
Install VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7 on a home laptop to replace Windows options and build a practical home lab with appliance features like vMotion and fault tolerance.
Outline a home-lab plan to install a workstation VM, set up network between host, vCenter, and Windows Server 2016, then deploy an ESXi 7 host.
Verify your home laptop meets the vmwave vcenter server appliance 7 and esxi 7 requirements by confirming disk space, 16 GB RAM, multiple processors, and a 64-bit system.
Learn to divide ram on a home ESXi setup by allocating 12 gb to vCenter and 2 gb to Windows Server and host on a 16 gb laptop.
Install VMware Workstation 15 by running as administrator and clicking next to complete the setup. Stage one is done, and you cannot have two VMware Workstation on the same host.
Create a virtual network for the lab by adding VM net 10, assigning a private class C IP, and enabling host sharing between the host and virtual machines.
Create a Windows Server 2016 virtual machine on ESXi 7 using VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7, download and install the ISO, and upgrade to a domain controller.
Create a virtual machine for the ESXi hypervisor, allocating 12 GB of RAM, two processors, and 400 GB of storage, then configure the network settings.
Install ESXi hypervisor 7 on a home laptop, configure the ESXi host with a static IP, gateway, and DNS, then set root credentials and test the connection with a browser.
This lecture demonstrates joining vCenter with an ESXi host and accessing both via their IPs. It covers login setup, SSL warnings, and basic lab configuration.
Set up an NFS share from Linux to a VMware ESXi host by creating a shared directory, exporting it, and configuring firewall and network access.
This course will teach you. Step by Step how to Create a lab of vCenter Server Appliance 7 & ESXi Hypervisor 7
You Will learn how to :
1- Install vCenter Server Appliance 7
2- ESXi Hypervisor 7
3- Install windows Server 2016
You will learn how to upgrade windows Server 2016 to Domain Controller ( DC )
Please note this course only teaching how to setup a LAB of vCenter Server Appliance 7 & ESXi Hypervisor 7
vCenter From Wikipedia
vCenter Server is the centralized management utility for VMware, and is used to manage virtual machines, multiple ESXi hosts, and all dependent components from a single centralized location.
VMware vMotion and svMotion require the use of vCenter and ESXi hosts.
vMotion (live migration)
Live migration (vMotion) in ESX allows a virtual machine to move between two different hosts. Live storage migration (Storage vMotion) enables live migration of virtual disks on the fly.
During vMotion Live Migration (vLM) of the (RAM) memory of the VM is sent from the running VM to the new VM (the instance on another host that will become the running VM after the vLM). The content of memory is by its nature changing all the time. ESX uses a system where the content is sent to the other VM and then it will check what data is changed and send that, each time smaller blocks. At the last moment it will very briefly 'freeze' the existing VM, transfer the last changes in the RAM content and then start the new VM. The intended effect of this process is to minimize the time during which the VM is suspended; in a best case this will be the time of the final transfer plus the time required to start the new VM.
svMotion (Storage vMotion)
svMotion enables live migration of virtual disks and their home directories without any downtime.[2] svMotion uses a mirror driver to copy virtual hard drives and/or the home directory from the source to destination datastores simultaneously, which keeps everything in sync until the svMotion operation is complete on the destination, at which point the source data is deleted.[5]
There is a performance impact from running svMotion – read IO from the source and write IO on the destination. This can be verified through esxtop. If VAAI is enabled on the ESXi hosts and on the storage array, It will offload the svMotion migration operation to the array instead of going through the VMkernel, which increases the migration speed.