VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Training

Today was day one on the 'VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure' training course, which I'm doing mainly because that's the only way VMware will allow you to get the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification (you can't just take the exam - the course is required). As the course is pretty slow-paced I thought I'd blog some notes as I go along, which I can refer back to if needed, and they may come in handy for someone else out there too...

Certification & Exams

• Read the VCP on VI3 Exam Blueprint
  


• http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/1714/VCP3.5Blueprint.PDF
  


• Take the VCP on VI3 Mock Exam
  


• http://mylearn.vmware.com/quiz.cfm?item=639&ui=www
  


• Book the Exam through Pearson Vue (90 mins, 70% required):
  


• http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/

Intro

• VMware Authorized Consultants (VACs) can access a tool, VMware Capacity Planner, which helps plan virtualising a data centre.
  


• VCDX Certification intended to represent a similar 'level' of ability in VMware that the CCIE did 10 years ago. Intended to be very difficult to attain. Requires multi choice exam, hands-on labs and completion and presentation of a design to a board of examiners.
  


• The HCL is three documents, updated almost every week (Wednesday). System (Server), IO (NIC), Storage/SAN.

Installation

• swap Partition size = 2 x Service Console RAM (272MB) = 544MB (No 3rd party modules) = 2 x Service console RAM Maximum (800MB) = 1.6GB (Recommended for Production Use, permits the installation of additional 3rd party modules in the service console)


• /var/log = 500MB minimum, VMware recommends 2GB.

Labs

• Accessed the 'Lab' via VMware's 'Virtual Datacenter' - actually HP Proliant DL360G5 servers in one of two physical datacenters in San Francisco. (VMware have 700 physical hosts to run education around the world). Installed ESX 3.5 using HP iLO access, from a Citrix Metaframe XP connection to a VMware Classroom 'PC' (running the RES PowerFuse locked-down Windows shell).


• Commands for troubleshooting service console connectivity (wrong NIC selected as service console):


• esxcfg-nics -l (list NICs and PCI addresses in system)


• esxcfg-vswitch -l (list NICs and virtual switches)


• esxcfg-vswitch -U and esxcfg-vswitch -L (to link the correct NIC)

Networking

• ESX has three uses for networking:

1. Virtual Machine connectivity


2. Service Console connectivity


3. Kernel Connectivity (Vmotion + Storage (iSCSI, NAS))

• Load balancing VM networking connections across multiple physical NICs based on IP Hash requires Etherchannel/802.3AD Aggregation support in the physical network switching infrastructure.