VMWare Virtualization and Hypervisor

What is Virtualization ?
 Virtualization is a Technology that

transforms hardware into software.
 Virtualization allows to run multiple
operating system as virtual
machines.
 Virtualization hides the physical
characteristics of a computing
platform from the users, presenting
instead an abstract computing
platform.
What is hypervisor ?
A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor or VMM, is software that creates and
runs virtual machines (VMs). A hypervisor allows one host computer to support multiple guest
VMs by virtually sharing its resources, such as memory and processing
Without Virtualization
 All require power
 All require cooling
 All require real estate
 Single OS image per machine
 Setup, Configuration
 Maintenance, Support
 Clunky processes like backup
With Virtualization
 Break dependencies between OS and

hardware
 Manage OS and application as single unit
by encapsulating then into VMs
 Strong fault and security isolation
 VMs are hardware-independent : they can
be provisioned anywhere
Server virtualization
Types of HYPERVISOR
Type 1 (native) Hypervisor: Hypervisors run directly on
the system hardware – A “bare metal” embedded
hypervisor.
 VMware ESX and ESXi
 Microsoft Hyper-V
 Citrix XenServer
 Oracle VM
Type 2 (hosted) Hypervisor: Hypervisors run on a host

operating system that provides virtualization services,
such as I/O device support and memory management.
 VMware Workstation/Fusion/Player
 Microsoft Virtual PC
 Oracle VM VirtualBox
 Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
What are the VMWare Components?
Virtual machines
Hypervisor
Hardware
V-Center Server
vSphere Client
(Web / application)
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere is a suite of software components for virtualization. These include ESXi, vCenter
Server, and other software components that fulfill several different functions in the vSphere environment.
Storage
Connectivity
to vSphere
vSphere Networking
Networking Using vSphere Networking Using vSphere

Standard Switches Distributed Switches
vCenter Server
VMware vCenter is an advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling
vSphere environments. It is used to manage virtual machines, multiple Esxi hosts, and all dependent components
from a single centralized location
vCenter vs. ESXi
ESXi and vCenter are two different

components of vSphere. vCenter is
advanced server management
software usually deployed as a pre-
configured Linux virtual machine,
while ESXi is a virtualized hypervisor that
is installed only on physical machines.
These are both part of the vSphere solution.
GUI of vCenter Server
ESXi Server
VMWare ESXi is the name of VMware’s bare-metal or Type-1 hypervisor. A hypervisor is a special kind of
operating system where you can create, run, and manage multiple virtual machines. Each VM can have its own
guest operating system and one or more applications. The guest OS can be any general-purpose OS like
Windows, macOS, Linux, and so on.
vSphere vMotion
vSphere vMotion enables zero-downtime, live migration of
workloads from one server to another so users can
continue to access the systems they need to stay
productive. During the workload migration, the application
is still running and users continue to have access to the
systems they need.
Live migration allows you to:

• Automatically optimize virtual machines within
resource pools.
• Perform hardware maintenance without scheduling
downtime or disrupting business operations.
• Move virtual machines away from failing or
underperforming servers.
VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler)
•Provide highly available resources to your workloads.
•Balance workloads for optimal performance.
•Scale and manage computing resources without service disruption
How Does the DRS Cluster Work?

Distributed Resource scheduler (DRS) is a type of VMware vSphere
cluster that provides load balancing by migrating VMs from a
heavily loaded ESXi host to another host that has enough
computing resources, all while the VMs are still running. This
approach is used to prevent overloading of ESXi hosts. Virtual
machines can have uneven workloads at different times, and if an
ESXi host is overloaded, performance of all VMs running on that
host is reduced. The VMware DRS cluster helps in this situation by
providing automatic VM migration.
For this reason, DRS is usually used in addition to HA, combining
failover with load balancing. In a case of failover, the virtual
machines are restarted by the HA on other ESXi hosts and the DRS,
being aware of the available computing resources, provides the
recommendations for VM placement.
High Availability
High Availability provides the foundation for a highly available environment by monitoring virtual machines and the hosts
upon which they run. High Availability is a mature solution that provides scalability, reliability and usability. VMware
vSphere HA (High Availability) is a utility included in VMware's vSphere software that can restart failed virtual Machine.
How Does VMware HA Work?
VMware HA continuously monitors all servers in a resource pool and detects server failures. An agent placed on each server
maintains a “heartbeat” with the other servers in the resource pool and a loss of “heartbeat” initiates the restart process of all
affected virtual machines on other servers. VMware HA ensures that sufficient resources are available in the resource pool at
all times to be able to restart virtual machines on different physical servers in the event of server failure.
Template
A virtual machine template is a main copy of a virtual machine
that can be used to create and provision new virtual machines.
Typically, a template includes an installed guest operating
system and a set of applications.
You cannot power on and edit the template once it has been
created. This is by design, so that nobody can accidentally edit
the virtual machine that is used as a template.
Snapshot
A snapshot preserves the state and data of a virtual machine at
a specific point in time.
 The state includes the virtual machine’s power state (for

example, powered-on, powered-off, suspended).
 The data includes all of the files that make up the virtual
machine. This includes disks, memory, and other devices,
such as virtual network interface cards.
Clone
Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy
of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the
same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that
were configured for the original virtual machine
P2V Migration
P2V stands for “physical to virtual” and represents the process of converting and migrating a physical
computer image into a virtual machine (VM). Unlike a migration where you take the applications and
data from one computer and copy them to an entirely new platform, with VMware Converter for P2V, you
take an exact image-level copy of the physical computer and transform it into a virtual machine
VMware vCenter Converter

Standalone is a free application that
can be downloaded from the VMware
website and installed on Windows for
converting supported types of
machines to VMware virtual
machines.
VMware vSAN
VMware vSAN is a software-defined, enterprise
storage solution that supports hyper-converged
infrastructure (HCI) systems that creates shared storage
for virtual machines. It virtualizes the local physical
storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into
pools of storage that can be divided and assigned to
virtual machines and applications according to their
quality-of-service requirements. vSAN is implemented
directly in the ESXi hypervisor.
Planned Downtime: Zero-downtime
maintenance using VMware technology
 Use VMware VMotion to evacuate hosts
 Move running applications to other servers
without disruption
 Perform maintenance at any time of day
 Zero downtime for hardware maintenance
 Automate with DRS maintenance mode

1. Activate Maintenance Mode for physical host
 Automates moving virtual machines to other hosts
2. DRS migrates running virtual machines to other hosts
 Automates re-balancing after maintenance complete
3. Shut down idle host and perform maintenance
4. Restart host; DRS automatically rebalances workloads

Unplanned Downtime: Server Failure - VMware HA
Simple, Cost effective high availability for all servers
 Automatic restart of virtual machines

in case of server failure
 No need for dedicated stand-by
hardware
 None of the cost and complexity of
clustering
Common VMware Errors, Issues, and
Troubleshooting
 Outdated VMware Tools
VMware Tools provides a suite of utilities designed to help you improve VM management and boost VM guest
operating system performance.
Solution: This VMware error can be resolved very easily and quickly. To update or install vSphere’s VMware
Tools, go to the vSphere Web Client. In some cases, you can perform an update or installation of VMware Tools
without even needing to reboot the virtual machine’s guest operating system.
• VM Memory Limits
If VMs are moved from resource pools with memory limits, standalone VMs may retain the limitation on
memory. Administrators may not be aware this has happened. Memory limits can prevent virtual machines from
accessing the necessary memory.
Solution: To remove memory limitations, simply set the limit to zero. Finding the memory limits in the first
place can be more difficult. To locate memory limits, you’ll need to look through your inventory of virtual
machines manually, visit the settings for each VM, and verify whether the machine has a memory limit
configured.
Troubleshooting
 Virtual Machine Disks Consolidation
Needed
Virtual disk consolidation is the process of
merging virtual disk files created after taking VM
snapshots.
One of the common reasons for this error message
is incorrectly deleting a VM snapshot, which can
leave VMDK files related to snapshots and log
files on the datastore (for example, after you
performed the Delete All or Delete operation for
VM snapshots).
Solution: Right click the VM name in the VMware
vSphere Client and in the menu that opens, click
Snapshots > Consolidate.
Contd. …
Error: Virtual Machine Disks Consolidation Needed
Sometimes, another error can occur during
VMware disk consolidation and the following
error message is displayed:
Unable to access file since it is locked. An error
occurred while consolidating disks: Failed to lock the
file. Consolidation failed for disk node ‘scsi0:0’.
Try to perform the following actions to fix this error.

• Restart management agents on the ESXi server
on which the VM resides.
• Check the locked file with the command
• Check the hostd log file if you need to identify the path on the datastore where the VM files are located.
• Go to the VM directory on the datastore when you know the VM files’ location
• Run the command to list ESXi hosts that are locking the VM files
• Restart ESXi management agents
Troubleshooting
Common Error in vCenter Server
 vSphere Web Client fails with the error: Invalid user credentials provided
1. This issue occurs when SSO queries Active Directory and is unable to find the user account that was specified.
2. These issue occurs when the Security Token Service (STS) certificate has expired.
Solution for SSO queries AD:

3. Log in to the vSphere Web Client and click Configuration under Administration tab
4. Select identity source configured for your domain and update Base DN for users and groups to the location where the domain
user account exist.
Solution for STS Certificate:
1. Run the shell script and STS certificate will auto renewed
2. Restart services on all vCenters
URL for script is: https://kb.vmware.com/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/download/0685G00000lTiIBQA0
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What is Virtualization ?

 Virtualization is a Technology that

 Break dependencies between OS and

Type 2 (hosted) Hypervisor: Hypervisors run on a host

Networking Using vSphere Networking Using vSphere

vCenter vs. ESXi

ESXi and vCenter are two different

Live migration allows you to:

How Does the DRS Cluster Work?

How Does VMware HA Work?

 The state includes the virtual machine’s power state (for

VMware vCenter Converter

 Automate with DRS maintenance mode

4. Restart host; DRS automatically rebalances workloads

Simple, Cost effective high availability for all servers

 Automatic restart of virtual machines

Try to perform the following actions to fix this error.

Solution for SSO queries AD:

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