VMware VSphere HOWTO
Alan Johnson February 2012
alan@johnson.org
Introduction to VSphere 5
The purpose of this tutorial is to provide a quick start guide to the basic features of VSphere 5. The intent is to shorten the learning curve for the casual hobbyist or to provide a basic introduction to administrators that are considering deploying VMware within their own organization. As such the scope is limited; however it does cover advanced features such as High Availability (HA) and performance optimization. Relatively inexpensive hardware was used to generate the screenshots; the servers were sub $500 commodity systems with i3 processors and 6GB of RAM. A Netgear ReadyNAS system was used to provide iSCSI based storage. The VMware ESXI 5 hypervisor is freely available, and there are different levels of cost depending on the capability of the deployment. A comparison is shown in the table on the following page.
In addition there are a number of kits available which are explained by VMware as:
VSphere Kits: vSphere Kits are all-in-one solutions that include multiple vSphere licenses and vCenter Server, enabling an organization to quickly and easily set up their vSphere environment. Kits are available in several editions that vary in terms of scalability and functionality. VMware offers two types of kits:
Essentials Kits: All-in-one solutions for small environments inclusive of virtualization and management software available in two editions—Essentials and Essentials Plus. Both Editions include vSphere processor licenses and vCenter Server for Essentials for an environment of a maximum of 3 hosts (up to 2 CPUs each) and maximum pooled vRAM capacity of 192GB. Scalability limits of Essentials Kits are product-enforced and cannot be extended other than by upgrading the entire kit to a higher-end bundle. Essentials Kits are self-contained solutions and may not be decoupled or combined with any other VMware vSphere editions.
Acceleration Kits: All-in-one convenience bundles that provide a simple way for new customers to purchase all the necessary components to set up a new VMware environment. Each Acceleration Kit consists of a number of licenses for VMware vSphere, along with a license for one instance of a VMware vCenter Server Standard. Acceleration Kits with Management add 25-VM packs of management products to the related Acceleration Kits. All kits decompose into their individual kit components after purchase.
Installing ESXi
Obtain the ESXi Hypervisor from the VMware site. The Hypervisor is really the core of the system and is managed by other parts such as vCenter. It will be necessary to register first. VMware offers trial versions for 60 days. The Hypervisor part is all that is required for the first part of this chapter.
Open a browser session and point it to www.VMware.com, select the <Products> TAB and under <Free Products>, select <VMware vSphere Hypervisor> and then <Download>. Register or log in as necessary.
Figure 1 Obtaining the ESXi Hypervisor
Download the ISO image and burn a DVD to create standalone boot media. Set the system’s BIOS to boot from the DVD device and follow the prompts to install ESXi.
Figure 2 Installing ESXi
Select <Enter> to continue.
Accept the license agreement and then select <F11> to continue.
Figure 3 Accepting the ESXi license agreement.
The next stage is to select a device to install ESXi onto. In this example a 40GiB disk will be used.
Figure 4 Selecting the target device for ESXi installation
Respond to other prompts such as keyboard type, and setting the root password. There will be a need to configure and partition the installation disk. After the installation has completed, the system will reboot and show a screen with a prompt to download basic management tools.
Figure 5 Obtaining the IP address for browser interaction
Installing the vSphere client
The next stage is to open a browser session and enter the address shown:
You can ignore the certificate error for the purposes of this chapter Select <Download vSphere Client> to install the tools to configure VMware. There will be other links to documentation and VMware vCenter.
Note: These other links are external links pointing back to the VMware site.
Figure 6 Downloading the vSphere client.
Depending on the browser being used there may be different options such as running the file directly or saving it first.
Figure 7 Saving the VMware Client application
After the file has been downloaded run the application.
Figure 8 Installing the vSphere client
Running the client
Respond to the prompts and complete the installation. After the installation has completed the client can be run from the <Start Menu>.
Figure 9 Running the VMware vSphere client
When the login prompt appears enter the IP address of the ESXi system (192.168.190.128), the username <root> and the password that was assigned during the ESXi installation.
Note: In this case the login is taking place within the ESXi server.
The first login session will trigger a Security Warning which can be installed or ignored.
Figure 10 Logging into the ESXi host
The first screen will pop up showing that the license will expire within 60 days (if not licensed). This can be safely ignored at this point in time.
Figure 11 Initial Client Screen
The next screen defaults to Inventory and Administration. Select the inventory icon and the ESXi host will appear in the left hand pane.
Figure 12 Selecting the ESXi host
Getting Started Tab
The first tab in the screen gives an overview of the terminology used. A host is defined here as the node running the ESXi software. The ESXi software will run the Virtual Machines that will be created shortly. It is also possible to deploy Virtual Appliances. VMware defines a virtual Appliance as a pre-built virtual machine. There are prompts within this screen which will guide the user through Virtual Machine creation or deploying Virtual Appliances.
Installing a Virtual Appliance
From the right hand pane with the <Getting Started> Tab still open, select the option <Deploy from VA Marketplace> To illustrate this function a small appliance <Nostalgia> will be used. This appliance runs a version of DR-DOS and includes some early DOS based games.
Figure 13 Deploying a virtual machine
You can ignore the warning in this case.
Figure 14 Installing a non supported O/S in a VM
Note: the appliance is in OVF format which is a standard method of packaging. The acronym stands for Open Virtualization Format.
Select <Next>
Figure 15 Deploying an OVF Template Step 1
Name the OVF template and select <Next>.
Figure 16 Deploying an OVF template Step 2
The nest stage is to select the location and format. Locations are termed Datastores and are covered in more detail later in this document. The three formats mentioned here are defined as:
Allocates all of the space and then zeros out the block on the first write. This is the fastest way to create the disk but first time writes are slower. Subsequent writes to the same block are at normal speed.
Thick Provision Eager Zeroed
Allocates all of the space and zeros out the blocks. This takes longer to create but there is no first time write penalty since the block has already been zeroed.
Thin Provision
Thin disks allocate storage as required and zeros the blocks on the first write.
In this example Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed will be used since the space is small and write performance is not a concern.
Figure 17 Selecting the Disk Format
Accept the configuration and select <Finish>
Figure 18 Completing the OVF deployment
The appliance will now be downloaded and installed. It will show up as a VM under the ESXi host.
Now 
the VM Nostalgia can now be selected and powered up just as if it were a regular bootable Operating System. that when the VM is selected the tabs across the top of the right hand pane will vary according to context so a different set of tabs will be presented when the VM is selected.
With the Getting Started Tab selected click on the <Power on the Virtual Machine> link to start up the VM.
Note there are other ways of starting the VM such as clicking on the green right facing arrow icon above the host panel. After the link has been selected the options will change to <Power Off> and <Suspend>.
From the Tab menu select <Console> to access the Virtual memory’s (virtual) screen.
Figure 19 Viewing the VMs console.
The other way of setting up a Virtual machine is to select the option <create a new virtual machine> with the host selected and the <Getting Started> tab open. This will open a screen similar to that shown below:
Figure 20 Manually creating a VM
There are two options – Typical and Custom. The <Custom> option allows the user to supply more parameters during the pre-installation phase. It is also possible to tweak the parameters later so this example will use the <Typical> option. Select <Next> to get to the next screen.
Name the VM which in this case will be a version of SuSE Linux.
Figure 21 Naming the new manually created VM
The next stage is to select the destination. At this point there is only one Datastore so this will be the location to store the new VM. Select <Next>.
Figure 22 Selecting the destination for the manually created VM
There are a number of predefined templates available for common Operating Systems. Select Linux from the radio button and then choose <Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (64-bit) from the drop-down.
Figure 23 Choosing a template for the new VM
Select <Next> and this will bring up the Network screen. Select the default adapter and then select <Next>.
Note: Other virtual Network Interface Cards (NICs) can be added later on.
Figure 24 Selecting virtual NICs
The next choice is similar as before where a choice of disk format has to be made. The virtual disk size is dependent on how big the VM will be. Thin Provisioning will only assign space as it needs it.
Figure 25 Specifying capacity and format of the VM
Select <Next>. There will be a chance to edit the virtual machine settings if required, otherwise select <Finish> to complete the task.
Figure 26 Completing the VM preparation task.
The new VM will show up in the VM tree.
Now at this point we have really only prepared the virtual machine. So it is similar to a bare server with memory and disk space. The Operating System will have to be installed from an installation source as normal. Prior to the O/S installation the Virtual Machine settings need to be edited. This can be done by right clicking on the VM and selecting <Edit Settings>
Editing VM settings
With the Hardware Tab open select CD/DVD drive. The drive can be the actual physical DVD drive connected to the host itself, the actual physical drive connected to the client or an ISO file which resides in a Datastore.
For this example the DVD used will be an ISO image on the ESXi machine.
Figure 27 Setting the boot device for the new VM
Uploading an ISO image to a Datastore
Before we can connect we need to set up a source; here an ISO image on the ESXi Datastore will be used. Initially the ISO file will need to be uploaded to the Datastore. To do this select the ESXi host (192.168.190.128) and then select the <configuration tab>. Right click on the Datastore and choose <Browse Datastore>
Figure 28 Browsing an existing Datastore
After the Datastore browser window has opened select the <Upload files to this Datastore> icon as shown and choose the file to upload. In this case the file will be the SLES ISO image.
Figure 29 Uploading a file to a Datastore
After the upload has been completed, the Datastore browser will show the image loaded.
Figure 30 Browsing a Datastore to show the uploaded image
Close the browser and then from the icon bar with the SuSE VM selected choose <Connect to <ISO image on a Datastore>.
Figure 31 Connecting to the virtual DVD ISO image in the Datastore
Go back to the VM settings and this time select the <Options tab>. Under <Boot Options> choose Boot to BIOS and select <Force BIOS setup>. This may or may not be necessary.
This will allow the boot menu to be set up to boot from DVD.
Figure 32 Modifying the virtual BIOS
The system should now begin to install SuSE. Continue to install the VM as normal.
Creating Datastores on external storage
This section will show how to add external iSCSI storage and how to create a Datastore ISO repository on the iSCSI target. The iSCSI target will reside on the 192.168.128 network.
Typically multiple connections are used with an iSCSI target to improve performance and resilience. Enabling jumbo frames will also improve performance in many scenarios. It is also recommended to put iSCSI devices on a different network than management traffic. In this configuration two NICS are available – 192.168.128.103 (vmnic0) for management traffic and 192.168.128.40 (vmnic1) for iSCSI data traffic.
Note: It is beyond the scope of this particular book to include “real world” best practices scenarios
There are three parts to creating an external iSCSI data store –
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Create a dedicated network
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Adding a software iSCSI adapter
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Attaching iSCSI target(s)
Setting up a new Virtual switch for iSCSI traffic
The first part of adding an iSCSI adapter is to set up a dedicated network. Select the ESXi host (192.168.1.103) and then select the <Configuration tab>.
Figure 33 Adding a new network Step 1
Select the <Networking link>. Ensure that <vSphere Standard Switch> View is shown. Select <Add Networking> and then from the next screen create a VMkernel port.
Figure 34 Adding a new network Step 2
The existing network is shown with a Virtual switch (vSwitch0) already added.
Figure 35 Adding a new network Step 3
Select <Next>.
The next screen will allow a choice of switches to be made. This choice is largely dependent on the network infrastructure on host machine. In this example a new virtual switch will be used and associated with the second NIC (vmnic1).
Figure 36 Adding a new network Step 4
Select <Next> and accept the defaults on the next screen. Again in a commercial deployment, it is very likely that vMotion and fault tolerance would be implemented.
Figure 37 Adding a new network Step 5
Normally static IP addresses are set up for iSCSI targets since a change of address would have severe implications for availability. In this case 192.168.2.40 will be used.
Figure 38 Adding a new network Step 6
Select <Finish> completing the networking portion of adding an iSCSI adapter.
Figure 39 Adding a new network Step 7
The new network view looks like:
Figure 40 Adding a new network Step 8
Adding an iSCSI software adapter
The next part is configuring a new iSCSI adapter – select <Storage Adapters> à Add.
Figure 41 Adding an iSCSI software adapter
Select the newly added Virtual HBA and then <Properties>.
Figure 42 Configuring the iSCSI adapter
An iSCSI target has already been configured at an IP address of 192.168.128.20 and 192.168.128.30 on a Netgear READYNAS device shown in Figure 43. This will be used as the target device for the iSCSI adapter.
Figure 43 Netgear iSCSI target console
The <Properties link> has four tabs. With the <General Tab > open verify that the initiator is enabled, if not use the Configure button to enable it.
Figure 44 Enabling the iSCSI adapter
Select the <Network Configuration> tab, and then (if necessary) use the <Add button> to select the port group that was added earlier.
Figure 45 Configuring the iSCSI network port group
Select the <Dynamic Discovery> Tab and then <Add> to configure the target’s IP address.
Figure 46 Adding the target through dynamic discovery
Figure 47 Viewing the iSCSI devices (Paths view)
Note that with the <Paths tab> selected a number of devices show up, in fact the VMware designated targets are seen through two paths since the Netgear has two IP ports. For both devices only one path is shown as active. The view with the <devices tab> selected only shows a single view. The path can be changed by selecting the device (from the devices view) and selecting <Manage Paths> and devices can be detached (Unmounted) by right clicking on them. The devices we are dealing with are the ones with (T1) highlighted above in the device designator.
Figure 48 Changing the active path with iSCSI devices
The path policy can be changed to Most Recently Used, Round Robin or Fixed. The active path can be disabled and changed to an alternative.
Figure 49 Selecting Pathing policies
Devices can be dismounted by right clicking and selecting <Detach>.
Figure 50 Unmounting iSCSI devices
After detaching two last devices are left as candidates for Datastores. Refreshing the view shows:
Figure 51 Viewing the two devices for Datastore preparation
Note: The device naming of Cx:Ty:Lz corresponds to Controller, Target and LUN.
An active Path can be disabled to force both IPs to be used. Viewing the path information below shows that both interfaces are active (balanced) on the target side giving potentially better throughput.
Figure 52 Balanced iSCSI I/O Pathing
External iSCSI Datastore Preparation
Returning to the main screen with the <Configuration Tab> active select the <Storage link> and then from the top of the screen select <Add Storage>
Figure 53 Selecting the storage type for the Datastore
Choose <Disk/LUN> as the storage type and select <Next>. From the list of devices choose the first iSCSI LUN and select <Next>. The next choice is to decide which format to use. If no legacy devices are required then the new (VMFS-5) format should be selected since it allows the use of devices with greater than 2TB capacity.
Figure 54 Choosing the Disk/LUN for the Datastore
Figure 55 Choosing the disk format for the Datastore
Select <Next>.
Choose a name for the new Datastore.
Figure 56 Naming the new Datastore
Choose either the maximum capacity or enter a capacity value for the device.
Note: The additional capacity can be added later if required.
Figure 57 Selecting the capacity for the Datastore
Select <Finish> and the device will be formatted. Repeat for the second iSCSI device (Lun1). The new iSCSI devices should now be available for Datastore deployment.
Figure 58 Viewing the newly configured Datastores
Browsing and uploading to Datastores
The first iSCSI target will be used to hold a library of ISO images and the task now is how to get them into the Datastore. To do this, right click on the Datastore and select <Browse Datastore>.
Figure 59 Browsing a Datastore
This will open the (currently) empty Datastore. Select the upload icon and then select <Upload File>.
Figure 60 Uploading a file to a Datastore
Select the file to be added from the browser window and then select <open>.
Figure 61 Selecting an ISO image file or folder for upload
Creating a Virtual Machine with External Storage
In this section a Virtual machine will be loaded from and created on external iSCSI devices from the previous section. A library of ISOs will be loaded from LUN0 of the external iSCSI device and the new VM will be stored on LUN 1 of the external SCSI device. To start with select the host (192.168.1.103) and right click to select the <New Virtual Machine> option.
Figure 62 Creating an externally based VM Step 1
Select <Typical> and then <Next>.
Figure 63 Creating an externally based VM Step 2
Name the Virtual Machine:
Figure 64 Creating an externally based VM Step 3
The second iSCSI LUN (LUN1) will be used to store the Virtual Machines that will be created.
Figure 65 Creating an externally based VM Step 4
There is a choice of Operating Systems available, the advantage of Windows and Linux is that there are ready made templates that can be used. In this example Linux is selected and the Linux version that will be used is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit).
Figure 66 Creating an externally based VM Step 5
Since the machine is virtual, its hardware is also virtual. The next choice is to select how many virtual NICS that will be used. Many of the settings can be changed later and additional NICs can be added if necessary. At this point only one NIC will be used.
Figure 67 Creating an externally based VM Step 6
The next stage is to create a virtual hard disk, details of the various disk formats have already been discussed. Here a small disk of 16GB capacity will be created without thin provisioning.
Figure 68 Creating an externally based VM Step 7
Select <Finish> to create the new VM or the settings can be edited if needed.
Figure 69 Creating an externally based VM Step 8
The newly created VM appears under the <Virtual Machines> tab.
Figure 70 Viewing the new externally based VM
At this point all that has been set up is a Virtual Machine. Think of this as equivalent to a physical server that is ready to accept a new Operating System. The Virtual Machine is guaranteed to be compatible with Red Hat 6 since we used a template and Red Hat will interact with virtual hardware that it will recognize. This also shows another benefit of virtualization in that we do not have to be concerned with driver and device incompatibilities. It also makes it possible to move VMs around to more powerful systems since they all exhibit the same virtual hardware.
Preparing the VM for Operating System Installation
Select the new VM (Red Hat V6) and then select <Edit Virtual Machine Settings>.
Figure 71 VM Operating System preparation
Under the <Hardware> tab select the CD/DVD drive and point it to the Datastore where the ISO images are located (LUN0 of the iSCSI target) and select the correct image to boot from.
Check the box <Connect at Power On>and select <OK>
Figure 72 Booting from a Datastore ISO image
After the image has been selected close the dialogue, select the VM in the left hand pane and then right click on the VM and select <Power> à <Power On>. The Operating System should start the loader and can then be installed as normal. Select the <Console> tab to interact with the installation.
Figure 73 Interacting with the VM’s Operating System through the console view
The virtual machine console can be detached from the VSphere client by selecting the <Launch Virtual Machine Console> icon as shown below.
Figure 74 Detaching the console
Other Operating Systems can be created and these will function in the normal way bridging across to the physical machine’s network.
Figure 75 Viewing the IP settings in Linux
VMware vCenter Server
Using vCenter allows centralized control across the datacenter. This means that multiple ESXi systems and their VM’s can be administered from one central location. Information about the various objects is held in a supported database such as Microsoft SQL server. In addition it is possible to link together multiple instances of vCenter server. The previous section allowed much of the functionality of VMware to be realized but the server deployment goes beyond its capabilities in that advanced functionality such as vMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler and other High Availability functions. The IP configuration of the I/O part of devices used in this section is as follows:
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ESXi host 192.168.128.40
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iSCSI target 192.168.128.20/192.168.128.30
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The management ports are on the 192.168.1 network
Installing vCenter server
The vCenter software is downloadable or it is part of a solution from VMware. It can be installed on Linux or Windows. The example following covers the Windows version. Running the autorun file shows the screen below. Select vCenter server and then <Install>.
Figure 76 Installing vCenter Server
Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
Figure 77 vCenter Server setup
After the installation has been completed, launch the vSphere client and log onto the machine where the vCenter server was just installed to. In this case the server has an IP address of 192.168.1.118 and is the client is being launched from the machine where the server is running. Specify the IP address and check the <Use Windows session credentials box>.
Figure 78 Launching vSphere client from a server
The dashboard that loads has a hierarchical structure of Datacenterà Cluster| Host à Virtual Machine.
The figure below is taken directly from vCenter’s configuration screen.
Figure 79 VMware hierarchy
Figure 80 Initial screen
Creating a datacenter
The first task/prompt is to <Create a datacenter>. Do this by selecting the link or by right clicking on the server and then from the context sensitive menu select <New Datacenter>
Figure 81 Adding a Datacenter
Rename the datacenter (in this case Essentials).
Adding a cluster or a host
The next step is to add a cluster or a host. A cluster is a group of hosts that can work together to improve availability or performance by load balancing. At this stage a single host will be added rather than a cluster. Add a host by selecting the link in the main window or again by using the context sensitive option after selecting the datacenter.
Specify the host name or IP address of the ESXi host that is to be added along with its credentials. Initially a security alert screen may be presented. Select <Yes> to continue. A host summary screen will be shown and may include already created Virtual Machines. In this screenshot – Virtual Machines Red Hat and Windows 2008
R2 exist from a previous interaction.
Figure 82 Adding a host to a datacenter
Figure 83 Specifying a host
Figure 84 vCenter host summary screen
The next screen will issue a prompt to license the features. This can be ignored if the installation is still in the evaluation phase or the license key can be added by selecting <Assign a new license key to this host> if needed.
Figure 85 Licensing
Lockdown is normally not enabled but the choice here would depend on the site’s administration policies. Enabling lockdown forces access via the local host’s console or through a designated management node.
Figure 86 Lockdown Mode
Specify the Datacenter location of the host if prompted.
Figure 87 Specifying the host’s location
Select <Finish> to complete the task.
Figure 88 Completing the Add Host process
The left hand pane now shows the following grouping:
Datacenter à Host à VM’s. The existing VMs can now be powered up.
Figure 89 Console showing two VM’s running
Accessing the VM Consoles
Consoles can be detached from the server (right click on the VM and then select <Open Console> or accessed directly by selecting the VM and then the selecting the <console tab>.
Map Views
The server features a very useful topology view which shows the relationship between each of the entitities. This can be shown by selecting the datacenter and then the <Maps> tab. Various views are possible and this can give a good understanding of the layout of the system.
Figure 90 Using the maps view to show object relationships.
Here it can be seen that both VMs reside on host 192.168.128.40. A more comprehensive view is shown in the next diagram which includes the Host to Datastore relationship.
Figure 91 Map view showing all host relationships.
Performance monitoring
A number of performance statistics are available. Viewing these figures allows the Administrator to make informed decisions about the system. It is possible to identify bottlenecks and to allocate resources when needed. Again another one of the many benefits of virtualization is that more resources can be added on the fly to deal with these conditions. With physical servers the actual hardware needs to be physically upgraded thus incurring inevitable downtime.
Figure 92 Viewing performance statistics
VMware Tools
Once a VM is up and running VMware tools can be installed to improve performance. Install the tools by selecting the VM and then <Guest> à <Install/Upgrade VMware Tools>.
Figure 93 Installing VMware Tools
This will mount the VMware tools package in the virtual DVD drive and it can then be run manually (if autorun is not set up).
Figure 94 Running the windows VMware tools setup program
Run the file in the normal way; there will be a prompt to restart the system when finished. There is a similar VMware tools program for Linux systems. Extract the files and run the program as superuser.
Figure 95 Installing the Linux version of VMware Tools
Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
VSphere Clustering
In this section a complete hierarchy will be built Datacenterà Clusterà Hostsà Virtual Machines. The system is managed by the physical server “Zotac”.
Adding a Datacenter
Figure 96 Creating a new Datacenter
The first task is to create a new datacenter, in this case the datacenter is called “Enterprise Cluster”. Select the link <Create a datacenter>. Name the datacenter and the tree on the left hand side should look similar to Figure 97.
Figure 97 Viewing the datacenter
Adding a HA Cluster
Right click on the Datacenter and from the menu select <New Cluster>
Figure 98 Adding a cluster to the Datacenter
VMware vSphere supports two types of clusters. vSphere HA (High Availability) is used for fast recovery of host failure, resources can be made available on other hosts very quickly. DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduling) is mainly used for load balancing. Nodes are aggregated together to automatically make the best use of the available resources. This first part will illustrate how to build a HA cluster.
Figure 99 Choosing the HA cluster option
The next screen presents a choice of options. Nodes are monitored by heartbeats; which periodically checks the health of each other’s nodes. It is recommended to use the defaults presented, although large cluster deployments may want to change the number of failures that the cluster tolerates. With a small scale cluster more than one node failure would be cause of concern and should really be investigated rather than trying to carry on with a major system failure.
Figure 100 Enabling cluster options.
It is recommended to leave the restart options at their default settings.
Figure 101 Cluster restart options
Virtual Machines can be restarted if they do not issue heartbeat responses within a certain time.
Figure 102 Cluster heartbeat monitoring
Enhanced vMotion compatibility is a new feature which enforces strict compatibility between hosts. It is recommended to leave this option disabled.
Figure 103 Enabling/Disabling Enhanced vMotion capability.
For performance reasons it is recommended to store the swapfile in the same directory as the virtual machines.
Figure 104 Setting the Virtual Machine’s swapfile policy
Select <Finish> at the summary screen.
Figure 105 Completing the Cluster Add process
Adding hosts to the cluster
To add hosts to the new cluster ensure that the cluster is selected and then select <Add a Host> from the link.
Figure 106 Adding a host to a cluster
Specify the hostname and credentials
Figure 107 Specifying the hostname and credentials
There may be a security alert on the next screen (not shown).
Figure 108 Adding the first host to the cluster
There may be a license prompt if the system is still being used in trial mode.
Figure 109 Adding a license to a node
Select <Lockdown> options.
Figure 110 Setting lockdown options
Select <Finish> and repeat to add a second node.
Figure 111 Completing the Add Host to a cluster process
The <Recent Tasks> panel will show the progress of the cluster configuration.
Figure 112 Viewing the cluster task progress
The client now shows the following list of objects.
Note that the VMs were “owned” by particular hosts in the setup procedure earlier. Now they are shown independently of the hosts.
Figure 113 Completed cluster hierarchy
Sharing storage within a cluster
In a non clustered environment each host “owns” its own storage. In a clustered environment all hosts have access to the storage. This means that shared storage architectures such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI SANs are used in clustered environments. Other NAS architectures such as NFS are also suitable. Figure 114 shows the same storage accessible to both of the clustered nodes – 192.168.1.99 and 192.168.1.103.
Figure 114 Hosts sharing the same iSCSI storage
The map view below clearly shows dual paths to the iSCSI LUNs and a single path to each of the node’s local disks.
Figure 115 Topology view of cluster and shared storage
The next view is a simplified view of the Host to VM relationship. To illustrate how the VMs seamlessly failover, node 192.168.1.99 will be shutdown. The map view will have to be updated to reflect the changes.
Figure 116 Map view showing node to VM relationships
Figure 117 now shows the node to VM relationship after the VMs have failed over to the surviving node 192.168.1.103.
Figure 117 Node to VM relationship after failover
Changing host ownership
To manually move VMS between hosts, select the VM and then right click and choose <Migrate>.
Figure 118 Migrating a VM
Migration can be to another host, another Datastore or both. In this case the migration will be from host 192.168.1.103 to host 192.168.1.99
Figure 119 Selecting the migration type
The next dialogue requests the node name that the VM is to be migrated to.
Figure 120 Selecting the destination node for the migration.
Figure 121 Setting the migration priority
Figure 122 Completing the migration
Migrating the machine on the hardware used took approximately one minute, however the map view took a little longer to recognize the changes. The amount of time taken is largely dependent on the hardware used and the amount of I/O activity taking place. The new map view after the migration is shown below.
Figure 123 Viewing the host to VM relationship after the migration has completed
The cluster can be removed by simply selecting the cluster, and from the right click menu select <Remove>.
HA Master and Slave Nodes
Within a VMware HA cluster one of the nodes is elected as a Master node. The Master node co-ordinates the activity between the other (slave) nodes. The master is responsible for checking the status of the slave nodes. The master node is determined by processes which “elect” the master. The HA cluster is defined as a Master/Slave architecture. The designation of a particular node can be shown by selecting the node and then the <summary> tab.
In Figure 125 the vSphere HA state is shown as being the Master within the cluster. The next figure shows node 192.168.1.103 as being the slave.
Note the states are termed running and connected.
Figure 124 Showing the HA master node state within a HA cluster
Figure 125 Showing the HA Slave node state within a HA cluster
Adding a DRS Cluster
Creating a DRS cluster is similar to creating an HA cluster. Select <Turn on vSphere DRS> at the initial screen and (mainly) follow the prompts as before.
Figure 126 Creating a DRS Cluster
There will be a choice of automation level which decides how VMs will be placed. It is recommended to use fully automated unless there are special requirements.
Figure 127 Selecting DRS automation levels
Complete the screen prompts and then add hosts as before.
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