VMware vSphere 5 Ultimate Bootcamp

Access data center from workstation to run demos and labs in VMware vSphere 5 Ultimate Bootcamp. RTP over Internet gives access to terminal servers, domain controller, and SQL server.

Learn the IP addressing plan for the VMware vSphere lab, mapping 172.x addresses to DRAC remote access, vCenter servers, and the ESX host, with a focus on virtual machines.

Discuss the course introduction and methodology, and emphasize remember, learn it, do it, and know it.

Explore the VMware ROI and total cost of ownership calculator v2.0 to estimate savings, understand third-party calculations, and learn how data entry errors affect accuracy in virtualization cost analysis.

Explore how virtualization simplifies management, decoupling hardware from the OS, enabling template-based VM deployment, easier hardware maintenance, and isolated VMs on one box for efficient resource use.

Compare type 1 and type 2 hypervisors, with type 1 running on physical servers and type 2 as an application on an existing os; include VMware ESX/ESXi and Hyper-V.

Explore the cloud as a platform that automates virtual machine deployment using the virtual center orchestrator and lab manager, creating fences to isolate different environments for private and public clouds.

Explore the VMware infrastructure 3 suite, including ESX hosts and vCenter versions from VI3 to update 4, with vMotion, high availability, and distributed resource scheduler.

Learn about vSphere 4.1 update 1, including two builds, support for 160 logical processors, and expanded vCenter database support for Oracle, IBM DB2 9.7, SQL Server 2008 and 2005.

Discover vSphere 5 host features, including complete ESXi deployment, host profiles, image builder, and a rewritten CLI. Learn new limits—512 VMs per host, 2 TB of RAM—and the firewall addition.

Explore vSphere 5 storage features: the storage distributed resource scheduler, storage profiles, profile-driven storage, and VMFS 5 with 64 TB LUNs and improved SSD communication.

Explore vSphere 5 miscellaneous features, including srm 5 host based replication with non-identical data stores, Apple os x on Apple Xserve hardware, and improved vdi performance via view.

Drive infrastructure management with vCenter Server as the command center, handling everything across hosts and enabling features like vMotion, high availability, storage motion, and Update Manager, while integrating third-party tools.

Learn to leverage vCenter orchestrator to automate virtual machine deployment with customizable workflows and over 800 available actions, capitalizing on a 64-bit only platform for large infrastructures.

Learn how VMware View 4.6 enables virtual desktops via View Composer and View Manager, delivering secure, device-agnostic access from thin clients to smartphones.

Learn how VMware Workstation provides virtualization on Windows and Linux hosts, with macOS support via Fusion, featuring up to 8 virtual CPUs, 2 terabytes of disk, and 32 GB RAM.

Explore VMware Fusion 4.0.1 for Mac operating system, featuring unity view, OVL tool support, 8 gigabytes of RAM, 8-way SMP, 2 terabytes of disks, with a price lower than workstation.

Explore Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, an older virtualization platform for Windows Server 2003 that supports up to 64 VMs, hardware virtualization, and multiple guest OS options.

Learn how System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 groups ESX and Hyper-V hosts, displays their virtual machines, and enables actions like create, add, stop, save state, migrate, and library management.

XenServer enterprise v5.6 sp2 offers a free hypervisor with bare metal install and Zen Center to manage multiple servers, delivering strong network, disk, and memory performance; higher tiers cost money.

Explore the virtualization architecture and core concepts, comparing VMware vSphere with competitors, and examine how virtual machines, containers, and integration with third-party tools empower virtualization administration.

Identify vSphere 5 hardware requirements: 64-bit Intel or AMD processors, minimum two cores, up to 160 logical cores, minimum 2 gb ram, and basic networking and boot options.

Explore vSphere hypervisor ESXi with installable and embedded versions, compare logging behaviors—embedded uses non-persistent logs, while installable preserves logs; understand size, hardware considerations, and the common interface module for management.

Learn how ESXi 5 serves as the hypervisor core, using the VMkernel to perform binary translation of OS data into physical hardware and dynamically allocate resources, noting licensing distinctions.

Boot ESXi from a SAN LUN by configuring the fiber channel card to the target worldwide name, and set the card IP address if using the other path.

Increase speed by adding spindles and disks across multiple paths and storage processors; test fiber channel and iSCSI options, and use SSDs for high-IO workloads in vSphere 5.

the vSphere 5 installable hypervisor supports boot from USB or SD card, uses GPT, requires at least 2 GB RAM (4+ recommended), and supports local hard drives with SATA/SCSI/RAID.

Choose the ESXi host for installation, then scroll through and select the ESX 215 sub template to initiate the full ESXi host install process.

Learn to use the ESXi image builder to create custom installations for multiple hosts with a private or public software depot, build image profiles, and enable auto deploy.

Configure host name resolution and time server settings to ensure accurate network identity and time synchronization.

Configure dns and routing on the esx host via the gui, setting the host name, domain, and two dns servers, and add more lookup domains by editing the resolve file.

Explore troubleshooting ESXi within the VMware vSphere 5 ultimate bootcamp. Gain focused insights into ESXi troubleshooting aligned with the course context.

Restart the ESXi CIM management agents using the direct console or command line. Run the provided shell script to restart all services, and expect brief downtime during refresh.

Review ESX deployment planning and guidelines, explore vSphere design for virtual environment planning, perform the basic install, and troubleshoot networking, storage, and hostname resolution on the ESXi host.

Explore WinSCP 5.0.2 as a free vSphere management tool, noting root ssh authentication is not supported on ESX and that it works on ESX II.

Explore Quest Software’s Vizioncore tools for vSphere: ranger pro backups, fog light performance and statistics, replicator for sites, optimizer pro for disk resizing, and Wii control for hypervisor vm management.

Explore Quest's free PowerGUI, a GUI for PowerCLI, to build and run scripts that manage your vSphere infrastructure without heavy command-line usage.

Explore PHD Virtual tools, their free utilities, and scripts for kickstart installations, offline patch downloading, and update manager workflows, plus testing-oriented virtual san appliances for non-production environments.

Explore ESXi host management options—from remote agents like ILO, DRAC, IPMI to SSH via the DCUI—and manage vCenter Server with the web client, vSphere client, and CLI.

Enable ssh access on esx or ssi with PuTTY, SecureCRT, or FastSCP, and use tech support mode or remote tech support mode in version 4.1 to communicate via SSH.

Explore how to use the direct console user interface to enable or disable the ESXi and SSH shells, adjust the ESXi shell timeout, and restart management agents for troubleshooting.

Master the vSphere command line interface (vCLI), replacing ESX's old remote CLI, to run commands on ESX 3.x/4.x from Windows, Linux, or the management appliance built atop the Perl SDK.

Discover the vSphere CLI tools and commands, learn to locate the VCL installation directory, and use dash help to figure out how to run commands on a Windows system.

Explore the vSphere sdk for perl, with an extensive perl library, dozen sample scripts, and provisioning tools to create, relocate, clone, or power on VMs using vcl-style connections.

PowerCLI 5.0 provides access to the vSphere API through a PowerShell command-line interface, with prebuilt packages that let you manage all aspects of your environment with a single command.

Use the vi editor in VMware vSphere to back up the hosts file, edit it, search with /, insert with i, and save or quit with :wq or :q!.

Explore vcenter server 5 licensing and installation options, including the appliance, and learn to inventory, manage, troubleshoot license issues and database across versions.

Explore VMware vSphere essentials and essentials plus for small businesses, featuring eight vCPUs per VM, Update Manager, vSAN, and up to three dual-socket hosts.

Explore Microsoft’s server virtualization validation program, select a product, specify virtualization tech and guest OS details, and understand the support implications of unsupported features.

Learn how VMware vSphere 4.1 provides unlimited licenses for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 with VM support, subscription and patches, lowering ownership costs and enabling virtualization with application support.

Explore installing the vCenter server in this topic, guiding you through the installation process and key setup steps.

Examine vCenter Server 5 hardware requirements, including dual processors, minimum 2 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 4.4 GB free disk, and gigabit Ethernet, plus fault tolerance caveats and 2003/2008 OS support.

Vcenter server 5 architecture integrates core services from a standard ESXi host with distributed features. It manages access via local or Active Directory and supports plugins such as Update Manager.

vCenter Server 5 connects clients and web clients to hosts via an agent and VIP X user, with the host daemon as the primary controller, even when using putty.

Install the vSphere client at every location and install the Vic plug-in and update manager; use the RTP plug-in to connect to a VM via right-click for easier infrastructure management.

Take a look at the vCenter Server inventory in this topic, aligning with the VMware vSphere 5 ultimate bootcamp.

Explore the central repository of events in vSphere, including update manager, converter, and other plug-ins, and review event types, dates, times, and associated tasks.

Configure the vSphere client settings across the general, list, inventory, and maps tabs, optimizing the client server command timeout, console window limits, and performance views for large environments.

Log in remotely to vCenter with vCMA, a free appliance that enables mobile access from iPad, iPhone, Android, and Linux clients, letting you perform tasks on the road.

Plan the vCenter server deployment by examining the steps highlighted in this topic. Gain a focused understanding of how to approach deployment planning within VMware vSphere 5.

Explore troubleshooting techniques for vCenter Server and its database, addressing issues that arise from time to time and maintain system reliability.

Diagnose vSphere client session errors by verifying the vCenter host connection, checking direct ESXi access, using DCUI or SSH to inspect services, and reconnecting when needed.

Configure standard virtual switches on esx to use the service console or vse port on the management lan for communication, preserving isolation for performance, visibility, and redundancy.

Discover how VMware assigns MAC addresses to virtual NICs by using vendor first three octets and randomly generating the remaining octets; these MAC patterns reveal virtual machine activity.

The lecture covers vSwitch ports tab, showing port group level overrides for security, traffic shaping, and NIC teaming, with max 4000 ports per standard switch and 4096 per ESX host.

Configure standard vSwitch VLANs under the general tab at the port group level by assigning VLAN IDs; it uses 802.1Q tagging and avoids the native VLAN.

Plan vSphere VLANs to control security and traffic, choosing whether to place VLANs on separate switches or share them, while using a management plan and IP-based storage considerations.

Compare standard vSwitch protections with physical switches to reveal limitations like mac flooding, 802.1Q vlan tagging, double encapsulation, and lack of learning behavior.

Load balancing based on IP hash routes traffic using source and destination NIC IPs, delivering better distribution across NICs and higher performance. It requires link aggregation on the physical switch.

Apply multiple policies to a single team to manage traffic shaping and NIC teaming. Assign all policies to that team so you avoid changing every item.

Learn how a vSphere distributed switch centralizes policies at the data center level, supports up to 350 hosts, private VLANs, up to 32 uplinks per host, and network IO control.

Explore vSphere 5.0's distributed switch features, including user defined network i/o control for qos, port groups, netflow version 5 with network profiling and compliance, port mirroring, and lldp discovery.

Create a vSphere distributed switch in inventory under networking, add the dv switch, uplink ports, and a dv port group, then customize host and adapter assignments.

Edit DV switch uplink policy settings to manage traffic shaping, ingress and egress, bandwidth, and overrides on the uplink, noting that security policies are defined at the port group level.

Explore dvSwitch port group settings, including 128 ports per group on a 130-port switch, with uplinks, static port binding, security, traffic shaping, and VLAN options (promiscuous, isolated, community) plus teaming and failover.

Explore port binding methods for a distributed switch, including static, dynamic with overcommitment, and ephemeral bindings, and port counts per host and vcenter, with up to 20000 ports in 4.1.

Explore private VLANs in vSphere, including the default primary VLAN, and how community and isolated PVLANs, plus promiscuous ports, control which VMs can see each other, with port group assignment.

Configure private VLAN tagging in VMware vSphere 5 by assigning unique PVLAN IDs and using the private VLAN definitions table to route MAC addresses across promiscuous, community, and isolated VLANs.

migrate the service console and VM kernel ports to a distributed virtual switch using the manage virtual adapters workflow to migrate existing ports to a port group on the vds.

Enable net flow by configuring the collector IP and port, setting the distributed switch IP, and enabling port group monitoring to route VM traffic to a net flow analyzer.

Explains the Nexus 1000v architecture with a virtual supervisor module for central management of Cisco Nexus 1000v switches across ESX hosts, per-VM switches, and multiple distributed switches delivering Cisco features.

Review how virtual switches use port groups and VM kernel or service console ports, define security and traffic shaping policies, note NIC teaming limits, and isolate the management network.

Create and modify virtual networks using the command line interface, saving time on configuration tasks.

Learn how to select and name a physical NIC in the ESX network configuration, navigate the NIC naming hierarchy, and replace the old config command with streamlined commands.

Configure a specific IP address for the VMkernel port and verify that the port group becomes a VMkernel port, distinguishing it from the ESX config.

Explore creating and modifying virtual networks using command line and the gui, including distributed switch and virtual switch, with emphasis on case sensitivity, scripts, and interconnectivity to the physical environment.

Explore storage concepts in vSphere, including san, nas, lun, VMFS, data store, iSCSI, fibre channel, and HBA hardware.

Learn vSphere multipath storage: multiple paths with two HBAs and two storage processors create four paths to disk array, only one is active at a time, using round-robin load balancing.

Route virtual machine traffic through specific multipath paths to improve load balancing. Configure round robin IOPS via esx cli, with one IOPS per device.

Enable storage I/O control on each datastore, set a congestion threshold, and avoid mixing drive types in clusters to prevent performance issues; use share values to prioritize VMs during contention.

Explore the ESXi storage core commands for multipathing, including adapters and claim rules, and distinguish temporary claiming from permanent claim rules that persist across reboots.

Explore multipathing concepts in vCLI, listing storage devices, paths, and plug-ins with dash options; learn to check path states and craft practical cheat sheets for scripting.

Explore iSCSI multipathing in vSphere 5, comparing hardware and software paths, and track maximum PAHs per line (8) and hardware initiators (4) to understand traffic and path counts.

Configure dual virtual switches and VMkernel ports, enable the software iSCSI initiator, bind ports, discover targets with CHAP, format LUNs with VMFS, and enable datastore round-robin.

Configure iSCSI software initiator networking by organizing port groups and NICs across switches, ensuring only one vmkernel NIC is active to maintain redundancy and proper isolation.

Select the host, open configuration, choose storage adapters, and set properties; rescan to discover iSCSI devices, add the built-in iSCSI software adapter, configure it, and connect to targets.

Enable the iSCSI software initiator, adjust the auto-filled iSCSI name to match your setup by updating the IQ ending, and click OK to continue.

Bind physical NICs to the software iSCSI initiator and configure static or dynamic discovery with target IP, port, and IQN; enable per-line CHAP and rescan to view targets and paths.

Configure storage in vSphere 5 by setting up a switch and a VMkernel port for IP storage, using iSCSI with the software adapter and dynamic discovery to access data stores.

Troubleshoot the iSCSI software initiator by validating connectivity to the target, verifying the service console port and firewall, and checking VMkernel connectivity and host logs for iSCSI events.

Explore the distinction between iSCSI vendors and the products they deliver, showing how hardware vendors often source from QLogic, Emulex, IBM, or EMC, sometimes renamed as Fujitsu.

Explore fiber channel as a high-speed transport protocol with a five-layer stack, delivering 1, 2, 4, and 8 gigabit transfer rates, including fiber channel over ethernet and data center bridging.

Discover how Fiber Channel multipathing scales in vSphere 5 with up to 32 paths per line and 16 HBA ports, enabling higher throughput when managed through your infrastructure.

Explore how multiple vendors supply fiber channel storage devices, focusing on five hardware producers: QLogic, Emulex, IBM, HP, and LSI Logic.

VMFS-5 raises the maximum LUN to 64 TB per extent, preserves VMFS-3 upgrade paths, and enables 64 TB RDM luns, with 2 TB minus 512 bytes disks and 136,690 files.

Learn to view and create a VMFS-3 datastore using the ESX host storage wizard to add a disk LUN, name it, and set an eight megabyte block size.

Explore expanding a VMFS datastore with extents to grow beyond two terabytes online, up to 32 extents, while noting this is a one-way, temporary solution.

Learn how to expand a VMFS volume on ESX/ESXi by having the SAN administrator extend the LUN and then resize the datastore on the host to utilize the new space.

Learn how to defragment virtual machine disks inside vSphere, why VMFS on SAN doesn't need defragmentation, and when to rely on storage admins for LUNs and SAN fragmentation management.

Use vmkfstools to perform vmfs operations on esx and ssi. Create and label volumes, read metadata, add extents, resize, export, and clone virtual vmfs volumes.

Learn to configure NFS storage via the ESX CLI, including mounting and unmounting NFS shares, naming the NFS device, and comparing with legacy ESX config options.

Explore raw device mapping (RDM) in VMware vSphere 5, examining what it is and why it matters, even if many users rarely use it.

Learn to use vmkfstools commands to set up devices, create raw device mappings, and configure pass-through devices in physical compatibility mode versus virtual RDM.

Explore virtual hardware options in VMware vSphere 5, including up to 32 virtual CPUs, four displays, USB 3.0, direct PCI path, and SCSI adapters, with focus on RAM and drivers.

Configure virtual disks for a VM in vSphere 5, choosing thick or thin provisioning, eager or lazy zeroing, and SCSI or independent persistent or non-persistent disks, with OS-specific defaults.

Connect guest OS ISO via CD-ROM, power on, and boot into the ISO to install OS; clone from templates with customization, noting OSX requires an Apple X server.

Navigate the vm console and menus to manage a highlighted virtual machine, with power options, settings edits, and console access, including fullscreen via control alt enter.

Explore VMware Tools features across ESX and workstation, including time synchronization, taskbar display, update notifications, device connections, event-driven scripts, security considerations, and the shrink feature for Windows.

Install VMware tools to improve mouse control and performance, enable hardware acceleration, and set system performance to best performance, then reboot for finalizing improvements.

Clones create exact duplicates of a VM with identical data, powered on or off; templates convert VMs to templates that cannot be powered on, with the .mtx extension.

Demonstrates template provisioning by cloning a virtual machine to a template, then deploying and customizing a virtual machine from that template using the customization wizard.

Download and import virtual appliances from vmware.com/appliances, featuring pre-configured virtual machines such as databases, web servers, and firewalls; VMware offers up to eight free appliances with the right license.

Export the virtual machine to the OVF format, a cross-platform standard for virtualization. OVF package can be imported by Hyper-V or distributed as three files or a single file.

Explore VMware converter in topic 4 of the VMware vSphere 5 ultimate bootcamp, focusing on P2V and V2V conversions.

Explore VMware converter sources, including standalone and integrated options, to convert powered-off or powered-on physical machines and virtual machines across Hyper-V and VMware environments.

Discover the standalone VMware vCenter Converter 5, enabling hot, physical-to-virtual cloning with on-the-fly disk resizing, automated service shutdown, and local or remote conversions, plus encrypted data and Linux/LVM preservation.

Implement a four-step hot cloning process: prepare the source, snapshot with the agent, set up the destination VM with copied values and customized drivers, then clean up the agent.

Troubleshoot VMware Converter by verifying agent privileges to install and run as a service, ensuring OS support, and confirming proper network connectivity and open ports.

Topic 5 teaches you how to manage virtual machines within the VMware vSphere environment effectively.

Explore configuring a powered-off virtual machine's hardware in VMware vSphere 5, including memory, vCPU sockets and cores, video, disk, network, USB 3.0 compatibility, and device management.

Extend the vmdk file to enlarge the virtual drive, using either command line (powered off) or the GUI, then extend the partition with desart part or partition magic.

Learn to use vmware-cmd.pl (vcli) to control virtual machines and host operations through command-line actions, including vm config paths and starting vms from directories.

Explore how snapshots in VMware vSphere use delta files linked to the base VM, the descriptor file, the VM snapshot metadata, and the memory state file to capture VM state.

Register the center and log in to the web client with the center name, username, and password; view the data centers and clusters, noting certificate warnings and directory traversal concerns.

Explore virtual machine troubleshooting. Learn best practices for VMware vSphere 5 in this focused lecture.

Identify and fix vm problems by ensuring ram and disk space, avoiding resource hogging. Troubleshoot the guest os and network like a physical server, and reset mac addresses when needed.

This lecture explains security model that starts with a user or group, uses Active Directory or local service console, assigns a role with privileges, and applies permissions to inventory objects.

Understand ESXi host permissions, including default administrator accounts (root and vip user), the default read-only access for others, and managing access via ssh or the direct console.

Understand the tiered authentication model in the PAM system, where login first checks biometric devices, then an S and L, then Active Directory, and finally Unix login.

Explore how to manage firewalls in ESX, emphasizing that firewall management applies to ESX only and that the ESX site does not include a firewall.

Explore the ESXi 5.0 firewall, a new stateless, service-oriented engine that blocks all traffic by default, with most rules via the sphere client gui and nonstandard ports needing command-line edits.

Learn to configure esxi firewall in the vsphere client through the security profile, enabling ssh, and opening standard and custom ports, with start stop controls available in the profile.

Learn how the ESX firewall in vSphere 5 opens and closes only the required ports, enables SSH management, and restricts access by IP.

Examine SSH access and its role in both ESX and ESXi, as introduced in topic four.

Disable direct root logon by default, require logging in with individual user accounts, and switch to root only for troubleshooting, with all root activity logged in auth.log.

Log in as user, switch to root with su, and note that root commands aren’t logged ESX versions; restrict who can su to root by enabling ESX Shell security settings.

Protects VM-to-VM traffic with stateful packet inspection and a flow meter, via the V shield family (shield app, edge, endpoint), enabling security groups, gateway functionality, and site-to-site VPN.