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

Virtual CPU and Memory Concepts

Learner Objectives

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

  • Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment
  • Recognize techniques for addressing memory resource overcommitment
  • Identify additional technologies that improve memory usage
  • Describe how VMware Virtual SMP works
  • Explain how the VMkernel uses hyperthreading

Memory Virtualization Basics

 

vSphere has the following layers of memory:

  • Guest OS virtual memory is presented to applications by the operating system.
  • Guest OS physical memory is presented to the virtual machine by the VMkernel.
  • Host machine memory that is managed by the VMkernel provides a contiguous, addressable memory space that is used by the VM.

VM Memory Overcommitment

 

Memory is overcommitted when the combined configured memory footprint of all powered-on VMs exceeds that of the host memory sizes. When memory is overcommitted:

  • VMs do not always use their full allocated memory.
  • To improve memory usage, an ESXi host transfers memory from idle VMs to VMs that need more memory.
  • Overcommitted memory is stored in the .vswp file.
  • Memory overhead is stored in the vmx*.vswp file.

Memory Overcommit Techniques

An ESXi host uses memory overcommit techniques to allow the overcommitment of memory while possibly avoiding the need to page memory out to disk.

Methods Used by the ESXi Host Details
Transparent page sharing This method economizes the use of physical memory pages. In this method, pages with identical contents are stored only once.
Ballooning This method uses the VMware Tools balloon driver to deallocate memory from one VM to another. The ballooning mechanism becomes active when memory is scarce, forcing VMs to use their own paging areas.
Memory compression This method tries to reclaim some memory performance when memory contention is high.
Host-level SSD swapping Use of a solid-state drive on the ESXi host for a host cache swap file might increase performance.
VM memory paging to disk Using VMkernel swap space is the last resort because of poor performance.

Configuring Multicore VMs

 

You can build VMs with multiple virtual CPUs (vCPUs). The number of vCPUs that you configure for a single VM depends on the physical architecture of the ESXi host.

About Hyperthreading

With hyperthreading, a core can execute two threads or sets of instructions at the same time.

  • Hyperthreading provides more scheduler throughput.
  • Hyperthreading is enabled by default. To enable hyperthreading:
  • Verify that the host system supports hyperthreading.
  • Enable hyperthreading in the system BIOS.
  • Ensure that hyperthreading for the ESXi host is turned on.

CPU Load Balancing

The VMkernel balances processor time to guarantee that the load is spread smoothly across processor cores in the system.

Review of Learner Objectives

After completing this Virtual CPU and Memory Concepts lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

  • Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment
  • Recognize techniques for addressing memory resource overcommitment
  • Identify additional technologies that improve memory usage
  • Describe how VMware Virtual SMP works
  • Explain how the VMkernel uses hyperthreading
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