Virtual Services Technical Workshop

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Virtual Services Technical Workshop

• info_at_techarchsolutions.com
• www.techarchsolutions.com

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Objectives

• Define Design Principles for the POC Virtual
  Environment

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Best Practices

• Environment
• Minimum 2 ESX servers (VMware VIN ESX licenses)
• SAN incorporation
• Management Console
• Backup
• VMware Virtual Centre
• System Build
• 4-CPU systems for lowest TCO and rapid ROI
• Minimum 4 NICs per ESX host
• Dual HBAs for redundancy

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Best Practices (cont.)

• ESX Build
• Use latest release during fresh build
• Local Disk installation preferred
• Mirrored with at least 36Gb disk storage
• Vmkcore should always be on last partition
• Virtual Swap (Vswap) should be stored on the
  local vmfs-2 partition
• Minimum of 2 x Virtual Switches should always be
  created Internal/Outbound

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Best Practices (cont.)

• VirtualCenter
• Installed on physical hardware preferable
• Shared SQL/Oracle database recommended
• Templates stored on SAN-based repository
• Assign Vmotion IP address and gateway the same
  network address

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Best Practices (cont.)

• SAN
• Maximum of 16 ESX hosts assigned to a LUN
• Dedicated LUN for VMs
• Dedicated LUN for Templates
• ISO images stored on a VMFS file system
• Virtual Machines
• Virtual Machine name to reflect server name
• Latest VMware tools installed
• Screensavers disabled
• CDroms and floppy drives disconnected
• Recommend using VMware vmxnet network driver

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Design Principles Inputs

• Mix server environment (Prod/Test/Dev)?
• Redundancy (NIC, HBA, OS disk)
• Networks (VLANs) App/Console/OOB Mgnt/Backup
  etc
• VMs per ESX server
• P2Vs, V2Ps or fresh builds of VMs?
• Security levels running at?
• SAN configuration ( SAN, LUN Layout, Host
  access to LUN and SAN)

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Design Principles Input (cont.)

• DR capabilities (Y/N recoverability)
• Backup (VM OS/VM from ESX layer)
• Snapshot
• ISO images
• Templates (what, where, who control)
• VirtualCenter (DB, server console, clients)
• Vmotion (Y/N)

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Design Principles Input (cont.)

• Devolved administration (directory integration)
• User Access
• Resource definition for VM
• Management tools integration
• Capacity planning for environment
• Configuration management policy
• License tracking in a virtual environment
• VSS review
• ESX server provisioning process

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Impact

• Operational
• Security
• Storage
• Networking
• Management and Ownership

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Conclusion

• Requirements gathering
• Proof of Concept

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QUESTIONS?
info_at_techarchsolutions.com www.techarchsolutions.c
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