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Introduction to Virtualization and Vmware
Welcome to the VMware Certification Package. Understand how the series is structured and how we'll cover the technology--we start with VMware Workstation, move through ESX, and finish up with Virtual Infrastructure 3. We also look at what prerequisite knowledge helps with this series, and what hardware will allow you to mimic the demos we'll go through during the videos.
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00:32:02 |
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Using VMware Workstation
Before we can begin talking about the enterprise ESX product, we'll spend a few videos talking about the core features and functionalities of VMware Workstation. VMware Workstation is your desktop link to virtualization, and it's the tool in which we'll be building our ESX and VirtualCenter infrastructure for the future Nuggets. Here, we talk about the use of VMware Workstation and how to navigate through the interface.
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00:41:22 |
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Deploying, Manipulating, and Converting Virtual Machines
Once we understand the VMware Workstation interface, we need to understand how to deploy and manipulate Virtual Machines (VM's) as well as how to convert machines from other formats. In addition, we'll learn how to migrate physical machines to virtual ones using the VMware Workstation interface.
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00:34:30 |
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Cloning and Teaming
Cloning and Teaming in Workstation are essential skills, because we'll be using the concepts we learn here when we move to ESX. This Nugget discusses the process of cloning and teaming as well as the gotcha's you need to know to do it best.
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00:21:45 |
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VMware Virtual Infrastructure Components and Installing ESX
This is our first Nugget that touches on ESX. Here, we take what we've learned with Workstation and apply it to an installation of VMware ESX inside our Workstation environment. Once installed, we take a tour of the interface and discuss some of the features you'll need to know to administer the environment.
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00:37:24 |
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Networking & Virtual Switches
Networking is one of virtualization's "core four" and in this Nugget we talk in detail about how to set up, configure, and manage network connections using physical network cards and their connection to virtual switches. We talk about some of the security options associated with networking as well as how to manage the virtual switch infrastructure using best practices.
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00:25:19 |
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Connecting to Fibre Channel Storage
Making a mock-up of Fibre Channel storage outside a full data center environment is costly and difficult. So in this, the first of a three-part series on VMware and storage, we look at a fully-deployed environment that has fibre channel storage implemented. We take a look at how to connect fibre channel host bus adapters (HBA's) to fibre channel storage, multipathing, and other FC SAN topics.
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00:20:42 |
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Connecting to iSCSI Storage
iSCSI storage is relatively easy to mock up and demonstrate in our environment. So, in this Nugget we use an open source tool called "OpenFiler" to create a storage volume, an iSCSI connection to that storage volume, and then connect our ESX infrastructure to that storage. This Nugget will help you understand the processes needed to configure iSCSI storage, plus you'll learn some hot spots to watch for problems.
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00:26:25 |
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Connecting to NFS Storage
Once we've installed our OpenFiler instance, which is based on a Linux operating system, that O/S gives us a very easy way to create an NFS storage connection to our ESX environment. In this Nugget we discuss the steps for creating an NFS mount point as well as how to connect ESX to that mount point. We also discuss how NFS and other low-performing storage is an excellent choice for ISO files and other non-VM shared storage.
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00:12:48 |
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Installing & Licensing VirtualCenter
Once we've got all four of the "core four" set up and operational--memory, processor, NIC, and disk--we are ready to connect our ESX servers to a VirtualCenter instance for centralized management. This Nugget explains the process of building a VirtualCenter server. We also talk about the VMware licensing console and how to license both ESX and VirtualCenter.
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00:27:45 |
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The VirtualCenter Interface
Once that VirtualCenter server is installed, this nugget takes the time to look at the Virtual Infrastructure Client interface used to manage it. Here, you'll get an idea of the differences between the VIC when connected directly to an ESX server compared to when it is connected to a VirtualCenter instance.
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00:25:29 |
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Deploying Virtual Machines
Once VirtualCenter is installed and we have our data stores connected, we then need to deploy Virtual Machines (VMs). In this Nugget we'll talk about the various ways that VMs can be deployed through VirtualCenter. We'll also show the use of the VMware Converter tool that enables P2V--Physical to Virtual migrations.
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00:26:48 |
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VMotion & Cold Migrations
VMotion! VMotion is why everyone buys ESX, right? In this Nugget we'll discuss what's good and what's challenging about VMotion and migrating systems across platforms. We'll talk about how it works and when it works. We'll also talk about the problems you can see with making it work between disparate platforms and how to remedy those problems.
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00:20:43 |
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Resource and Performance Management
Managing your Virtual Infrastructure well includes understanding the performance of the servers it runs on. And true performance management skills don't come naturally--these are skills you need to build. So, in this Nugget we go back to the basics in terms of performance management, and talk about how performance management tools within the Virtual Infrastructure Collector (VIC) can help you become better at understanding how performance impacts your environment.
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00:17:33 |
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Clusters, Resource Pools, DRS, & HA
These four concepts are really what takes ESX and VMotion to the next level. In this Nugget, we talk about clusters which are aggregations of resources, resource pools which are sub-aggregations to be parceled out to groups and users. We also talk about VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware High Availability (HA), which are the load-balancing and high availability tools that take VMotion and add in some complicated mathematics to calculate load across multiple hosts.
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00:27:50 |
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Administering User Permissions
Moving into the operational aspects of your Virtual Infrastructure, we talk in this Nugget about how to properly administer and delegate user permissions. We talk about the use of roles and how to enable roles to grant and deny Active Directory groups the ability to manipulate the VMware.
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00:24:43 |
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Administering Web Access
Administering a VMware Virtual Infrastructure really means playing around a lot in the Virtual Infrastructure Client. But, sometimes you don't have the client or you don't want to give that client to non-IT users. In those cases, pointing users to the web access console gives them just the access they need without granting them "keys to the kingdom." This nugget discusses the web console in depth, how to use it, and how to create console URL's so your users can have minimal access to their server consoles.
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00:17:03 |
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Virtual Machine Backup, Restore, and Disaster Recovery
Backup and restore are critical topics, and adding virtualization to your network environment only complicates them due to all the new options made available. In this Nugget, we'll whiteboard six different possibilities for backup and restore, both image-based backup/restore as well as file-based. We then take what we've learned in terms of backup and restore and apply it to disaster recovery options, discussing some ways (both expensive and inexpensive) that virtualization enables easier system recovery and restoration.
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00:35:07 |
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Service Console and Service Console Commands
VMware is built on Linux--and you can't be an ESX power user without at least some knowledge and experience with the Linux operating system. In this Nugget we discuss the basics of Linux command-line administration. Also, we'll learn some ESX-specific command line options that can run from scripts or via an SSH connection--these make administering your Virtual Infrastructure easier.
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00:35:07 |
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Troubleshooting, Logs, Review, & Wrap-Up
Wrapping up our discussion on VMware Virtual Infrastructure, this Nugget talks about troubleshooting and ESX's log files. Learn how to view log files for troubleshooting, both in the VIC and within an SSH session. Also, learn how to bundle up the log files and ship them to VMware support when you really need some outside help. Then we conclude with a few best practices to remember, and final thoughts on the series and where you can go from here.
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00:27:32 |
