VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook

Book description

This recipe-driven tutorial is the easy way to master VMware vSphere to design a virtual datacenter. You'll learn in simple steps that cover everything from initial groundwork to creating professional design documentation.

In Detail

VMware vSphere 5.x provides a robust and resilient platform for virtualizing server and application workloads in datacenters. The features available in VMware's vSphere 5.x suite of products simplify the management of resources, increase the availability of applications, and guarantee the performance of workloads deployed in the virtualized datacenters. "VMware vSphere 5.x Design Cookbook" covers the design process from creating the conceptual design, to determining the resource requirements for the logical design, and then on to creating the physical design.

"VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook" begins with the process of identifying the design factors and applying them to the logical and physical design process in order to create a successful vSphere 5.x design. The key to a successful VMware vSphere 5.x design is the design's ability to satisfy the design factors. This Cookbook walks you through the process of identifying the design factors which include the requirements the design must satisfy and the assumptions the architect makes to form the conceptual design.

From the conceptual design, the logical design is created. The logical design process includes determining the architecture of and the resources required for the management, storage, network, and compute resources. This Cookbook includes recipes for calculating the resources required and determining the architecture and features to use while applying VMware recommended practices.

The physical design takes the logical design requirements and maps them to the physical infrastructure required to support the resources. "VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook" offers recipes to determine the physical resources and configuration required to support the logical design while satisfying the design factors. Finally, the book provides recipes for creating design documentation. Documenting the design, the implementation procedures, and the verification procedures are also covered towards the end of the book.

What You Will Learn

  • Identify key factors related to a vSphere design and apply them to every step of the design process
  • Create a vSphere conceptual design by identifying technical and business requirements
  • Design for performance, availability, recoverability, manageability, and security
  • Map the logical resource design into the physical vSphere design
  • Create professional vSphere design documentation to ensure a successful implementation of the vSphere design

Table of contents

  1. VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook
    1. Table of Contents
    2. VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. Acknowledgments
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why subscribe?
        2. Free access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant updates on new Packt books
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    9. 1. The Virtual Datacenter
      1. Introduction
        1. The hypervisor
        2. Virtual machines
        3. Virtual infrastructure management
        4. Understanding the benefits of virtualization
        5. Identifying when not to virtualize
      2. Becoming a virtual datacenter architect
        1. How to do it…
        2. There's more…
      3. Using a holistic approach to datacenter design
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      4. Passing the VMware VCAP-DCD exam
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
    10. 2. The Discovery Process
      1. Introduction
      2. Identifying the design factors
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      3. Identifying stakeholders
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      4. Conducting stakeholder interviews
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      5. VMware Capacity Planner
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      6. Using Windows Performance Monitor
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      7. Identifying dependencies
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
    11. 3. The Design Factors
      1. Introduction
      2. Identifying design requirements
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      3. Identifying design constraints
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      4. Making design assumptions
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      5. Identifying design risks
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      6. Creating the conceptual design
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
          1. Design requirements
          2. Design constraints
          3. Assumptions
        3. There's more...
    12. 4. The vSphere Management Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Identifying vCenter components and dependencies
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      3. Selecting a vCenter deployment option
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      4. Determining the vCenter system requirements
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      5. Selecting a database for vCenter deployment
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      6. Determining database interoperability
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more…
      7. Choosing a vCenter Single Sign-On deployment mode
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      8. Designing for management availability
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      9. Backing up the vCenter Server components
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more…
      10. Using vCenter Server Heartbeat to provide vCenter availability
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      11. Securing the management components
        1. How to do it…
        2. There's more…
      12. Designing a separate management cluster
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
    13. 5. The vSphere Storage Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Identifying RAID levels
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      3. Calculating storage capacity requirements
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      4. Determining storage performance requirements
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      5. Calculating storage throughput
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      6. Storage connectivity options
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
      7. Storage path selection plugins
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      8. Sizing datastores
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
        3. There's more...
    14. 6. The vSphere Network Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Determining network bandwidth requirements
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      3. Standard or distributed virtual switches
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      4. Providing network availability
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works…
      5. Virtual switch security
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      6. Network resource management
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      7. Using private VLANs
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      8. IP storage network design considerations
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      9. vMotion network design considerations
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
    15. 7. The vSphere Compute Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Calculating CPU resource requirements
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      3. Calculating memory resource requirements
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      4. Scaling up or scaling out
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      5. Determining the vCPU-to-core ratio
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      6. Clustering compute resources
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works…
      7. Reserving HA resources to support failover
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      8. Using distributed resource scheduling to balance cluster resources
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      9. Ensuring cluster vMotion compatibility
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
    16. 8. The vSphere Physical Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Using the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      3. Understanding the physical storage design
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      4. Understanding the physical network design
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      5. Creating the physical compute design
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      6. Creating a custom ESXi image
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      7. Best practices for ESXi host BIOS settings
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
    17. 9. The Virtual Machine Design
      1. Introduction
      2. Right-sizing virtual machines
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      3. Enabling CPU Hot Add and Memory Hot Plug
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      4. Creating virtual machine templates
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      5. Using vApps to organize virtualized applications
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      6. Using VM affinity and anti-affinity rules
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      7. Converting physical servers with vCenter Converter Standalone
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
    18. 10. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
      1. Introduction
      2. Backing up ESXi host configurations
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works…
        3. There's more…
      3. Configuring ESXi host logging
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      4. Backing up virtual distributed switch configurations
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      5. Deploying VMware Data Protection
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      6. Using VMware Data Protection to back up virtual machines
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      7. Replicating virtual machines with vSphere Replication
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
      8. Protecting the virtual datacenter with Site Recovery Manager
        1. How to do it…
        2. How it works…
    19. 11. The Design Documentation
      1. Introduction
      2. Creating the architecture design document
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      3. Writing an implementation plan
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      4. Developing an installation guide
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      5. Creating a validation test plan
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      6. Writing operational procedures
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      7. Presenting the design
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
      8. Implementing the design
        1. How to do it...
        2. How it works...
    20. Index

Product information

  • Title: VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook
  • Author(s): Hersey Cartwright
  • Release date: January 2014
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781782177005