Implementing VMware vCenter Server
This book starts with the basics then leads you by the hand through a complete Vmware vCenter Server implementation course. Designed to help you administer and manage your environment on a day to day basis.
1st Edition
Published on 7. October 2025
324 pages
978-1-84968-999-1 (ISBN)
Description
Key FeaturesBook DescriptionThis book is a practical, hands-on guide that will help you learn everything you need to know to administer your environment with VMware vCenter Server. Throughout the book, there are best practices and useful tips and tricks which can be used for day-to-day tasks.If you are an administrator or a technician starting with VMware, with little or no knowledge of virtualization products, this book is ideal for you. Even if you are an IT professional looking to expand your existing environment, you will be able to use this book to help you improve the management of these environments. IT managers will find it helpful in terms of improving cost efficiency, ensuring required levels of service and utilising its excellent reporting abilities.What you will learn - Deploy VMware vCenter Server and ESXi hosts
- Create and clone virtual machines and work with templates
- Reduce downtime, and configure and manage availability features
- Allocate resources, and configure resource pools and DRS
- Manage users
- Secure ESXi hosts
- Learn to use alerts
- Work with VMware vCenter Operations Manager
- Get to grips with VMware vCenter Orchestrator
Who this book is for
- Create and clone virtual machines and work with templates
- Reduce downtime, and configure and manage availability features
- Allocate resources, and configure resource pools and DRS
- Manage users
- Secure ESXi hosts
- Learn to use alerts
- Work with VMware vCenter Operations Manager
- Get to grips with VMware vCenter Orchestrator
Who this book is for
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Kostantin Kuminsky
Implementing VMware vCenter Server
This book starts with the basics then leads you by the hand through a complete Vmware vCenter Server implementation course. Designed to help you administer and manage your environment on a day to day basis.
Book
10/2013
Packt Publishing
€63.30
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Person
Kuminsky Kostantin :
Konstantin Kuminsky is a VMware-, Microsoft-, and Cisco-certified IT professional with over 10 years of experience in different areas of the IT industry, including virtualization, networking, and security. His experience includes the support of Tier 3 Data Centre, the management of private Clouds, the administration of second- and third-level help desk and on-call support, as well as the deployment and support of various redundant systems and environments with high security requirements. Konstantin is also the author of Implementing vCenter Server, published by Packt Publishing, which covers general aspects of vCenter implementation and usage.
Konstantin Kuminsky is a VMware-, Microsoft-, and Cisco-certified IT professional with over 10 years of experience in different areas of the IT industry, including virtualization, networking, and security. His experience includes the support of Tier 3 Data Centre, the management of private Clouds, the administration of second- and third-level help desk and on-call support, as well as the deployment and support of various redundant systems and environments with high security requirements. Konstantin is also the author of Implementing vCenter Server, published by Packt Publishing, which covers general aspects of vCenter implementation and usage.
Content
- Intro
- Implementing VMware vCenter Server
- Table of Contents
- Implementing VMware vCenter Server
- Credits
- About the Author
- About the Reviewers
- www.PacktPub.com
- Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
- Why Subscribe?
- Free Access for Packt account holders
- Instant Updates on New Packt Books
- Preface
- What this book covers
- What you need for this book
- Who this book is for
- Conventions
- Reader feedback
- Customer support
- Errata
- Piracy
- Questions
- 1. vCenter Deployment
- Key vCenter functions and capabilities
- VMware terminologies - vSphere, ESX, ESXi, hypervisor, and VMFS
- vSphere component layers
- The VMware licensing model
- Planning the vSphere environment
- vCenter system requirements
- vSphere physical topology
- Virtual versus physical vCenter Server
- Installing the Management Suite
- Linked Mode groups
- Configuring a database for vCenter Server
- Accessing vCenter with vSphere Client
- Accessing vCenter with web client
- Summary
- 2. Managing ESXi Hosts
- Adding and removing existing hosts
- Storage
- Host storage adapters and storage configuration
- Fibre Channel (FC)
- Internet SCSI (iSCSI)
- Network-attached storage (NAS)
- Storage LUNs and datastores
- Storage multipathing and failover
- Storage Thin Provisioning
- Networking
- Network adapters and network configuration
- Virtual switch concept
- vSphere Standard Switch
- vSphere Distributed Switch
- Setting up networking with redundancy
- EVC mode
- Managing hosts with different CPUs
- Host Profiles
- Profile workflow
- Managing profiles
- Checking compliance
- Summary
- 3. Virtual Machine Management
- Creating a new VM
- New VM wizard
- Virtual hardware
- Virtual CPUs (vCPUs)
- The SCSI controller
- Virtual disks
- Expanding a drive
- Booting a VM from CD-ROM
- Extending a drive in a Linux guest operating system
- VMware Tools
- Installing VMware Tools on a Windows guest
- Installing VMware Tools on a Linux guest
- Time synchronization
- Tick counting
- Tickless timekeeping
- VM time synchronization
- Cloning the existing VM
- Hot and cold cloning
- Postcloning tasks for Windows guests
- Deploying a VM from a template
- Creating a template
- Postdeployment tasks
- Keeping templates up-to-date
- Template best practices
- Importing/exporting an OVF template
- Importing the OVF template using the command line and GUI
- Importing OVF templates into previous versions of vSphere
- USB support
- Snapshots
- Free space
- Seeking additional free space
- Another task is in progress
- Summary
- 4. Availability Management
- Reducing planned and unplanned downtime
- Planned downtime
- vSphere requirements for vMotion
- Migration with vMotion
- Unplanned downtime
- High availability (HA)
- Creating a vSphere HA cluster
- HA settings
- Host monitoring status
- Datastore heartbeating
- Virtual machine options
- Restart priority
- Isolation response
- VM monitoring
- Admission control
- Admission control policies
- HA security and logging
- Using HA with DRS
- What to expect when HA is enabled
- Fault Tolerance
- Preparing hosts and VMs
- Configuring FT
- Using FT with DRS
- Summary
- 5. Security Management
- User management
- Authentication
- Users and groups
- Roles and permissions
- Securing ESXi
- Using a firewall
- Using security certificates and encryption
- Enabling lockdown mode
- Summary
- 6. Resource Management
- Resource allocation
- Understanding shares
- Understanding reservations
- Understanding limits
- Resource pools
- Advantages
- Creating and editing pools
- DRS
- Understanding the DRS cluster requirements
- Creating a DRS cluster
- Disabling DRS
- Using power management
- Cluster validity
- Affinity rules
- CPU affinity rules
- CPU power management
- Summary
- 7. Events, Alarms, and Automated Actions
- Events, alarms, and system monitoring
- Alarms and events
- Acknowledging and resetting triggered alarms
- Monitoring host health
- Guest performance and storage usage
- Snapshot size monitoring
- Setting up e-mail alerts and SNMP traps
- Viewing and scheduling tasks
- The Update Manager plugin
- Installation
- Working with baselines
- Scanning and remediating objects
- Deploying Windows updates
- Summary
- 8. VMware vCenter Operations
- Installing and configuring vCenter Operations
- What is vCenter Operations?
- vCenter Operations Manager Standard deployment
- Basic configuration
- Additional configuration and usage
- Evaluation tasks
- Badges and scores
- Hierarchy views
- Health details
- Scorecards
- Analyse using heat maps
- Memory pressure and ballooning
- Summary
- 9. VMware vCenter Orchestrator
- Installing and configuring vCenter Orchestrator
- System requirements and components setup
- Installing and upgrading Orchestrator
- Initial configuration
- Network access
- SSL certificate
- LDAP configuration
- Database connection
- Server certificate
- Plugin configuration
- Installing Orchestrator as a system service
- Administering vCenter Orchestrator
- Overview of workflows
- Resource elements and actions
- Summary
- Index
