vSphere Q&A with Scott
Vessey
Scott Vessey
August 2009
The following Q&A was taken from a recent web seminar hosted
by Global Knowledge instructor and virtualization expert Scott
Vessey. The seminar explored the key technical benefits of
virtualization, and highlighted some of the primary features
available in the latest generation of VMware Infrastructure known
as vSphere 4. Features covered included VMware Virtual Machine File
System (VMFS), VMotion, Storage VMotion, Distributed Resource
Scheduler (DRS), Distributed Power Management (DPM), High
Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT). View the recorded
version.
Does vSphere offer any benefits to VMware View besides
having larger hosts?
The thin-provisioned option for
virtual disks offers an alternative storage option to linked-clones
for virtual desktops. vSphere 4 also offers numerous performance
and management improvements when compared to VI3.
Does VSphere use the nested paging feature available to
Hardware Virtualization VTx /AMD-V chipsets and what are the memory
performance benefits of using it within Sphere?
ESX
3.5 supported the AMD RVI technology, and ESX/ESXi 4 add support
for Intel EPT. Both technologies offer significant memory
performance benefits.
Have there been any improvements to the storage failover
capabilities? In VI3 there is some storage failover but it's very
much a one-way process?
The default storage
multipathing and failover policies are the same in ESX 4 as they
were in ESX 3, and are dependent on the storage device in use,
however a new Pluggable Storage Architecture is included with ESX 4
that third-party vendors can write products for - EMC released
PowerPath/VE on the same date as vSphere 4. Site Recovery Manager
can perform one-way site failover for Disaster Recovery; a new
version of SRM coming out later this year will allow a staged
failback in addition.
We have 32-bit CPUs - will this make the upgrade
impossible?
ESX/ESXi 4 only run on 64-bit CPUs.
Can VMotion be run on a network that is also used for
clients?
Yes it can, but it is definitely not
recommended. VMware's best practice is to have a dedicated 1GigE
network, or VLAN, for VMotion.
Have been any improvements for Template Deployments in
vSphere?
vCenter Server 4 does offer guest
customization for Windows Server 2008 template deployments.
How long does the upgrade take
approximately?
The entire upgrade process will take some planning, backups of
existing data, followed by vCenter Server, host, and VM upgrades.
vCenter Server will typically be unavailable for up to 15 minutes
during an upgrade, and an ESX or ESXi host will typically also be
unavailable for up to 15 minutes to perform an in-place
upgrade.
Do the limits of 64 CPUs and 1TB Memory apply over the
entire vCenter Server inventory or per host?
Per ESX/ESXi host
Does vCenter Server support management of ESX 3.0 hosts,
and can you upgrade these through Update Manager?
vCenter Server 4 can manage hosts running ESX 2.5.X and later.
Update Manager 4 can upgrade ESX 3.0.0 and later, and ESXi 3.5 and
later.
Is it easier to troubleshoot performance problems in
vSphere 4?
There are a number of enhancements to
vCenter Server and the vSphere Client related to performance.
There's a new Storage Views option, there are now performance
overview charts, and the alarms system has been improved
significantly since VirtualCenter 2.x.
Does vSphere 4 support sound cards for ESX
servers?
Sound redirection from within a VM is
currently only provided for virtual desktops accessed through a
broker such as VMware View.
Can you create a host profile on an ESXi 3.5 host and
deploy to an ESXi 4 Host?
Host profiles can only be
taken using an ESX/ESX 4 reference host.
Can you configure ESX 4 hosts for Active Directory
integration?
Yes, ESX 4 can be configured to
authenticate logins against Active Directory.
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