www.it-ebooks.info vSphere Design Best Practices Apply industry-accepted best practices to design reliable high-performance datacenters for your business needs Brian Bolander Christopher Kusek professional expertise distilled P U B L I S H I N G BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info vSphere Design Best Practices Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information First published: May 2014 Production Reference: 1200514 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK ISBN 978-1-78217-626-8 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Abhishek Dhir (abhishekdhirimages@gmail.com) www.it-ebooks.info Credits Authors Project Coordinator Brian Bolander Melita Lobo Christopher Kusek Proofreader Simran Bhogal Reviewers Andy Grant Muhammad Zeeshan Munir Prasenjit Sarkar Indexers Mariammal Chettiyar Tejal Soni Commissioning Editor Rebecca Youe Graphics Valentina Dsilva Abhinash Sahu Acquisition Editor Meeta Rajani Production Coordinator Content Development Editor Alwin Roy Sharvari Tawde Cover Work Technical Editors Alwin Roy Rosmy George Manal Pednekar Copy Editor Laxmi Subramanian www.it-ebooks.info About the Authors Brian Bolander spent 13 years on active duty in the United States Air Force A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, he was honorably discharged in 2005 He immediately returned to Afghanistan and worked on datacenter operations for the US Department of Defense (DoD) at various locations in southwest Asia Invited to join a select team of internal consultants and troubleshooters responsible for operations in five countries, he was also the project manager for what was then the largest datacenter built in Afghanistan After leaving Afghanistan in 2011, he managed IT operations in a DoD datacenter in the San Francisco Bay Area His team was responsible for dozens of multimillion dollar programs running on VMware and supporting users across the globe He scratched his adrenaline itch in 2011 when he went back "downrange", this time directing the premier engineering and installation team for the DoD in Afghanistan It was his privilege to lead this talented group of engineers who were responsible for architecting virtual datacenter installations, IT project management, infrastructure upgrades, and technology deployments on VMware for the entire country from 2011 to 2013 Selected as a vExpert in 2014, he is currently supporting Operation Enduring Freedom as a senior virtualization and storage engineer He loves his family, friends, and rescue mutts He digs science, technology, and geek gear He's an audiophile, a horologist, an avid collector, a woodworker, an amateur photographer, and a virtualization nerd www.it-ebooks.info Christopher Kusek had a unique opportunity presented to him in 2013, to take the leadership position responsible for theater-wide infrastructure operations for the war effort in Afghanistan Leveraging his leadership skills and expertise in virtualization, storage, applications, and security, he's been able to provide enterprise-quality service while operating in an environment that includes the real and regular challenges of heat, dust, rockets, and earthquakes He has over 20 years' experience in the industry, with virtualization experience running back to the pre-1.0 days of VMware He has shared his expertise with many far and wide through conferences, presentations, #CXIParty, and sponsoring or presenting at community events and outings whether it is focused on storage, VMworld, or cloud He is the author of VMware vSphere Administration Instant Reference, Sybex, 2012, and VMware vSphere Performance: Designing CPU, Memory, Storage, and Networking for Performance-Intensive Workloads, Sybex, 2014 He is a frequent contributor to VMware Communities' Podcasts and vBrownbag, and has been an active blogger for over a decade A proud VMware vExpert and huge supporter of the program and growth of the virtualization community, Christopher continues to find new ways to outreach and spread the joys of virtualization and the transformative properties it has on individuals and businesses alike He was named an EMC Elect in 2013, 2014, and continues to contribute to the storage community, whether directly or indirectly, with analysis and regular review He continues to update his blog with useful stories of virtualization and storage and his adventures throughout the world, which currently include stories of his times in Afghanistan You can read his blog at http://pkguild.com or more likely catch him on Twitter; his twitter handle is @cxi When he is not busy changing the world, one virtual machine at a time or Facetiming with his family on the other side of the world, he's trying to find awesome vegan food in the world at large or somewhat edible food for a vegan in a war zone www.it-ebooks.info About the Reviewers Andy Grant works as a technical consultant for HP Enterprise Services Andy's primary focus is datacenter infrastructure and virtualization projects across a number of industries including government, healthcare, forestry, financial, gas and oil, and international contracting He currently holds a number of technical certifications including VCAP4/5-DCA/DCD, VCP4/5, MCITP:EA, MCSE, CCNA, Security+, A+, and HP ASE BladeSystem Outside of work, he enjoys backcountry camping, playing action pistol sports (IPSC), and spending time being a goof with his son Muhammad Zeeshan Munir is a freelance ICT consultant and solution architect He established his career as a system administrator in 2004 and since then has acquired and executed many successful projects in multimillion ICT industries With more than 10 years of experience, he now provides ICT consultancy services to different clients in Europe He also works as a system consultant for Qatar Computing Research Institute He regularly contributes to different wikis and produces various video tutorials mostly about different technologies, including VMware products, Zimbra e-mail services, OpenStack, and Red Hat Linux, which can be found at http://zee.linxsol.com/system-administration When he is doing nothing, he likes to travel around and speak languages such as English, Urdu, Punjabi, and Italian www.it-ebooks.info Prasenjit Sarkar is a senior member of the technical staff in VMware Service Provider Cloud R&D where he provides architectural oversight and technical guidance to design, implement, and test VMware's Cloud datacenters You can follow him on Twitter at @stretchcloud He is an author, R&D guy, and a blogger focusing on virtualization, cloud computing, storage, networking, and other enterprise technologies He has more than 10 years' expert knowledge in R&D, professional services, alliances, solution engineering, consulting, and technical sales with expertise in architecting and deploying virtualization solutions and rolling out new technology and solution initiatives His primary focus is on the VMware vSphere infrastructure and public cloud using VMware vCloud Suite One of his other areas of focus is to own the entire life cycle of a VMware-based IaaS (SDDC), especially vSphere, vCloud Director, vShield Manager, and vCenter Operations He was one of the VMware vExperts in 2012 and 2013 and well known for his acclaimed virtualization blog http://stretch-cloud.info He holds certifications from VMware, Cisco, Citrix, Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Exin Prior to joining VMware, he has served other fine organizations such as Capgemini, HP, and GE as a solution architect and infrastructure architect I would like to thank and dedicate this book to my family Without their endless and untiring support, this book would not have been possible www.it-ebooks.info www.PacktPub.com Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy Get in touch with us at service@packtpub.com for more details At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks TM http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books. Why Subscribe? • Fully searchable across every book published by Packt • Copy and paste, print and bookmark content • On demand and accessible via web browser Free Access for Packt account holders If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books Simply use your login credentials for immediate access Instant Updates on New Packt Books Get notified! Find out when new books are published by following @PacktEnterprise on Twitter, or the Packt Enterprise Facebook page www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Virtual Data Center Design Virtual Data Center design principles Best practices Designing Virtual Data Center VMware vCenter components 10 Choosing a platform for your vCenter server 11 Using the vCenter server appliance 12 Sizing your vCenter server 13 Choosing your vCenter database 14 vSphere clustering – HA and DRS 16 Host considerations 16 Network considerations 17 Storage considerations 19 Cluster considerations 19 Admission control 20 Summary 21 Chapter 2: Hypervisor Design 23 ESXi hardware design 23 CPU considerations 24 Memory and NUMA considerations 26 Virtual NUMA (vNUMA) considerations 28 Considerations for Java virtual machines (JVMs) 28 Network interface card considerations 29 Hypervisor storage components 31 Stateless host design 31 Scale-Up and Scale-Out designs 33 Summary 35 www.it-ebooks.info Certification Resources This appendix will give guidance on the VMware certification roadmap and list some of the available resources for each certification track in Data Center Virtualization (DCV) Through this appendix, the reader will have a wealth of resources in order to pursue VMware certification In this appendix, we will be covering the following topics: • VMware vSphere Datacenter Virtualization Certification roadmap • VMware vExpert program • Recommended reading—podcasts, blogs, and additional books • Exam and study tips www.it-ebooks.info Certification Resources VMware Certification Roadmap VMware has a number of certification tracks and designations, which are differentiated by their delivery, difficulty, and expectation of knowledge required to pass them In the following figure, the entire VMware roadmap is laid out for test-based certifications: Certification tracks Expert Engineer & Adminstrator VCDX-Cloud Advanced Professional Professional Progression Associate Governance & Operations Architect Engineer & Administrator Architect Engineer & Administrator Architect VCDX-Data Center Virtualization VCDX-Desktop VCAPVCAPData Center Data Center Administation Design VCAPDesktop Administration VCP-Cloud VCP5-Data Center Virtualization VCP-Desktop VCA-Cloud VCA-Data Center Virtualization VCA-Workforce Mobility VCDX-Cloud VCDX-Cloud Infrastructure Infrastructure Administration Design VCDX-Cloud Governance Network Virtualization End User Computing Data Center Virtualization cloud VCAPDesktop Design Available today What's next? Engineer & Administrator VCA-Network Virtualization New release Coming soon learn more and get started vmware.com/certification EDUCATION SERVICES VMware Certification: Be exceptional VMware certification track roadmap With the focus of this book on Data Center Virtualization (DCV), we will put our attention on this area as we break down the exam types and their progression as shown in the following figure: CERTIFIED ASSOCIATE DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION CERTIFIED CERTIFIED CERTIFIED ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL DATA CENTER ADMINISTRATION DATA CENTER DESIGN DATA CENTER DESIGN VMware certification track roadmap [ 100 ] www.it-ebooks.info Appendix B Associate exams The associate-level exam was introduced in late 2013 as an introduction and entry-level certificate to VMware virtualization The intended audience for this entry-level certificate is those not familiar with or first getting their feet wet with virtualization Included as a benefit with this track is a free, self-paced e-learning course that prepares you to take the exam While not required, if you have minimal or no virtualization experience, this helps establish a foundation and improve your comfort and confidence with virtualization In addition, the delivery of this exam can be entirely self-proctored via the Internet without requiring you to go to an official Pearson Vue testing center Professional exams The professional-level exam differs from the associate exam in a number of ways The knowledge and expertise required to pass this exam raises the bar higher; this exam is not for those without real-world VMware knowledge Secondly, this exam must be taken at a Pearson Vue testing center Finally, you are required to complete an appropriate VMware training course to receive credit for having passed the exam There are numerous benefits associated with completing the VMware Certified Professional exam, a few of which are discounts on VMware Press, VMware events, and a complimentary license of VMware Workstation The VMware Certified Professional is highly sought after by hiring managers and IT recruiters alike and will help to fortify your position in career advancement Advanced professional exams If the VCP was that notch on your belt to differentiate you from your peers, the VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) takes it one step further The VCAP differs substantially from the VCP in a number of ways First, the administration version of this exam is lab-based where you perform actual tasks on equipment, validating your skills and knowledge at configuring and administering complex, large-scale virtualized environment Second, as this is a lab-based exam, this exam is only offered at Pearson Vue professional centers, which may not be available at all locations or countries Another consideration here is as the environment is a remote lab and if the link speed is slow, it can impact your ability to complete the exam on time Preparation for this exam differs from simply knowing the correct answer to knowing how to perform tasks that may or may not be familiar [ 101 ] www.it-ebooks.info Certification Resources Expert-level defense The VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) is the highest level of VMware certification This certification is leaps and bounds above what you know and takes you to being able to demonstrate beyond a lab scenario, instead requiring you to design, submit, and defend an architectural design The process consists of submitting a unique production-ready VMware architectural design Once accepted, a date is selected whereby you will go before a veteran panel of VCDX holders where you will be required to explain and effectively defend your architectural design It should be noted that not all submissions are accepted the first time The VCDX defense panels are traditionally done at major conferences such as VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) and VMworld VMware vExpert program The VMware vExpert designation, while not a certification, should not go unmentioned nor unnoticed VMware introduced the VMware vExpert program several years ago and shares similarity to the Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP) program and EMC Elect Program The vExpert title is effectively an "award" based upon your contributions to the virtualization community, society, industry, and beyond Contributions are recognized by three distinct and separate paths— evangelist, customer, and VMware partner vExperts are awarded the title of vExpert and are authorized to display the following logo: Evangelist path The evangelist path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people Employees of VMware can also apply via the evangelist path A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren't all in public or were in a language other than English [ 102 ] www.it-ebooks.info Appendix B Customer path The customer path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations They are internal champions in their organizations, or have worked with VMware to build success stories, acted as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren't all in public VMware Partner Network (VPN) path The VPN path is for employees of partner companies who lead with passion and by example; those who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to make their technical knowledge and expertise available to many This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, or even public-speaking engagements A VMware employee reference is required for VPN path candidates Nominations and applications for the VMware vExpert program were handled on a yearly basis until 2014 when quarterly nominations were introduced This designation is not for everyone and is based on your involvement and contributions to virtualization and the community or your organization Recommended reading, blogs, and podcasts Whether pursuing a specific certification path, rounding out your knowledge base or just looking to be aware of what is going on with and involving yourself in the community, the following are a small cross section of available resources from blogs, books, and podcasts you should be aware of: • http://professionalvmware.com/, which includes weekly vBrownBag online webinars • VMware Communities Roundtable podcast hosted by VMware • Virtualization Security Roundtable podcast hosted by Edward Haletky (@Texiwill) • http://vsoup.net, which includes a monthly podcast and blog posts • http://blog.scottlowe.org/, which is a blog by the infamous IT Pro and Virtualization guru Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe) [ 103 ] www.it-ebooks.info Certification Resources • http://pkguild.com, which is author Christopher Kusek's (@cxi) blog focused on virtualization and storage • http://www.yellow-bricks.com/, which is a blog by Duncan Epping, Principal Architect R&D for VMware Exam and study tips There are a number of ways to advance your skills with VMware and this is the important bit here; whether VCP, VCAP, or VCDX, VMware is interested in practical experience and demonstrable skills Build your own lab, experiment with the technology, or apply your skills in a real-world job setting At the end of the day, passion for the technology will drive your progress, not cramming VMware has structured the certification tracks to prevent certification without practical experience There's a vast array of resources out there to leverage, to learn from, and to apply That's the difference in VMware certifications You have to know the technology inside out Summary We've had a look at a part of VMware's certification roadmap, talked about basic, advanced, and expert-level certifications, discussed the vExpert program, recommended some of our favorite blogs and online resources, and also have given a few short pointers on how to study for the exams [ 104 ] www.it-ebooks.info Index A C adapters 55 Admission Control (AC) about 20, 21 policies 20 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) 23 Advanced Service Designer 96, 97 Application HA (App HA) considerations, for business critical application 74 associate-level exam 101 Auto Deploy 32 Change Block Tracking (CBT) 84 cluster design considerations, for HA 19 Conceptual Design about creating configurable storage features multipathing path selection policy, configuring 47 provisioning 47 SIOC 46 considerations, for IP storage usage about 56 storage configurations, validating 57 traffic, separating 57 considerations, network design 52 Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) 30, 38 CPU considerations, for ESXi hardware design 24, 25 performance issues, of virtual machine 64, 65 customer path 103 B backup strategies designing 83, 84 Booting from SAN 32 business continuity (BC) 81 business critical application Application HA (App HA), considerations 74 architecting 70, 71 DRS, considerations 74 Fault Tolerance (FT), considerations 74 HA, considerations 73 HA, ensuring 76, 77 other resources 79 resiliency, ensuring 76, 77 resource, considerations 75 virtualizing, considerations 69 vMotion, considerations 74 workload profile 71 D database availability group (DAG) 82 Data Center Bridging (DCB) 30 Data Center Virtualization (DCV) 99, 100 datastore design consideration 44 www.it-ebooks.info Device Average Latency (DAVG) 67 Direct Memory Access (DMA) 56 disaster avoidance benefits 82 disaster recovery (DR) 81 Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) about 82 considerations, for business critical application 74 DR strategy planning 89, 90 testing 89, 90 E EMC Elect Program 102 Enhanced vMotion Compatibility See EVC ESXi hardware design about 23 CPU considerations 24, 25 memory considerations 26, 27 NUMA considerations 26, 27 vNUMA considerations 28 ESXi host hardware 56 evangelist path 102 EVC 24 Everything as a Service See XaaS F Fault Tolerance (FT) about 54 considerations, for business critical application 74 fiber channel over ethernet (FCoE) 29, 30, 39 Fibre Channel (FC) 38 considerations, for business critical application 73 ensuring, for business critical application 76, 77 ensuring, with CPU Hot Add 77 ensuring, with vCenter operations manager dashboard 78 host considerations 16, 17 network considerations 17, 18 storage considerations 19 HCL about 23 URL 23 High Availability See HA host design considerations, for HA 16, 17 Host Bus Adapter (HBA) 30, 38 Host Isolation Response, options Leave Powered On 19 Power Off 19 Shutdown 19 hypervisor storage considerations, for JVM 31 I IBM DB2 15 Internet Information Server (IIS) 74 iSCSI 38 iSCSI/NFS 52 J Guest Average Latency (GAVG) 67 Java virtual machine See JVM jumbo frame support 56 JVM about 28 design considerations 28, 29 hypervisor storage considerations 31 NIC considerations 29, 30 H K HA about 26, 82 Admission Control (AC) 20, 21 cluster considerations 19 Kernel Average Latency (KAVG) 67 G L Large receive offload (LRO) 56 [ 106 ] www.it-ebooks.info latency about 66 DAVG 67 GAVG 67 KAVG 67 limits about 62 setting 63 Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) 51 local storage design considerations 43, 44 Logical Design about creating M management pod (Management Cluster) 12 maximum transmission unit (MTU) 53 memory considerations, for ESXi hardware design 26, 27 performance issues 65, 66 Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS) 41 Microsoft Exchange designing 71, 72 Microsoft SQL server considerations 72, 73 Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP) program 102 MS SQL 15 MS SQL Express 15 multipathing path selection policy configuring 47 multi-vCPU considerations 62 N NetQueue 56 network best practices, for implementation 53 considerations 52 design considerations, for HA 17, 18 performance issues 68 Network Attached Storage (NAS) 31 Network File System See NFS Network interface card See NIC Network I/O Control See NIOC network redundancy providing 54 NFS about 39-42 benefits 42 drawbacks 42 URL, for best practices 42 NIC considerations, for JVM 29, 30 NIOC about 53 implementing 53 non-uniform memory access (NUMA) about 26 considerations, for ESXi hardware design 26, 27 O Oracle 15 P P2V migration 61, 62 Physical Design about creating physical switches 55 physical to virtual migration See P2V migration professional-level exam 101 provisioning about 47 Thick Provision Eager Zero 47 Thick Provision Lazy Zero 47 Thin Provisioned 47 Q Quality of Service (QOS) 63 R Raw Disk Mapping (RDM) about 42 benefits 41, 42 [ 107 ] www.it-ebooks.info drawbacks 42 Real Application Clusters (RAC) 82 Recovery Point Objective See RPO Recovery Time Objective See RTO replication technologies mixture of replication solutions 88 selecting 86 storage-based replication 87, 88 VMware vSphere Replication 86, 87 reservations about 62 configuring 63 resiliency ensuring, for business critical application 76, 77 ensuring, with CPU Hot Add 77 ensuring, with vCenter operations manager dashboard 78 providing 54 resource, business critical application CPU considerations 75 memory considerations 75 network considerations 76 storage considerations 75 RPO about 85 requirements, designing 85 RTO about 85 requirements, designing 85 S SAN 37 Scale-Out design 33, 34 Scale-Up design 33, 34 SDRS 45 service-level agreements (SLA) 83 shares about 62 configuring 63 Single Instance Storage (SIS) 71 single point of failure (SPoF) 16 Single sign-on (SSO) 10 SIOC 46 Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 77 about 82, 88, 89 key capabilities 89 stateless host design about 31 Auto Deploy 32 Booting from SAN 32 storage configurable storage, features 46 design considerations 43 design considerations, for HA 19 local storage, design considerations 43, 44 performance issues 66, 67 storage area network See SAN storage-based replication 87, 88 Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler See SDRS Storage I/O Control See SIOC storage protocols about 37 FCoE 39 Fibre Channel (FC) 38 iSCSI 38, 39 NFS 39, 40 Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) 88, 89 T TCP Checksum offload (TCO) 55 TCP segmentation offload (TSO) 55 Thick Provision Eager Zero 47 Thick Provision Lazy Zero 47 Thin Provisioned 47 throughput providing 54 traffic type Fault Tolerance 52 iSCSI/NFS 52 management 52 VM 52 vMotion 52 U unified service catalog 96 V V2V migration 61, 62 VAAI 45 [ 108 ] www.it-ebooks.info VAMP 45 VASA 46 vCenter platform, selecting for vCenter server 11, 12 vCenter database, selecting 14, 15 vCenter server appliance, using 12 vCenter server, sizing 13, 14 vCenter, components Single sign-on (SSO) 10 vCenter inventory service 10 vCenter server 11 vSphere web client 10 vCenter DB (vCenter database) IBM DB2 15 MS SQL 15 MS SQL Express 15 Oracle 15 vCenter Heartbeat about 12 URL 12 vCenter inventory service 10 vCenter, optional components vSphere Auto Deploy 11 vSphere client 11 vSphere ESXi Dump Collector 11 vSphere Syslog Collector 11 VUM 11 vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) about 93-95 incorporating 98 vCenter server about 11 platform, selecting for 11, 12 sizing 13, 14 vCenter server appliance using 13 vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) about 93, 95 Advanced Service Designer 96, 97 incorporating 98 multivendor interoperability 97 unified IT service catalog 96 vDS 50, 52 Virtual Appliance (vApp) 93 Virtual Data Center design best practices components Conceptual Design 6, constructs Logical Design 6, Physical Design 6, scenarios 9, 10 virtualization, business critical application considerations 69 Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) 41 Virtual Machine File System See VMFS virtual machine filesystems NFS 42 RDM 41, 42 VMFS 40, 41 virtual machine performance issues CPU performance issues 64 memory performance issues 65, 66 network performance issues 68 storage performance issues 66, 67 virtual machine resources about 59, 60 best practices 60 over-allocation 61 virtual machine templates about 59, 60 best practices 60 virtual NUMA See vNUMA virtual to virtual migration See V2V migration VM 52 VMFS about 40, 41 deploying, best practices 41 VMFS features 40, 41 vMotion considerations, for business critical application 74 VMware recommended features, for network adapters selection 55 VMware Array Aware Integration See VAAI VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) 101 VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) 102 VMware Partner Network path See VPN path [ 109 ] www.it-ebooks.info VMware storage features 45 VMware storage API VAAI 45 VAMP 45 VASA 46 VMware vExpert program about 102 customer path 103 evangelist path 102 VPN path 103 VMware vSphere Replication 86, 87 vNetwork Distributed Switches See vDS vNetwork Standard Switches See vSS vNUMA about 28 considerations, for ESXi hardware design 28 Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) 86 VPN path 103 VSAN URL, for design consideration 44 vSphere 5.5 Configuration Maximums URL 12 vSphere Authentication Proxy 11 vSphere Certification blogs 103 podcasts 103, 104 recommended reading 103 study tips 104 vSphere certification roadmap about 100 associate-level exam 101 professional-level exam 101 VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) 101 VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) 102 vSphere client 11 vSphere clustering with DRS 16 with HA 16 vSphere Data Protection (VDP) 84 vSphere ESXi Dump Collector 11 vSphere Hardware Compatibility List See HCL vSphere switching about 50 vDS 50, 52 vSS 50 vSphere Syslog Collector 11 vSphere Update Manager See VUM vSphere web client 10 vSS 50 vStorage API for Multipathing See VAMP vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) 84 vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness See VASA VUM 11 W workload profile about 71 Microsoft Exchange, designing 71, 72 Microsoft SQL server, considerations 72, 73 World Wide Name (WWN) 38 World Wide Node Name (WWNN) 32, 38 World Wide Port Name (WWPN) 32, 38 X XaaS 98 Z zoning 32 [ 110 ] www.it-ebooks.info Thank you for buying vSphere Design Best Practices About Packt Publishing Packt, pronounced 'packed', published its first book "Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management" in April 2004 and subsequently continued to specialize in publishing highly focused books on specific technologies and solutions Our books and publications share the experiences of your fellow IT professionals in adapting and customizing today's systems, applications, and frameworks Our solution based books give you the knowledge and power to customize the software and technologies you're using to get the job done Packt books are more specific and less general than the IT books you have seen in the past Our unique business model allows us to bring you more focused information, giving you more of what you need to know, and less of what you don't Packt is a modern, yet unique publishing company, which focuses on producing quality, cutting-edge books for communities of developers, administrators, and newbies alike For more information, please visit our website: www.packtpub.com About Packt Enterprise In 2010, Packt launched two new brands, Packt Enterprise and Packt Open Source, in order to continue its focus on specialization This book is part of the Packt Enterprise brand, home to books published on enterprise software – software created by major vendors, including (but not limited to) IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, often for use in other corporations Its titles will offer information relevant to a range of users of this software, including administrators, developers, architects, and end users Writing for Packt We welcome all inquiries from people who are interested in authoring Book proposals should be sent to author@packtpub.com If your book idea is still at an early stage and you would like to discuss it first before writing a formal book proposal, contact us; one of our commissioning editors will get in touch with you We're not just looking for published authors; if you have strong technical skills but no writing experience, our experienced editors can help you develop a writing career, or simply get some additional reward for your expertise www.it-ebooks.info VMware View Desktop Virtualization Solutions ISBN: 978-1-84968-112-4 Paperback: 288 pages A complete guide to planning and designing solutions based on VMware View Written by VMware experts Jason Langone and Andre Leibovici, this book is a complete guide to planning and designing a solution based on VMware View Secure your Visual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) by having firewalls, antivirus, virtual enclaves, USB redirection and filtering and smart card authentication VMware vCloud Security ISBN: 978-1-78217-096-9 Paperback: 106 pages Make your datacenter secure and compliant at every level with VMware vCloud Networking and Security Take away an in-depth knowledge of how to secure a private cloud running on vCloud Director Enable the reader with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence at building and running a secured private cloud Focuses on giving you broader view of the security and compliance while still being manageable and flexible to scale Please check www.PacktPub.com for information on our titles www.it-ebooks.info VMware ThinApp 4.7 Essentials ISBN: 978-1-84968-628-0 Paperback: 256 pages Learn how to quickly and efficiently virtualize your applications with ThinApp 4.7 Practical book which provides the essentials of application virtualization with ThinApp 4.7 Learn the various methods and best practices of application packaging and deployment Save money and time on your projects with this book by learning how to create portable applications Implementing VMware Horizon View 5.2 ISBN: 978-1-84968-796-6 Paperback: 390 pages A practical guide to designing, implementing, and administrating an optimized Virtual Desktop solution with VMware Horizon View Detailed description of the deployment and administration of the VMware Horizon View suite Learn how to determine the resources your virtual desktops will require Design your desktop solution to avoid potential problems, and ensure minimal loss of time in the later stages Please check www.PacktPub.com for information on our titles www.it-ebooks.info ... to vSphere Design Best Practices, an easy-to-read guide full of hands-on examples of real-world design best practices Each topic is explained and placed in the context of virtual datacenter design. .. certain choices were made Best practices We hear the term Best practices everywhere but what does it really mean? Do we always adhere to best practices? What happens to best practices as technology... for the Virtual Data Center • Best Practices for Virtual Data Center design • How best practices change over time • Virtual Data Center design scenarios • vCenter design including the Linux-based