THE ONLY AUTHORITATIVE, COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO VSPHERE STORAGE IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial–but it can be extremely complex. Now, the leading VMware expert on storage completely demystifies the "black box" of vSphere storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. You’ll gain the deep understanding you need to make better storage decisions, solve problems, and keep problems from occurring in the first place. Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. With more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for both planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage. Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0 fully explains each storage connectivity choice and protocol supported by VMware, introduces Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), and shows how to build on PSA with multipathing, failover, and ALUA. It thoroughly introduces Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and VMDirectPath I/O, and shows how to drive powerful improvements in performance, flexibility, and manageability with VMFS 5 and VAAI. COVERAGE INCLUDES Understanding how FC, FCoE, and iSCSI interact with VMware vSphere 5 Implementing specific VMware capabilities on storage hardware from each leading vendor Avoiding, recognizing, and fixing misconfigurations and other problems Using third-party MPIO plug-ins certified with vSphere 5 and PSA Maximizing availability through multipathing and failover Implementing fixed and round-robin multipathing on arrays with ALUA support Monitoring and optimizing virtual storage performance Managing vSphere-compatible file systems: VMFS and NFS Taking full advantage of VMDirectPath I/O Implementing heterogeneous storage configurations Presenting abstracted storage through virtual disks and Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) Using VMFS 5 to simplify management and improve scalability in large-scale environments Sharing storage and migrating more easily across multiple VMware vSphere instances Optimizing storage performance with VAAI-compliant devices Mostafa Khalil, Senior Staff Engineer with VMware Global Support Services, specializes in storage integration for virtual environments. He has worked for VMware for 13 years and supported all VMware virtualization products since Workstation for Linux 1.0 beta. Khalil has worked on most enterprise storage vendors’ solutions and received engineering-level training for many of them. He has presented at every VMworld, and at VMware Partner Exchange, VMware User Group, and USENIX. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-79993-7 ISBN-10: 0-321-79993-3

Offers a comprehensive look at VMware technology, how to implement it, and how to make the most of what it offers.

This book is a practical, hands-on guide that will help you learn everything you need to know to administer your environment with VMware vCenter Server. Throughout the book, there are best practices and useful tips and tricks which can be used for day-to-day tasks.If you are an administrator or a technician starting with VMware, with little or no knowledge of virtualization products, this book is ideal for you. Even if you are an IT professional looking to expand your existing environment, you will be able to use this book to help you improve the management of these environments. IT managers will find it helpful in terms of improving cost efficiency, ensuring required levels of service and utilising its excellent reporting abilities.

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Now fully updated: The authoritative, comprehensive guide to vSphere 6 storage implementation and management Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial—but it can be extremely complex. Now, VMware’s leading storage expert thoroughly demystifies the “black box” of vSphere 6 storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. Drawing on more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage. Storage Design and Implementation in vSphere 6, Second Edition will give you the deep understanding you need to make better upfront storage decisions, quickly solve problems if they arise, and keep them from occurring in the first place. Coverage includes: Planning and implementing Fibre Channel, FCoE, and iSCSI storage in vSphere virtualized environments Implementing vSphere Pluggable Storage Architecture native multipathing, SATP, PSP, plug-ins, rules, registration, and more Working with Active/Passive and Pseudo-Active/Active ALUA SCSI-3 storage arrays Maximizing availability with multipathing and failover Improving efficiency and value by unifying and centrally managing heterogeneous storage configurations Understanding Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and designing storage to take advantage of them Implementing VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) to maximize performance and resource utilization Working with virtual disks and raw device mappings (RDMs) Managing snapshots in VMFS and Virtual Volumes environments Implementing and administering NFS, VAAI, Storage vMotion, VisorFS, and VASA Integrating VSAN core and advanced features Using Virtual Volumes to streamline storage operations and gain finer VM-level control over external storage

Evolve to a virtual network infrastructure using VMware vSphere 4 Design and deploy a high-performance cloud-based enterprise IT platform with guidance from a VMware expert. Featuring tips, techniques, and best practices, VMware vSphere 4 Implementation explains how to dramatically cut hardware costs, maximize computing power, and centralize system administration. Configure hardware and storage devices, build virtual machines and networks, install guest operating systems, and import physical machines. Security, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and system updates are also covered in this comprehensive resource. Perform a clean VMware vSphere 4 install or migrate existing systems Build Distributed Virtual Networks using DvSwitches and VMotion Manage SAN, NAS, iSCSI, and fiber channel storage devices Construct VM and provision new copies of Windows/Linux from vCenter Automate server maintenance with the Distributed Resource Scheduler Set up multiple security zones, users, permissions, roles, and privileges Maximize uptime using VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance Work with VMware Consolidated Backup, vDR, and Update Manager Mike Laverick is a VMware Forum moderator and member of the London VMware User Group steering committee. He is the sole author of the virtualization website/blog, RTFM Education. Mike recently received the vExperts Award from VMware.

As part of the highly acclaimed Mastering series from Sybex, this book offers a comprehensive look at VMware vSphere 4, how to implement it, and how to make the most of what it offers. Coverage Includes: Shows administrators how to use VMware to realize significant savings in hardware costs while still providing adequate "servers" for their users Demonstrates how to partition a physical server into several virtual machines, reducing the overall server footprint within the operations center Explains how VMware subsumes a network to centralize and simplify its management, thus alleviating the effects of "virtual server sprawl" Now that virtualization is a key cost-saving strategy, Mastering VMware vSphere 4 is the strategic guide you need to maximize the opportunities.

If you want to gain insight into the real-world uses of VMware ESX and ESXi, this book provides scores of step-by-step solutions for working with these products in a wide range of network environments. You'll not only learn the basics -- how to pool resources from hardware servers, computer clusters, networks, and storage, and then distribute them among virtual machines -- but also the stumbling blocks you'll encounter when you monitor systems, troubleshoot problems, and deal with security. In addition to the recipes, VMware Cookbook includes background information to help you determine your virtualization needs. You'll come to view VMware as part of the real environment, alongside operating systems, storage, and logical and physical network components. Follow best practices for installing VMware in your environment Discover how to secure and monitor your network Understand disk storage implementation and configuration Learn resource management using the distributed resource scheduler, shares, and resource pools Configure logical and physical networks Learn how to clone and migrate servers Gain valuable tips for configuration and fine-tuning Many resources can teach you about virtualization and the basics of VMware. This book is for system administrators who are ready to go beyond an introduction.