Course Content
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage Content
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Course Introduction
Introduction to vSphere and the Software Defined Data Center
As a vSphere administrator, you must be familiar with the components on which vSphere is based. You must also understand the following concepts: Virtualization, the role of the ESXi hypervisor in virtualization and virtual machines Fundamental vSphere components and the use of vSphere in the software-defined data center Use of vSphere clients to administer and manage vSphere environments
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Overview of vSphere and Virtual Machines
vSphere Virtualization of Resources
vSphere User Interfaces
Overview of ESXi
Virtual Machines
You can create a virtual machine in several ways. Choosing the correct method can save you time and make the deployment process manageable and scalable.
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Creating Virtual Machines
Virtual Machine Hardware Deep Dive
Introduction to Containers
vCenter Server
vCenter Server helps you centrally manage multiple ESXi hosts and their virtual machines. If you do not properly deploy, configure, and manage vCenter Server Appliance, your environment might experience reduced administrative efficiency or ESXi host and virtual machine downtime.
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Centralized Management with vCenter Server
Deploying vCenter Server Appliance
vSphere Licensing
Managing the vCenter Server Inventory
vCenter Server Roles and Permissions
Monitoring vCenter Server Appliance
Backing Up and Restoring vCenter Server Appliance
vCenter Server High Availability
Configuring and Managing Virtual Networks
When you configure ESXi networking properly, virtual machines can communicate with other virtual, and physical, machines. In this way, remote host management and IP-based storage operate effectively.
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Introduction to vSphere Standard Switches
Configuring Standard Switch Policies
Configuring and Managing Virtual Storage
Understanding the available storage options helps you set up your storage according to your cost, performance, and manageability requirements. You can use shared storage for disaster recovery, high availability, and moving virtual machines between hosts.
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vSphere Storage Concepts
Fibre Channel Storage
iSCSI Storage
VMFS Datastores
NFS Datastores
vSAN Datastores
Virtual Machine Management
Virtual machines are the foundation of your virtual infrastructure. Managing VMs effectively requires skills in creating templates and clones, modifying VMs, migrating VMs, taking snapshots, and protecting the VMs through replication and backups.
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Creating Templates and Clones
Working with Content Libraries
Modifying Virtual Machines
Migrating VMs with vSphere vMotion
Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
Migrating VMs with vSphere Storage vMotion
Creating Virtual Machine Snapshots
vSphere Replication and Backup
Resource Management and Monitoring
Although the VMkernel works proactively to avoid resource contention, maximizing performance requires both analysis and ongoing monitoring. Developing skills in resource management, you can dynamically reallocate resources so that you can use available capacity more efficiently.
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Virtual CPU and Memory Concepts
vSphere Resource Controls
vSphere Resource Monitoring Tools
Monitoring Resource Use in vSphere
Using Alarms in vSphere
vSphere Clusters
Most organizations rely on computer-based services like email, databases, and web-based applications. The failure of any of these services can mean lost productivity and revenue. By understanding and using vSphere HA, you can configure highly available, computer-based services, which are important for an organization to remain competitive in contemporary business environments. And by developing skills in using vSphere DRS, you can improve service levels by guaranteeing appropriate resources to virtual machines.
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vSphere Clusters Overview
vSphere DRS
Introduction to vSphere HA
vSphere HA Architecture
Configuring vSphere HA
Introduction to vSphere Fault Tolerance
vSphere Lifecycle Management
Managing the life cycle of vSphere involves keeping vCenter Server and ESXi hosts up to date and integrated with other VMware and third-party solutions. To achieve these goals, you must understand how to use the new features provided by vSphere Lifecycle Manager, namely, clusterlevel management of ESXi hosts and the vCenter Server Update Planner.
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vCenter Server Update Planner
Overview of vSphere Lifecycle Manager
Working with Baselines
Working with Images
Managing the Life Cycle of VMware Tools and VM Hardware
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage
About Lesson

Migrating VMs with vSphere vMotion

Learner Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

  • Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter Server instance and across vCenter Server instances
  • Explain how vSphere vMotion works
  • Verify vSphere vMotion requirements
  • Migrate virtual machines using vSphere vMotion

About VM Migration

Migration means moving a VM from one host, datastore, or vCenter Server instance to another host, datastore, or vCenter Server instance. Depending on the power state of the VM that you migrate, migration can be cold or hot:

  • A cold migration involves moving a powered-off or suspended VM to a new host.
  • A hot migration involves moving a powered-on VM to a new host.

Depending on the VM resource type, you can perform different types of migrations.

Migration Type Description
Compute resource only Move VM, but not its storage, to another host. For a hot migration, vSphere vMotion is used to move the VM.
Storage only Move a VM’s storage, but not its host, to a new datastore. For a hot migration, vSphere Storage vMotion is used to move the VM.
Both compute resource and storage Move a VM to another host and datastore. For a hot migration, vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion are used to move the VM.

About vSphere vMotion

A vSphere vMotion migration moves a powered-on VM from one host to another. vSphere vMotion changes the compute resource only. vSphere vMotion provides the following capabilities:

  • Improvement in overall hardware use
  • Continuous VM operation while accommodating scheduled hardware downtime
  • vSphere DRS to balance VMs across hosts

 

Enabling vSphere vMotion

To enable vSphere vMotion, you must configure a VMkernel port with the vSphere vMotion service enabled on the source and destination host.

vSphere vMotion Migration Workflow

The source host (ESXi01) and the destination host (ESXi02) can access the shared datastore that holds the VM’s files.

VM Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration

For migration with vSphere vMotion, a VM must meet these requirements:

  • If it uses an RDM disk, the RDM file and the LUN to which it maps must be accessible by the destination host.
  • It must not have a connection to a virtual device, such as a CD/DVD or floppy drive, with a host-local image mounted.

In vSphere 7, you can use vSphere vMotion to migrate a VM with a device attached through a remote console. Remote devices include physical devices or disk images on the client machine running the remote console.

Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (1)

Source and destination hosts must have the following characteristics:

  • Accessibility to all the VM’s storage:
    • 128 concurrent migrations are possible per VMFS or NFS datastore.
    • If the swap file location on the destination host differs from the swap file location on the source host, the swap file is copied to the new location.
  • VMkernel port with vSphere vMotion enabled
  • Matching management network IP address families (IPv4 or IPv6) between the source and destination hosts

Host Requirements for vSphere vMotion Migration (2)

  • At least a 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1 GigE) network:
    • Each active vSphere vMotion process requires a minimum throughput of 250 Mbit/second on the vSphere vMotion network.
    • Concurrent migrations are limited to four on a 1 Gbps network.
    • Concurrent migrations are limited to eight on a 10 Gbps (or faster) network.
    • For better performance, dedicate at least two port groups to the vSphere vMotion traffic.
  • Compatible CPUs:
    • The CPU feature sets of both the source host and the destination host must be compatible.
    • Some features can be hidden by using Enhanced vMotion Compatibility or compatibility masks.

Checking vSphere vMotion Errors

  When you select the host and cluster, a validation check is performed to verify that most vSphere vMotion requirements are met.

Encrypted vSphere vMotion

When migrating encrypted VMs, you always use encrypted vSphere vMotion.

For VMs that are not encrypted, select one of the following encrypted vSphere vMotion menu items:

  • Disabled.
  • Opportunistic (default): Encrypted vSphere vMotion is used if the source and destination hosts support it.
  • Required: If the source or destination host does not support encrypted vSphere vMotion, the migration fails.

Cross vCenter Migrations

With vSphere vMotion, you can migrate VMs between linked vCenter Server systems. Migration of VMs across vCenter Server instances is helpful in the following cases:

  • Balancing workloads across clusters and vCenter Server instances that are in the same site or in another geographical area.
  • Moving VMs between environments that have different purposes, for example, from a development environment to production environment.
  • Moving VMs to meet different Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for storage space, performance, and so on.

Cross vCenter Migration Requirements

Cross vCenter migrations have the following requirements:

  • ESXi hosts and vCenter Server systems must be at vSphere 6.0 or later.
  • vCenter Server instances must be in Enhanced Linked Mode.
  • Hosts must be time-synchronized.

Network Checks for Cross vCenter Migrations

vCenter Server performs several network compatibility checks to prevent the following configuration problems:

  • MAC address incompatibility on the destination host
  • vSphere vMotion migration from a distributed switch to a standard switch
  • vSphere vMotion migration between distributed switches of different versions

VMkernel Networking Layer and TCP/IP Stacks

The VMkernel networking layer provides connectivity to hosts and handles the standard system traffic of vSphere vMotion, IP storage, vSphere Fault Tolerance, vSAN, and others.

 

TCP/IP stacks at the VMkernel level:

  • Default TCP/IP stack
  • vSphere vMotion TCP/IP stack
  • Provisioning TCP/IP stack
  • Custom TCP/IP stacks

vSphere vMotion TCP/IP Stacks

Each ESXi host has a second TCP/IP stack that is dedicated to vSphere vMotion migration.

Long-Distance vSphere vMotion Migration

Long-distance vSphere vMotion migration is an extension of cross vCenter migration. vCenter Server instances are spread across large geographic distances and where the latency across sites is high. Use cases for long-distance vSphere vMotion migration:

  • Permanent migrations
  • Disaster avoidance
  • Site Recovery Manager and disaster avoidance testing
  • Multisite load balancing
  • Follow-the-sun scenario support

Networking Prerequisites for Long-Distance vSphere vMotion

Long-distance vSphere vMotion migrations must connect over layer 3 connections:

  • Virtual machine network:
    • —L2 connection.
    • —Same VM IP address is available at the destination.
  • vSphere vMotion network:
    • —L3 connection.
    • —Secure (if you are not using vSphere 6.5 or later encrypted vSphere vMotion).
    • —250 Mbps per vSphere vMotion operation.
    • —Round-trip time between hosts can take up to 150 milliseconds.

Review of Learner Objectives

After completing this Migrating VMs with vSphere vMotion lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

  • Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter Server instance and across vCenter Server instances
  • Explain how vSphere vMotion works
  • Verify vSphere vMotion requirements
  • Migrate virtual machines using vSphere vMotion

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