Install and Configure an ESXi 5.1 Host

Transcription

1 Install and Configure an ESXi 5.1 Host This document will walk through installing and configuring an ESXi host. It will explore various types of installations, from Single server to a more robust environment that will allow for manual failover. VMware offers a free solution for creating a virtual server environment that can help to lower costs and create hardware agnostic systems that can be easily migrated to newer systems or between systems that may require maintenance. The free solution does not include advanced features such as cloning or High-Availability or VMotion (migration of live guest between host systems). Terms: Hypervisor Base software that loads an operating system that presents the systems hardware to multiple instances of installed operating systems called guests. Host the Virtual Server that is running the hypervisor Guest the operating systems running on the Virtual Server; Also known as Virtual Machines Datastores Storage that is used to store the virtual machine files VMotion Migrate powered on virtual systems between Host servers SVMotion Migrate live virtual machines between storage devices High-Availability Automates the migration of a guest virtual machines to a new host in the case of a host failure Cloning Creating a copy of a virtual machine Linked-Clone Creating a copy of a virtual machine that shares a single virtual Hard Drive VMDK Virtual Machine Disk: the HDD for a virtual machine VMX Virtual Machine file that stores the settings for the virtual machine in VMware OVF Open Virtual Format; Industry standard for virtual machine files so they can be migrated into different virtualization environments I/O Input/Output, this is typically referenced with the disk subsystem and the amount of data that is being transferred for a virtual machine 1 to 1 creating a host that is used for only creating one virtual machine Hardware Agnostic Abstracts the physical hardware for a virtual machine so that is can be easily migrated to different systems with different hardware, thus allowing the system to migrate without needing to reload or update the system drivers vswith Virtual network switch managed by the ESX server vds Virtual Distributed Switch managed by Virtual Center to store the switch settings and push to the hosts P2V Convert a Physical machine to a virtual machine using a converter such as VMware Converter (free) vsphere vcenter Centralized management console for ESX servers. Requires licensing to use and manages all advanced features ESXi can be installed on a single server to start; this is the most common for organizations that want to start with a small environment and move into a larger environment. There is also valid reason for large I/O systems to be placed in a 1 to 1 environment due to heavy disk usage that does not work well across the network. Jim Long MOREnet 221 N. Stadium Blvd., Suite 201, Columbia, Mo Oct 2012

2 The below diagram will allow for minimal manual failover if a host system were to fail.

3 This Diagram hardens the environment against host and storage outages but it still requires manual failover procedures.

4 Networking Best Practice: ESXi install guide states you need a minimum of one 1Gb or 10Gb network card and although you can work with this you really need more than just one network card. Running all your traffic across just one network card is just asking for issues. The amount of traffic that will be required for your storage network alone would cause issues with your production virtual machines getting to the network. Minimum Network: This setup would work fine for a single free esxi host that is not using advanced management features

5 Better Network:

6 Nirvana (Optimal Network) If installing ESXi free version you could condense the management/storage to just two cards as you will not have any advanced features such as Vmotion, DRS or HA functions.

7 Getting Started: Now that we have looked at some simple virtual designs and had a look at some common terms let s get started looking at the hardware/software requirements and our installation. I have below the minimum hardware requirements that will be needed to deploy our first ESXi server. Although we can use the minimum requirements we also need to make sure that we can meet the requirements of any guest Operating Systems that we are going to install on our host servers. What does ESXi need to run it s OS? 5.2Gb disk space installed 1 Gb RAM ESXi support per virtual Machine (Licensed): 32 vcpu 1 Tb Ram 2 Tb Disk minus 512mb 10 Virtual Network connections ESXi Free Maximums: 32Gb RAM CPU sockets not limited NO SNMP support Management limitations Hardware Requirements: 64-Bit x86 CPU with minimum of 2 cores 2Gb of RAM (Minimum) HDD: SAS, SATA, SCSI, iscsi, FCoE or supported USB drive 1 or more Gb network ports Minimum System Requirements: 1 To check if your system is capable of running ESXi check the compatibility guide:

8 Ok, now that we have all that out of the way, let s take a look at installing and configuring our ESXi Host. We will need to download the software and get a free license. To do this we need to start here: On the VMware site we will need to setup an account and register for our free license and get the software downloaded, Once you have setup your account you will need to check your and activate your account. You can now download the ESXi installer: VMware ESXi 5.1 (CD ISO) Installable M Binary (.iso) ESXi 5.1 Installable(CD ISO) Boot your server with this CD image in order to install or upgrade to ESXi 5.1. NOTE: VMware ESXi 5.1 require 64-bit capable servers for installation and execution. Please refer to the VMware Compatibility Guide for a list of qualified server hardware. You now have your software downloading you can get your license that is listed on the same page above the download section: VMware vsphere Hypervisor 5 License H402M-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX Burn your downloaded ISO image to a CD and let s go to the server and get busy installing!

9 Turn on the server and insert the CD. If needed please choose the CD-ROM drive as a boot option. Let the system continue to boot to ESXi image. You will see the progress bar and the files loading: The loading process will take several minutes and change screens

10 Next Screen: Welcome to the VMware ESXi Installation Click Enter to Continue

11 EULA: Click F11 to Accept and Continue Scanning for Hardware: Select Disk to Install:

12 Choose your install disk if you have more than 1 and then press enter to continue Select Keyboard layout Press Enter to Continue Enter your root password and press enter to continue More Scanning

13 It is possible that you will encounter errors or warnings; review these warnings, check the compatibility guide to ensure your hardware meets the requirements Here is an Example Warning: If your hardware meets the requirement, then you will see no warning and will continue to the Confirm Install screen. Confirm Install: Press F11 to continue with the install Install Progress

14 Installation Complete! Press Enter to reboot The install CD will be ejected when you reboot the server. And the reboot will take a few minutes. You have now installed ESXi 5.1 server

15 Configuring your new server: Press F2 to customize your server Enter your Password Press Enter

16 Configuration Screen:

17 Menu Items: Configure Password: Set/Reset the root password Configure Lockdown Mode: This is grayed out in the free version and unavailable Configure Management Network: Select available network adapters to be used for the management network Configure VLAN (Optional) IP Configuration Set IPv4 network address for this server IPv6 Configuration Set IPv6 for this server (if necessary) DNS Configuration Set the internal DNS address that this server will use to resolve DNS Custom DNS Suffix Enter the custom DNS suffix that this server will use Restart Management Network restarts all management network components on the server (will cause server to lose access to management network temporarily) Test Management Network tests the management network to ensure connectivity Network Restore Options Restore Network Settings Automatically resets the network settings back to default Restore Standard Switch (not available in free version) Switches the network from vds to local vswitch Restore vds (not available on Free version) restores the vds settings from the vcenter Server Configure Keyboard Configure keyboard layout Troubleshoot Options Enable SSH, ESXi Shell and management agents Enable ESXi Shell Access to server command line Enable SSH Enable remote access to server command line Specify ESXi shell and SSH timeouts how long the console can be inactive Restart Management Agents Management Agents allow for programs to manage this remote server View System Logs Syslog VMKernel Config Management Agent (hostd) VirtualCenter Agent (vpxa) VMware ESXi Observation Log (vobd) View Support Information Serial Number License Key Reset the Configuration Resets all settings back to default

18 From the Management interface on the server there is only ONE screen that we will need to configure and that is the Configure Management Network. This screen is where we give the server it s IP address and settings to use so that we can access it with the vsphere client. Select Configure management Network Press <Enter> Select IP Configuration Press <Enter> You should always use a static IP address in a Private Management Network for your ESX server so that it will not change and cause issues connecting with your management client. Use the Arrow keys to move the selection to Set Static IP Press the <space> bar to select Use the Arrow keys to move to each field and enter the appropriate settings Once you have entered your settings press Enter

19 Your settings will now be visible on the Configure Management Network screen Click <ESC> This will take you back to the Previous Scree You will be prompted to Confirm your Network Changes Press Y to continue Click <ESC> until you get back to the first screen; you should now see your settings and how to access this server for additional configuration.

20 We will now open a web Browser so that we can continue our setup. You will encounter a certificate error as these servers are using a self-signed certificate. Click Continue to this website, depending on your browser We are now at the Web Page for this server: We will use the vsphere Client to continue managing this server. Click on the Download Link:

21 You will now be asked to Save or Run the Program Click on Run or you can Save the file and start the install manually Install the vsphere client Select Language Click OK Welcome Click Next End-User Patent Agreement

22 Click Next License Agreement Read and Agree to terms Click Next Choose Destination Folder

23 Click Next Install the Program Click Install Installation Complete

24 Click Finish

25 Launch the VMware vsphere Client Double Click the Icon Enter IP Address, User name and Password Click Login Security Warning Click the box to install the Certificate and Click Ignore

26 VMware Evaluation Notice This warning will appear until you enter your Licensing information. You can take the opportunity to check out the features available in the Evaluation if you would like. Once you add your Free key the functionality will be reduced and advanced features will be removed. Click Ok to Continue Here is our first look at our server:

27 Before we configure the rest of the settings let s take a look at the Interface. There are 9 Tabs across the top of the right pane and we will start here. Getting Started This tab can be removed by pressing the [X] in the top left corner This tab explains what a Host is and what types of virtual machines can be installed There is a Basic Tasks Area that will allow you to do some basic tasks such as: Deploy from the VA Marketplace this allows you to download pre-built virtual machines from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace. There are lots of FREE virtual machines as well as virtual appliances from vendors that require a license in order to run the software. Create a new virtual machine Use this to deploy your own virtual machines using the software that you already own. There is also a section to Explore Further This section provides you with links to VMware s site so that you can learn more about the vsphere software and can also evaluate the software.

28 Summary The Summary Tab shows us the information about our HOST system. General - Information about the system as well as the license information Resources This shows us the resources that are currently being used on the Host server Fault Tolerance (Feature Not Available in Free Version) this would show how the fault tolerance settings are defined for this server Commands This is the list of commands that we can use for this virtual host Host Management (Feature Not Available in Free Version) You can manage this host through the VMware vcenter application

29 Virtual Machines This screen will show you the list of installed virtual machines on this host. It will also provide you with some very important information about your Virtual Machines. Some of the Available Information: Name name of Virtual Machine State Is the machine powered on, off or in standby Provisioned Space How much HDD space was provisioned Used Space How much HDD Space is being used Host CPU-MHz how much of the host CPU is being used by the virtual machine Host Mem-MB How much of the hosts memory is being used by the virtual machine Guest Memory-% - The percentage of memory being used by the guest Guest OS What is the guest Operating system that is running VM Version What is the VMware Hardware version that is running IP Address What is the IP address of the virtual machine

30 There are additional options you can add to your list. Right Click on the space that shows the above names to see a full list of available fields. Add and remove these as needed to suite the information that you want/need at a given time

31 Resource Allocation VMware allows you to create resource pools these pools allow you to allocate a specific amount of resources to a single machine or a set of machines. You can use this tab to watch how the resources are allocated to the various virtual machines that you are running. To know more about resource allocation:

32 Performance The performance tab allows you to show detailed Charts of how the host machine is performing with relation to the CPU, Memory and Network resources that are available. You can use the Switch to: dropdown box to change what resources are being shown in the chart These charts can be printed, refreshed, saved to disk and you can even have the chart pop-out and create it s own window so you can watch while you are continuing to work on other issues. Just check out the icons on the top left corner of the chart screen.

33 The Chart Options - link will allow you to highly customize your charts for the information that you need to see.

34 Configuration This is one of the most important tabs and contains all the configuration information and settings for your ESXi server. This will give us information and allow us to setup the different settings that will need to be configured to make our ESX server operational and ready to install guests. The sections on the left are broken into two Groups: Hardware Gives us information about the hardware and also allows us to configure hardware aspects such as Storage and Networking Software This section has all the software settings that we can use to configure the software settings for our virtual server Let s take a look at each section.

35 Hardware: Health Status This section shows the general health of the server Processors This section shows us the processor Model, Speed, number of sockets and number of cores in our server Memory This section shows us the total amount of memory in the system, how much is reserved as system memory and how much is available to the virtual machines Storage This section displays the available datastores that can be accessed by this system. You would also add new datastores to your system from this screens. They can be USB, NFS, iscsi etc. Networking This screen allows you to setup the networking, map physical network adapters to virtual switches as well as adding additional virtual switches as needed. Storage Adapters Configure additional storage adapters such as software iscsi Adapter and FCoE Adapters Network Adapters Shows the current state of the network adapters if they are connected and if they are mapped to a virtual switch. It also shows the Mac address and the observable networks that they are connected to. Advanced Settings Direct I/O Configuration, if the Host machine supports direct I/O then you can map specific devices to be used by a specific host. This is done on this screen and is a per host/vm basis. Power Management manage system Power Management Settings

36 Software: Licensed Features This section is where you assign the license to your host, you can also see what features are available to you depending on the license level that you are using. Time Configuration Configure your NTP client to keep the hosts date/time up to date DNS and Routing Configure your hostname, DNS server, search domains and the default gateway Authentication Services Configure how authenticated access to this machine should be configured. Use the local database or Authenticate from Active Directory Virtual machine Startup/Shutdown If this machine is powered off what is the order that virtual machines should be powered back on and what delay should there be between systems that are starting. When shutting down the host how should it handle the shutdown of virtual machines. Virtual machine Swapfile Location Virtual machines use swap files, where should these files be stored. Security Profile Manage the host services and define what services should be running. Manage the Host firewall and what ports and services are available. Host Cache Configuration Allows you to configure SSD datastores as host cache System Resource Allocation Adjust this area for more control over the allocations for this host Agent VM settings Manage VM Agents that are installed on the host Advanced settings This area includes many advanced settings and should not be changed unless you have thoroughly researched the settings.

37 Local Users and Groups This tab will allow you to setup additional local users and groups that will have access to the ESXi host. You can add these additional users/groups by right clicking in the right frame and clicking Add

38 Events This tab allows you to view the local system events.

39 Permissions This tab allows you to set permissions for users/groups. This screen allows you to add users to specific roles from Administrator to Read-Only roles. You can use the pre-defined roles that are available: No Access Read-Only Administrator *** Custom Roles cannot be created using the Free Version

40 Configure License We will start by adding our free license into the server, we can do that when we first log into the server or we can do that by going to the Configuration Tab. Click Configuration Tab Click Licensed Features Click Edit Click Enter Key

41 Enter your License key Click Ok Click ok Notice that we no longer have the long list of features available

42 Configure Time Server The time server is an important setting as by default virtual systems will get their time from the virtual host. Click Configuration tab Click Time Configuration Click Properties in top Right corner Click the Options button

43 Click Start and Stop with the host Click NTP settings in the Left Frame Click the Restart NTP service to apply changes box Click Add

44 Click Ok Click Ok The NTP service will now reboot Click Ok one last time to return to the main configuration screen You should now see that your time server is running and configured You can setup multiple time servers, you should make sure you have a backup time server in case your primary is busy or becomes unavailable.

45 DNS and Routing In this section we will setup the DNS server, the Host Name, Search Domain and make sure that our Gateway is correct. Click Configuration Tab Click DNS and Routing To configure the settings for this page we will click the Properties link in the top Right corner Enter the settings for this server

46 Click the Routing Tab Verify that your settings are correct, make changes as necessary Click Ok If you have IPv6 Enabled on the server but not on your network or if you did not configure your gateway you will get this error: Click Yes to continue and you can disable IPv6 back in the network settings.

47 The DNS and Routing settings are now complete.

48 Storage Let s take a look at our available storage. You should always have local storage available after loading your ESXi server and this is fine for a standalone install of a single server, however as you grow you will want to setup external storage. Click Configuration Tab Click Storage Here you will see the local storage that is installed on this server You can also add external Storage on this page

49 Click the Add Storage Link at the top right of the page From this screen you have two options

50 Disk/LUN This tab will allow you to connect to Fibre Channel, FCoE, Local Disks or iscsi mounts iscsi mount will require that you have either an iscsi HBA or enable the software initiator, this can be done from the Storage Adapters Selection in the Configuration Tab Click Configuration Click Storage Adapters This screen will show you the installed controllers that you have in your system; you can add the iscsi software initiator from this screen by clicking the Add link in the top Right corner Click ok to add the Software Adapter

51 You will see a warning message stating you are now adding the iscsi software Adapter Click OK to continue In the lower section under Tasks you will see that it is being added Once this completes you will see that you now have the iscsi adapter available You can now use your iscsi adapter to connect to an iscsi target server for storage Click iscsi Adapter you just created

52 Click Properties in the top of the lower frame in the Right Corner You will be presented with the Properties Window This window will allow you to configure your iscsi target settings. We will add our server to the Dynamic Discovery tab

53 Click the Dynamic Discovery Tab Click Add Enter your iscsi server IP address Configure Chap Authentication settings Click OK

54 Your server will now show in the Dynamic Discover list Click Close You will see a warning box This will initiate a scan to automatically find your iscsi targets Click Yes You should now see that your iscsi target has been found We can configure the iscsi target for our storage back in the Storage settings on the Configuration tab

55 Configure iscsi Storage We have setup our iscsi target and setup Dynamic Discover, now we need to configure our storage in the Storage Settings Click Configuration tab Click Storage Click Add Storage Link Select Disk/Lun Click Next

56 On this screen we should now see our iscsi target/s; Select the Target Click Next File System Version: This will prepare and format the disk for use Select VMFS-5 unless you require 3 for legacy devices Click Next

57 Current Disk Layout You will now be presented with the current disk layout Click Next Enter the Datastore Name Click Next Format the disk We will choose the entire disk. You can partition/format the disk as needed Click Next

58 Review your disk layout Click Finish Your iscsi disk is now ready to use

59 Network File System Use this option to connect to an NFS server You can connect to an NFS server for your storage Choose Network File System Click Next Enter the appropriate information for your file server Click Next

60 Verify your settings Click Finish You have now configured a NFS datastore for use. We have completed setting up the basics for this server and we can now start to install our first virtual machine!

61 Upload ISO Images to ESX datastore Loading a system in ESX is very simple, you can place the CD in the server and have the software use the local drive. I have found that I am loading different Operating Systems and it becomes tedious to change the disk every time I want to install an OS. Not to mention loading from an ISO is much faster. You will need to create an ISO or download an ISO depending on the operating system. You can use the following to create an ISO: Nero ISO Recorder (FREE) Roxio Magic ISO 1. Connect to ESX server with Virtual Infrastructure Client 2. Click on the ESX server 3. Click Configuration Tab 4. Click on Storage 5. Right Click on the local Storage

62 6. Click Browse Datastore 7. This opens the Datastore Browser 8. Click the Create a new folder icon 9. Name the folder ISO 10. Click Ok 11. Click on the ISO folder just created

63 12. Click on the Upload icon 13. Choose File or Folder if you have made multiple ISO s then you can upload the entire folder 14. Browse to the proper location and choose file to upload 15. Choose the File 16. Click Open

64 17. WARNING: File replacement? 18. Click Yes to continue 19. File Upload in progress Once the transfer completes you can use the image to install virtual machines.

65 Create a Virtual Machine in ESX Walk through the steps to create a new virtual Machine in ESX. 1. Connect to ESXi with the VMware Infrastructure client 2. Getting started Screen Click Create a new virtual machine 3. Select Appropriate Configuration Typical 4. Click Next

66 5. Enter Name 6. Click Next 7. Choose Datastore 8. Click next 9. Choose the OS type 10. Click Next

67 11. Choose Number of Nics (Free Version supports up to 4 Nics) a. Choose Virtual Network b. Select Adapter type c. Check Connect at Power On 12. Click Next 13. DataStore a. Assign the disk Size b. Select Thick or Thin provisioning i. Thick Provisioning Allocates full amount of assigned disk space to system ii. Thin Provisioning Allocates Only the amount of space required and grows as needed *** Recommend Thin Provisioning Only use thick if the operating system or application requires it. 14. Click Next

68 15. Finish Install a. Verify your settings 16. Click Finish

69 17. Edit the Virtual Machine Settings 18. Click on Virtual Machine 19. Click Edit Virtual Machine Settings 20. Virtual machine Properties

70 21. Verify the system configurations a. Memory i. Default XP system is set to 256 MB memory ii. Change to 512 MB 22. Click CD/DVD drive 1

71 23. Point CD to ISO that will be installed a. Click Datastore ISO File b. Click Browse c. Choose the Datastore d. Click Open e. Click the ISO folder f. Select the Appropriate Image for the Install g. Click Ok

72 24. Click the check box Connect at power on 25. Click Ok 26. Virtual Machine is created and ready to load.

73 Loading the Virtual Machine 27. Click on the virtual machine just created 28. Click Power On Virtual Machine 29. Click Console Tab to interact with Virtual Machine 30. Follow onscreen instructions to load system just like a physical machine Congratulations!!! You now have a fully configured ESXi server with virtual machines running!

74 Disable IPv6 If you are not using IPv6 on your network or it is not needed for the management of the ESXi server then we will want to disable this setting. This will not affect the Virtual Machines ability to use IPv6; it is only for the Management Console Click Configuration Tab Click Networking Locate the Management Network typically vswitch0 Click Properties Click on the Management Network Click Edit Click the IP settings tab Click the No IPv6 Settings radio button Click Ok Click Close

75 Advanced Network Settings: The configured network is fine for a standalone host that is using internal storage, but as we grow we will want to add some redundancy and separate our network traffic so that we can avoid having issues. Click on the Configuration tab Click on Networking You will see that we already have a network setup, but we are going to want to configure our network and make some changes. In this document we will configure our network so that we have 2 virtual switches, one for management and the other will be for our virtual machines. As you can see the host is configured right out of the gate to have the network setup and if we only have one network card we would leave the configuration as it is. Since we have more than one network card available in this server lets make some changes so that you can see how this is done. Let s start by modifying the existing vswitch0 settings; we will do that by clicking on the Properties link directly above the vswitch. This will open up the properties for that vswitch.

76 From this screen we will remove the VM Network, we do this by clicking on the VM Network to highlight and then we will click remove. We will also add an additional network card so that we can have some failover available in case we have an outage. We will do this by clicking on the Network Adapters Click Add on the bottom left Click Next

77 You can setup your adapters as Active or Standby Active Adapters allows both adapters to be active and either can be used Standby Adapters The Active adapter will be used and if there is a failure the standby will take over Click Next Click Finish

78 You will now show that both adapters are available and ready to be used Click Close We can now see that our Management/Storage Adapters are setup and ready to be used.

79 We are now ready to setup the Virtual Machine Network. This will be done from the same screen by clicking the Add Networking link. Click Add Networking Networking wizard will open and we will see that we have two choices Virtual Machine Create a network to handle your Virtual machine traffic VMKernel This interface manages the Management, Storage and Advanced VMware functions Choose Virtual Machine Click Next

80 Network Access From this screen we will define which network cards will be used for the Virtual Machine Network. I have chosen vmnic1 and vmnic2 You will see a preview at the bottom of the wizard so that you can see how these network cards will be configured. Click Next

81 Connection Settings This screen has two additional options: Network Label Name the Network so that it is the same on every ESX host VLAN ID (Optional) ESXi supports 802.1q trunking so that multiple logical VLANs can be trunked to the server and these are defined in this setting. Click Next ***** IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to do manual failover ALL network settings will be required to be labeled identically on each ESX server. If these are not labeled the same then the Virtual Machines will not be able to communicate once migrated to a different host!!!!

82 Summary Make sure that all settings are correct Click Finish We have completed setting up our network with redundant connections.

83 ESX Tools, Links and additional Information In this section we will list out some Tools and links to provide information and help with deploying and trouble shooting your ESX environment. Minimum System Requirements: 1 ESXi Compatibility guide: Software Download Link: Top 10 Reasons VMware 5 is Years ahead of the Competition: Performance Best Practices for VMware vsphere 5.1: Installing or Upgrading to ESXi 5.1 best practices: 6 VMWare vsphere 5.1 documentation Page: ESXi 5.1 Configuration Maximums: vsphere 5.1 Installation and Setup Guide: installation-setup-guide.pdf VMware Boomerang: Powershell Backup Article (NOT TESTED): GhettoUI Interactive frontend for GhettoVCB backup solution Quickest way to Patch ESX/ESXi Using the Command-line Installing patches on an ESXi 5.0 host from the command line 9

84 Updating ESXi 5 Single use esxcli How To VMware knowledge base: VMware remote command line interface tools: - Set of Perl scripts that help with remote administration of the ESX3i server Requires that you setup account on VMware site Docs: Top 10 Free VMware Tools: *** Notes about Storage and what was used for this document NFS storage server was setup using Ubuntu server Setting Up Ubuntu for NFS iscsi Server was setup using a Windows 2003 R2 Server (Live demo was setup on Windows 2008 R2) I installed the Starwind iscsi SAN Free Edition You will also need to install the Microsoft iscsi Initiator for

85 Additional Questions and comments: Q: Can I add additional Storage to the ESX server? A: Yes There are 2 basic types of storage that can be added (Ok 3, but we assume you know local storage) 1. iscsi storage: a. Using an iscsi target server you can create an iscsi LUN to share to ESX i. Open NAS ii. OpenFiler iii. Windows Server Storage Edition iv. Linux server with iscsi tools 2. NFS (Network File System) a. There are multiple ways to create an NFS mount to share to ESX i. Open NAS ii. Open Filer iii. Windows server w/ UNIX tools loaded iv. Linux server Q: Can I use a VM image that I have already created in VMware Workstation? A: Yes Using the VMware converter (free version) tool you can upload a VMware workstation image to your ESX server. You can also use this tool to do P2V (Physical to Virtual) machine conversion. Download: Q: Does ESX do thin provisioning for hard drive creation? A:Yes Thin provisioning is where you create a virtual hard drive, allocating space and only the space used is taken and the disk can dynamically grow to the amount allocated. ESX server now supports this feature. Q: In your example above you are only assigning 512 mb memory to the VM, can I add more? A: Yes, you can add as much memory as allowed. The Free version of ESXi 5.1 supports up to 32Gb of memory. Additional Note: ESX server utilizes shared memory; this means that if you are running multiple VM s of the same OS, at the same patch level that the memory is shared (de-duplication) so that any duplicates that would be running in memory are only run once. This is to optimize the memory and allow for more virtual machines to be running with an overall lower memory footprint. Q: Do I need to load the VMware tools? A: Yes Loading the VMware tools provides many benefits, the most useful are that they are what control automating the shutdown of systems prior to ESX shutting down. They are also responsible for allowing memory to be dynamically allocated to virtual machines as needed. This allows memory to be returned to the ESX server if it is not is use. Windows operating system tools are included, as well as other operating systems such as Ubuntu, SUSU, CentOS, Fedora and others, if your operating system does not have a supported set of tools within ESX then look here:

86 Q. So you have to register the free evaluation? A. YES You need to register the evaluation with VMware to get your free serial number for the ESX3i to work after 60 days. You can register in advance so that you can install your ESX3i version with the appropriate license from the beginning. Q: You only assign 1 processor to your server above, can I add more? A: Yes You can add as many processors as you have installed in the server. This is really dependant on what type of server you are running. We have systems that range from a DHCP server to SQL servers, depending on the software and requirements would depend on the number of processors required. Example: DHCP server SQL Server 1 processor 2 processors 512 mb RAM 2048 mb RAM (depends on size of databases) 8 gig HDD 8 gig HDD OS drive 15 gig additional storage to install SQL server and maintain databases Q: What about Disaster Recovery? A: There is no disaster recover out of the box. There are things you can do to help with Disaster recovery in an ESXi deployment. Hardware: Virtual Images are hardware agnostic. This means that they can run on any hardware as long as ESX is loaded. Software: Systems are loaded in ESX and can be moved from one server to another as long as the storage can be accessed from all ESX servers. Basic DR: Here is what would be required to do a simple DR scenario: Hardware: 2 ESXi servers 1 Centralized storage server 1. Configure your ESX servers as usual, but adding the additional storage 2. Load your images to either ESX server, but use central storage to store the created images (NOT LOCAL STORAGE) 3. An image can only be run on 1 ESX server at a time 4. setup simple monitoring, whatever is currently used (nagios, 5. Once notified that an ESX server is not responding or has failed due to hardware and will be out for more than a few minutes, initiate the swap. 6. Connect to secondary ESX server, browse datastore to the image you want to migrate. 7. Open the storage folder and right click the SERVER.vmx file and click ADD to Inventory 8. Once added you can start the server on the secondary ESX server 9. Be careful when brining up original server that it does not attempt to automatically turn on the VM s, may be best to bring up off the network and remove the VM s from it s inventory. Q: When I install ESXi will it automatically virtualize my system and place it on the server? A: No ESX server does not virtualize a system during install; it will wipe the HDD and then install itself. Use VM Converter to virtual a system prior to installing ESX on the physical hardware.