1.6 – Describe ESXi cluster concepts
A cluster is a collection of ESXi hosts and associated VMs with shared resources and a shared management interface. A cluster shares physical resources between a group of ESXi hosts. Vcenter server manages cluster resources as a single pool of resources. Clusters can contain up to 96 ESXi hosts. Clusters can be created based on […]
1.5 – Describe instant clone architecture and use cases
Instant clone uses a copy-on-write architecture similar to that of containers, which means that an app running in a child VM tries to change a shared OS file, a copy of the shared file is created and stored in the child VM. All modifications inside the VM are isolated within the VM itself. Master VM: […]
1.4 – Differentiate between vSphere Network I/O Control (NIOC) and vSphere Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
NIOC is used for QoS on network traffic and is useful for vSAN when it shares the physical NIC with other traffic types. Reserves bandwidth for system traffic based on the capacity of the physical adapters on a host. Enabled fine-grained resource control at the VM network adapter level similar to the model that you use […]
1.3.4 – Describe basic storage concepts in K8s, vSAN and vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols)
vSphere with Kubernetes will support up to three different types of storage: Ephemeral virtual disks Temporary storage, VD stores objects such as logs or other temporary data. Once the pod no longer exists, the disk is gone as well. It persists across restarts and each pod only has one disk Container Image Virtual Disk, when […]
1.3.3 – Describe storage policies
The policies control which type of storage is provided for the virtual machine and how the virtual machine is placed within storage. Storage policies define how objects that are included in a VM are stored. There are default storage policies but there also is the possibility to create your own storage policies. You apply the […]
1.3.2 – Explain the importance of advanced storage configuration (vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA), vSphere Storage APIs Array Integration (VAAI), etc.)
vSphere Storage API’s Array Integration (VAAI) These are Hardware Acceleration API’s that help arrays to integrate with vSphere for offloading certain storage operation to an array. It reduces CPU overhead on a host. They also provide Array Thin Provisioning APIs which help to monitor space use on thin-provisioned storage arrays to prevent out-of-space conditions, and […]
1.3.1 – Describe storage datastore types for vSphere
A datastore is a logical storage unit that can use disk space on one physical device or pan several physical devices. Datastores are used to hold VM files, VM templates and ISO images. Network storage that ESXi supports Fibre Channel: FC/SCSI High-speed network that connects hosts to high-performance storage devices. The host needs FC Host […]
1.3 – Identify and differentiate storage access protocols for vSphere (NFS, iSCSI, SAN, etc.)
It is important to know that you can use several storage access protocols for your data. Below is a short summary of all the protocols vSphere v7.0 supports: Local and network storage DAS (Directly-attached Disks vSAN will transform internal storage of your ESXi host into shared storage NFS 3 and NFS 4.1 SCSI, IDE, SATA, […]
1.2 – Describe vCenter Server topology
The vCenter Server is deployed as a self-contained appliance or VCSA and all services run in a single machine. This opposed to the previous versions of vcenter which created an external platform services controller PSC. If you are upgrading to the latest version of vCenter you can use a tool called vCenter Server Converge Tool […]
1.1 – Identify the pre-requisites and components for a vSphere implementation
The components of a vSphere implementation The ESXi server is a hypervisor which virtualizes compute physical resources. The vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller is the central plane of management to manage multiple ESXi’s and VM’s running on them The VMware Update Manager provides an easy solution to manage patches or updates in your ESXi […]
