VMware vSphere Masterclass 2/2: Intermediate to Advanced

Set up a VMware vCenter lab in Morocco with three ESXi hosts, data stores, and eight network adapters per host to provide redundant vmkernel and vmotion networks with dedicated IPs.

Configure iSCSI adapters and storage by adding VMkernel network adapters, assigning IP addresses, and setting up two redundant iSCSI ports for shared storage.

Add external storage to an ESXi host using the software iSCSI adapter, bind VMkernel ports to the iSCSI port group, rescan, and connect to Starwind target.

Learn to bond two physical adapters to iSCSI storage, monitor active paths, and verify failover by unplugging cables and rescanning, then bind more ports and add targets in vSphere.

Detect iscsi shared storage with the software adapter, create vmfs data stores from lun one and lun two, then propagate to all hosts and prepare for storage vmotion.

Migrate a powered-on virtual machine between hosts with vmotion, using shared storage and vmkernel networking, and understand storage vmotion and evc for CPU compatibility.

Master storage vMotion by migrating a powered-on VM from local to shared storage, manage connected devices, and sequence compute-resource migration with storage migration.

Learn how VMotion migrates a powered-on virtual machine between ESXi hosts and compute resources, evaluating compatibility, preserving shared storage and VM networks, and selecting high or normal priority.

Migrate a virtual machine to a new compute resource and storage while powered on using vmotion. Learn how to move between shared and local storage across hosts and data centers.

Explore vMotion in environments without shared storage by migrating a VM from local to shared storage, then migrating its resource, and finally relocating storage to the destination ESXi host.

Explore how the distributed resource scheduler balances resource use across cluster nodes, and learn why you must create a vCenter Server cluster to use drs and storage drs.

Distributed resource scheduler automates resource allocation across a cluster by migrating virtual machines to balance cpu and memory load, while storage vmotion moves vm storage across storages to manage space.

Learn how affinity and anti-affinity rules govern virtual machines across hosts, keeping critical machines on separate or same hosts for security, availability, and performance, with automated migrations.

Apply storage affinity and anti-affinity to place vms and their vmdk disks on separate data stores. Learn how to separate vmdk files into different data stores with vm disk anti-affinity.

Create a cluster in the data center, name it, and drag hosts into it, enabling vSphere high availability and vSAN. Create multiple clusters to tailor resources and rules for services.

Discover how DRS automation levels from manual to fully automatic guide virtual machine migration and cluster load balancing, and how conservative to aggressive thresholds affect performance.

Enable per-VM automation levels to override cluster rules or apply them globally; exclude vms from storage and use vrealize operation server with predictive DRS to forecast overloads and migrate vms.

Explore how vSphere distributes virtual machines across hosts, migrates VMs to balance load, balances memory based on consumed memory, and manages CPU overcommitment and power management.

Explore distributed power management (DPM) automation levels and thresholds in vSphere, showing how wake-on-LAN powers off idle hosts and migrates VMs to optimize energy use in large environments.

Turn on vSphere DRS in a home lab to auto balance resources across ESXi hosts. Observe VM migrations that relieve overload, such as moving a Windows 7 VM between hosts.

See hot migration of virtual machines from ESXi 1 to ESXi 2 to balance memory and workload in a cluster, with Windows 7 and Windows XP VMs migrating between hosts.

Define vm-vm affinity and anti-affinity rules in a vSphere cluster using VM host groups and rules to keep specific VMs together or apart, with conflict handling and migrations.

Enable the VM override and add VMs. Set per-VM automation levels to fully automated, partially automated, or manual, to control migrations within the cluster.

Create host and virtual-machine groups, assign ESXi hosts and virtual machines, then apply a VM-to-host anti-affinity rule to ensure critical virtual machines never run on the same host or rack.

Configure virtual machine and host affinity rules to control where workloads run, using should, must, and should not run on selected host groups, and balance the cluster via migrations.

Monitor and apply vSphere DRS recommendations from the cluster monitor, view migrations, faults, and resource usage to optimize CPU, memory, network, and storage in your ESXi and vCenter environment.

Learn to create a data store cluster with storage drs in a vSphere environment by provisioning virtual machines, configuring shared storage, and enabling automated storage vmotion across multiple hosts.

Execute storage vmotion to enforce storage drs rules by configuring anti-affinity and vmdk affinity across data store clusters, while understanding automated checks and manual overrides.

Explain the purpose of vSphere high availability by requiring at least two esxi hosts and a cluster, so a failed host automatically reboots its virtual machines on another host.

Explore how vSphere high availability reboots virtual machines on a host using shared storage and resource pools. Compare it with fault tolerance, offering near zero downtime but harder to implement.

Explore how vCenter as a VM enables high availability with master-slave election, heartbeat checks, and shared storage to reboot or migrate VMs when a host fails, even if vCenter fails.

Enable vSphere HA in the cluster, review host rules to avoid anti-affinity conflicts, and disable the rule to prevent virtual machine reboot conflicts across ESXi hosts.

Enable vSphere HA to automatically restart virtual machines on a healthy host after a host failure, using restart priorities, host and VM monitoring, and guest or application heartbeats.

Understand how vSphere HA responds to datastore failures with PDL and APD, using master/slave roles, heartbeat to slaves, shared storage, and host isolation options like power off and restart.

Explore how VMware vSphere uses heartbeat monitoring for virtual machines and applications, enabling automatic restarts when guest OS or VMware tools heartbeat fails and illustrating sensitivity options.

Learn how proactive HA detects hardware health issues through vendor monitoring, evacuates virtual machines, and places hosts in quarantine, mix, or maintenance mode to balance performance and availability.

reserve free resources in a cluster using admission control to ensure vSphere ha failover capacity; if resources run out, ha cannot reboot vms on other hosts.

Explore admission control and host filer cluster tolerance in a three-host ESXi cluster, showing how reserved resources enable high availability and controlled VM power-on.

Explore dedicated failover hosts for high availability by reserving idle hosts to host VMs during outages, using vMotion to migrate, and automatic recovery when the host returns online.

Explain slot policy admission control by calculating memory and cpu slots from the largest powered-on vm, then reserve enough slots across hosts to cover the biggest vm.

Learn how virtual machines tolerate performance degradation under host overloading, with high availability migrations and configurable thresholds (100%, 15%, 0%) that trigger alerts to manage cpu and memory.

Explore how datastore heartbeat keeps vSphere high availability resilient by using two or more external data stores, automatically selecting heartbeat paths, and monitoring hosts when management networks fail.

Enable vSphere high availability on your home lab, configure iSCSI storage and a master ESXi, then monitor the HA cluster and set VM restart priorities.

Learn how vSphere high availability uses a shared data store heartbeat and a protected list file to manage masters, hosts, and VMs, rebooting them when the master fails.

Demonstrate vSphere HA by initiating a failover action when an ESXi host fails, automatically restarting the affected virtual machine on a healthy host.

Learn how vSphere HA handles host outages, how vMotion balances resources when a host returns online, and why CPU compatibility must be aligned across hosts for seamless migrations.

Drs balances virtual machines across esxi hosts by enforcing rules that avoid migrations to a host, and automatically migrate them when that host returns to life, ensuring availability via vcenter.

Explore resource pool and V app concepts in VMware vSphere, and learn how CPU and memory allocation on a host, plus storage pool I/O performance, prevent virtual machine overloading.

Configure virtual machine options and guest os version, adjust cpu and memory, and navigate hot plug availability based on the operating system.

Allocate cluster resources by creating resource pools that divide total RAM and CPU among VMs using percentage shares to cap each pool and ensure isolation.

Understand how resource shares allocate pool resources with shares, and how low, normal, and high pools set those shares to balance CPU and RAM as VMs change.

Learn how a vApp groups virtual machines into a container with a resource pool, enabling coordinated power on/off and safe shutdown sequences for components like firewall, CRM, WebSphere, and database.

Learn how resource pools control cpu and ram with reservations, limits, minimums, maximums, and expandable options from zero to eight gigahertz, with auto calculations balancing ram and cpu.

Create and configure resource pools in vSphere, assign machines to pool a or pool b, and set CPU and memory limits and reservations, with the cluster distributing resources as needed.

Create a new vAPP, assign it to a data center, and configure reservations and resources. Add virtual machines to the app, power them on together, and manage their shared settings.

Configure vApp startup and shutdown sequences to control VM power-on order, wait times, and guest shutdown actions using startup groups and VMware tools heartbeats.

Master cpu and memory resource settings in ESXi by enabling hotplugging, adjusting cores and sockets, and setting reservations, limits, shares, and hardware virtualization for nested virtual machines.

Configure a virtual machine hard disk by selecting size, data store, storage policy, encryption, and thin or thick provisioning, then manage sharing, iops limits, and the virtual flash read cache.

Configure shared disks between virtual machines by setting disk mode, choosing sharing options, and enabling multi-writer for scenarios like Microsoft or Oracle clusters using a common local data store.

Explore disk modes in vSphere, including dependent, independent, and independent non-persistent, and learn how persistent vs non-persistent settings affect snapshots and data retention.

Configure VMware virtual hardware by selecting SCSI controllers (up to four), attaching disks, and setting network adapters. Manage CD/DVD, USB, and 3D video options with host or client device connections.

Explore cpu hot add in VMware vSphere to upgrade cpu and memory of powered virtual machines, noting the reboot behavior across Windows Server and the direct visibility in Task Manager.

Increase memory while a VM is running with memory hot plug, edit RAM to a larger size, reconfigure the VM, reboot to detect the new memory, and refresh.

Increase virtual disk size from 24 gb to 35 gb and add a 32 gb disk, apply vCenter datastore recommendations, then initialize and format the drive in a powered-on VM.

Learn to add and connect devices to a virtual machine: create or attach a disk or vmdk, use RTM disk, and configure adapters and controllers like nvme, scsi, sata, usb.

Connect an existing hard disk to a virtual machine, noting that a disk already used by another VM cannot be attached, and deleting the disk removes the data store file.

Learn to attach a usb device from an ESXi host to a running virtual machine by editing settings and selecting the usb device.

Learn how the VMware remote console handles session limits and power operations, including locking on disconnect and configuring VMware Tools and time synchronization.

Discover how to manage power states and boot options for virtual machines, including standby, wake on LAN, BIOS setup, and boot delay, with encryption and advanced settings.

Explain how vm snapshots create a delta vmdk to capture changes after a chosen moment, while the original vmdk remains read-only, enabling restoration to a prior state.

Explore how vm snapshots create delta vmdk copies to safely update operating systems and install software, as temporary backups rather than real backups.

Learn to take a snapshot of a virtual machine on both powered on and powered off states, including naming, describing, and optionally capturing memory; revert, consolidate, or delete snapshots.

Take multiple snapshots to create delta vmdk changes and memory data, up to 32 per VM; revert uses the delta and deleting a snapshot merges changes back.

Navigate between VM snapshots to revert to prior states, understand how edits are lost when reverting to an earlier snapshot, and manage multiple snapshots safely.

Consolidate and remove all vm snapshots by deleting specific snapshots and using the delete all snapshots option to consolidate delta disks into the original vmdk.

Discover file cloning as the default, full copy of a virtual machine, then compare it with a linked clone linked to the original, and learn about config files and licensing.

Explore linked cloning for provisioning of virtual machines by using a snapshot and delta disks, where reads come from the original disk and writes go to a delta disk.

Learn when to use linked clones versus full clones for temporary tasks, and how shared delta disks and snapshots affect performance.

Learn how to duplicate a virtual machine using file clone and linked clone, copying disks, snapshots, and vm configuration, while ensuring unique operating system ID, disk ID, and mac addresses.

Learn how to clone a virtual machine in vSphere, comparing full and linked clones and choosing optimal data stores, clusters, and resources, with steps from powering on to migration.

Learn to clone a vApp in vSphere, why vCenter cannot create linked clones, and how the vda (virtual desktop access) tool enables linked clones for temporary use.

Enable fault tolerance to achieve zero downtime by mirroring a virtual machine on a second ESXi host with synchronized data, using up to 4 CPUs and 64 GB RAM.

Enable fault tolerance across ESXi hosts by creating a vmkernel for fault tolerance, assigning an IP, and using dedicated adapters to support the primary and secondary virtual machine mirroring.

Troubleshoot fault tolerance in vSphere VM by disabling hot plug, removing USB and CD-ROM, switching to a supported disk controller, ensuring shared storage, and removing snapshots to enable fault tolerance.

Enable fault tolerance on a powered-on or powered-off virtual machine by selecting shared storage, running compatibility checks, and configuring primary and secondary hosts with data mirrored in real time.

Enable fault tolerance for a primary and secondary VM across ESXi hosts, migrate Windows XP primary to a secondary host, and monitor resource use and encryption in a lab environment.

Discover how fault tolerance provides zero downtime by maintaining a primary and a secondary virtual machine on two ESXi hosts with shared storage, ensuring seamless failover and continuous availability.

Examine fault-tolerant virtual machines, showing how a primary and its secondary become protected through detection and synchronization, with migration and zero downtime as the secondary is powered on.

Explore how fault tolerance governs primary and secondary VMs in VMware vSphere, including enabling, disabling, migrating secondary VMs, and ensuring heartbeat and network behavior across ESXi hosts.