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 cluster, verifies the cpu and memory utilization and provides recommendations regarding migration of Virtual machines while starting a virtual machine or when a DRS(Distributed resource system) attempts to maintain load balance.

Power management :DTM(Distributed power management) puts or recommends the hosts,VM’s to place on standby mode based on utility of VM’s and allowing other VM’s to run on the same host based on capacity available on the host and demand of cluster.

Virtual machine Placement: We can hold the placement of virtual machines based on affinity or anti affinity rules set on cluster.

In this lab , We verify and learn the features like load balancing and Virtual machine placement by creating affinity rules and load balancer.

Task1: Create a load balance

Step1: Login and migrate all VM’s VM1-2 , VM2-1, VM2-2 on to single host (use single compute resource only migration) Check on HOsts>VM’tab or by clicking each host

Step2:Ensure that all VM’s are powered on

Step3: Run CPU BUsy file in command prompt

Task2: Create a vSphere DRS Cluster

Step1: Labcluster>Settings>vSphereDRS

Step2: Edit the DRS Setting

Step3: Turn on DRS Setting and migration threshold to aggresive

Task3:Verify proper vSphere DRS Cluster Fuctionality

Step1: LabCLuster>Monitor tab>vsphere DRS and click run DRS now

Step2: while the process is ongoing, In summary tab expand vSphere DRS Pane to check whether the state is imbalanced or not

Does the guage show that the load is imbalanced? Yes, it does since the CPUBusy processes are running on VM’s

Step3:Navigate to Monitor tab >Vsphere DRS>CPU Utilization to check the cpu’s used on ESXi hosts

Step4:Open recommendations pane in vSphere DRS or try to on any other VM to get a prompt with recommendation about migration of virtual machines and click apply recommendations

Step5:Click monitor>Tasks and events to verify whether recommendations are applied.

Step6: Click on vSphere DRS and RUN the DRS again

Is any recommendation shown? NO, SInce all are applied

Step7: Click on guage and check whether its balanced now

DOes the guage show that the load is balanced now? Yes, since the VM’s are migrated and there are hosts are not heavily loaded.

Step8: Check CPU Utilization to verify whether there is a spread across hosts and yes it is ESXi 1 is increased and 2 decreased .

Task4: Create, test and Disable a Vm-VM affinity rule

Step1: Select Lab Cluster>VM’s and then right click to adjust columns

Step2: Add host column to table for easy monitoring

Step3: CLick on settings of lab cluster

Step4: Click configure>and add VM’s host rules by clicking add

Step5: Name it as colocote-vm2-vms and check enable rule option with type as keep virtual machines together

Step6: click on Add to display VM’s where we need to verify these rules and add all VM2-1,VM2-2 and VM2-3

Step7:Click on RUN DNS and apply recommendations and view the tasks in tasks and events pane

DO you see any recommendations and why? Yes since as per the rule all the above VM’s should reside on same host and since they are not recommendations are to migrate them to single host

Step8: Verify whether VM2-1 has moved from 2 to 1 host, yes the rule is applied and moved

Step9:navigate to rules and uncheck enable rule to disable colocate rule

Task5:Create,test and disable anti-affinity rule

Step1:similar to above task name as seperate -vm2-vms and type as seperate virtual machines and add VM2-2 and VM2-3

Step2:Run DRs to check the verifications and it displays a migration recommendation since VM2-2 and VM2-3 cannot reside on same host.

Step3: Apply Recommendations and check the recents tasks bar located below to monitor the status

Step4: Navigate to VM’s pan and check the hosts and they are migrated

Task6:Create, test and disable VM-Host Affinity rule

Step1: Add a VM/Host group

Step2: Name it as VM2-Vm’s and type as VM Group and add the hosts with VM2-1 ,VM2-2 and VM 2-3

Step3: Add one more group with name VM2-host and type as host group

Step4: Add host ESXi2 to the above created host group and click ok

Step4: Create a rule name Run-Only-Host2 and select type as virtual machines to hosts

Select the VM’s group and HOsts group

Step5: RUn DRS now for recommendations

What Recommendations did vSphere DRS make and why? Since the VM’s VM2-3 and VM2-2 should be on host ESXi2 it recommended to migrate and satisy the rule created.

Step6: Apply recommendations and monitor status in tasks and events pane

Step7:We can check that VM2-3 is migrated to ESXi2 from one as per rule

Step8:Check the CPU and memory utilizations of hosts to monitor the status

Step9: Click on a VM which is on ESXi2 and migrate to 1

Step10: An error states that Host affinity rule is violated.

Step11: Open rules and disable rule

Trouble shooting:

1.Only error that i got prompted in this lab is that the recommendations got expired

Solution: rerun DRS and apply recommendations faster.

Critical Thinking:

Load balancing and placements are created and managed in this lab which is a good outcome of learning.

Load balancing helps in managing load between the resources, If in case the entire traffic is routed to single ESXi it may go down or fail which will interrupt user services helps in balancing memory and CPU load between esxi’s . Re-routing traffic to others esxi’s doesn’t only help to provide continuity in services but also in proper utilization of resources.

Placements helps in grouping and managing resources as per company . For example , an entire application resources can be grouped and placed under one ESXI which can be shutdown when the app is not needed , upgraded, migrated or in case of maintenance effecting only those VM’s. It also helps in avoiding movement of VM’s to ESXi’s where the resources are insufficient to run Virtual machines.

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 a cluster and move our ESXi resources to it. Then We shutdown Master ESXi and verify how the post process works in HA. A dedicated switch is required for HA service .

Later, we change the resources reservation and check the effects on other hosts.

Task1:Create a cluster Enabled Vsphere HA

Step1:Select Dataceneter in Hosts and clusters and click New cluster

Step2: Check Vsphere HA ON and name as Lab Cluster

Step3: Verify in the status bar for cluster is created

Task2:Add your ESXi Host to cluster

Step1:Drag both ESXi’s to cluster

Step2: Click on LabCluster >Monitor tab>Vsphere HA to view the master client – 172.20.10.51

Step3:View heartbeat through which datastores checks are configured

Step4: navigate to Monitor> issues tab where issues are listed

Step5:Navigate to VMKernel Adapters and click on Vmotion adapter

Step6: Check Management service to enable it

Step7: repeat the same to ESXi2

Task3: Test vSphere HA Fuctionality

Step1: Click on ESXi and select reconfigure for vsphere HA on both the ESXi’s

Step2: verify that both the issues are resolved

Step3:Makesure one virtual machine is turned on On Master client

Step4: reboot the master client

Step5: Give reason as Testing Vsphere HA

Step6: The master client changes from 172.20.10.51 to 172.20.10.52

Since my VCSA is on ESXI1 (Master) so we are rebooting ESXi2

Step7: Different Events are triggered which can be monitored in Tasks and Events tab

Step8:All the VM’s are moved from ESXi2 to ESXI1 (Navigate to ESXI and VM’s tab)

Task4: View the Vsphere HA CLuster Resource Usage

Step1: Navigate to Hosts and clusters>Select Lab cluster>Monitor>Resource reservation to check cluster capacity

Step2: Select VM’s tab and check the reservations of VM’s will be set to 0MHz

Task5: Manage Vsphere HA SlotSize

Step1:Move to Configure tab and select vsphere availability and click edit

Step2: Select Admission control and change Define failovercapacity to SLot Policy and OK

Step3: Navigate to VsphereHA Summary to check the Slot Size and Total Slots in cluster

Step4:Select VM2-2 >EditSettings

Step5: expand CPu and increase reservation to 512Mhz

Step6:Navigate back to Vsphere HA and check Advance runtime info which increased from 32 to 512 since the reservation is set

Step7: LabCluster>Settings

Step8: Admission Control> Select Fixed Slot Size

Step9: Change CPU SLotSize to 300 and memory slot to 82 and click calculate which gives 1/3 slots required…which means the 512HZ CPu will use 3 CPU’s to power on

Step10: View the updated Memory and CPu in Vsphere HA Tab

Step11: Remove the HA Fixed slot Setting LabCluster>Settings>vsphere Availability>Edit>Admission Control> Define Host failover Capacity by>Cover all Powered on Virtual machines

Step12:Remove the reservation by expanding VM> expand CPU and Reservation to 0

Task6: Configure a Vsphere HA with administrative control

Step1: Turn off VM2-3 and all virtual machines

Step2: Navigate to Monitor>Resource reservation>Memory, the available reservation is less than total

Step3:Assign 300 MB reservation for VM2-1 by expanding Memory option of VM

Step4:Navigate to VsphereHA tab>Summary in monitor

Step5: Navigate to VM2-1 and power on and check monitor tab the memory utilization goes down to 27(Half of assigned)

Step6: Right click VM1-2 and start the VM , It will through an error stating resources are insufficient

Task7:Prepare for Next lab

Step1: Remove the reservation from VM2-1

Step2: Edit cluster settings>Admission Control>Failover capacity to disabled

Trouble shooting: The lab was complex but straightforward, which can be attained but pre-requisistes like switches should be of same name, Network of hosts in different ESXi’s should be in sync and HA service enabled VM Kernel adapter should be used are must.

Critical thinking: This lab is little annoying since, many objectives were discussed, HA triggering was simple and concise but Cluster management has lot of options and admission controls resource monitoring were also included in this part of lab making it difficult and hectic.

However, in Business High availability is must to provide better and continuous customer service, even though the VMWare HA is not instant (The resources take time to migrate and poweron in other ESXI service) it is easy to configure and time depends on VM hardware size. So,based on VM Size the architecture should be maintained,grouped and configured to avoid delayed services.

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 we just delete from inventory, the data still exist and can be recovered as VM.

Snapshots are image of instances at that particular point of time. Can be considered as full backup of resource. we can restore to any snapshot at any point of time, with out any difficulties.

In this lab. we observer the difference between the deletion from Inventory and disk and then create different snapshots and restore at different intervals.

Task1: Unregister a virtual machine from a VCenter Appliance Inventory

Step1:VMs and Templates>VM2-3 >DataStores tab and check the storage: Shared-ISCSI-VMFS

Step2: Power off and click remove from inventory

Step3: Confirm for removal

Step4: Navigate to datastore and verify the VM

Does folder name VM2-3 exist?

Since the hot-clone VM is renamed as VM2-3 the datastore will always be with default first name which is hotclone

Task2: Register a virtual machine in the vcenter server Appliance Inventory

Step1: Click Hotclone.vmx file in datastore and rightclick to register VM

Step2: Select the Name and location to store the VM

Step3: Select ESXi1 and with default options finish

Step4: verify the VM2-3 created in LABVMs folder

Task3:Unregister and delete Virtual Machine from the Datastore

Step1: Select VM-FromLab and click delete from the disk

Step2: Verify in the datastore whether the datafiles are deleted or not

Task4: Take Snapshots of a virtual machine

Step1: Login to VM1-2 machine and drag IOMeter to recyclebin

Step2: Rightclick and select empty recycle bin

Step3: Take Snapshot by right clicking on VM and snapshots> takesnapshot

Step4:Name snapshot as “without IOMeter”

Step5:Login to VM1-2 and drag the CPUBusy file to recycle bin

Step6:Rightclick and empty recycle bin

Step7: Rightclick the VM and click Take Snapshot

Step8: Name it as Without IOMeter and CPUBusy

Step9:Select the Class-Vsphere ISO in the CD Drive from NFS DATaStore

Step10: Click on expand CD/DVD and Select Datastore ISO FIle

Step11: Open CD Drive in VM1-2

Step12: Drag CPUBusy to Desktop

Step13: Select Snapshots >Take Snapshot

Step14: Save it as withCPUBusy and description as added CPUBUsy

Step15:Click on Manage Snapshots

Step16: To Revert follow next step

Task5:Revert to Virtualmachine to a snapshot

Step1: Select All actions>revert to

Did the Virtual Machine power off and why? Yes since the memory state was not preserved .

Step2:Verify wheter ISO Meter and CPUBusy is on desktop? It wont be there since the snapshot we redirected to doesn’t have them .

Step3:Click on all actions revert to and select with cpubusy

Did the virtual machine poweroff and what is the reason? No Since it has preserved memory state .

Step4: Login to Console and verify whether CPU Busy is on desktop

IS CPUBusy on the desktop? – Yes it is since the old snapshot has

Is IOMeter on the desktop?No

Task6: Delete an individual Snapshot

Step1: Select VM>Actions>Manage snapshots

Step2: Select withoutIOMeter and CPUBusy and click on delete snapshot in actions

Did the virtual machine poweroff? No, it didn’t since it doesn’t have any effect on VM.

In the virtual machine console , is the CPU Busy file on the desktop? yes, since deleting snapshot will not effect the state of VM. It only removes an option to point back to that particular point of time.

Step3: Confirm deletion

Task7: Delete all Snapshots

Step1: Rightclick VM1-2 >Snapshots>Delete all Snapshots

Step2:Confirm by clicking yes.

Were all the remaining snapshots deleted from the tab? Yes they are all grouped and removed from the system

Step3: Login to console and verify whether CPU Busy is on Desktop

Is CPUBusy on the desktop, and why? Yes, Since there are no changes made to machine after the reversion.

Troubleshooting: This was direct lab, with simple clicks . Since we are handling a nested VM Situation, uploading data inside the VM had issues, we need to upload the data in to local datastore ,then ESXi and by setting the VM host CD/DVD as Host device, we are able to upload the documents.

Critical Thinking: Snapshots consume lots of data ,however they are best available options for full restore of instances. While building an architecture by setting milestones and taking snapshots help to reduce redoing of things.

Apart from this, in a business scenario, before new changes are added to system, snapshot is preferred, since we can restore and resume the applications without any issues ,thus helps to maintain VM environment healthy.

Naming convention should be highly considered and maintained , since the updation of VM name is not possible on disks, recovering from the disk at later stages would be confusing and annoying. A subversioning tool must be maintained with the names of the VM’s to avoid such issues.

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 set of configuration files, the movement and restoration is faster compared to physical machine migration

A dedicated switch with VMotion service needs to be enabled for migration .Systems cannot be migration with general VMKernel adapters.

In this lab, we migrate storage of a VM,then compute resouce and finally both resources and power on VM’s and check the connectivity by Pinging Gateways of VM after migration.

Task1:Migrate Virtual Machine files from local storage to the shared storage

Step1: Click VMs and templates>VM2-1 >Power on

Step2: Summary tab of VM2-1 and verify the storage – Local 02-1

Step3: RIght click VM2-1 and click Migrate

Step4: Migration window, select storage only and click next

Step5: Select Shared Iscsi VMFS storage to move the VM

Step6: Review and finish

Step7: verify datastore in summary tab of VM2-1

Task2:Create a Virtual Switch and a VMKernel Port group for Vsphere Vmotion Migration

Step1: Create a VMKernel adapter by selecting ESXI>Virtual Switches>Add host networking

Step2: Select the new switch

Step3: Select the dedicated adapter for VMotion

Step4: Edit the properties of port by naming it as Vmotion and enable Vmotion service

Step5: Provide the IP address for port as 172.20.12.51 with prefix length 24 and gateway as 172.20.12.10

Step6: Review and finish

Step7: Verify the switch in details pane

Step8: repeat the task for ESXi2 with IP address as 172.20.12.52

Task3: Perform a Vsphere VMotion Migration of Virtual Machine on a Shared DataStore

Step1: Rightclick VM1-2 and select edit settings

Step2: Select the CD/DVD Drive as Client Device. and make sure network adapter is storage (Repeat for all virtual machines)

Step3: Login to CLient

Step4: open CMD>Ipconfig

Step5: Ping the gateway

Step6:RIghtclick VM1-2 and migrate

Step7: Select computer resource only

Step8: Select ESXi 2 as new resource

Step9: Select the storage network adapter

Step10: Select the default vmotion with priority

Step11: Drag VM2-1 to ESXi1

Step12: Select computer resource only

Step13: Select ESXi1

Step14: Select storage adapter as new network adapter under esxi2

Step15: Verify the migration in hosts and clusters tab

Task4:Perform a compute resource and storage migration

Step1: Select VMFrom-lab and click migrate

Step2: Select both compute and storage resource

Step3: Select ESXi1

Step4: Select local storage of 1 which is LOCAL01-2

Step5: Select the new network adapter storage

Step6: Check the task pane for status update

Step7:Verify all the virtual machines and status in hosts and clusters

Trouble shooting: Since here we are configuring a new VMKernel adapter for vmotion, issues may arise related to it . One of it i faced was

1.vmotion failed because the destination host didn’t receive data ….timeout

Solution: redo the migration with adapters selected accurately as per ESXi (in my case Storage is name for ESXI1 and VStorage for ESXi2 ) change wasn’t done first time since both are through same network adapter of ESXi but it didn’t allow to migrate

Critical Thinking:

Migrating machines is a huge advantage , since as the business grows , the capacity of ESXi or hardware needs to be expanded, if Physical hardware is not extendable, a new set of Hardware can be purchased and wanted resources can be migrated to the new hardware esxi .

If there is a business growth or decline, VM’s can be easily managed by moving the resources and hardware changes can be made parallel without effecting the Availability of resources.

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 volume (include unallocated 2GB )

Step6: select the amount of GB to extend

Step7:New volume of C will increase to 12GB

Task2: Adjust Memory allocation on a virtual machine

Step1:RIghtclick HotCLone>Power>ShutdownGuestOS

Step2: Increase memory to 2048

Step3: Verify in the VMHardware pane

Task3: Rename a virtual machine in VCenter Server Inventory

Step1: Rightclick on Hot-Clone VM and click rename to VM2-3

Step2:Verify the new name and navigate to datastore tab to find which datastore it is attached to

Task4:Add and remove a raw lun in a virtual machine

Step1: Select edit settings of VM and click new device as RDM(Raw device mapping)

Step2:Select target Lun’s any of the displayed

Step3:Select the Compatibility mode as virtual

Step4: Open disk management similar to above task(COmputer>Manage), Initialize disk window pops up showing the LUN memory added.

Step5: The disk is attached and is offline ,verify in the task bar.

Step5: Poweroff the virtual machine guestOS> VM>Editsettings>shutdownguestOS

Step6: Harddisk2 can be deleted and select delete files from datastore to delete the LUN from Machine

Troubleshooting:

Direct, no issues in execution.

Critical Thinking:

VM management lab which teaches configuration of VM’s change and things like naming and copy and resource management of resources, like naming is not reflect in datastores which makes trouble shooting difficult. A table with original names and updating it when there is a rename would avoid future issues for debugging.

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 and VM’s tab and select virtualmachine and make sure its turned off , then click on Template>Convert to Template

Step2: Click yes to confirm

and move the template to templates folder.

Step3:Rename it to VM-Template

Task2:Create Customization Specifications

Step1: Home>Policies and Profiles

Step2:Customization Specification>New and select Operating System

Step3:Provide details for registering the copy

Step4:Select use the virtual machine name as computer name

Step5: Set Administrative password.

Step6:TimeZone

Step7:If any commands needs to be ran for first time, like if any thing needs to be updated based on user details

Step8:Since we donot have any domain , leave it in Workgroup

Step9: Review and launch

Task3:Deploy a virtual machine from Template

Step1: RIghtclick the template and click New VM from this template

Step2:In the customization Window popped up , select the location as LABVMs and name as VM2-2

Step3: Select the ESXi host , in my case its second.

Step4:Select the storage of VM and format type. Select Shared ISCSI-VMFS

Step5: Select Clone options as Customize the OS and Power on after creation

Step6: Since customize the OS is selected Custom Specification created in Task2 needs to be selected

Step7: Repeat this task steps to create VM1-2

Step8: Connect to VM1-2 and VM2-2

Step9: Verify whether the VM tools are installed.

Step10:Set the static IP for VM’s as per STorage switch range (172.20.11.X)

Step11: Select this as Work Network

Task4:Create Content Library

Step1: Home>Content Libraries>Create

Step2:Name as VM_Library and select Vcenter server

Step3:Select Local COntent library and publish externally

Step4: Select Shared-iSCSI storage

Step5:Review and launch

Task5: Clone a VMTemplate to a template in a Content Library

Step1: Rightclick template and Clone to library

Step2:Select CLone as template created in above task

Step3: Check the status bar

Task6:Deploy a virtual machine from VMTemplate in the content Library

Step1:Home>Content Library>Templates tab>Rightclick and New VM from template

Step2: Select the location as LabVm’s and name as VMFromLib

Step3:Select resource as ESXI2 and next

Step4:Select STorage as Local02-2 and type as thin provision

Step5:Select adapter as storage

Step6: Review and finish

Step7:Poweron and login

Check VMware tools are running

Set static Ip and set as work network

Task7:Clone a powered on virtual machine

Step1: Select VM2-1 which is powered on and rightclick for cloning

Step2: Name it as Hotclone and location as LabVMs

Step3:Select ESXi2 as host resource

Step4: Select storage as Shared-iscsi-storage

Step5:Select the customization sepcifications doc created in task2

Step6:Review and finish

Step7:Open VM Console for HotCLone

Set IP in STorage range (172.20.11.x) and Homenetwork

verify whether VMware tools are running

Troubleshooting:

1.When creating a VM from Template it thrown an error stating Customization of windows 7_66 is not supported.

Solution: As per VM Ware knowledge base, VMware tools needs to be installed and template needs to be recreated

2. STorage issue while creating the VM’s

Solution: Add storage to iSCSI Target as per pre-requisite lab.

Critical Thinking:

Templates help in saving the image of VM and easy cloning of architecture. For instance, In a case where standard requisites like VMWaretools , Chrome and basic apps are needed, it is better to create a template with all these needs and later clone when needed which will save time. If we need to replicate the same architecture for testing or development, this helps to create same environment.

Since we are combining with specifications with little bit of customization we can relaunch the same template in different environments.

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 can be accessed using NFS Storage.

Prerequisites: Create a NFS Server and folder as per pre-requisite lab

In this lab, configure NFS Storage and access it.

Task1: Configure access to NFS DataStores

Step1:Rightclick datacenter and click create new datastore

Step2:Select type as NFS

Step3:Version as 3

Step4: Provide details for Name = NFS-Data Folder /NFSData and server as 172.20.10.10 and next

Step5: Select both the ESXi’s so that both can access the NFS Data

Step6: Review and submit

Task2: View storage information

Type ,space utilization can be viewed in Summary tab as below

Trouble shooting: Direct lab

Critical Thinking: NFS is best way to store common data files for example even basic applications that needs to be installed or monitoring work docs of a company, Instead of linking to each and every system , in VMWare access is given to ESXi and all the systems inherit the same access which becomes easier to manage .

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 size of VMFS is 64TB. Currently VMFS 6 and 5 are being used .

If the ISCSI storage is attached and as per required , this lab can be completed with out any hiccups.

In this lab, we create,rename,delete,extend a VMFS data store. Finally, create a shared iSCSI VMFS Datastore.

Task1:Rename VMFS DataStore

Step1: Login and navigate to Datastore tab, right click on datastore and select rename

Step2:Rename all the datastores, as per how they are utilized, if used by ESXi 1 name it as Local01-x(x is the number of data store) and similarly, local01-X and verify

Task2:Create VMFS Datastore for ESXi Host

Step1: select ESXi >Storage>newdatastore

Step2: Provide name as VMFS-2 and select the LUN Associated

Step3: select VMFS6 version and next

Step4: Select 10 GB space for this datastore from LUN.

Step5: Review and submit

Step6: Rightclick datacenter>storage>datastore

Step7:Click next on location window and select VMFS Type and next

Step8: Name the VMFS as VMFS-3 and select the lun by setting the host as ESXi2:172.20.10.52

Step9: Select the partition and set Data store size as 20GB and submit

Step10:Review and submit

Task3: Expand a VMFS Datastore to consume unused space on a LUN

Step1: navigate to datastore tab and expand the tree, right click vmfs-2 and select increase datastore capacity

Step2:Select the lun from which data needs to be added

Step3:How much data needs to be added, in my case 10GB

Step4: Review and finish

Task4: Remove a Datastore

Step1: Rightclick the datastore vmfs-3 and click delete

Step2:COnfirm the deletion

Task5: Extend a VMFS DataStore

Step1: Navigate to configure tab of datastore and click increase

Step2:Select the LUN that needs to be added

Step3: Select all the remaining by sliding the bar to extreme right

Step4: Refresh and verify new capacity

Step5: Navigate to device backing to look at LUNS associated to this

STep6:Rename vmfs-2 as Shared VMFS datastore

Task6: Create a second shared VMFS Datastore using iSCSI

Navigate to Datastore>Create datastore>shared-iSCSI-Datastore> select first esxi as hostname>select maximum capacity and submit

Troubleshooting: If the LUNS are created properly as per pre-requisites , it would be a direct lab.

Critical Thinking:

Datastores can be created from different ways like from ESXi and from Datastores tab, This lab clearly explains on how we can manage datastore by creating, deleting renaming and even increasing. It was concise and direct. A LUN is a logical unit number associated to storage can be considered as a disk partitioned in to different sections luns. we can extend by adding luns to datastore.

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 screenshots)

In this lab, We configure the iSCSi adapter on Vstorage switch of each ESXI (172.20.11.51 and 172.20.11.52) and connect it to ISCSI Target server.

Task1:Add a VMKernal port group to a standard switch

Step1: Add host networking adapter on ESXI>configure>networking>VMKernel adapters

Step2:Select VMKernel Adapter and click next

Step3: Select the existing dedicated switch to storage. In My case VSwitch3.

Step4: Assign Name to the switch and additional settings are not required for now.

Step5: Set static IP Address 172.20.11.52 for ESXi2 and 172.20.11.51 for ESXi1 and mask with prefix length 24 . This is the set of initiators added to access list of iSCSI virtual disk(refer to pre-requisites blog)

Step6: Review and submit

Task2:Configure iSCSI Adapter and connect it to storage

Step1: Add host networking adapter on ESXI>configure>Storage>Storage adapters

Step2:Check status in properties (it should be enabled) then click edit beside general.

Step3: Verify the name to confirm the ESXi connection

Step4: In Adapterdetails pan >Network port binding tab>add>IPStorage(Network VMKernel adapter created in task 1)

Step5:Click Targets tab and provide the iSCSI server taget address 172.20.11.10 for both ESXis

Step6: Rescan the storage to establish connection (refreshing the connections)

Step7:In the devices tab a LUN is assigned and the details are :LUN NUmber: 0; Capacity:66.36GB,Operational State: Attached, Hardware Acceleration Notsupported

Since both are connected to same Storage folder of server LUN details remain same for both ESXi hosts.

TroubleShooting: The LUN is created only if the network adapter is assigned an IP address which is allowed to access the server target . It is direct lab without any roadblocks if pre-requisites are verified.

Critical Thinking: This lab gives the basic idea of how storage can be connected to ESXi hosts and adapter configuration. Since the details are concise, lab looks simple and easy.In Small and medium scale businesses, they use iSCSI pools and access them in virtual environment over internet as it is fast and inexpensive compared to other methods.

References:

https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/iSCSI