Cloud and Virtualization

Concepts
From NDG In partnership with VMware IT Academy
www.vmware.com/go/academy
Why learn virtualization?
• Modern computing is more efficient due to virtualization

• Virtualization can be used for mobile, personal and cloud computing

• You can also use virtualization in your personal life

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This content will cover
• Understand the benefits of virtualization

• Be able to describe virtualization, virtual machines and hypervisors

• Describe typical data center components that are virtualized

• Become familiar with VMware technology popular in industry

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Virtualization Benefits
• Have you ever wished you could clone yourself?

• If you could, would you be more efficient? Would you do more?

• Virtualization enables computers to be more efficient in a similar fashion

• Computers that use virtualization optimize the available compute resources

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What is virtualization?
Hardware and Software
• Do you use a smartphone, laptop or home computer?

• Smartphones, laptops or home computers are hardware

• Similar to how your brain controls your actions, software controls hardware

• There are different types of software that control computer actions

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Hardware
Processor - Also called CPU (Central Processing Unit)

RAM - Random Access Memory

Read-Only Memory - Non-volatile memory that stores BIOS

*BIOS is type of software responsible for turning on (booting)
computer
Motherboard - Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that holds processor, RAM, ROM,
network and Input/Output (I/O) and other components.
Chipset - Collection of microchips on motherboard that manage specific
functions.

Storage - A persistent (non-volatile) storage device such as a Hard Drive Disk

or Solid State Drive

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Software
• System software is necessary for hardware to function

• Operating system controls the hardware

• Application software tells your system to execute a task you want

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Now that you are aware of the roles of hardware and software, the concept of
virtualization will be easier to grasp. Virtualization is the “layer” of technology
that goes between the physical hardware of a device and the operating system
to create one or more copies of the device.

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What is a VM?
• Virtualization creates virtual hardware by cloning physical hardware

• The hypervisor uses virtual hardware to create a virtual machine (VM)

• A VM is a set of files

• With a hypervisor and VMs, one computer can run multiple OS simultaneously

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The Hypervisor
What is a Hypervisor?
• Software installed on top of hardware that created virtualization layer

• Hosts VMs

• Type 1 Hypervisor – Bare metal hypervisor (VMware ESXi)

• Type 2 Hypervisor – Hosted hypervisor (VMware Workstation)

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Virtual Machine Files
• VMs can be exported and moved to other hosts

• Files are created by the hypervisor and stored in a directory

• Example VM files:
File Type File Name Description

Log File <vmname>.log Keeps a log of VM activity

Disk File <vmname>.vmdk Stores content of VM’s disk drive

Snapshot Files <vmname>.vmsd and Stores information about VM

<vmname>.vmsn snapshots (saved VM state)
Configuration File <vmname>.vmx Stores information about VM
name, BIOS, guest OS, and
memory

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What is a snapshot?
• Working on a VM and need to save progress or state

• Snapshots are saved as files in the VM folder (<vmname>.vmx)

• What is saved by a snapshot?

- State of VM disks
- Contents of VM memory
- VM settings

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The Data Center
What is a Data Center?
• Hardware infrastructure that
supports virtualization

• Focus is on processing large amounts

of data

• What are the three main

components?
- Compute
- Storage
- Networks

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Compute Systems
• Hardware and operating system software that runs applications

• Difference between a PC and a server

- PCs have user-friendly interface while servers focus on running programs

• Types of servers:
- Tower
- Blade server
- Rack-mounted server

• What is the architecture of a server?

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Networks
• Transfer data across the data center so devices can communicate

• What type of hardware is used for networking?

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Storage
• Data center storage should have two features: availability and redundancy

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Storage - RAID
• Redundant Array of Independent Disks

• Hard drives linked together to create a large volume of redundant storage

• What are the three methods of writing to RAID?

- Mirroring
- Striping
- Parity

• What do the RAID numbers mean (i.e., 0, 1, 5)?

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 Storage - Block vs. File Level
• Block-Level Storage – Data is written to and accessed from storage volumes (blocks)

• File-Level Storage – Data is written to disks but accessed from default file system

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Storage – Types of Data Center Storage
• DAS – Storage device is directly attached to a server (block-level)

• NAS – Storage device is attached to a network, servers on the network can

access device (file-level)

• SAN – Clustered storage devices on their own network that servers can
connect to (block-level)

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Common Data Center Storage Protocols
Protocol Application

SCSI (Internet Small Computer System Medium-sized blade servers, Enterprise

Interface servers, DAS
FC (Fiber Channel) Enterprise servers, SAN

FCoE (Fiber Channel over Ethernet) Enterprise servers, SAN

iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Enterprise servers, NAS

Interface)

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Storage Provisioning
• Thick provisioning: Disk space is strategically pre-allocated to a server, or a
VM. This means that the logical space provided by partitioning is equal to the
amount of actual physical space set aside on the physical disk.

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Virtual Data Center
Benefits of a Virtual Data Center
• Data centers use a lot of hardware and virtualization makes hardware more
efficient

• Increased computing resources results in higher availability of applications

• Less labor needed to monitor data center (administrator can monitor from desk
using a program)

• Software-defined data center (SDDC): Hypervisor pools physical data center

resources into a virtual data center

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What is vSphere?
• Suite of virtualization technology designed for larger enterprise data center
management

• vSphere virtualization tools include:

- ESXi: Type 1 Hypervisor
- vCenter: Management software (installed on management server)
- vSphere Client: Program that controls host servers and VMs

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vSphere

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What is ESXi?
• ESXi is VMware’s Type 1 hypervisor software installed directly on the physical
server and creates the virtual layer

• Components of ESXi:
- Unix Microkernel
- VMware Kernel (VMkernel)

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vCenter and vSphere Client
• vCenter: Software installed on a
dedicated server to manage ESXi servers
and other components of a virtualized
data center

• vSphere Client: Program with a

graphical user interface (GUI) that allows
data center administrators to connect to
vCenter and ESXi remotely

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Server Virtualization
• Results in increased efficiency of data center servers because multiple VMs
can be hosted on one server

• Computing resources can be distributed to customers using less hardware

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Storage Virtualization
• Storage capacity is pooled and distributed to
the VMs
- Physical storage devices are
partitioned into logical storage
(LUNs)
- LUNs are used to create a datastore

• How do VMs access data center storage?

- VMs are stored as VMDK (.vmdk)
files on datastore
- VM configuration files (VM settings)
are stored as VMX (.vmx) files

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Network Virtualization
• Physical components that make up the physical
network are virtualized to create a virtual network

• What is a vSwitch?
- Virtual switch that virtual devices can
connect to in order to communicate
with each other

• What is a vLAN?
- Virtual Local Area Network that is
segmented into groups of ports isolated
from one another, creating different
network segments

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Types of Virtual Networks
• Bridged Network: The host server and the VM are
connected to the same network, and the host shares
its IP address with the VM

• NAT: VMs use an IP translated from the host’s IP

(using NAT device) and communicate on a private
network set up on the host computer

• Host-only Network: VMs use a private network but

do not have translated IP addresses to connect to
external network, therefore can only communicate to
other VMs on the isolated host network

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Application and Desktop Virtualization
• Why use virtualized applications?
- Some applications have specific system requirements
- VMware Thinapp creates a packaged virtual app, that contains the
program and system requirements, and delivers it to the end-user

• What is desktop virtualization?

- Designed to solve computing resource issues faced by the mobile
workforce (workers that need computing without the hardware)
- VMware Horizon takes the resources needed to create a desktop
environment from data centers and delivers it to the end-user’s device

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Convergence
• Convergence: Moving from a traditional hardware-based server model to a
virtual data center

• Two strategies:
- Containment: Not deploying any existing applications for customers on
virtual servers. Maintain applications running on the hardware-based data
center.
- Consolidation: Moving applications that are running in the old
hardware-based data center model using VMware P2V technology

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What is the Cloud?
The Cloud

• Cloud computing is the delivery of

shared computing resources
(software and/or data) on-demand
through the internet

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Types of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is categorized into different
service models. The major types of cloud
computing are:

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

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Cloud Deployment Models
Cloud deployment includes an emphasize on where the
hardware or software is running and who is controlling it.

• Private Cloud
• Community Cloud
• Public Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

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VMware Solutions
vMotion
• Move running virtual machines from one ESXi host to another ESXi host without
service interruption (live migration)

• Increases availability of data and computing resources

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Storage vMotion
• Move the disks and configuration files of a running virtual machine from one
datastore to another datastore without service interruption

• Increases availability of storage

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High Availability (HA)
• Pools servers (hosts) and the VMs that reside on them in a cluster so that in the
event of a failure, the virtual machines on a failed host are restarted on alternate
hosts

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Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
• What problem does DRS solve?

• HA clusters need to be monitored and managed. DRS implements a shared

management interface so that the cluster’s resources can be monitored and
managed

• vSphere Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler provides the same solution for
storage clusters

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Fault Tolerance (FT)
• A secondary copy of that virtual machine and its files is created on another ESXi
host and datastore

• Using FT, the transfer to a different server is seamless and will not be noticeable
to the end-user

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Replication
• vSphere Replication makes copies of
VMs in a different physical location,
useful for data protection and disaster
recovery

• Works with vSphere Client to allow

admins to monitor

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VSAN
• VMware VSAN (Virtual Storage Area Network)
virtualizes existing storage in data center
servers

• Creates a hyper-converged infrastructure;

integrated virtualized data center components
from one vendor (i.e., VMware) (Do you recall
what a converged infrastructure is?)

• Interacts with vSphere to create one layer of

virtualization software, which is managed by
the vCenter management layer

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NSX
• Suite of virtualization solutions for data
center networking

• VMware NSX creates a ‘software

network’ on top of the physical network
that can be divided up into many virtual
networks

• Virtual networking components included

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VMware Cloud Foundation
• Suite of virtualization solutions for data
center migration

• VMware Cloud Foundation makes it easy

to transition from an existing system to a
virtual data center

• Can be used to virtualize on-premises or

to migrate off-premises to cloud
environments such as Amazon Web
Services (AWS)

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vCloud Automation Center
• Cloud management product to quickly
deliver and easily manage the
personalized infrastructure, applications,
and services for business needs

• Individuals can have access to a user-

friendly self-service portal to create their
own machines

• Ability to deliver services on different

platforms such as AWS and Azure

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CloudHealth
• Analyze and report your cloud costs,
usage, performance, and security

• Monitor groups of resources or specific

resources such as CPU, memory, and disk
usage

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