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VCTA Unofficial Study Guide – Exam 1V0-21.20 (Ver. 1.0)

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Section 1
Architecture and Technologies

Objective 1.1
Identify how physical resources are presented to multiple virtual machines.

Virtualization Basics
A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating
system and applications. The hypervisor serves as a platform for running virtual machines and
allows for the consolidation of computing resources.
Each virtual machine contains its own virtual, or software-based, hardware, including a virtual
CPU, memory, hard disk, and network interface card.

ESXi is the hypervisor in a vSphere environment. The hypervisor is installed on physical or

virtual hardware in a virtualized data center, and acts as a platform for virtual machines. The
hypervisor provides physical hardware resources dynamically to virtual machines to support
the operation of the virtual machines. The hypervisor allows virtual machines to operate with
a degree of independence from the underlying physical hardware. For example, a virtual
machine can be moved from one physical host to another, or its virtual disks can be moved
from one type of storage to another, without affecting the functioning of the virtual machine.
Because virtual machines are decoupled from the underlying physical hardware, virtualization
allows you to consolidate physical computing resources such as CPUs, memory, storage, and
networking into pools of resources. These resources can be dynamically and flexibly made
available to virtual machines. With the vCenter Server management platform, you can
increase the availability and security of your virtual infrastructure.
vCenter Server and Host Management - VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 10

Objective 1.2
Identify how virtual resources can be shared across multiple virtual machines.

Resource Types
Resources include CPU, memory, power, storage, and network resources.

Note ESXi manages network bandwidth and disk resources on a per-host basis, using
network traffic shaping and a proportional share mechanism, respectively.

Resource Providers
Hosts and clusters, including datastore clusters, are providers of physical resources.
For hosts, available resources are the host’s hardware specification, minus the resources used
by the virtualization software.
A cluster is a group of hosts. You can create a cluster using vSphere Client, and add multiple
hosts to the cluster. vCenter Server manages these hosts’ resources jointly: the cluster owns
all of the CPU and memory of all hosts. You can enable the cluster for joint load balancing or
failover. See Chapter 11 Creating a DRS Cluster for more information.
A datastore cluster is a group of datastores. Like DRS clusters, you can create a datastore
cluster using the vSphere Client, and add multiple datastores to the cluster. vCenter Server
manages the datastore resources jointly. You can enable Storage DRS to balance I/O load
and space utilization. See Chapter 14 Creating a Datastore Cluster.

Resource Consumers

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Virtual machines are resource consumers.

The default resource settings assigned during creation work well for most machines. You can
later edit the virtual machine settings to allocate a share-based percentage of the total CPU,
memory, and storage I/O of the resource provider or a guaranteed reservation of CPU and
memory. When you power on that virtual machine, the server checks whether enough
unreserved resources are available and allows power on only if there are enough resources.
This process is called admission control.
A resource pool is a logical abstraction for flexible management of resources. Resource pools
can be grouped into hierarchies and used to hierarchically partition available CPU and
memory resources. Accordingly, resource pools can be considered both resource providers
and consumers. They provide resources to child resource pools and virtual machines, but are
also resource consumers because they consume their parents’ resources. See Chapter 10
Managing Resource Pools.
ESXi hosts allocate each virtual machine a portion of the underlying hardware resources
based on a number of factors:

· Resource limits defined by the user.

· Total available resources for the ESXi host (or the cluster).

· Number of virtual machines powered on and resource usage by those virtual machines.

· Overhead required to manage the virtualization.

Goals of Resource Management

When managing your resources, you must be aware of what your goals are.

In addition to resolving resource overcommitment, resource management can help you

accomplish the following:

· Performance Isolation: Prevent virtual machines from monopolizing resources and

guarantee predictable service rates.

· Efficient Usage: Exploit undercommitted resources and overcommit with graceful

degradation.
· Easy Administration: Control the relative importance of virtual machines, provide flexible
dynamic partitioning, and meet absolute service-level agreements.
vSphere Resource Management – Vmware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 11

Objective 1.3
Identify examples of type 1 and type 2 hypervisors.

What is a hypervisor?
A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor or VMM, is software that creates and
runs virtual machines (VMs). A hypervisor allows one host computer to support multiple guest
VMs by virtually sharing its resources, such as memory and processing.

Why use a hypervisor?

Hypervisors make it possible to use more of a system’s available resources and provide
greater IT mobility since the guest VMs are independent of the host hardware. This means

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they can be easily moved between different servers. Because multiple virtual machines can
run off of one physical server with a hypervisor, a hypervisor reduces:

· Space
· Energy
· Maintenance requirements

Types of hypervisors
There are two main hypervisor types, referred to as “Type 1” (or “bare metal”) and “Type 2”
(or “hosted”). A type 1 hypervisor acts like a lightweight operating system and runs directly
on the host’s hardware, while a type 2 hypervisor runs as a software layer on an operating
system, like other computer programs.

The most commonly deployed type of hypervisor is the type 1 or bare-metal hypervisor,
where virtualization software is installed directly on the hardware where the operating system
is normally installed. Because bare-metal hypervisors are isolated from the attack-prone
operating system, they are extremely secure. In addition, they generally perform better and
more efficiently than hosted hypervisors. For these reasons, most enterprise companies
choose bare-metal hypervisors for data center computing needs.

While bare-metal hypervisors run directly on the computing hardware, hosted hypervisors run
on top of the operating system (OS) of the host machine. Although hosted hypervisors run
within the OS, additional (and different) operating systems can be installed on top of the
hypervisor. The downside of hosted hypervisors is that latency is higher than bare-metal
hypervisors. This is because communication between the hardware and the hypervisor must
pass through the extra layer of the OS. Hosted hypervisors are sometimes known as client
hypervisors because they are most often used with end users and software testing, where
higher latency is less of a concern.

Hardware acceleration technology can create and manage virtual resources faster by
boosting processing speed for both bare-metal and hosted hypervisors. A type of hardware
accelerator known as a virtual Dedicated Graphics Accelerator (vDGA) takes care of sending
and refreshing high-end 3-D graphics. This frees up the main system for other tasks and
greatly increases the display speed of images. For industries such as oil and gas exploration,
where there is a need to quickly visualize complex data, this technology can be very useful.
Both types of hypervisors can run multiple virtual servers for multiple tenants on one physical
machine. Public cloud service providers lease server space on the different virtual servers to
different companies. One server might host several virtual servers that are all running
workloads for different companies. This type of resource sharing can result in a “noisy
neighbor” effect, when one of the tenants runs a large workload that interferes with the
server performance for other tenants. It also poses more of a security risk than using a
dedicated bare-metal server.

A bare-metal server that a single company has full control over will always provide higher
performance than a virtual server that is sharing a physical server’s bandwidth, memory and
processing power with other virtual servers. The hardware for bare-metal servers can also be
optimized to increase performance, which is not the case with shared public servers.
Businesses that need to comply with regulations that require physical separation of resources
will need to use their own bare-metal servers that do not share resources with other tenants.

What is a cloud hypervisor?

As cloud computing becomes pervasive, the hypervisor has emerged as an invaluable tool for
running virtual machines and driving innovation in a cloud environment. Since a hypervisor is a
software layer that enables one host computer to simultaneously support multiple VMs,
hypervisors are a key element of the technology that makes cloud computing possible.
Hypervisors make cloud-based applications available to users across a virtual environment

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while still enabling IT to maintain control over a cloud environment’s infrastructure,
applications and sensitive data.

Digital transformation and rising customer expectations are driving greater reliance on
innovative applications. In response, many enterprises are migrating their virtual machines to
the cloud. However, having to rewrite every existing application for the cloud can consume
precious IT resources and lead to infrastructure silos. Fortunately, as an integral part of a
virtualization platform, a hypervisor can help migrate applications to the cloud quickly. As a
result, enterprises can reap the cloud’s many benefits, including reduced hardware
expenditures, increased accessibility and greater scalability, for a faster return on investment.

How does a hypervisor work?

Hypervisors support the creation and management of virtual machines (VMs) by abstracting a
computer’s software from its hardware. Hypervisors make virtualization possible by
translating requests between the physical and virtual resources. Bare-metal hypervisors are
sometimes embedded into the firmware at the same level as the motherboard basic
input/output system (BIOS) to enable the operating system on a computer to access and use
virtualization software.

Benefits of hypervisors
There are several benefits to using a hypervisor that hosts multiple virtual machines:

· Speed: Hypervisors allow virtual machines to be created instantly, unlike bare-metal

servers. This makes it easier to provision resources as needed for dynamic workloads.
· Efficiency: Hypervisors that run several virtual machines on one physical machine’s
resources also allow for more efficient utilization of one physical server. It is more cost-
and energy-efficient to run several virtual machines on one physical machine than to run
multiple underutilized physical machines for the same task.
· Flexibility: Bare-metal hypervisors allow operating systems and their associated
applications to run on a variety of hardware types because the hypervisor separates the
OS from the underlying hardware, so the software no longer relies on specific hardware
devices or drivers.
· Portability: Hypervisors allow multiple operating systems to reside on the same physical
server (host machine). Because the virtual machines that the hypervisor runs are
independent from the physical machine, they are portable. IT teams can shift workloads
and allocate networking, memory, storage and processing resources across multiple
servers as needed, moving from machine to machine or platform to platform. When an
application needs more processing power, the virtualization software allows it to
seamlessly access additional machines.

Container vs hypervisor
Containers and hypervisors are both involved in making applications faster and more efficient,
but they achieve this in different ways.

Hypervisors:
· Allow an operating system to run independently from the underlying hardware through the use
of virtual machines.
· Share virtual computing, storage and memory resources.
· Can run multiple operating systems on top of one server (bare-metal hypervisor) or installed on
top of one standard operating system and isolated from it (hosted hypervisor).

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Containers:
· Allow applications to run independently of an operating system.
· Can run on any operating system—all they need is a container engine to run.
· Are extremely portable since in a container, an application has everything it needs to run.

Hypervisors and containers are used for different purposes. Hypervisors are used to create
and run virtual machines (VMs), which each have their own complete operating systems,
securely isolated from the others. In contrast to VMs, containers package up just an app and
its related services. This makes them more lightweight and portable than VMs, so they are
often used for fast and flexible application development and movement.

https://www.vmware.com/topics/glossary/content/hypervisor

Objective 1.4
Identify business challenges addressed by vSphere.

Reducing Planned Downtime

Planned downtime typically accounts for over 80% of data center downtime. Hardware
maintenance, server migration, and firmware updates all require downtime for physical
servers. To minimize the impact of this downtime, organizations are forced to delay
maintenance until inconvenient and difficult-to-schedule downtime windows.
vSphere makes it possible for organizations to dramatically reduce planned downtime.
Because workloads in a vSphere environment can be dynamically moved to different physical
servers without downtime or service interruption, server maintenance can be performed
without requiring application and service downtime. With vSphere, organizations can:

· Eliminate downtime for common maintenance operations.

· Eliminate planned maintenance windows.

· Perform maintenance at any time without disrupting users and services.

The vSphere vMotion® and Storage vMotion functionality in vSphere makes it possible for
organizations to reduce planned downtime because workloads in a VMware environment can
be dynamically moved to different physical servers or to different underlying storage without
service interruption. Administrators can perform faster and completely transparent
maintenance operations, without being forced to schedule inconvenient maintenance
windows.

Preventing Unplanned Downtime

While an ESXi host provides a robust platform for running applications, an organization must
also protect itself from unplanned downtime caused from hardware or application failures.
vSphere builds important capabilities into data center infrastructure that can help you prevent
unplanned downtime.
These vSphere capabilities are part of virtual infrastructure and are transparent to the
operating system and applications running in virtual machines. These features can be
configured and utilized by all the virtual machines on a physical system, reducing the cost and
complexity of providing higher availability. Key availability capabilities are built into vSphere:

· Shared storage. Eliminate single points of failure by storing virtual machine files on shared
storage, such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN, or NAS. The use of SAN mirroring and
replication features can be used to keep updated copies of virtual disk at disaster
recovery sites.

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· Network interface teaming. Provide tolerance of individual network card failures.

· Storage multipathing. Tolerate storage path failures.

In addition to these capabilities, the vSphere HA and Fault Tolerance features can minimize or
eliminate unplanned downtime by providing rapid recovery from outages and continuous
availability, respectively.

vSphere HA Provides Rapid Recovery from Outages

vSphere HA leverages multiple ESXi hosts configured as a cluster to provide rapid recovery
from outages and cost-effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines.
vSphere HA protects application availability in the following ways:

· It protects against a server failure by restarting the virtual machines on other hosts within
the cluster.

· It protects against application failure by continuously monitoring a virtual machine and

resetting it in the event that a failure is detected.
· It protects against datastore accessibility failures by restarting affected virtual machines
on other hosts which still have access to their datastores.
· It protects virtual machines against network isolation by restarting them if their host
becomes isolated on the management or vSAN network. This protection is provided even
if the network has become partitioned.
Unlike other clustering solutions, vSphere HA provides the infrastructure to protect all
workloads with the infrastructure:

· You do not need to install special software within the application or virtual machine. All
workloads are protected by vSphere HA. After vSphere HA is configured, no actions are
required to protect new virtual machines. They are automatically protected.

· You can combine vSphere HA with vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to
protect against failures and to provide load balancing across the hosts within a cluster.
vSphere HA has several advantages over traditional failover solutions:

Minimal setup
After a vSphere HA cluster is set up, all virtual machines in the cluster get failover support
without additional configuration.
Reduced hardware cost and setup
The virtual machine acts as a portable container for the applications and it can be moved
among hosts. Administrators avoid duplicate configurations on multiple machines. When
you use vSphere HA, you must have sufficient resources to fail over the number of hosts
you want to protect with vSphere HA. However, the VMware vCenter Server® system
automatically manages resources and configures clusters.
Increased application availability

Any application running inside a virtual machine has access to increased availability.
Because the virtual machine can recover from hardware failure, all applications that start at
boot have increased availability without increased computing needs, even if the application
is not itself a clustered application. By monitoring and responding to VMware Tools
heartbeats and restarting nonresponsive virtual machines, it protects against guest
operating system crashes.
DRS and vMotion integration

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If a host fails and virtual machines are restarted on other hosts, DRS can provide migration
recommendations or migrate virtual machines for balanced resource allocation. If one or
both of the source and destination hosts of a migration fail, vSphere HA can help recover
from that failure.

vSphere Fault Tolerance Provides Continuous Availability

vSphere HA provides a base level of protection for your virtual machines by restarting virtual
machines in the event of a host failure. vSphere Fault Tolerance provides a higher level of
availability, allowing users to protect any virtual machine from a host failure with no loss of
data, transactions, or connections.
Fault Tolerance provides continuous availability by ensuring that the states of the Primary and
Secondary VMs are identical at any point in the instruction execution of the virtual machine.
If either the host running the Primary VM or the host running the Secondary VM fails, an
immediate and transparent failover occurs. The functioning ESXi host seamlessly becomes the
Primary VM host without losing network connections or in-progress transactions. With
transparent failover, there is no data loss and network connections are maintained. After a
transparent failover occurs, a new Secondary VM is respawned and redundancy is re-
established. The entire process is transparent and fully automated and occurs even if vCenter
Server is unavailable.

Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter High Availability

vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) protects not only against host and hardware failures
but also against vCenter Server application failures. Using automated failover from active to
passive, vCenter HA supports high availability with minimal downtime.

Option Description

Automatic The automatic option clones the Active node to the Passive node and
witness node, and configures the nodes for you.
If your environment meets the following requirements, you can use this
option.
· The vCenter Server that becomes the Active node is managing its own
ESXi host and its own virtual machine. This configuration is sometimes
called a self-managed vCenter Server.

Manual The manual option offers more flexibility. You can use this option provided
that your environment meets hardware and software requirements.
If you select this option, you are responsible for cloning the Active node to
the Passive node and the Witness node. You must also perform some
networking configuration.

Protecting vCenter Server with VMware Service Lifecycle

Manager
Availability of vCenter Server is provided by VMware Service Lifecycle Manager.
If a vCenter service fails, VMware Service Lifecycle Manager restarts it. VMware Service
Lifecycle Manager monitors the health of services and it takes preconfigured remediation
action when it detects a failure. Service does not restart if multiple attempts to remediate fail.
vSphere Availability –Vmware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 7

Objective 1.5

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Identify the components of a vSphere environment.

vSphere Software Components

VMware vSphere is a suite of software components for virtualization. These include ESXi,
vCenter Server, and other software components that fulfill several different functions in the
vSphere environment.
vSphere includes the following software components:
ESXi
The hypervisor runs virtual machines. Each virtual machine has a set of configuration and
disk files that together perform all the functions of a physical machine.
Through ESXi, you run the virtual machines, install operating systems, run applications, and
configure the virtual machines. Configuration includes identifying the virtual machine’s
resources, such as storage devices.
The server provides bootstrapping, management, and other services that manage your
virtual machines.
vCenter Server

A service that acts as a central administrator for VMware ESXi hosts that are connected on
a network. vCenter Server directs actions on the virtual machines and the ESXi hosts.

vCenter Server is installed to run automatically on a preconfigured virtual machine. The

vCenter Server service runs continuously in the background. It performs its monitoring and
managing activities even when no vSphere Clients are connected and when no one is
logged on to the computer where it resides. It must have network access to all the hosts it
manages.

vCenter Server is deployed as a preconfigured virtual machine optimized for running

vCenter Server and the vCenter Server components. You can deploy vCenter Server on
ESXi hosts 6.5 or later.
All prerequisite services for running vCenter Server and the vCenter Server components are
bundled in the vCenter Server installation. All vCenter Server services run as child processes
of the VMware Service Library Lifecycle Manager service. See the vCenter Server Installation
and Setup documentation for details about setting up this configuration.
vCenter Single Sign-On
A service that is part of the vCenter Server management infrastructure. The vCenter Single
Sign-On authentication service makes the VMware cloud infrastructure platform more
secure by allowing the various vSphere software components to communicate with each
other. The vCenter Single Sign-On authentication service uses a secure token exchange
mechanism instead of requiring each component to authenticate a user separately with a
directory service like Active Directory.
When you install vCenter Single Sign-On, the following components are deployed.

STS (Security Token Service)

STS certificates enable a user who has logged on through vCenter Single Sign-On to
authenticate to any vCenter service that vCenter Single Sign-On supports. The STS service
issues Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) tokens. These security tokens represent
the identity of a user in each of the vCenter Single Sign-On identity sources.
Administration server
The administration server allows users with vCenter Single Sign-On administrator privileges
to configure the vCenter Single Sign-On service and manage users and groups from the
vSphere Client. Initially, only the user administrator@vsphere.local has these privileges.

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vCenter Lookup Service

vCenter Lookup Service contains topology information about the vSphere infrastructure,
enabling vSphere components to connect to each other securely. Unless you are using
Simple Install, you are prompted for the Lookup Service URL when you install other vSphere
components. For example, the Inventory Service and the vCenter Server installers ask for
the Lookup Service URL and then contact the Lookup Service to find vCenter Single Sign-
On. After installation, the Inventory Service and vCenter Server system are registered with
the vCenter Lookup Service so other vSphere components, like the vSphere Client, can find
them.
VMware Directory Service
Directory service associated with the vsphere.local domain. This service is a multi-tenanted,
peer-replicating directory service that makes an LDAP directory available on port 389. In
multisite mode, an update of VMware Directory Service content in one VMware Directory
Service instance results in the automatic update of the VMware Directory Service instances
associated with all other vCenter Single Sign-On nodes.
vCenter Server plug-ins

Applications that provide additional features and functionality to vCenter Server. Typically,
plug-ins consist of a server component and a client component. After the plug-in server is
installed, it is registered with vCenter Server and the plug-in client is available to the vSphere
Client for download. After a plug-in is installed on the vSphere Client, it might alter the
interface by adding views, tabs, toolbar buttons, or menu items related to the added
functionality.
Plug-ins leverage core vCenter Server capabilities, such as authentication and permission
management, but can have their own types of events, tasks, metadata, and privileges.
Some vCenter Server features are implemented as plug-ins, and can be managed using the
vSphere Client Plug-in Manager. These features include vCenter Storage Monitoring, vCenter
Hardware Status, and vCenter Service Status.

vCenter Server database

Persistent storage for maintaining the status of each virtual machine, host, and user
managed in the vCenter Server environment. The vCenter Server database can be remote
or local to the vCenter Server system.

The database is installed and configured during vCenter Server installation.

If you are accessing your ESXi host directly through the VMware Host Client, and not
through a vCenter Server system and associated vSphere Client, you do not use a vCenter
Server database.

tcServer
Many vCenter Server functions are implemented as web services that require the tcServer.
The tcServer is installed on the vCenter Server machine as part of the vCenter Server
installation.

Features that require the tcServer to be running include: lCIM/Hardware Status tab,
Performance charts, WebAccess, Storage Policy-Based services, and vCenter Service
status.
vCenter Server agent

On each managed host, the software that collects, communicates, and runs the actions
received from vCenter Server. The vCenter Server agent is installed the first time any host is
added to the vCenter Server inventory.
Host agent

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On each managed host, the software that collects, communicates, and runs the actions
received through the vSphere Client. It is installed as part of the ESXi installation.
vCenter Server and Host Management - VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 12

Objective 1.6
Identify vSphere virtual networking components and types.

Networking Concepts Overview

A few concepts are essential for a thorough understanding of virtual networking. If you are
new to vSphere, it is helpful to review these concepts.
Physical Network
A network of physical machines that are connected so that they can send data to and
receive data from each other. VMware ESXi runs on a physical machine.
Virtual Network
A network of virtual machines running on a physical machine that are connected logically to
each other so that they can send data to and receive data from each other. Virtual machines
can be connected to the virtual networks that you create when you add a network.

Opaque Network
An opaque network is a network created and managed by a separate entity outside of
vSphere. For example, logical networks that are created and managed by VMware NSX®
appear in vCenter Server as opaque networks of the type nsx.LogicalSwitch. You can
choose an opaque network as the backing for a VM network adapter. To manage an
opaque network, use the management tools associated with the opaque network, such as
VMware NSX® Manager or the VMware NSX API management tools.

Physical Ethernet Switch

A physical ethernet switch manages network traffic between machines on the physical
network. A switch has multiple ports, each of which can be connected to a single machine or
another switch on the network. Each port can be configured to behave in certain ways
depending on the needs of the machine connected to it. The switch learns which hosts are
connected to which of its ports and uses that information to forward traffic to the correct
physical machines. Switches are the core of a physical network. Multiple switches can be
connected together to form larger networks.

vSphere Standard Switch

It works much like a physical Ethernet switch. It detects which virtual machines are logically
connected to each of its virtual ports and uses that information to forward traffic to the
correct virtual machines. A vSphere standard switch can be connected to physical switches
by using physical Ethernet adapters, also referred to as uplink adapters, to join virtual
networks with physical networks. This type of connection is similar to connecting physical
switches together to create a larger network. Even though a vSphere standard switch works
much like a physical switch, it does not have some of the advanced functionality of a
physical switch.
vSphere Distributed Switch
A vSphere distributed switch acts as a single switch across all associated hosts in a data
center to provide centralized provisioning, administration, and monitoring of virtual
networks. You configure a vSphere distributed switch on the vCenter Server system and the
configuration is propagated to all hosts that are associated with the switch. This lets virtual
machines maintain consistent network configuration as they migrate across multiple hosts.
Host Proxy Switch

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A hidden standard switch that resides on every host that is associated with a vSphere
distributed switch. The host proxy switch replicates the networking configuration set on the
vSphere distributed switch to the particular host.
Standard Port Group
Network services connect to standard switches through port groups. Port groups define
how a connection is made through the switch to the network. Typically, a single standard
switch is associated with one or more port groups. A port group specifies port configuration
options such as bandwidth limitations and VLAN tagging policies for each member port.
Distributed Port
A port on a vSphere distributed switch that connects to a host’s VMkernel or to a virtual
machine’s network adapter.
Distributed Port Group
A port group associated with a vSphere distributed switch that specifies port configuration
options for each member port. Distributed port groups define how a connection is made
through the vSphere distributed switch to the network.
NSX Distributed Port Group
A port group associated with a vSphere distributed switch that specifies port configuration
options for each member port. To distinguish between vSphere distributed port groups and
NSX port groups, in the vSphere Client the NSX virtual distributed switch, and its associated
port group, is identified with the icon. NSX appears as an opaque network in vCenter Server,
and you cannot configure NSX settings in vCenter Server. The NSX settings displayed are
read only. You configure NSX distributed port groups using VMware NSX® Manager or the
VMware NSX API management tools. To learn about configuring NSX, see the NSX Data
Center for vSphere documentation.
NIC Teaming

NIC teaming occurs when multiple uplink adapters are associated with a single switch to
form a team. A team can either share the load of traffic between physical and virtual
networks among some or all of its members, or provide passive failover in the event of a
hardware failure or a network outage.
VLAN
VLAN enable a single physical LAN segment to be further segmented so that groups of
ports are isolated from one another as if they were on physically different segments. The
standard is 802.1Q.
VMkernel TCP/IP Networking Layer
The VMkernel networking layer provides connectivity to hosts and handles the standard
infrastructure traffic of vSphere vMotion, IP storage, Fault Tolerance, and vSAN.
IP Storage
Any form of storage that uses TCP/IP network communication as its foundation. iSCSI and
NFS can be used as virtual machine datastores and for direct mounting of .ISO files, which
are presented as CD-ROMs to virtual machines.
TCP Segmentation Offload
TCP Segmentation Offload, TSO, allows a TCP/IP stack to emit large frames (up to 64KB)
even though the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the interface is smaller. The network
adapter then separates the large frame into MTU-sized frames and prepends an adjusted
copy of the initial TCP/IP headers.

Network Services in ESXi

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A virtual network provides several services to the host and virtual machines.
You can enable two types of network services in ESXi:

· Connecting virtual machines to the physical network and to each other.

· Connecting VMkernel services (such as NFS, iSCSI, or vMotion) to the physical network.

VMware ESXi Dump Collector Support

The ESXi Dump Collector sends the state of the VMkernel memory, that is, a core dump to a
network server when the system encounters a critical failure.
The ESXi Dump Collector
iS C S I in ESXi supports
N FS both vSphere Standard
F Ibre Ch aN Neland FCo
Distributed
e Switches.
The ESXi Dump Collector can also use any active uplink adapter from the team of the port
group that handles the VMkernel adapter for the collector.
Description iSCSI presents block NFS presents file Fibre Channel (FC) Fibre Channel over
devices to a VMware® devices over a presents
Changes to the IP address for the ESXi Dump Collector interface are automatically block Ethernet (FCoE) alsoupdated if
the IP addressesESXi™for thehost.configured
Rather network to an ESXi
VMkernel adapter devices similar toThe ESXi
changes. presents
Dump blockCollector also
adjusts its default gateway
than accessing if the gateway configuration
host for mounting. iSCSI.of theI/O
Again, VMkernel devices,
adapterwith I/O
changes.
blocks from a local The NFS server/array operations are operations carried
If you try to deletedisk,the VMkernel network
I/O operations adapter
makes its local file used byout
carried the
overESXi
a Dump Collector,
out over a network the
operation fails and a warning
are carried out overmessage
a systemsappears.
available toTo delete
network,theusingVMkernel
a network
using adapter,
a block access
disable dump collection
network usingand a deleteESXi
thehosts.
adapter.
ESXi block access protocol. In this
block access hosts access the protocol. In FC, protocol, SCSI
There is no authentication
protocol. In theor encryption
case metadatainandthe filesfile
on transfer session
remote blocks are from a crashed
commands host to the
and data
ESXi Dump Collector.of iSCSI,You
remoteshould configure the ESXi accessed
the NFS array/server, Dump Collector
by onareaencapsulated
separate into VLAN
when possible toblocksisolate the ESXi core
are accessed dump
using an from regular
RPC-based network
encapsulating SCSI traffic.
Ethernet frames.
by encapsulating protocol. VMware commands and data FCoE has many of
For information about installing andcurrently
SCSI commands configuring
implements the ESXi
into FCDump
frames. Collector,
FC is see the vCenter
the same
Server Installation and Setup documentation.
and data into TCP/IP NFS version 3 over commonly deployed characteristics as FC,
packets. Support for TCP/IP. Support for in the majority of except that the
vSphere Networking - VMware vSphere 7.0, page 13
iSCSI was introduced NFS was introduced mission-critical transport is Ethernet.
in VMware® ESX® 3.0 in ESX 3.0 in 2006 environments. It has VMware introduced
Objective 1.7
in 2006. been the only one of support for hardware
Identify the characteristics of storage access protocols for vSphere. these four protocols FCoE in vSphere 4.x
supported on ESX and software FCoE in
Storage Protocol Comparison Table since the beginning. VMware vSphere®
5.0 in 2011.

Implementation • Network adapter Standard network Requires a dedicated • Hardware

Options with iSCSI adapter, accessed host bus adapter converged network
capabilities, using using a VMkernel (HBA) (typically two, adapter (CNA).
software iSCSI port (vmknic). for redundancy and
initiator and multipathing). or:
accessed using a
VMkernel (vmknic) • Network adapter
port. with FCoE
capabilities, using
or: software FCoE
initiator.
• Dependent
hardware iSCSI
initiator.

or:

• Independent
hardware iSCSI
initiator.

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iS C S I N FS F Ibre Ch aN Nel FCo e

Performance iSCSI can run over a NFS can run over FC can run on This protocol
Considerations 1Gb or a 10Gb TCP/IP 1Gb or 10Gb TCP/IP 1Gb/2Gb/4Gb/8Gb requires 10Gb
network. Multiple networks. NFS also and 16Gb HBAs, but Ethernet. With FCoE,
connections can be supports UDP, but 16Gb HBAs must be there is no IP
multiplexed into a the VMware throttled to run at encapsulation of the
single session, implementation 8Gb in vSphere 5.0. data as there is with
established between requires TCP. Buffer-to-buffer NFS and iSCSI. This
the initiator and VMware supports credits and end-to- reduces some of the
target. VMware jumbo frames for end credits throttle overhead/latency.
supports jumbo NFS traffic, which throughput to ensure FCoE is SCSI over
frames for iSCSI can improve a lossless network. Ethernet, not IP.
traffic, which can performance in This protocol This protocol also
improve performance. certain situations. typically affects a requires jumbo
Jumbo frames send Support for jumbo host’s CPU the least, frames, because FC
payloads larger than frames with IP because HBAs payloads are 2.2K in
1,500. Support for storage was (required for FC) size and cannot be
jumbo frames with IP introduced in ESX 4. handle most of the fragmented.
storage was NFS can introduce processing
introduced in overhead on a host’s (encapsulation of
ESX 4, but not on all CPU (encapsulating SCSI data into
initiators. (See file I/O into TCP/IP FC frames).
VMware knowledge packets).
base articles
1007654 and
1009473.) iSCSI can
introduce overhead
on a host’s CPU
(encapsulating SCSI
data into TCP/IP
packets).

Load Balancing VMware Pluggable There is no load VMware Pluggable VMware Pluggable
Storage Architecture balancing per se on Storage Architecture Storage Architecture
(PSA) provides a the current (PSA) provides a (PSA) provides a
round-robin (RR) implementation of round-robin (RR) round-robin (RR)
path selection policy NFS, because there is path selection policy path selection policy
(PSP) that distributes only a single session. (PSP) that distributes (PSP) that distributes
load across multiple Aggregate load across multiple load across multiple
paths to an iSCSI bandwidth can be paths to an FC target. paths to an FCoE
target. Better configured by Better distribution of target. Better
distribution of load creating multiple load with PSP_RR is distribution of load
with PSP_RR is paths to the NAS achieved when with PSP_RR is
achieved when array, accessing multiple LUNs are achieved when
multiple LUNs are some datastores accessed multiple LUNs are
accessed via one path and concurrently. accessed
concurrently. other datastores concurrently.
via another.

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iS C S I N FS F Ibre Ch aN Nel FCo e

Resilience VMware PSA Network adapter VMware PSA VMware PSA

implements failover teaming can be implements failover implements failover
via its Storage Array configured so that if via its Storage Array via its Storage Array
Type Plug-in (SATP) one interface fails, Type Plug-in (SATP) Type Plug-in (SATP)
for all supported another can take its for all supported for all supported
iSCSI arrays. The place. However, this FC arrays. FCoE arrays.
preferred method to relies on a network
do this for software failure and might not
iSCSI is with be able to handle
iSCSI binding error conditions
implemented, but it occurring on the NFS
can be achieved by array/server side.
adding multiple
targets on different
subnets mapped to
the iSCSI initiator.

Error Checking iSCSI uses TCP, which NFS uses TCP, which FC is implemented as FCoE requires a
resends dropped resends dropped a lossless network. lossless network.
packets. packets. This is achieved by This is achieved by
throttling throughput the implementation
at times of of a pause frame
congestion, using mechanism at times
B2B and E2E credits. of congestion.

Security iSCSI implements the VLANs or private Some FC switches Some FCoE switches
Challenge Handshake networks are highly support the concepts support the concepts
Authentication recommended, to of a VSAN, to isolate of a VSAN, to isolate
Protocol (CHAP) to isolate the NFS parts of the storage parts of the storage
ensure that initiators traffic from other infrastructure. infrastructure.
and targets trust traffic types. VSANs are
each other. VLANs conceptually similar Zoning between
or private networks to VLANs. hosts and FCoE
are highly targets also offers a
recommended, to Zoning between degree of isolation.
isolate the iSCSI hosts and FC targets
traffic from other also offers a degree
traffic types. of isolation.

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iS C S I N FS F Ibre Ch aN Nel FCo e

VMware vSphere Although VMware Again, these vary Although VAAI Although VAAI
Storage APIs vSphere® Storage from array to array. primitives can vary primitives can vary
– Array APIs – Array The following VAAI from array to array, from array to array,
Integration Integration (VAAI) primitives are FC devices can FCoE devices can
(VAAI) primitives can vary available on NFS benefit from the benefit from the
Primitives from array to array, devices: following full following full
iSCSI devices can • Full copy (but only complement of complement of
benefit from with cold block primitives: block primitives:
the following full migration—not with • Atomic test/set • Atomic test/set
complement of VMware vSphere® • Full copy • Full copy
block primitives: Storage vMotion®) • Block zero • Block zero
• Atomic test/set • Preallocated space • Thin provisioning • Thin provisioning
• Full copy (WRITE_ZEROs) • UNMAP • UNMAP
• Block zero • Cloned offload
• Thin provisioning using native These primitives are These primitives are
• UNMAP snapshots built in to ESXi and built in to ESXi and
require no additional require no additional
These primitives are A plug-in from the software installed on software installed on
built in to ESXi and storage array vendor the host. the host.
require no additional is required for
software installed on VAAI NAS.
the host.

ESXi Boot from Yes No Yes Software FCoE – No

SAN Hardware FCoE
(CNA) – Yes

RDM Support Yes No Yes Yes

Maximum 64TB Refer to NAS array 64TB 64TB

Device Size vendor or NAS server
vendor for maximum
supported datastore
size.

Theoretical size is
much larger than
64TB but requires
NAS vendor to
support it.

Maximum 256 Default: 8 256 256

Number of Maximum: 256
Devices

Protocol Direct Yes, via in-guest Yes, via in-guest No, but FC devices No
to Virtual iSCSI initiator. NFS client. can be mapped
Machine directly to the virtual
machine with NPIV.
This still requires
prior RDM mapping
to the virtual
machine, and
hardware must
support NPIV
(FC switch, HBA).

Storage vMotion Yes Yes Yes Yes

Support

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iS C S I N FS F Ibre Ch aN Nel FCo e

Storage DRS Yes Yes Yes Yes

Support

Storage I/O Yes, since Yes, since Yes, since Yes, since
Control Support vSphere 4.1. vSphere 5.0. vSphere 4.1. vSphere 4.1.

Virtualized No. VMware does not No. VMware does not Yes. VMware No. VMware does not
MSCS Support support MSCS nodes support MSCS nodes supports MSCS support MSCS nodes
built on virtual built on virtual nodes built on virtual built on virtual
machines residing on machines residing on machines residing on machines residing on
iSCSI storage. NFS storage. FC storage. FCoE storage.
However, the use of
software iSCSI
initiators within guest
operating systems
configured with
MSCS, in any
configuration
supported by
Microsoft, is
transparent to ESXi
hosts. There is no
need for explicit
support statements
from VMware.

Ease of Medium – Setting up Easy – This requires Difficult – This Difficult – This
Configuration the iSCSI initiator only the IP or FQDN involves zoning at the involves zoning at
requires aptitude and of the target, plus the FC switch level the FCoE switch level
the FDQN or IP mount point. and LUN masking at and LUN masking at
address of the target, Datastores appear the array level after the array level after
plus some immediately after the zoning is the zoning is
configuration for the host has been complete. It is more complete. It is more
initiator maps and granted access from complex to configure complex to configure
LUN presentation on the NFS array/server than IP storage. After than IP storage. After
the array side. After side. the target has been the target has been
the target has been discovered through a discovered through a
discovered through a scan of the SAN, scan of the SAN,
scan of the SAN, LUNs are available LUNs are available
LUNs are available for datastores for datastores
for datastores or RDMs. or RDMs.
or RDMs.

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iS C S I N FS F Ibre Ch aN Nel FCo e

Advantages No additional No additional Well-known and Enables

hardware is necessary. hardware is necessary. well-understood consolidation of
Can use existing Can use existing protocol. storage and other
networking hardware networking hardware Very mature and traffic onto the
components and components, so it’s trusted. Found in same network via
iSCSI driver from inexpensive to majority of mission- converged network
VMware, so it’s implement. Well- critical environments. adapter (CNA). Using
inexpensive to known and well- Data Center Bridging
implement. understood protocol. Exchange (DCBX)
Well-known and It also is very mature. protocol, FCoE has
well-understood Administrators been made lossless
protocol. Quite with network skills even though it runs
mature at this stage. should be able over Ethernet. DCBX
Administrators with to implement. does other things,
network skills Can be troubleshooted such as enabling
should be able to with generic network different traffic
implement. Can be toolssuchasWireshark. classes to run on the
troubleshooted with same network, but
generic network that is beyond the
tools such as scope of this
Wireshark. discussion.

Disadvantages Inability to route Because there is only Still runs only at 8Gb, Somewhat new and
with iSCSI binding a single session per which is slower than currently not quite as
implemented. connection, other networks mature as other
Possible security configuring for (16Gb throttled to protocols. Requires a
issues because there maximum bandwidth run at 8Gb in 10Gb lossless
is no built-in across multiple paths vSphere 5.0). network
encryption, so care requires some care Requires dedicated infrastructure, which
must be taken to and attention. No HBA, FC switch, and can be expensive.
isolate traffic (e.g., PSA multipathing. FC-capable storage Cannot route
VLANs). Software Same security array, which between initiator and
iSCSI can cause concerns as with makes an FC targets using native
additional CPU iSCSI, because implementation IP routing. Instead, it
overhead on the ESX everything is somewhat more must use protocols
host. TCP can transferred in clear expensive. Additional such as FIP (FCoE
introduce latency text, so care must be management Initialization
for iSCSI. taken to isolate traffic overhead (e.g., Protocol). Might
(e.g., VLANs). NFS is switch zoning) is prove complex to
still version 3, which required. Might troubleshoot/isolate
does not have the prove harder to issues, with network
multipathing or troubleshoot than and storage traffic
security features of other protocols. using the same pipe.
NFS v4 or NFS v4.1.
NFS can cause
additional CPU
overhead on the ESX
host. TCP can
introduce latency
for NFS.

Storage Protocol Comparison - White Paper, page 4

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Objective 1.8
Identify the characteristics of vSphere storage technologies.

Traditional Storage Virtualization Models

Generally, storage virtualization refers to a logical abstraction of physical storage resources
and capacities from virtual machines and their applications. ESXi provides host-level storage
virtualization.
In vSphere environment, a traditional model is built around the following storage technologies
and ESXi and vCenter Server virtualization functionalities.

Local and Networked Storage

In traditional storage environments, the ESXi storage management process starts with
storage space that your storage administrator preallocates on different storage systems.
ESXi supports local storage and networked storage.
See Types of Physical Storage.
Storage Area Networks
A storage area network (SAN) is a specialized high-speed network that connects computer
systems, or ESXi hosts, to high-performance storage systems. ESXi can use Fibre Channel or
iSCSI protocols to connect to storage systems.

See Chapter 3 Overview of Using ESXi with a SAN.

Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel (FC) is a storage protocol that the SAN uses to transfer data traffic from ESXi
host servers to shared storage. The protocol packages SCSI commands into FC frames. To
connect to the FC SAN, your host uses Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs).
See Chapter 4 Using ESXi with Fibre Channel SAN.

Internet SCSI
Internet iSCSI (iSCSI) is a SAN transport that can use Ethernet connections between
computer systems, or ESXi hosts, and high-performance storage systems. To connect to the
storage systems, your hosts use hardware iSCSI adapters or software iSCSI initiators with
standard network adapters.
See Chapter 10 Using ESXi with iSCSI SAN.
Storage Device or LUN
In the ESXi context, the terms device and LUN are used interchangeably. Typically, both
terms mean a storage volume that is presented to the host from a block storage system and
is available for formatting.
See Target and Device Representations and Chapter 14 Managing Storage Devices.
Virtual Disks
A virtual machine on an ESXi host uses a virtual disk to store its operating system,
application files, and other data associated with its activities. Virtual disks are large physical
files, or sets of files, that can be copied, moved, archived, and backed up as any other files.
You can configure virtual machines with multiple virtual disks.
To access virtual disks, a virtual machine uses virtual SCSI controllers. These virtual
controllers include BusLogic Parallel, LSI Logic Parallel, LSI Logic SAS, and VMware
Paravirtual. These controllers are the only types of SCSI controllers that a virtual machine
can see and access.

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Each virtual disk resides on a datastore that is deployed on physical storage. From the
standpoint of the virtual machine, each virtual disk appears as if it were a SCSI drive
connected to a SCSI controller. Whether the physical storage is accessed through storage
or network adapters on the host is typically transparent to the VM guest operating system
and applications.
VMware vSphere® VMFS
The datastores that you deploy on block storage devices use the native vSphere Virtual
Machine File System (VMFS) format. It is a special high-performance file system format that
is optimized for storing virtual machines.
See Understanding VMFS Datastores.
NFS
An NFS client built into ESXi uses the Network File System (NFS) protocol over TCP/IP to
access an NFS volume that is located on a NAS server. The ESXi host can mount the volume
and use it as an NFS datastore.
See Understanding Network File System Datastores.
Raw Device Mapping
In addition to virtual disks, vSphere offers a mechanism called raw device mapping (RDM).
RDM is useful when a guest operating system inside a virtual machine requires direct access
to a storage device. For information about RDMs, see Chapter 19 Raw Device Mapping.

Software-Defined Storage Models

In addition to abstracting underlying storage capacities from VMs, as traditional storage
models do, software-defined storage abstracts storage capabilities.
With the software-defined storage model, a virtual machine becomes a unit of storage
provisioning and can be managed through a flexible policy-based mechanism. The model
involves the following vSphere technologies.

VMware vSphere® Virtual Volumes™ (vVols)

The vVols functionality changes the storage management paradigm from managing space
inside datastores to managing abstract storage objects handled by storage arrays. With
vVols, an individual virtual machine, not the datastore, becomes a unit of storage
management. And storage hardware gains complete control over virtual disk content,
layout, and management.
See Chapter 22 Working with VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols).
VMware vSAN
vSAN is a distributed layer of software that runs natively as a part of the hypervisor. vSAN
aggregates local or direct-attached capacity devices of an ESXi host cluster and creates a
single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster.
See Administering VMware vSAN.
Storage Policy Based Management
Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) is a framework that provides a single control
panel across various data services and storage solutions, including vSAN and vVols. Using
storage policies, the framework aligns application demands of your virtual machines with
capabilities provided by storage entities.
See Chapter 20 Storage Policy Based Management.

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I/O Filters
I/O filters are software components that can be installed on ESXi hosts and can offer
additional data services to virtual machines. Depending on implementation, the services
might include replication, encryption, caching, and so on.
See Chapter 23 Filtering Virtual Machine I/O.

vSphere Storage APIs

Storage APIs is a family of APIs used by third-party hardware, software, and storage
providers to develop components that enhance several vSphere features and solutions.
This Storage publication describes several Storage APIs that contribute to your storage
environment. For information about other APIs from this family, including vSphere APIs - Data
Protection, see the VMware website.

vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness

Also known as VASA, these APIs, either supplied by third-party vendors or offered by
VMware, enable communications between vCenter Server and underlying storage. Through
VASA, storage entities can inform vCenter Server about their configurations, capabilities, and
storage health and events. In return, VASA can deliver VM storage requirements from
vCenter Server to a storage entity and ensure that the storage layer meets the requirements.
VASA becomes essential when you work with vVols, vSAN, vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering
(VAIO), and storage VM policies. See Chapter 21 Using Storage Providers.

vSphere APIs for Array Integration

These APIs, also known as VAAI, include the following components:

· Hardware Acceleration APIs. Help arrays to integrate with vSphere, so that vSphere can
offload certain storage operations to the array. This integration significantly reduces CPU
overhead on the host. See Chapter 24 Storage Hardware Acceleration.

· Array Thin Provisioning APIs. Help to monitor space use on thin-provisioned storage
arrays to prevent out-of-space conditions, and to perform space reclamation. See ESXi
and Array Thin Provisioning.

vSphere APIs for Multipathing

Known as the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), these APIs allow storage partners to
create and deliver multipathing and load-balancing plug-ins that are optimized for each array.
Plug-ins communicate with storage arrays and determine the best path selection strategy to
increase I/O performance and reliability from the ESXi host to the storage array. For more
information, see Pluggable Storage Architecture and Path Management.
vSphere Storage - VMware vSphere 7.0, page 16

Objective 1.9
Identify the purposes of different virtual machine files.

Virtual Machine Files

A virtual machine consists of several files that are stored on a storage device. The key files
are the configuration file, virtual disk file, NVRAM setting file, and log file. You configure virtual
machine settings through the vSphere Client, ESXCLI, or the vSphere Web Services SDK.

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Caution Do not change, move, or delete virtual machine files without instructions from a
VMware Technical Support representative.

Table 1-1. Virtual Machine Files

File Usage Description

Virtual machine
.vmx vmname.vmx configuration file
.vmxf vmname.vmxf Additional virtual machine
configuration files
.vmdk vmname.vmdk Virtual disk characteristics

-flat.vmdk vmname-flat.vmdk Virtual machine data disk

.nvram vmname.nvram or nvram Virtual machine BIOS or EFI

configuration
.vmsd vmname.vmsd Virtual machine snapshots
Virtual machine snapshot
.vmsn vmname.vmsn data file
.vswp vmname.vswp Virtual machine swap file

.vmss vmname.vmss Virtual machine suspend file

Current virtual machine log
.log vmware.log file
vmware-#.log (where # is
-#.log Old virtual machine log files
a number starting with 1)

Additional files are created when you perform certain tasks with the virtual machine.

· A .hlog file is a log file that is used by vCenter Server to keep track of virtual machine
files that must be removed after a certain operation completes.

· A .vmtx file is created when you convert a virtual machine to a template. The .vmtx file
replaces the virtual machine configuration file (.vmx file).
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration - VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 11

Objective 1.10
Identify the types of OS that can run on virtual machines.

Supported Guest Operating Systems

VMware supports the following Windows, Linux, Unix, Macintosh, and other operating
systems. Operating systems that are not listed are not supported.
To see which guest operating system customizations are supported for a particular version of
vSphere or vCenter, see the Guest OS Customization Support Matrix.

Windows Operating Systems

· Windows
o Windows Server 2019

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o Windows Server 2016
o Windows 10
o Windows Server 2012 R2
o Windows Server 2012
o Windows 8.1
o Windows 8
o Windows Server 2008 R2
o Windows 7
o Windows Server 2008
o Windows Vista
o Windows Server 2003
o Windows XP
o Windows 2000
o Windows NT 4.0
o Windows ME
o Windows 98
o Windows 95
o MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1x

UNIX and Other Operating Systems

· eComStation
o eComStation 2.x
o eComStation 1.0
· FreeBSD
o FreeBSD 12.x
o FreeBSD 11.x
o FreeBSD 10.x
o FreeBSD 9.x
o FreeBSD 8.x
o FreeBSD 7.x
o FreeBSD 6.x
o FreeBSD 5.x
o FreeBSD 4.x
· IBM OS/2 Warp
o IBM OS/2 Warp 4.5.2
o IBM OS/2 Warp 4.0
· Mac OS X Server
o macOS 10.15
o macOS 10.14
o macOS 10.13
o macOS 10.12
o OS X 10.11
o OS X 10.10
o OS X 10.9
o OS X 10.8
o OS X 10.7
o Mac OS X Server 10.6
o Mac OS X Server 10.5
· Netware
o Netware 6.5 Server
o Netware 6.0 Server
o Netware 5.1 Server
o Netware 4.2 Server
· Solaris
o Solaris 11
o Solaris 10
o Solaris 9
o Solaris 8
· SCO
o SCO OpenServer 5.0
o SCO UnixWare 7.0

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Linux Operating Systems

· Amazon Linux
o Amazon Linux 2
· Asianux Server
o Asianux Server 7.0
o Asianux Server 4.0
o Asianux Server 3.0
· CentOS
o CentOS 8
o CentOS 7
o CentOS 6
o CentOS 5
o CentOS 4
· CoreOS
o CoreOS
· Debian
o Debian 10
o Debian 9
o Debian 8
o Debian 7
o Debian 6
o Debian 5
o Debian 4
· Fedora
o Fedora 24 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 23 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 22 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 21 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 20 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 19 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 18 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 17 Desktop Edition
o Fedora 16 Desktop Edition
· Flatcar
o Flatcar
· Mandrake
o Mandrake Linux 10.x
o Mandrake Linux 9.x
o Mandrake Linux 8.x
· Mandriva
o Mandriva Corporate 4
o Mandriva Linux 2011
o Mandriva Linux 2010
o Mandriva Linux 2009
o Mandriva Linux 2008
o Mandriva Linux 2007
o Mandriva Linux 2006
· NeoKylin
o NeoKylin Linux Advanced Server 6
o NeoKylin Linux Advanced Server 7
· Novell
o Novell Linux Desktop 9
· openSUSE Linux
o openSUSE Linux 13.x
o openSUSE Linux 12.x
o openSUSE Linux 11.x
o openSUSE Linux 10.x
· Oracle Enterprise
o Oracle Linux 8

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o Oracle Linux 7
o Oracle Linux 6
o Oracle Enterprise Linux 5
o Oracle Enterprise Linux 4
· VMware Photon OS
o VMware Photon OS
· Red Hat Enterprise Linux
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1
· Red Hat Linux
o Red Hat Linux 9.0
o Red Hat Linux 8.0
o Red Hat Linux 7.0
o Red Hat Linux 6.2
· Sun Java Desktop System
o Sun Java Desktop System 2
· SUSE Linux Enterprise
o SUSE Linux Enterprise 15
o SUSE Linux Enterprise 12
o SUSE Linux Enterprise 11
o SUSE Linux Enterprise 10
o SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
o SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8
o SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 7
· SUSE Linux
o SUSE Linux 10.x
o SUSE Linux 9.x
o SUSE Linux 8.x
o SUSE Linux 7.3
· Turbolinux
o Turbolinux 11
o Turbolinux 10
o Turbolinux 8
o Turbolinux 7
· Ubuntu
o Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
o Ubuntu 19.10
o Ubuntu 19.04
o Ubuntu 18.10
o Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
o Ubuntu 17.10
o Ubuntu 17.04
o Ubuntu 16.10
o Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
o Ubuntu 15.10
o Ubuntu 15.04
o Ubuntu 14.10
o Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
o Ubuntu 13.10
o Ubuntu 13.04
o Ubuntu 12.10
o Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
o Ubuntu 11.10
o Ubuntu 11.04
o Ubuntu 10.10
o Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Guest Operating System Installation Guide - http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html

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Objective 1.11
Identify use cases for virtual machine snapshots, cloning and templates.

Using Snapshots To Manage Virtual Machines

Snapshots preserve the state and data of a virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot.
When you take a snapshot of a virtual machine, an image of the virtual machine in a given
state is copied and stored. Snapshots are useful when you want to revert repeatedly to a
virtual machine state, but you do not want to create multiple virtual machines.
You can take multiple snapshots of a virtual machine to create restoration positions in a linear
process. With multiple snapshots, you can save many positions to accommodate many kinds
of work processes. Snapshots operate on individual virtual machines. Taking snapshots of
multiple virtual machines, for example, taking a snapshot of a VM for each member of a team,
requires that you take a separate snapshot of each team member's virtual machine.
Snapshots are useful as a short term solution for testing software with unknown or potentially
harmful effects. For example, you can use a snapshot as a restoration point during a linear or
iterative process, such as installing update packages, or during a branching process, such as
installing different versions of a program. Using snapshots ensures that each installation
begins from an identical baseline.
With snapshots, you can preserve a baseline before you change a virtual machine.

Several operations for creating and managing virtual machine snapshots and snapshot trees
are available in the vSphere Client. These operations enable you to create snapshots, revert
any snapshot in the snapshot hierarchy, delete snapshots, and more. You can create
snapshot trees where you save the virtual machine state at any specific time so that you can
revert that virtual machine state later. Each branch in a snapshot tree can have up to 32
snapshots.
A snapshot preserves the following information:

· Virtual machine settings. The virtual machine directory, which includes the disks added or
changed after you take the snapshot.

· Power state. The virtual machine can be powered on, powered off, or suspended.

· Disk state. State of all the virtual machine's virtual disks.

· (Optional) Memory state. The contents of the virtual machine's memory.

The Snapshot Hierarchy

The vSphere Client presents the snapshot hierarchy as a tree with one or more branches.
Snapshots in the hierarchy have parent to child relationships. In linear processes, each
snapshot has one parent snapshot and one child snapshot, except for the last snapshot,
which has no child snapshot. Each parent snapshot can have more than one child. You can
revert to the current parent snapshot or to any parent or child snapshot in the snapshot tree
and create more snapshots from that snapshot. Each time you revert a snapshot and take
another snapshot, a branch (child snapshot) is created.
Parent Snapshots
The first virtual machine snapshot that you create is the base parent snapshot. The parent
snapshot is the most recently saved version of the current state of the virtual machine.
Taking a snapshot creates a delta disk file for each disk attached to the virtual machine and
optionally, a memory file. The delta disk files and memory file are stored with the base
.vmdk file. The parent snapshot is always the snapshot that appears immediately above the
You are here icon in the Snapshot Manager. If you revert a snapshot, that snapshot
becomes the parent of the You are here current state.

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Note The parent snapshot is not always the snapshot that you took most recently.

Child Snapshots
A snapshot of a virtual machine taken after the parent snapshot. Each child snapshot
contains delta files for each attached virtual disk, and optionally a memory file that points
from the present state of the virtual disk (You are here). Each child snapshot's delta files
merge with each previous child snapshot until reaching the parent disks. A child disk can
later be a parent disk for future child disks.
The relationship of parent and child snapshots can change if you have multiple branches in
the snapshot tree. A parent snapshot can have more than one child. Many snapshots have
no children.

Caution Do not manually manipulate individual child disks or any of the snapshot
configuration files because doing so can compromise the snapshot tree and result in data
loss. This restriction includes disk resizing and making modifications to the base parent disk
by using the vmkfstools command.

Snapshot Behavior
Taking a snapshot preserves the disk state at a specific time by creating a series of delta
disks for each attached virtual disk or virtual RDM and optionally preserves the memory and
power state by creating a memory file. Taking a snapshot creates a snapshot object in the
Snapshot Manager that represents the virtual machine state and settings.

Each snapshot creates an additional delta .vmdk disk file. When you take a snapshot, the
snapshot mechanism prevents the guest operating system from writing to the base .vmdk
file and instead directs all writes to the delta disk file. The delta disk represents the difference
between the current state of the virtual disk and the state that existed at the time that you
took the previous snapshot. If more than one snapshot exists, delta disks can represent the
difference between each snapshot. Delta disk files can expand quickly and become as large
as the entire virtual disk if the guest operating system writes to every block of the virtual disk.

Snapshot Files
When you take a snapshot, you capture the state of the virtual machine settings and the
virtual disk. If you are taking a memory snapshot, you also capture the memory state of the
virtual machine. These states are saved to files that reside with the virtual machine's base
files.

Snapshot Files
A snapshot consists of files that are stored on a supported storage device. A Take Snapshot
operation creates .vmdk, -delta.vmdk, .vmsd, and .vmsn files. By default, the first and all
delta disks are stored with the base .vmdk file. The .vmsd and .vmsn files are stored in the
virtual machine directory.

Delta disk files

A .vmdk file to which the guest operating system can write. The delta disk represents the
difference between the current state of the virtual disk and the state that existed at the time
that the previous snapshot was taken. When you take a snapshot, the state of the virtual
disk is preserved, the guest operating system stops writing to it, and a delta or child disk is
created.
A delta disk has two files. One is a small descriptor file that contains information about the
virtual disk, such as geometry and child-parent relationship information. The other one is a
corresponding file that contains the raw data.
The files that make up the delta disk are called child disks or redo logs.

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Flat file

A -flat.vmdk file that is one of two files that comprises the base disk. The flat disk
contains the raw data for the base disk. This file does not appear as a separate file in the
Datastore Browser.
Database file

A .vmsd file that contains the virtual machine's snapshot information and is the primary
source of information for the Snapshot Manager. This file contains line entries, which define
the relationships between snapshots and between child disks for each snapshot.
Memory file

A .vmsn file that includes the active state of the virtual machine. Capturing the memory
state of the virtual machine lets you revert to a turned on virtual machine state. With
nonmemory snapshots, you can only revert to a turned off virtual machine state. Memory
snapshots take longer to create than nonmemory snapshots. The time the ESXi host takes
to write the memory onto the disk depends on the amount of memory the virtual machine is
configured to use.
A Take Snapshot operation creates .vmdk, -delta.vmdk, vmsd, and vmsn files.

Snapshot Limitations
Snapshots can affect the virtual machine performance and do not support some disk types or
virtual machines configured with bus sharing. Snapshots are useful as short-term solutions for
capturing point-in-time virtual machine states and are not appropriate for long-term virtual
machine backups.

· VMware does not support snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, or guest
operating systems that use an iSCSI initiator in the guest.

· Virtual machines with independent disks must be powered off before you take a
snapshot. Snapshots of powered-on or suspended virtual machines with independent
disks are not supported.

· Quiesced snapshots require VMware Tools installation and guest operating system
support.

· Snapshots are not supported with PCI vSphere DirectPath I/O devices.

· VMware does not support snapshots of virtual machines configured for bus sharing. If you
require bus sharing, consider running backup software in your guest operating system as
an alternative solution. If your virtual machine currently has snapshots that prevent you
from configuring bus sharing, delete (consolidate) the snapshots.

· Snapshots provide a point-in-time image of the disk that backup solutions can use, but
Snapshots are not meant to be a robust method of backup and recovery. If the files
containing a virtual machine are lost, its snapshot files are also lost. Also, large numbers of
snapshots are difficult to manage, consume large amounts of disk space, and are not
protected if there is hardware failure.

· Snapshots can negatively affect the performance of a virtual machine. Performance

degradation is based on how long the snapshot or snapshot tree is in place, the depth of
the tree, and how much the virtual machine and its guest operating system have changed
from the time you took the snapshot. Also, you might see a delay in the amount of time it
takes the virtual machine to power on. Do not run production virtual machines from
snapshots on a permanent basis.
· If a virtual machine has virtual hard disks larger than 2 TB, snapshot operations can take
much longer to finish.

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vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Update 1 - VMware vSphere 7.0, page 255

Objective 1.12
Identify the functionality of vSphere vMotion and Storage vMotion yechnology.
Objective 1.13
Identify use cases for virtual machine snapshots, cloning and templates.

Migration with vMotion

If you must take a host offline for maintenance, you can move the virtual machine to another
host. Migration with vMotion™ allows virtual machine processes to continue working
throughout a migration.
When you migrate a virtual machine with vMotion, the new host for the virtual machine must
meet compatibility requirements so that the migration can proceed.

vMotion Migration Types

With vMotion, you can change the compute resource on which a virtual machine is running.
You also can change both the compute resource and the storage of the virtual machine.

When you migrate virtual machines with vMotion and choose to change only the host, the
entire state of the virtual machine is moved to the new host. The associated virtual disk
remains in the same location on storage that must be shared between the two hosts.
When you choose to change both the host and the datastore, the virtual machine state is
moved to a new host and the virtual disk is moved to another datastore. vMotion migration to
another host and datastore is possible in vSphere environments without shared storage.
After the virtual machine state is migrated to the alternate host, the virtual machine runs on
the new host. Migrations with vMotion are transparent to the running virtual machine.
When you choose to change both the compute resource and the storage, you can use
vMotion to migrate virtual machines across vCenter Server instances, data centers, and
subnets.

Transferred State Information

The state information includes the current memory content and all the information that
defines and identifies the virtual machine. The memory content includes transaction data and
the bits of the operating system and applications that are in the memory. The defining and
identification information stored in the state includes all the data that maps to the virtual
machine hardware elements. This information includes BIOS, devices, CPU, MAC addresses
for the Ethernet cards, chipset states, registers, and so forth.

Stages in vMotion
Migration with vMotion occurs in three stages:
1. When the migration with vMotion is requested, vCenter Server verifies that the existing
virtual machine is in a stable state with its current host.
2. The virtual machine state information (memory, registers, and network connections) is
copied to the target host.
3. The virtual machine resumes its activities on the new host.
If errors occur during migration, the virtual machine reverts to its original state and location.
vCenter Server and Host Management Updater 1 - VMware vSphere 7.0, page 106

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Migration with Storage vMotion

With Storage vMotion, you can migrate a virtual machine and its disk files from one datastore
to another while the virtual machine is running. With Storage vMotion, you can move virtual
machines off of arrays for maintenance or to upgrade. You also have the flexibility to optimize
disks for performance, or to transform disk types, which you can use to reclaim space.
You can choose to place the virtual machine and all its disks in a single location, or you can
select separate locations for the virtual machine configuration file and each virtual disk. The
virtual machine does not change execution host during a migration with Storage vMotion.
During a migration with Storage vMotion, you can change the disk provisioning type.
Migration with Storage vMotion changes virtual machine files on the destination datastore to
match the inventory name of the virtual machine. The migration renames all virtual disk,
configuration, snapshot, and .nvram files. If the new names exceed the maximum filename
length, the migration does not succeed.
Storage vMotion has several uses in administering virtual infrastructure, including the
following examples of use.

· Storage maintenance and reconfiguration. You can use Storage vMotion to move virtual
machines off a storage device to allow maintenance or reconfiguration of the storage
device without virtual machine downtime.

· Redistributing storage load. You can use Storage vMotion to redistribute virtual machines
or virtual disks to different storage volumes to balance capacity or improve performance.

Storage vMotion Requirements and Limitations

A virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the
virtual machine disks to be migrated with Storage vMotion.
Storage vMotion is subject to the following requirements and limitations:

· Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be raw device mappings (RDMs). For
virtual compatibility mode RDMs, you can migrate the mapping file or convert to thick-
provisioned or thin-provisioned disks during migration if the destination is not an NFS
datastore. If you convert the mapping file, a new virtual disk is created and the contents
of the mapped LUN are copied to this disk. For physical compatibility mode RDMs, you
can migrate the mapping file only.

· Migration of virtual machines during VMware Tools installation is not supported.

· Because VMFS3 datastores do not support large capacity virtual disks, you cannot move
virtual disks greater than 2 TB from a VMFS5 datastore to a VMFS3 datastore.

· The host on which the virtual machine is running must have a license that includes Storage
vMotion.

· ESXi 4.0 and later hosts do not require vMotion configuration to perform migration with
Storage vMotion.

· The host on which the virtual machine is running must have access to both the source and
target datastores.

· For limits on the number of simultaneous migrations with vMotion and Storage vMotion,
see Limits on Simultaneous Migrations.
vCenter Server and Host Management Updater 1 - VMware vSphere 7.0, page 118

Objective 1.14

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Identify the characteristics of vSphere High Availability and Fault Tolerance.

Objective 1.15
Identify use cases of High Availability and Disaster Recovery.

Reducing Planned Downtime

Planned downtime typically accounts for over 80% of data center downtime. Hardware
maintenance, server migration, and firmware updates all require downtime for physical
servers. To minimize the impact of this downtime, organizations are forced to delay
maintenance until inconvenient and difficult-to-schedule downtime windows.
vSphere makes it possible for organizations to dramatically reduce planned downtime.
Because workloads in a vSphere environment can be dynamically moved to different physical
servers without downtime or service interruption, server maintenance can be performed
without requiring application and service downtime. With vSphere, organizations can:

· Eliminate downtime for common maintenance operations.

· Eliminate planned maintenance windows.

· Perform maintenance at any time without disrupting users and services.

The vSphere vMotion® and Storage vMotion functionality in vSphere makes it possible for
organizations to reduce planned downtime because workloads in a VMware environment can
be dynamically moved to different physical servers or to different underlying storage without
service interruption. Administrators can perform faster and completely transparent
maintenance operations, without being forced to schedule inconvenient maintenance
windows.

Preventing Unplanned Downtime

While an ESXi host provides a robust platform for running applications, an organization must
also protect itself from unplanned downtime caused from hardware or application failures.
vSphere builds important capabilities into data center infrastructure that can help you prevent
unplanned downtime.
These vSphere capabilities are part of virtual infrastructure and are transparent to the
operating system and applications running in virtual machines. These features can be
configured and utilized by all the virtual machines on a physical system, reducing the cost and
complexity of providing higher availability. Key availability capabilities are built into vSphere:

· Shared storage. Eliminate single points of failure by storing virtual machine files on shared
storage, such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN, or NAS. The use of SAN mirroring and
replication features can be used to keep updated copies of virtual disk at disaster
recovery sites.

· Network interface teaming. Provide tolerance of individual network card failures.

· Storage multipathing. Tolerate storage path failures.

In addition to these capabilities, the vSphere HA and Fault Tolerance features can minimize or
eliminate unplanned downtime by providing rapid recovery from outages and continuous
availability, respectively.

vSphere HA Provides Rapid Recovery from Outages

vSphere HA leverages multiple ESXi hosts configured as a cluster to provide rapid recovery
from outages and cost-effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines.
vSphere HA protects application availability in the following ways:

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· It protects against a server failure by restarting the virtual machines on other hosts within
the cluster.

· It protects against application failure by continuously monitoring a virtual machine and

resetting it in the event that a failure is detected.

· It protects against datastore accessibility failures by restarting affected virtual machines

on other hosts which still have access to their datastores.
· It protects virtual machines against network isolation by restarting them if their host
becomes isolated on the management or vSAN network. This protection is provided even
if the network has become partitioned.
Unlike other clustering solutions, vSphere HA provides the infrastructure to protect all
workloads with the infrastructure:

· You do not need to install special software within the application or virtual machine. All
workloads are protected by vSphere HA. After vSphere HA is configured, no actions are
required to protect new virtual machines. They are automatically protected.

· You can combine vSphere HA with vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to
protect against failures and to provide load balancing across the hosts within a cluster.

vSphere HA has several advantages over traditional failover solutions:

Minimal setup
After a vSphere HA cluster is set up, all virtual machines in the cluster get failover support
without additional configuration.
Reduced hardware cost and setup

The virtual machine acts as a portable container for the applications and it can be moved
among hosts. Administrators avoid duplicate configurations on multiple machines. When you
use vSphere HA, you must have sufficient resources to fail over the number of hosts you
want to protect with vSphere HA. However, the VMware vCenter Server® system
automatically manages resources and configures clusters.
Increased application availability
Any application running inside a virtual machine has access to increased availability.
Because the virtual machine can recover from hardware failure, all applications that start at
boot have increased availability without increased computing needs, even if the application
is not itself a clustered application. By monitoring and responding to VMware Tools
heartbeats and restarting nonresponsive virtual machines, it protects against guest
operating system crashes.
DRS and vMotion integration
If a host fails and virtual machines are restarted on other hosts, DRS can provide migration
recommendations or migrate virtual machines for balanced resource allocation. If one or
both of the source and destination hosts of a migration fail, vSphere HA can help recover
from that failure.

vSphere Fault Tolerance Provides Continuous Availability

vSphere HA provides a base level of protection for your virtual machines by restarting virtual
machines in the event of a host failure. vSphere Fault Tolerance provides a higher level of
availability, allowing users to protect any virtual machine from a host failure with no loss of
data, transactions, or connections.
Fault Tolerance provides continuous availability by ensuring that the states of the Primary and
Secondary VMs are identical at any point in the instruction execution of the virtual machine.

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If either the host running the Primary VM or the host running the Secondary VM fails, an
immediate and transparent failover occurs. The functioning ESXi host seamlessly becomes the
Primary VM host without losing network connections or in-progress transactions. With
transparent failover, there is no data loss and network connections are maintained. After a
transparent failover occurs, a new Secondary VM is respawned and redundancy is re-
established. The entire process is transparent and fully automated and occurs even if vCenter
Server is unavailable.

Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter High Availability

vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) protects not only against host and hardware failures
but also against vCenter Server application failures. Using automated failover from active to
passive, vCenter HA supports high availability with minimal downtime.
You configure vCenter HA from the vSphere Client. The configuration wizard provides these
options.

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Option Description

Automatic The automatic option clones the Active node to the Passive node and witness node, and configures
the nodes for you.

If your environment meets the following requirements, you can use this option.
· The vCenter Server that becomes the Active node is managing its own ESXi host and its own
virtual machine. This configuration is sometimes called a self-managed vCenter Server.

Manual The manual option offers more flexibility. You can use this option provided that your environment
meets hardware and software requirements.

If you select this option, you are responsible for cloning the Active node to the Passive node and
the Witness node. You must also perform some networking configuration.

Protecting vCenter Server with VMware Service Lifecycle

Manager
Availability of vCenter Server is provided by VMware Service Lifecycle Manager.

If a vCenter service fails, VMware Service Lifecycle Manager restarts it. VMware Service
Lifecycle Manager monitors the health of services and it takes preconfigured remediation
action when it detects a failure. Service does not restart if multiple attempts to remediate fail.
vSphere Availability Update 1 – Vmware vSphere 7.0, page 7

Objective 1.16
Identify the functionality of VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler.

Distributed Resource Scheduler, Distributed Power

Management
Enable VMware DRS to Manage Workloads
Group VMware ESXi hosts into resource clusters to segregate the computing needs of
different business units. VMware vSphere clusters allow you to:

· Provide highly available resources to your workloads.

· Balance workloads for optimal performance.
· Scale and manage computing resources without service disruption.

Balanced Capacity
Balance computing capacity by cluster to deliver optimized performance for hosts and virtual
machines. VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) is a feature included in
the vSphere Enterprise Plus. Using DRS, you can:

· Improve service levels by guaranteeing appropriate resources to virtual machines.

· Deploy new capacity to a cluster without service disruption.
· Automatically migrate virtual machines during maintenance without service disruption.
· Monitor and manage more infrastructure per system administrator.

Reduced Energy Consumption

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Optimize power consumption dynamically within a vSphere cluster with VMware vSphere
Distributed Power Management (DPM), which is also included in vSphere Enterprise Plus and
vSphere with Operation Management Enterprise Plus editions. When demand for resources is
low, DPM places hosts in standby mode and when demand is high, DPM powers on enough
hosts to manage that demand and keep your services available. Dynamic power management
with DPM allows you to:

· Cut power and cooling costs by as much as 20 percent during low utilization periods.
· Automate energy management in your data center more efficiently.

Technical Details
Initial Workload Placement
When you power on a virtual machine in a cluster, DRS places it on an appropriate host or
generates a recommendation, depending on the automation level you choose. Automation
levels, also known as migration thresholds, range from conservative to aggressive. VMware
vCenter will only apply recommendations that satisfy cluster constraints such as host affinity
rules or maintenance. It applies DRS recommendations that can provide even a slight
improvement to the cluster’s overall load balance. DRS offers five automation levels to fit your
needs on a per cluster basis.

Automated Load Balancing

DRS spreads the virtual machine workloads across vSphere hosts inside a cluster and
monitors available resources for you. Based on your automation level, DRS will migrate
(VMware vSphere vMotion) virtual machines to other hosts within the cluster to maximize
performance.

Optimized Power Consumption

Like DRS, vSphere’s Distributed Power Management feature optimizes power consumption at
the cluster and host level. When you enable DPM, it compares cluster- and host-level capacity
to virtual machine demand, including recent historical demand, and places hosts in standby
mode. If capacity demands increase, DPM powers on hosts in standby to absorb the
additional workload. You can also set DPM to issue recommendations but take no actions.

Cluster Maintenance
DRS accelerates the VMware vSphere Update Manager remediation process by determining
the optimum number of hosts that can enter maintenance mode simultaneously, based on
current cluster conditions and demands.

Constraint Correction
DRS redistributes virtual machines across vSphere cluster hosts to comply with user-defined
affinity and anti-affinity rules following host failures or during maintenance operations.
Distributed Resource Scheduler - VMware vSphere, https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/drs-dpm.html

Objective 1.17
Given a DRS score, identify the meaning.

DRS Migration Threshold

The DRS migration threshold allows you to specify which recommendations are generated
and then applied (when the virtual machines involved in the recommendation are in fully

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automated mode) or shown (if in manual mode). This threshold is a measure of how
aggressive DRS is in recommending migrations to improve VM happiness.
You can move the threshold slider to use one of five settings, ranging from Conservative to
Aggressive. The higher the aggressiveness setting, the more frequently DRS might
recommend migrations to improve VM happiness. The Conservative setting generates only
priority-one recommendations (mandatory recommendations).
After a recommendation receives a priority level, this level is compared to the migration
threshold you set. If the priority level is less than or equal to the threshold setting, the
recommendation is either applied (if the relevant virtual machines are in fully automated
mode) or displayed to the user for confirmation (if in manual or partially automated mode.)

DRS Score
Each migration recommendation is computed using the VM happiness metric which measures
execution efficiency. This metric is displayed as DRS Score in the cluster's Summary tab in the
vSphere Client. DRS load balancing recommendations attempt to improve the DRS score of a
VM. The Cluster DRS score is a weighted average of the VM DRS Scores of all the powered
on VMs in the cluster. The Cluster DRS Score is shown in the gauge component. The color of
the filled in section changes depending on the value to match the corresponding bar in the
VM DRS Score histogram. The bars in the histogram show the percentage of VMs that have a
DRS Score in that range. You can view the list with server-side sorting and filtering by
selecting the Monitor tab of the cluster and selecting vSphere DRS, which shows a list of the
VMs in the cluster sorted by their DRS score in ascending order.
vSphere Resource Management – Vmware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 84

Objective 1.18
Identify use cases for Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC).

About Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

You can use the Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) feature to help ensure vMotion
compatibility for the hosts in a cluster. EVC ensures that all hosts in a cluster present the
same CPU feature set to virtual machines, even if the actual CPUs on the hosts differ. Using
EVC prevents migrations with vMotion from failing because of incompatible CPUs.
Configure EVC from the cluster settings dialog box. When you configure EVC, you configure
all host processors in the cluster to present the feature set of a baseline processor. This
baseline feature set is called the EVC mode. EVC uses AMD-V Extended Migration technology
(for AMD hosts) and Intel FlexMigration technology (for Intel hosts) to mask processor
features so that hosts can present the feature set of an earlier generation of processors. The
EVC mode must be equivalent to, or a subset of, the feature set of the host with the smallest
feature set in the cluster.
EVC masks only those processor features that affect vMotion compatibility. Enabling EVC
does not prevent a virtual machine from taking advantage of faster processor speeds,
increased numbers of CPU cores, or hardware virtualization support that might be available
on newer hosts.
EVC cannot prevent virtual machines from accessing hidden CPU features in all
circumstances. Applications that do not follow CPU vendor recommended methods of feature
detection might behave unexpectedly in an EVC environment. VMware EVC cannot be
supported with ill-behaved applications that do not follow the CPU vendor recommendations.
For more information about creating well-behaved applications, search the VMware
Knowledge Base for the article Detecting and Using New Features in CPUs.
Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 1, you can take advantage of the EVC feature for Virtual
Shared Graphics Acceleration (vSGA). vSGA allows multiple virtual machines to share GPUs
installed on ESXi hosts and leverage the 3D graphics acceleration capabilities.
vCenter Server and Host Management - VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1, page 122

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