DRS Cluster is a group of ESXi hosts , When grouped hosts in to clusters the environment becomes shared and resources are shared among VM’s. Advantages like Load Balancing , Power management and Virtual machine placement can be utilized. Load balancing: distribute the load across resources. Vcenter server system based on criteria set on the… Read more

HA is High Availability service provided by VMWare, where resources are grouped in to a cluster, in case of any breakdowns of ESXi’s automatically, cluster triggeres and the VM’s will be migrated to another ESXi to resume the availability of resources. This helps in providing customers a continuous application services. In this lab, we create… Read more

Virtual machines hosts are similar to physical machines which are hosted on ESXi Host (like a data in software). Wait, does this mean can the data i mean the Host recoverable in any case? The answer would be NO, If we delete the VM from the disk the resource files are also deleted but if… Read more

One of the advantages which virtual machines has over physical machines is migration, which is easy and fully restored. For migration, Compute resources and storage resources are grouped ,in which both can be moved to new ESXi or if the storage is already shared between ESXi’s only compute resources can be moved. Since its a… Read more

In this lab, we re-name and configure virtual machines which includes memory,CPU and Harddisk modifications Task1:Increase the size of VMDK STep1: RIghtclick the Hot-Clone virtual machine >Edit settings Step2:Increase the size of harddisk to 12GB Step3: Open console and click on manage on computer STep4: Click diskmanagement and refresh Step5:right click C drive to extend… Read more

Templates can be considered as mastercopy of a Virtual Machine. Clone is a copy of virtual machine. In this lab, we create a template from Virtual machine, customize and how to clone in to a VM from Virtual machine. BY End of lab, we will obtain: Task1:Create a Virtual Machine template Step1: Navigate to templates… Read more

NFS is network file system , a storage type where files are accessed over TCP/IP network similar to direct attached system. This is file level storage which is why it cannot be used as bootable storage and, as discussed in earlier lab RDM (Raw device mapping ) feature is not supported. However, Vmotion, HA features… Read more

VMFS and NFS are the mostly used two type of datastores that can be created in VMWare. VMFS is VMWares exclusive. virtual disks are stored by ESXi in datastores. They store information related to the virtual machine and snapshots of them. Since functionalities like RDM are not supported in NFS, VMFS is preferred. The maximum… Read more

iSCSI (internet small computer system interface) is a transport layer protocol where packets are transferred over TCP/IP Network. It transports block level data . Prerequisites : Apart from previous seven labs, Server needs to be configured with iSCSI role and feature, Create iSCSI target folder on server for both the ESXi’s (Refer to pre-requisite blog… Read more

Switches provide connectivity between VM’s on same host or different hosts. iSCSI, NFS storage and vMotion migration are accessed by using switches. They are also used for Remote host management to access the VMkernel . In virtual environment, more than one networks can exist on single switch. Even if you have less adapters connected to… Read more

Grouping the resources helps in terms of security and management . This lab helps in categorizing different resources linked to Vcenter Server Task1: Create a host and Cluster Folder Step1: Right click data center > new folder>new host and cluster folder Step2: Title for the folder as Labservers and click OK Step3:Move the ESXi hosts… Read more

Virtual machine encapsulates OS and applications resulting in a complete server or computer which can be accessed via VCSA. Section of hardware resources are allocated to Virtual machines . The resources are virtually separated in such a way that one VM doesn’t effect other VM resources.(A malicious attack to an app doesn’t impact other VM’s… Read more

Two ESXi’s are installed in previous labs and Virtual machines can be created over them directly but how to manage Esxi and their VMhosts? In business generally, we tend to use more so managing from one place is a necessity. The answer to this problem is the VCenterServer appliance(VCSA). This can be hosted on ESXi… Read more

This lab is about how to configure ESXi Hypervisor. As discussed earlier, Firewall, network and security features can be configured .Direct console User interface (DCUI) is used to configure. Note: The same tasks are implemented for two ESXi Hosts installed in previous lab. Task1: Exploring DCUI Module Step1: F2 is used to enter the sytem… Read more

In general, applications hosted will request operating systems to communicate with hardware of the system. In virtual environment since hardware is shared between different OS, we need a common system to manage the hardware resources and there comes the HYPERVISOR. ESXI is VMWare’s hypervisor .It is type1 which means hosted on bare metal. (Type 2… Read more