Frank Denneman, Chief Technologist at PernixData, collaborated with Tom Queen, SE lead at PernixData and other industry experts to write this new book, "Designing a Storage Performance Platform".
This book discusses how to build a modern storage platform using server-side storage technology and a context-rich hypervisor. It covers various design principles for PernixData FVP software, while discussing the intricacies of vSphere. In addition, it contains a deep dive into various memory technologies, including flash.
This free book is a "must read" for storage and virtualization experts looking to optimize storage performance without expensive SAN hardware rip and replace.
You can use the preboot execution environment (PXE) to boot a host. Starting with vSphere 6.0, you can PXE boot the ESXi installer from a network interface on hosts with legacy BIOS or using UEFI.
ESXi is distributed in an ISO format that is designed to install to flash memory or to a local hard drive. You can extract the files and boot by using PXE.
PXE uses Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) to boot an operating system over a network. PXE booting requires some network infrastructure and a machine with a PXE-capable network adapter. Most machines that can run ESXi have network adapters that can PXE boot.
The Installing ESXi Using PXE technical note explains how you can PXE boot hosts with ESXi. The technical note explains how to boot using TFTP or using a Web Server, and discusses both legacy BIOS and UEFI.
This intense, hands-on, training course is a blend of the vSphere: Optimize & Scale and vSphere Troubleshooting classes; it brings the best of each of these advanced courses into a single unique offering that equips experienced VMware administrators with the knowledge to effectively optimize and troubleshoot vSphere at an expert level.
It also provides excellent preparation for vSphere certifications such as the VCP-DCV, VCAP-DCA and the VCIX-DCV. By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
Configure and manage vSphere networking and storage for a large and sophisticated enterprise.
Manage changes to the vSphere environment.
Optimize the performance of all vSphere components.
Use VMware vSphere ESXi Shell and VMware vSphere Management Assistant to manage vSphere.
Use VMware vSphere Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts.
Harden the vSphere environment against security threats.
Use the VMware vSphere Web Client, the command-line interface, and log files to diagnose and correct problems in vSphere.
This hands-on training workshop provides you with the advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the VMware vSphere 6 environment. This workshop increases your skill and competence in using the command-line interface, VMware vSphere Web Client, VMware vRealize Log lnsight, and other tools to analyze and solve problems.
The objectives are:
Use vSphere Web Client, the command-line interface, and logs to diagnose and resolve problems in the vSphere environment
Introduce troubleshooting principals and procedures
Troubleshoot networking issues and recover from them
Analyze storage failure scenarios and resolve the issues
Troubleshoot vSphere cluster failure scenarios and analyze possible causes
Diagnose common VMware vSphere® High Availability issues and provide solutions
Troubleshoot problems related to virtual machine migration (VMware vSphere vMotion) and improve resource use (VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler)
Troubleshoot vCenter Server issues
Identify ESXi host issues (analyze failure scenarios and correct them)
Troubleshoot faulty virtual machines, including installation issues, snapshot issues, connection issues, and more.
This hands-on training workshop provides you with the advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the VMware vSphere 6 environment. This workshop increases your skill and competence in using the command-line interface, VMware vSphere Web Client, VMware vRealize Log lnsight, and other tools to analyze and solve problems.
Use vSphere Web Client, the command-line interface, and logs to diagnose and resolve problems in the vSphere environment:
Introduce troubleshooting principals and procedures
Troubleshoot networking issues and recover from them
Analyze storage failure scenarios and resolve the issues
Troubleshoot vSphere cluster failure scenarios and analyze possible causes
Diagnose common VMware vSphere High Availability issues and provide solutions
Troubleshoot problems related to virtual machine migration (VMware vSphere vMotion) and improve resource use (VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler)
Troubleshoot vCenter Server issues
Identify ESXi host issues (analyze failure scenarios and correct them)
Troubleshoot faulty virtual machines, including installation issues, snapshot issues, connection issues, and more
ESXi must be able to send and receive data from every vSphere Client. If you are attaching your ESXi host to vCenter Server, additional ports will be required. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.
Also, if you are attaching your ESXi host to external storage components, such as an NFS or iSCSI device, or management components, such as a SysLog server, monitoring system, etc, additional ports must be opened on the firewall in those instances.
This technical note describes the command-line deployment and upgrade processes of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance. The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine that is optimized for running vCenter Server.
The command-line installer is intended for advanced users who are familiar with vSphere. The main purpose of the command-line installer is to enable automation and prevent user input errors.
You can use the vCenter Server Appliance command-line installer, which is integrated with the VMware OVF Tool, to deploy and upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance.
The command-line deployment process includes downloading the installer ISO file, preparing a deployment template that is a JSON configuration file, and running the deployment command.
The command-line upgrade process includes downloading the installer ISO file, preparing an upgrade template that is a JSON configuration file, and running the upgrade command. The upgrade of the vCenter Server Appliance is a migration of the old version to the latest version, which results in the deployment of a new vCenter Server Appliance.
The installer ISO file contains deployment and upgrade templates of JSON files that contain the minimum configuration parameters required for the different use cases.
In this session, I will go through some of the best practices and considerations when deploying and managing the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). I will walk through some of the changes between past releases and the new vSphere 6.0 release. In addition, I will also provide tips and tricks on using the VCSA as well as ways in migrating from a Windows based vCenter Server to the VCSA
Clusters in VMware vCenter Server are an important way to group ESXi hosts. When a host is added to a cluster, the host's resources become part of the cluster's resources.
Within a cluster, resource management elements can be defined; for example, a resource pool, reservation, or limit. vCenter Server also provides features like DRS and HA at a cluster level.
The performance of clustering in vCenter Server 6.0 has improved over 5.5 in two key areas:
Increase in supported single cluster limit: 64 ESXi hosts and 8,000 virtual machines (in 5.5, this was 32 ESXi hosts and 3,000 virtual machine).
Linear throughput scaling with an increase in cluster size and workload
Other performance highlights include impressive improvements:
Up to 66% improvement in operational throughput over vCenter Server 5.5
Improved performance under very heavy workloads
Performance parity between vCenter Server on Windows and VCSA
Significantly faster virtual machine operations
Central to this paper is a case study that shows the performance of vCenter Server 6.0 clusters and illustrates the performance improvements over vCenter Server 5.5. This paper also compares the performance of vCenter Server on Windows and the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA).
Frank Denneman, Chief Technologist at PernixData, collaborated with Tom Queen, SE lead at PernixData and other industry experts to write this new book, "Designing a Storage Performance Platform".
