VMware® Infrastructure 3 FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter 1. Exploring VMware Infrastructure 3 as Your Virtual Solution

VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) is a robust, feature-rich, fault-tolerant, and highly reliable platform for virtualization. In fact, VMware created x86-based virtualization. (Now that I got that out of my system, it's time to explore the possibilities of saving time and money with your virtualization project.)

Most x86 computers don't use their hardware to the fullest capacity because de facto system design often dictates that you use a single server for a single purpose. As I mention in the book's Introduction, virtualization simply uses "smoke and mirrors" to separate your programs and operating systems from the hardware on which they run. That way, many virtual machines use common hardware, and the hardware is far better utilized.

In this chapter, virtual machines, ESX hosts, the benefits of virtulization, and VI3 are covered. Additionally, the last section describes the major steps in implementing your virtual infrastructure.

Knowing What You Must About Virtual Machines

Making as many of your physical machines as possible become virtual is the end game of virtualization. The more you virtualize (convert physical to virtual machines), the more benefits you see, and the more you realize how reliable and stable a platform VMware Infrastructure 3 is. Being skeptical by nature, I went slowly at first, but I quickly began to trust VMware the more I worked with it.

Virtual machines: The non-physical workhorses

For all intents ...