Achieve the performance, scalability, and ROI your business needs What can you do at the start of a virtualization deployment to make things run more smoothly? If you plan, deploy, maintain, and optimize vSphere solutions in your company, this unique book provides keen insight and solutions. From hardware selection, network layout, and security considerations to storage and hypervisors, this book explains the design decisions you'll face and how to make the right choices. Written by two virtualization experts and packed with real-world strategies and examples, VMware vSphere Design, Second Edition will help you design smart design decisions. Shows IT administrators how plan, deploy, maintain, and optimize vSphere virtualization solutions Explains the design decisions typically encountered at every step in the process and how to make the right choices Covers server hardware selection, network topology, security, storage, virtual machine design, and more Topics include ESXi hypervisors deployment, vSwitches versus dvSwitches, and FC, FCoE, iSCSI, or NFS storage Find out the "why" behind virtualization design decisions and make better choices, with VMware vSphere Design, Second Edition, which has been fully updated for vSphere 5.x.

vSphere allows you to transform your IT infrastructure into a private cloud, then bridge it to public clouds on demand, delivering an IT infrastructure as an easily accessible service. This book is a fast-paced guide that enables you to explore and harness the vast potential of VMware vSphere. The book begins by providing you with a rapid introduction to VMware vSphere architecture and the major considerations for VMware vSphere design. Beginning with the essentials of VMware vSphere, it will get you started with VMware ESXi host, cluster, vCenter and patterns that are required to be applied while designing your VMware vSphere. As you progress through the chapters, you will learn about analyzing the key components that are needed for a network. By the end of the book, you will have also learned about the major factors influencing vCloud needs and have finalized the requirements for designing a vCloud.

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

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

Covering the latest VMware vSphere software, an essential book aimed at solving vSphere performance problems before they happen VMware vSphere is the industry's most widely deployed virtualization solution. However, if you improperly deploy vSphere, performance problems occur. Aimed at VMware administrators and engineers and written by a team of VMware experts, this resource provides guidance on common CPU, memory, storage, and network-related problems. Plus, step-by-step instructions walk you through techniques for solving problems and shed light on possible causes behind the problems. Divulges troubleshooting methodologies, performance monitoring tools, and techniques and tools for isolating performance problems Details the necessary steps for handling CPU, memory, storage, and network-related problems Offers understanding on the interactions between VMware vSphere and CPU, memory, storage, and network VMware vSphere Performance is the resource you need to diagnose and handle VMware vSphere performance problems, and avoid them in the future.

Explore the benefits of VMware vSphere 6.7 to provide a powerful, flexible, and secure virtual infrastructure, and secure apps. Next, you'll pick up on how to enhance your infrastructure with high-performance storage access, such as remote direct memory access (RDMA) and Persistent Key FeaturesDesign, deploy and manage VMware vSphere virtual data centersImplement monitoring and security of VMware workloads with easeExplore tips and techniques for designing a robust virtual infrastructureBook Description vSphere 6.7 is the latest release of VMware’s industry-leading virtual cloud platform. By understanding how to manage, secure, and scale apps with vSphere 6.7, you can easily run even the most demanding of workloads. This Learning Path begins with an overview of the features of the vSphere 6.7 suite. You’ll learn how to plan and design a virtual infrastructure. You’ll also gain insights into best practices to efficiently configure, manage, and secure apps. Next, you’ll pick up on how to enhance your infrastructure with high-performance storage access, such as remote direct memory access (RDMA) and Persistent memory. The book will even guide you in securing your network with security features, such as encrypted vMotion and VM-level encryption. Finally, by learning how to apply Proactive High Availability and Predictive Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), you’ll be able to achieve enhanced computing, storage, network, and management capabilities for your virtual data center. By the end of this Learning Path, you’ll be able to build your own VMware vSphere lab that can run high workloads. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: VMware vSphere 6.7 Data Center Design Cookbook - Third Edition by Mike Brown and Hersey CartwrightMastering VMware vSphere 6.7 - Second Edition by Martin Gavanda, Andrea Mauro, Karel Novak, and Paolo ValsecchiWhat you will learnUnderstand how to patch, upgrade, and manage a virtual environment with vSphere 6.7Identify key factors related to a vSphere designMitigate security risks and meet compliance requirements in a vSphere designCreate a vSphere conceptual design by identifying technical and business requirementsMap the logical resource design into the physical vSphere designCreate professional vSphere design documentationWho this book is for This Learning Path is for administrators, infrastructure engineers, consultants, and architects who want to design virtualized data center environments using VMware vSphere 6.x (or previous versions of vSphere and the supporting components). Basic knowledge of VMware vSphere is required to get the most out of this Learning Path.

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