extents can be added up to 64 TB

8 mount points for NFS are the maximum

-----------------

Service console will use 272 mb

----------------

The files for vmware virtual machine

vmname.vmx --virtual machine configuration file

vmname.vmdk -- actual virtual hard drive for the virtual guest operation system

vmname_flot.vmdk--preallocated space

vmname.log --virtual machine log file

vmname.vswap -- vm swap file

vmname.vmsd ---vm snapshot file