Be able to discuss the basics of vSphere utilization as demonstrated and discuss

Question

Be able to discuss the basics of vSphere utilization as demonstrated and discussed in class. This includes being able to discuss the process of vMotion and its importance, administering a VMWare infrastructure via vCenter, and other related technologies discussed.

1) What does the DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) do in a vSphere installation? How is this functionality useful?

2( What are the similarities and differences between HA (High Availability) and FT (Fault Tolerance) in a vSphere implementation?

3) List the steps in performing a vMotion migration of a VM from one physical server to another.

4) What does the Customizations Specification Manager do in vCenter and why is it important?

Explanation / Answer

1.Answer:-

1.Here highlighting the benefits derived using DRS:

1.Load Balancing

2.Power Management

3.Virtual Machine Placement

4.Resource Pools

5.Storage DRS

basic requirements:

1.Basic – You will need at least two ESXi hosts participating in a cluster managed by vCenter Server. Every ESXi host must be configured for vMotion..

2.Storage – A SAN or NAS based shared-storage solution allowing for the provision of iSCSI or NFS based datastores mounted on every ESXi hosts which is included in the cluster3.Processors – Preferably, all hosts should be sporting the same type of processor(s) to ensure correct vMotion transferring and state resumption

3.Processors – Preferably, all hosts should be sporting the same type of processor(s) to ensure correct vMotion transferring and state resumption. Once the vm is transferred, the processor(s) on the destination host should present the same processor instruction set and pick up executing instructions from where the source host processor(s) stopped

2.Answer:

VMware HA:-

                   VMware HA maintains a communication channel with all the other ESX/ESXi hosts that are members of the same cluster by using a heartbeat that it sends out every 1 second in vSphere 4.0 or every 10 seconds in vSphere 4.1 by default. When an ESX server misses a heartbeat, the other hosts wait 15 seconds for the other host to respond again. After 15 seconds, the cluster initiates the restart of the VMs on the failing ESX/ESXi host on the remaining ESX/ESXi hosts in the cluster. VMware HA also constantly monitors the ESX/ESXi hosts that are members of the cluster and ensures that resources are always available to satisfy requirements in the event of a host failure.

VMware HA configuration prerequisites:

HA requires the following configuration prerequisites before it can function properly:

· 1 .vCenter: Because VMware HA is an enterprise-class feature, it requires vCenter before it can be enabled.

· 2.DNS resolution: All ESX/ESXi hosts that are members of the HA cluster must be able to resolve one another using DNS.

· 3.Access to shared storage: All hosts in the HA cluster must have access and visibility to the same shared storage; otherwise, they would have no access to the VMs.

· 4.Access to same network: All ESX/ESXi hosts must have the same networks configured on all hosts so that when a VM is restarted on any host, it again has access to the correct network.

VMware FT :-

            VMware Fault Tolerance is a high-availability feature that can be used within a VMware High Availability cluster. However, high availability is not synonymous with fault tolerance; there are meaningful differences between the two terms. Each setup requires different available resources and will affect virtual machines differently.

       Knowing your company's uptime and data recovery needs is the first step to determining if you need high availability, fault tolerance or none of the above. The next step is understanding the system requirements and HA and how each product works.

3.Answer:

vMotion migration of a VM from one physical server:-

VMotion is a component of VMware's Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) enterprise virtualization solution. VMware offers three VI3 editions -- Starter, Standard, and Enterprise.

Configuring VMotion:
             Once all the licensing has been worked out, it is time to "turn on" VMotion. This assumes that ESX and VirtualCenter have already been installed and properly configured. Launch the VI3 Client and click on one of the ESX hosts that should have VMotion enabled. Once the host is selected click on the "Configuration" tab.

VMotion usage scenarios:-
Now that VMotion is enabled on two or more hosts, when should it be used? There are two primary reasons to use VMotion: to balance the load on the physical ESX servers and eliminate the need to take a service offline in order to perform maintenance on the server.

How VMotion works:-
As stated above, VMotion is the process that VMware has invented to migrate, or move, a virtual machine that is powered on from one host server to another host server without the VM incurring downtime. This is known as a "hot-migration." How does this hot-migration technology that VMware has dubbed VMotion work? Well, as with everything, in a series of steps:

Step 1:request has been made that VM-A should be migrated (VMotioned) from ESX-A to ESX-B.

Step 2: VM-A's memory is pre-copied from ESX-A to ESX-B while ongoing changes are written to a memory bitmap on ESX-A.

Step 3:VM-A is quiesced on ESX-A and VM-A's memory bitmap is copied to ESX-B.

Step 4.VM-A is started on ESX-B and all access to VM-A is now directed to the copy running on ESX-B.

Step 5.The rest of VM-A's memory is copied from ESX-A all the while memory is being read and written from VM-A on ESX-A when applications attempt to access that memory on VM-A on ESX-B.

Step 6.If the migration is successful VM-A is unregistered on ESX-A.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse B
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.