E-Guide

Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

VMwares virtualization platform, vSphere 5 already builds on a solid foundation of VMware vSphere. For this reason along with the growth of cloud computing you must become familiar with the capabilities of vSphere. In this expert e-guide from SearchVMware.com, discover how to use vSphere 5 as a private cloud platform. And get a refresher on VM performance monitoring features. Plus, gain access to a checklist for troubleshooting.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

E-Guide

Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

Table of Contents
Vmware vSphere beginners guide About AMD

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

VMware vSphere beginners guide

By Alyssa Wood, Associate Site Editor The latest version of VMwares virtualization platform, vSphere 5, builds on the already solid foundation of VMware vSphere. With the growth of cloud computing and the move from ESX to ESXi, the time is ripe to refresh your VMware vSphere knowledge. VMware vSphere 4.1 improved VMware High Availability (HA) and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and added I/O control and memory compression. Other highlights of VMware vSphere include built-in virtual machine (VM) performance monitoring tools, vShield Zones, VMsafe application programming interfaces (APIs), Storage vMotion integration, vStorage thin provisioning and Fault Tolerance. Now, VMware vSphere 5 offers new storage management features and host-based replication. This version is also the first without the ESX hypervisor, because VMware is focusing solely on ESXi from here on out. Our VMware vSphere guide provides you with resources on the newest features and the most important changes that have come about since vSphere 4.1 and vSphere 5. Going forward: VMware vSphere 5 and the cloud VMware released vSphere 5, with plenty of new features. VSphere 5 saw many changes to the overall platform and improved automation and granular controls. Plus, this version relies on ESXi. With the latest version out, its also important to understand how you can use VMware vSphere to create a private cloud. VMware vSphere 5: Special report After months of vSphere 5 speculation, VMware unveiled its new server virtualization platform, which focuses on scalability and automation. VSphere 5 supports VMs with up to 1 TB of RAM and 32 virtual CPUs. Plus, VMware extended its Distributed Resource Scheduler technology to storage, where it will automatically load-balance overloaded disks using Storage vMotion.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

Using VMware vSphere as a private cloud computing platform VMware designed vSphere to be a private cloud computing platform. VSphere resource controls help distribute workloads dynamically and allocate to VMs on an as-needed basis. VSphere also includes many APIs and scripts for automation, and you can use Lab Manager, Lifecycle Manager and vCloud Director for higher levels of self service -- a key tenet of the cloud. Security is always a major concern for cloud users, but VMware vSphere has built-in security controls through features such as vShield Zones. Boosting VM performance and monitoring with VMware vSphere With VMware vSphere, performance is paramount. To optimize VM performance, vSphere has built-in monitoring tools that can prevent resource bottlenecks and monitor the VM, host, networking and storage traffic. VMware vSphere 4.1 also amped up the platforms HA and DRS features to improve VM performance. Maximizing VMware vSphere 4 performance The first key to boosting VM performance with VMware vSphere is getting the right VM-tohost ratio. Then, use DRS to allocate resources to high-priority VMs. Also remember that activities in your guest operating system can affect host and VM performance. For instance, you wouldnt want to run antivirus software or a backup service on all 10 hosts in one cluster at one time. VMware vSpheres built-in performance monitoring tools If youre VMs run Windows, you can use Perfmon for VM performance monitoring. The VMware vSphere Client helps monitor performance outside VMs -- in clusters or hosts. Another monitoring tool, resxtop, runs remotely and can connect to both ESX and ESXi hosts. Lastly, vCenter Server alarms alert you to problems and allow you specify the length of time for which a condition must persist before it triggers an alert.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

VMware boosts VM performance with vSphere 4.1 VMware vSphere 4.1 added Storage I/O Control, which allows admins to control shared I/O among VMs on one host. This feature ensures that one VM wont hog throughput and weaken VM performance for all the guests on one host. VSphere also offers Network I/O Control for distributed vSwitches, allowing you to control the aggregated bandwidth for different traffic types. Another feature, memory compression, takes blocks of memory that haven't been used recently and compresses the data to recoup the memory blocks to the wider system. VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS clustering improvements Throughout its evolution, VMware vSphere has made a few changes to its availability features and DRS. VSphere 4.1 added a health status report to High Availability clusters and improved the algorithm that connects HA and DRS. VMware also overhauled Fault Tolerance in recent years, increasing the throughput and decreasing the CPU overhead in the network logging process, as well as improving the integration with DRS. Utilizing vSphere features, resource controls for VM priority In VMware vSphere, you can set memory and CPU amounts using resource controls called shares, limits and reservations. Shares assign a level of importance to each VM, limits provide a maximum CPU and memory amount that a VM can use, and reservations guarantee that the VM always gets the amount of resources it needs. In server clusters, you can create resource pools that allocate CPU and memory from hosts to VMs. How it all started: VSphere features and requirements Since its early days, VMware vSphere has provided stability, availability and security. But its licensing, pricing and installation requirements werent always so clear -- and vSphere 5 brought more licensing changes. Its easy to get lost in the details of VMware vSpheres many features, so sometimes you just need a refresher.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

VMware vSphere 5 licensing sets virtual RAM limits VMwares new licensing model for vSphere 5 limits the amount of virtual RAM available to VMs, regardless of the hosts physical memory. VMware vSphere 5 licensing changes probably wont add costs for most organizations, but it could change consolidation ratios and the use of advanced features in some shops. VMware vSphere: Got 64-bit hardware? VMware vSphere only runs on 64-bit CPU hardware, so you need to make sure your hardware has 64-bit capable CPUs. Use tools such as VMwares CPU Identification Utility to determine whether you have 64-bit CPUs, and remember that they can still run either 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems and applications. VStorage thin-provisioned disks and the Cisco Nexus vSwitch With VMware vSpheres vStorage thin provisioning feature, you can provision disk space without wasting unused space. To easily convert your existing disks to thin-provisioned disks, use Storage vMotion to simply move them to another data store. VMware vSphere also integrates with Ciscos Nexus vSwitch. It comes in every installation of ESX and ESXi and unlocks once youre licensed for the vSwitch. VMware troubleshooting done right VMware troubleshooting can be tedious and difficult, because an enterprise vSphere infrastructure is made up of multiple, complex pieces of hardware and software. As such, many companies purchase VMware Support and Subscription packages to hedge against their IT departments' inability to solve virtualization issues. So how should you go about VMware troubleshooting? When should you place a call to VMware? Follow the steps below to get the quickest and easiest solutions to your vSphere problems.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

VMware troubleshooting step one: Isolate the problem Let's say that a junior admin says that everything in the virtual infrastructure has gone down. (Don't you love that one?) Before you point the finger at vSphere, you need to isolate the problem. Check the storage. Most virtual machines (VMs) are stored on a storage area network or network-attached storage. If the storage is unavailable, the VMs typically freeze. When there is a large outage, there is a good chance that it's related to the storage, which is a single point of failure in many environments. Check the network. The network can also be a single point of failure. If the core network switch has lost power or is locked up, connectivity to the virtual infrastructure is lost. Also, if you use the Network File System or iSCSI storage protocols, a network outage can also cause a storage outage. Check DNS. If the domain name servers (DNS) are down, the virtual infrastructure can appear down -- when it is really just a DNS issue. Check vCenter. If the vCenter server is down, the VMs and hosts will still work, but the vSphere Client won't connect to vCenter Server. When this situation occurs, less experienced admins may assume that the whole virtual infrastructure is down. Check the hosts. If the production servers or critical infrastructure servers (e.g., vCenter or DNS servers) have crashed or lost power, you may assume that there are larger problems. Let's say that you've isolated the problem to either a vCenter or ESX/ESXi host issue. It's time to move to the next VMware troubleshooting step. VMware troubleshooting checklist Isolating problems in vSphere can be a complex process. It took 14 hours to cover it in my vSphere troubleshooting video, and VMware has a huge support group dedicated to it.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

That said, here's a quick VMware vSphere troubleshooting checklist that will hopefully get you up and running as quickly as possible:

1. Connect to the ESX or ESXi server console through the Secure Shell (SSH) remote command line, physical console or KVM-over-IP console. Then, run the esxtop command to identify hung processes or ones that are overutilizing resources. You may want to kill a hung process or tweak its resource constraints if a process is legitimately sucking down resources. 2. Use the vSphere Client to monitor the performance of the hosts and vCenter. Many times, a performance issue will make vCenter appear to be down or a host to appear as unresponsive. 3. With the vSphere Client's graphical user interface or command line, check for error messages in the ESX/ESXi server log files, located in /var/log/vmware. Some common errors include iSCSI naming or authentication problems and host connection issues. (You can find solutions to all of these errors messages in VMware Knowledge Base articles.) 4. If the vSphere Client or vCenter can't connect to the ESX/ESXi server (vCenter views the host as disconnected), you can restart the management processes with following actions: a. In ESX, use the service mgmt-vmware restart and service vmwarevpxa restart commands. b. In ESXi, use the/sbin/services.sh restart command or restart ESXi management agents from the direct console user interface. What if you can't quickly solve the problem on your own? If you have a VMware support contract, don't do anything drastic, such as hard-booting hosts or reinstalling ESX/ESXi. Your company paid good money for VMware support, so now is your chance to get a return on that investment.

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SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

Using VMware support Of course, you can call VMware support and follow the instructions. But, like going to the doctor, it will work best if you anticipate what will happen and are prepared to assist them. When calling VMware support, here are five tips to make the process as efficient as possible: 1. Make sure to search the VMware Knowledge Base first to see if you can find a resolution to your problem. 2. You don't have to submit a support request via the phone. Do it online. 3. Be prepared with the following information to get support quickly: a. VMware.com username and password b. VMware customer number c. Your version numbers for vCenter and ESX/ESXi d. A quick, specific summary of the problem (e.g., don't tell them that vSphere is broken). Include what you have changed and what you may have learned during the troubleshooting process. 4. Collect vSphere diagnostic information for VMware (or whatever VMware product you are using). In ESXi, for example, you can collect support information -- such as logs and configurations files -- by running the vm-support script in the tech support mode console. Doing so creates a TGZ file that you can provide to VMware's support group. 5. If your support request is critical and you don't feel that VMware is giving it the priority it deserves, you can escalate your request.

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Beats the
benchmark.
More cores. More virtual machines (VMs) per server. More flexibility when you need to scale up, scale down, or shift workloads around. And all at a lower cost per VM.1 Thats what makes the AMD OpteronTM 6000 Series platform ideal for virtualized environments. With up to 100% more cores2 per server, now you can run one VM per core, or multicore VMs, for maximum utilization per server.

more cores mean more VMs, and a more scalable business

More cores. More scalability. Lower cost per VM.1 Some of the many core advantages of AMD Opteron processors. amd.com/morevms
1

Based on 2P AMD Opteron-based Dell PowerEdge R715 (24 cores) @$16,546 and 2P Intel-based Dell PowerEdge R710 (12 cores) @$16,451. Both include 32GB memory, 2 146GB hard drives, RAID 0, standard warranty. R715 includes VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus 4.1 2-CPU license, R710 price includes VMware vSphere Enterprise 4.1 2-CPU license. Utilizing 1 VM per core AMD =$689/VM ($16,546/24), Intel =$1,370 ($16,451/12) Comparison of 12-core AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor versus 6-core Intel Xeon 5600 series and 8-core Intel Xeon 7500 series processors 2011 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Opteron, AMD Virtualization, AMD-V and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SearchServerVirtualization.com E-Guide Expert guide to vSphere: Tips and tricks you should know

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its ground-breaking AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). AMDs graphics and computing technologies power a variety of solutions including PCs, game consoles and the servers that drive the Internet and businesses.

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