View source for VCP4

''' Other Resources '''
* [http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/certedu/certification/vcp VMware VCP Forum]
* [http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2726/VMware%20Certified%20Professional%20on%20vSphere%204%20Blueprint%208.13.09.pdf VCP4 Blueprint]
* [http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pages/vsp_pubs_esx40_vc40.html vSphere Documentation]
* [http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/vcp-vsphere-upgrade-study-notes/ Simon Long blog]

= Plan, Install and Upgrade VMware ESX/ESXi =
== Install VMware ESX/ESXi on local storage ==
'''Minimum Hardware Requirements'''
* 64bit CPU (AMD Opteron, Intel Xenon [inc Nahalem])
** CPU Virtualisation features required to support 64bit VM's
* 2GB RAM
* 1+ NIC
* SCSI, Fibre Channel or Internal RAID controller
* LUN, SAS or SATA (SATA must be connected through a SAS controller)

'''Notes'''
* ESX's hardware clock should be set to UTC
* IPv6 not supported during installation

'''ESXi Specifics'''
* All blank internal disks are formatted with VMFS (except 4GB VFAT scratch/swap partition, used for vm-support dumps)
* Direct Console is used to 
** Configure host defaults
** Set-up administrator access
** Troubleshoot
* If no DHCP found during install, default 169.254.0.0 / 16 address assigned

'''vSphere Editions'''

{|cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="1"
|- style="background-color:#bbddff;"
! Edition         !! Features  
|-
| Essentials      || 6 cores/CPU, 4way vSMP, 256GB/ESX, VC Agent, Update Manager, VMsafe, vStorage API's
|-
| Essentials Plus || Essentials + Data Recovery
|-
| Standard        || Essentials + HA  
|-
| Advanced        || Standard + 12 cores/CPU, Hot Add, FT, vShield, VMotion, Data Recovery
|-
| Enterprise      || Advanced + 6 cores/CPU, Storage vMotion, Data Recovery, DRS
|-
| Enterprise Plus || 12 cores/CPU, 8way vSMP, maxGB/ESX, vNetwork Distributed Switch, Host Profiles, 3rd Party Multipathing
|}

== Upgrade VMware ESX/ESXi ==
'''Pre-Upgrade Backups'''
* Backup ESX Host Config
** Back up the files in the <code>/etc/passwd</code>, <code>/etc/groups</code>, <code>/etc/shadow</code>, and <code>/etc/gshadow</code> directories (shadow dir's may not exist).
** Backup any custom scripts
** Backup any <code>.vmx</code> files
** Backup any local images etc on local VMFS
* Backup ESXi Host Config
** Use vSphere CLI to run <code>vicfg-cfgbackup --server <ESXi-host-ip> --portnumber <port_number> --protocol <protocol_type> --username username --password <password> -s <backup-filename> </code>
* VM backup
** Snapshot before upgrade

'''Upgrade Scenarios'''
{|cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="1"
|- style="background-color:#bbddff;"
! Method                   !! Notes  
|-
| with Host Clusters       || Use Update Manager.  Upgrade VC, Update Manager, ESX, VM, licenses
|-
| without Host Clusters    || Use vSphere Host Update Utility (good for estates < 10 ESX's), runs from VC Client
|-
| vMotion                  || Migrate VM's from ESX v3 to v4, then perform required VM upgrade
|-
| Upgrade vMotion          || When upgrading from ESX v2, VM's are migrated from VMFS v2 to v3 and upgraded
|-
| Cold migration (with VC) || Move VM's through VC to v4 ESX's and power-up, then upgrade VM
|-
| Cold migration (without VC) || Manually move VM's to v4 ESX's and power-up, then upgrade VM
|-
| VC on new machine        || Backup DB, copy across SSL folder to new machine, run install
|}


'''ESX/ESXi Upgrade'''
* DHCP not recommended
* Limited support for v2.5.5, all later versions fully supported
* Need to specify a local VMFS for Service Console VM (not ESXi)

'''Rollback'''
* ESX
** Run <code>rollback-to-esx3</code> command in Service Console, delete ESX v4 Service Console following restart
** Restore backed up files
* ESXi
** During boot, press Shift + R to boot into the Standby (ESX3) build
** Restore backup using <code>vicfg-cfgbackup -l</code>

== Secure VMware ESX/ESXi ==


== Install VMware ESX/ESXi on SAN Storage ==

== Identify vSphere Architecture and Solutions ==
'''Platforms'''
* vSphere 4
* Server
* ESXi (standalone, free)

'''Datacentre Solutions'''
* '''View''' - (VDI) Desktop virtualisation
* '''SRM''' - Site Recovery Manager, automate site fail-over/recovery, DR management
* '''Lab Manager''' - VM manager for developers, allows dev's to rapidly deploy VM images for testing etc
* '''Stage Manager''' - Being consolidated into Lab Manager

= Configure ESX/ESXi Networking =
== Configure Virtual Switches ==

Nothing new !!

== Configure vNetwork Distributed Switches ==

* '''dvSwitch''' - Distributed Virtual Switch (DVS) which spans numerous ESX's
* '''dvPort''' - A dvSwitch Service Console, VMkernel, or VM Port Group port
* CDP is enabled in the Advanced Settings of the dvSwitch

'''VLAN Options'''
* None - Straight-through connected switch
* VLAN - Traditional single VLAN assignment to a port group
* VLAN Trunking - Multiple VLAN's can be assigned to a dv Port Group
* Private VLAN - Allows Private VLANs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_VLAN)

== Configure VMware ESX/ESXi Management Network ==

= Configure ESX/ESXi Storage =
== Configure FC SAN Storage ==
'''PSA - Pluggable Storage Architecture'''
* Manages storage multipathing
* Allows simultaneous operation of multiple multipathing plugins (MPPs)
* Native Multipathing Plugin (NMP) provided by default, can have sub-plugins (can be either VMware or 3rd party)
** Storage Array Type Plugin (SATP) - unique to a particular array (effectively an array driver, like a standard PC hardware driver)
** Path Selection Plugin (PSP)
* Multipathing Plugin (MPP) - 3rd party, can run alongside or in addition to Native Multipathing Plugin

'''PSA operations'''
* Loads and unloads multipathing plugins
* Hides VM specifics from a particular plugin
* Routes I/O requests for a specific logical device to the MPP managing that device
* Handles I/O queuing to the logical devices
* Implements logical devices bandwidth between VM's
* Handles I/O queueing to the physical storage HBA's
* Handles physical path discovery and removal
* Provides logical device and physical path I/O stats

'''MPP / NMP operations'''
* Manage physical path (un)claiming
* Manage creation, and (de)registration of logical devices
* Associate physical paths with logic volumes
* Process I/O requests to logical devices
** Select an optimal physical path for the request
** Depending  on storage device, perform specific actions necessary to handle path failures and I/O cmd retries
* Support management tasks, EG abort or reset of logical devices

'''PSA Claim Rules'''
Used to define paths should be used by a particular plugin module

'''LUN Masking'''
Used to prevent an ESX from seeing LUN's or using individual paths to a LUN
Add and load a claim rule to apply

== Configure iSCSI SAN Storage ==
== Configure NFS Datastores ==
== Configure and Manage VMFS Datastores ==
* VMFS Datastore capacity can be increased on the fly whilst VM's are running (from that datastore)

= Install and Configure vCenter Server =
== Install vCenter Server ==
'''Minimum Requirements'''
* 2x CPU's (2GHz)
* 3GB RAM 
* 2GB disk
* Microsoft SQL2005 Express

{|cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="1"
|- style="background-color:#bbddff;"
! Scale               !! VC     !! CPU !! Memory    
|-
| 50 ESXs, 250 VMs    || 32 bit || 2   || 4 GB     
|-
| 200 ESXs, 2000 VMs  || 64 bit || 4   || 4 GB
|-
| 300 ESXs, 3000 VMs  || 64 bit || 4   || 8 GB 
|}
* Database must be 32bit only, regardless of VC's OS (default database on 64bit SQL is 64bit)

== Manage vSphere Client plug-ins ==
{|cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="1"
|- style="background-color:#bbddff;"
! Plug-In               !! Description   
|-
| Update Manager        || 
|-
| Converter Enterprise  || 
|-
| vShield Zones         || App aware firewall, inspects client-server and inter-VM traffic to provide traffic analysis and app-aware firewall partitioning
|-
| Orchestrator          || Workflow engine to manage automated tasks/workflows
|-
| Data Recovery         || Backup and recovery.  Centralised management of backup tasks (inc data de-duplication).
|}


= Deploy and Manage Virtual Machines and vApps =
== Create and Deploy Virtual Machines ==
* VM Hardware v4 runs on ESX3 or ESX4, v7 runs on ESX4 only
* VM's running MS Windows should have SCSI TimoutValue changed to 60 secs to allow Windows to tolerate delayed SAN I/O from path failovers

'''Disk Types'''
* Thick - traditional (can convert to Thin via Storage vMotion)
* Thin - minimal space usage (conversion to Thick is manual process)

'''SCSI Controller Types'''
* BusLogic Parallel
* LSI Logic SAS
* LSI Logic Parallel
* '''VMware Paravirtual'''
** High performance to provide better throughput with lower ESX CPU usage
** Only VM h/ware v7 with Win2k3, Win2k8 or Red Hat Ent v5
** Not supported with
*** Boot disks (use a standard adapter for VM's OS/boot disk)
*** Record/replay
*** Fault Tolerance
*** MSCS Clustering (so also SQL clusters)

[[Category:VMware]]