Deep Intro to VMware, Part 1

In the last two weeks I posted 6 articles and a blog on VMware ESX. VMware ESX is not only the best known but also the most used Virtualisation platform.

Here are all the links to the articles:

• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 1
• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 2
• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 3
• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 4
• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 4
• Deep Intro to VMware ESX, Part 6: VMware Tools
• Deep intro in VMware ESX, VMKFSTOOLS

These articles give you a good overview how to deploy VMware ESX servers and help you to make your decisions.

In this series of articles I'm going to help you make your way into the virtual world of VMware and what you should choose for this.

VMware started development in a garage more then ten years ago and they have grown to become one of the biggest Virtualisation companies. They have a complete range of products, including Vmotion, making them the best choice in my opinion.

If you want to start with virtual computers you have several options. This article explains to you some of these options.

As platform to run your virtual machines on you can choose from one or more of these platforms.

VMware Workstation

VMware workstation is installed on top of your Windows computer and you can build and manage Virtual computers on this platform. It is a very good start, especially for developers who need more then one computer to do their work. I started a few years ago with VMware Workstation to build my virtual servers on. Especially for Altiris Deployment Solution it was and still is a great solution.

VMware workstation is mostly used by IT administrators and developers. The price is very fair and you get a lot of functionality for this.

VMware server 2.0

VMware server 2.0 is run on Microsoft platforms and gives you a lot of functionality. it is now one of my favorites. The software is totally free and you are able to manage the server from within Virtual center or from within Virtual Infrastructure client. The server gives you the ability to map traditional NTFS disks and folders as datastores and it is very easy to understand how it works.

If you are completely new into VMware this would be my preferred choice because it gives you the ability to make your first steps on to VMware ESX.

VMware ESX 3.5 or Vsphere

VMware ESX3.5 or Vsphere version 4 is the best choice. VMware is bringing this on a Linux redhat kernel and it makes the best usage out of other products that VMware brings.

Most enhancements below are especially written for VMware ESX.

VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi is known as the free to use VMware ESX version. But it is not really a ESX server. ESXi misses some of the functionality. In VMware ESx you have a complete console that you can use to run your commands on. In VMware ESXi this console is not available. But is it really not available?

Well, it is available. When you press alt F1 you will be asked for the username. Type in root or another account that you have created during the install. Then press the password. Even if you see nothing happening it will be entered. Press enter and you see the VMware ESXi console with a big line saying unsupported. Off course it is. ESXi is not intended to have a console like this.

Are you aware of the fact that VMware ESXi can run from a USB device? Read one of my previous posts on how to do it.

I'm aware that there are some other options like Fusion for Mac and VMware GSX that is no longer available. It would go too far to mention them here and I'm not a Mac person so sorry for that one.

When you visit the VMware website you will see a lot of software that enables you to do a lot of stuff. Below I will mention some of these. In the later articles of this series I will highlight these for you.

VMware Vmotion

VMware VMotion technology, deployed in production by 70% of VMware customers*, leverages the complete virtualization of servers, storage and networking to move an entire running virtual machine instantaneously from one server to another. VMware VMotion uses VMware's cluster file system to control access to a virtual machine's storage. During a VMotion, the active memory and precise execution state of a virtual machine is rapidly transmitted over a high speed network from one physical server to another and access to the virtual machines disk storage is instantly switched to the new physical host. Since the network is also virtualized by VMware ESX, the virtual machine retains its network identity and connections, ensuring a seamless migration process.

VMware VMotion allows you to:

• Perform live migrations with zero downtime, undetectable to the user.
• Continuously and automatically optimize virtual machines within resource pools.
• Perform hardware maintenance without scheduling downtime and disrupting business operations.
• Proactively move virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers.

http://www.VMware.com/products/vi/vc/vmotion.html

VMware HA

The combination of VMware Fault Tolerance and VMware HA delivers the availability needed by applications in virtual machines, independent of the operating system and application running in it. VMware HA provides uniform, cost-effective failover protection against hardware and operating system failures within your virtualized IT environment.

• Monitors virtual machines to detect operating system and hardware failures.
• Restarts virtual machines on other physical servers in the resource pool without manual intervention when server failure is detected.
• Protects applications from operating system failures by automatically restarting virtual machines when an operating system failure is detected.

http://www.VMware.com/products/vi/vc/ha.html

VMware DRS

VMware DRS continuously monitors utilization across resource pools and intelligently aligns resources with business needs, enabling you to:

• Dynamically allocate IT resources to the highest priority applications. Create rules and policies to prioritize how resources are allocated to virtual machines.
• Give IT autonomy to business organizations. Provide dedicated IT infrastructure to business units while still achieving higher hardware utilization through resource pooling.
• Empower business units to build and manage virtual machines within their resource pool while giving central IT control over hardware resources.
• Balance Your Computing Capacity

http://www.VMware.com/products/vi/vc/drs.html

VMware Virtual infrastructure client

A virtual infrastructure lets you share your physical resources of multiple machines across your entire infrastructure. A virtual machine lets you share the resources of a single physical computer across multiple virtual machines for maximum efficiency. Resources are shared across multiple virtual machines and applications. Your business needs are the driving force behind dynamically mapping the physical resources of your infrastructure to applications-even as those needs evolve and change. Aggregate your x86 servers along with network and storage into a unified pool of IT resources that can be utilized by the applications when and where they're needed. This resource optimization drives greater flexibility in the organization and results in lower capital and operational costs.

A virtual infrastructure consists of the following components:

• Bare-metal hypervisors to enable full virtualization of each x86 computer.
• Virtual infrastructure services such as resource management and consolidated backup to optimize available resources among virtual machines
• Automation solutions that provide special capabilities to optimize a particular IT process such as provisioning or disaster recovery.

http://www.VMware.com/technology/virtual-infrastru...

VMware Virtual Center

VMware vCenter Server is the simplest, most efficient way to manage VMware vSphere – whether you have ten VMs or tens of thousands of VMs. It provides unified management of all the hosts and VMs in your datacenter from a single console with an aggregate performance monitoring of clusters, hosts and VMs. VMware vCenter Server gives administrators deep insight into the status and configuration of clusters, hosts, VMs, storage, the guest OS and other critical components of a virtual infrastructure - all from one place.

With VMware vCenter Server, virtualization environments are easier to manage: a single administrator can manage 100 or more workloads, more than doubling typical productivity in managing physical infrastructure.

Proactive Management of VMware vSphere

A dynamic datacenter environment requires proactive management, with standardization and automation to get the most out of VMware vSphere's flexibility. Connecting business requirements to IT processes with streamlined and standardized workflows helps eliminate costly errors and reduces reliance on manual tasks.

VMware vCenter Servers lets administrators rapidly provision VMs and hosts using standardized templates, and ensures compliance with vSphere host configurations and host and VM patch levels with automated remediation. VMware vCenter Server also gives administrators control over key capabilities such as VMware VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, High Availability and Fault Tolerance. A powerful orchestration engine gives administrators the ability to create and easily implement best practice workflows.

With proactive management, VMware vCenter Server allows you to meet business requirements and improve service levels by dynamically provisioning new services, allocating resources and automating high availability.

http://www.VMware.com/products/vi/vc/

These are not all products but the most used in production environments.

In this series of articles I'm going to guide you through all these products and explain to you how to use them and why to use them. As alway's I have a demo center available for these articles that will help me show you stuff and help you make your decisions.

Because I'm using a lot of Altiris Deployment Solution, most articles will show you how to use Altiris Deployment Solution to manage your virtual machines etc. All together you will be able to save a lot of money when you use your best skills and virtualise a lot of stuff.