VMware vSphere: Fast Track

Lab Manual
ESXi 7 and vCenter Server 7

VMware® Education Services

VMware, Inc.
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VMware vSphere: Fast Track
Lab Manual
ESXi 7 and vCenter Server 7
Part Number EDU-EN-VSFT7-LAB (21-JUN-2021)

Copyright © 2021 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual and its accompanying
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VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at
http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of
VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names
mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. VMware vSphere®
vMotion®, VMware vSphere® Storage vMotion®, VMware vSphere® Lifecycle Manager™,
VMware vSphere® High Availability, VMware vSphere® Enterprise Plus Edition™, VMware
vSphere® ESXi™ Shell, VMware vSphere® Client™, VMware vSphere®, VMware vSAN™,
VMware vRealize®, VMware vCenter® Server Appliance™, VMware vCenter Server®,
VMware View®, VMware Horizon® View™, VMware Verify™, VMware Host Client™, VMware
Horizon® 7, VMware Horizon® 7, VMware Horizon® 7 on VMware Cloud™ on AWS, vSphere
Storage vMotion, Project Photon OS™, VMware Photon™, VMware vSphere® Network I/O
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Typographical Conventions

The following typographical conventions are used in this course.

Conventions Usage and Examples

Monospace Identifies command names, command options, parameters, code

fragments, error messages, filenames, folder names, directory names,
and path names:

• Run the esxtop command.

• ... found in the /var/log/messages file.

Monospace Identifies user inputs:

Bold
• Enter ipconfig /release.

Boldface Identifies user interface controls:

• Click the Configuration tab.

Italic Identifies book titles:

• vSphere Virtual Machine Administration

<> Indicates placeholder variables:

• <ESXi_host_name>

• ... the Settings/<Your_Name>.txt file

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Contents

Lab 1 Accessing the Lab Environment ..................................................................................... 1

Task 1: Access the Student Desktop .......................................................................................................................... 1
Task 2: Log In to an ESXi Host with VMware Host Client ................................................................................. 2
Task 3: Log In to vCenter Server with the vSphere Client ............................................................................... 3
Lab 2 Configuring an ESXi Host ................................................................................................ 5
Task 1: Add an ESXi Host to Active Directory ....................................................................................................... 5
Task 2: Log In to the ESXi Host as an Active Directory User .......................................................................... 6
Task 3: Enable the SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell Services................................................................................. 6
Lab 3 Creating a Virtual Machine .............................................................................................. 7
Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine .................................................................................................................................. 7
Task 2: Delete the Virtual Machine ............................................................................................................................. 9
Lab 4 Installing VMware Tools ................................................................................................. 10
Task 1: Power On and Open a Console to the VM ............................................................................................. 10
Task 2: Install VMware Tools ....................................................................................................................................... 11
Lab 5 Adding Virtual Hardware ............................................................................................... 15
Task 1: Examine a Virtual Machine's Configuration .............................................................................................. 15
Task 2: Add Virtual Hard Disks to the Virtual Machine ...................................................................................... 16
Task 3: Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks..................................................................17
Lab 6 Adding vSphere Licenses ............................................................................................. 18
Task 1: Add vSphere Licenses to vCenter Server .............................................................................................. 18
Task 2: Assign a License to the vCenter Server Instance ............................................................................... 19
Lab 7 Creating and Managing the vCenter Server Inventory .......................................21
Task 1: Create a Data Center Object ....................................................................................................................... 21

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Task 2: Add ESXi Hosts to the Inventory ............................................................................................................. 22
Task 3: View Information About the ESXi Hosts ............................................................................................... 23
Task 4: Configure the ESXi Hosts as NTP Clients ............................................................................................. 23
Task 5: Create a Folder for the ESXi Hosts ......................................................................................................... 24
Task 6: Create Folders for VMs and VM Templates ......................................................................................... 24
Lab 8 Configuring Active Directory: Joining a Domain ................................................. 26
Task 1: Join vCenter Server to the vclass.local Domain .................................................................................. 26
Lab 9 Configuring Active Directory: Adding an Identity Source ............................... 28
Task 1: Add vclass.local as an Identity Source..................................................................................................... 28
Lab 10 Users, Groups, and Permissions ............................................................................... 29
Task 1: View Active Directory Users....................................................................................................................... 29
Task 2: Assign Object Permission to an Active Directory User ................................................................... 30
Task 3: Assign Root-Level Global Permission to an Active Directory User ............................................. 31
Task 4: Log In as an Active Directory User .......................................................................................................... 31
Task 5: Use an Active Directory User to Create a Virtual Machine ............................................................ 32
Lab 11 Using Standard Switches ............................................................................................. 33
Task 1: View the Standard Switch Configuration ................................................................................................ 33
Task 2: Create a Standard Switch with a Virtual Machine Port Group ....................................................... 34
Task 3: Attach Virtual Machines to the Virtual Machine Port Group ........................................................... 35
Lab 12 Accessing iSCSI Storage ..............................................................................................37
Task 1: View an Existing ESXi Host iSCSI Configuration ...................................................................................37
Task 2: Add a VMkernel Port Group to a Standard Switch ........................................................................... 39
Task 3: Add the iSCSI Software Adapter to an ESXi Host ............................................................................ 40
Task 4: Connect the iSCSI Software Adapters to Storage ........................................................................... 40
Lab 13 Managing VMFS Datastores ...................................................................................... 42
Task 1: Create VMFS Datastores for the ESXi Host ......................................................................................... 42
Task 2: Expand a VMFS Datastore to Consume Unused Space on a LUN ............................................. 44
Task 3: Remove a VMFS Datastore........................................................................................................................ 44
Task 4: Extend a VMFS Datastore .......................................................................................................................... 45
Task 5: Create a Second VMFS Datastore .......................................................................................................... 46
Lab 14 Accessing NFS Storage .............................................................................................. 47
Task 1: Configure Access to an NFS Datastore ................................................................................................. 47
Task 2: View NFS Storage Information.................................................................................................................. 48

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Lab 15 Using a vSAN Datastore ............................................................................................. 49
Task 1: View a vSAN Datastore Configuration.................................................................................................... 49
Task 2: View the vSAN Default Storage Policy ................................................................................................. 52
Task 3: View a Virtual Machine on the vSAN Datastore ................................................................................. 53
Lab 16 Using VM Templates: Creating Templates and Deploying VMs .................. 54
Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine Template ........................................................................................................... 54
Task 2: Create Customization Specifications ....................................................................................................... 55
Task 3: Deploy Virtual Machines from a Template ............................................................................................ 56
Lab 17 Using Content Libraries................................................................................................ 58
Task 1: Create a Content Library .............................................................................................................................. 58
Task 2: Clone a VM Template to a Template in a Content Library ............................................................. 59
Task 3: Deploy a VM from a VM Template in the Content Library ............................................................. 59
Lab 18 Modifying Virtual Machines ......................................................................................... 61
Task 1: Adjust Memory Allocation on a Virtual Machine ................................................................................... 61
Task 2: Increase the Size of a VMDK File.............................................................................................................. 62
Task 3: Rename a Virtual Machine in the vCenter Server Inventory .......................................................... 64
Lab 19 vSphere vMotion Migrations ...................................................................................... 65
Task 1: Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local ............................................. 65
Task 2: Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local ........................................... 66
Task 3: Prepare Virtual Machines for vSphere vMotion Migration ............................................................... 67
Task 4: Migrate Virtual Machines Using vSphere vMotion .............................................................................. 69
Lab 20 vSphere Storage vMotion Migrations .....................................................................71
Task 1: Migrate Virtual Machine Files from Local Storage to Shared Storage ..........................................71
Task 2: Migrate Both the Compute Resource and Storage of a Virtual Machine ...................................72
Lab 21 Working with Snapshots ..............................................................................................73
Task 1: Take Snapshots of a Virtual Machine ........................................................................................................73
Task 2: Add Files and Take Another Snapshot of a Virtual Machine...........................................................75
Task 3: Revert the Virtual Machine to a Snapshot ............................................................................................. 76
Task 4: Delete an Individual Snapshot .....................................................................................................................77
Task 5: Delete All Snapshots ..................................................................................................................................... 78
Lab 22 Controlling VM Resources ......................................................................................... 79
Task 1: Create CPU Contention ................................................................................................................................ 79
Task 2: Verify CPU Share Functionality .................................................................................................................. 81

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Lab 23 Monitoring Virtual Machine Performance ............................................................ 83
Task 1: Create a CPU Workload ............................................................................................................................... 83
Task 2: Use Performance Charts to Monitor CPU Use .................................................................................... 84
Task 3: Remove CPU Affinity and Change CPU Shares to Normal ............................................................ 85
Lab 24 Using Alarms ................................................................................................................... 86
Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor a Condition .................................................................... 86
Task 2: Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm ............................................................................................................ 88
Task 3: Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor an Event ........................................................................ 89
Task 4: Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm ............................................................................................................. 91
Task 5: Disable Virtual Machine Alarms .................................................................................................................. 92
Lab 25 Implementing vSphere DRS Clusters .................................................................... 93
Task 1: Create a Cluster That Is Enabled for vSphere DRS ............................................................................ 93
Task 2: Modify vSphere DRS Settings ................................................................................................................... 94
Task 3: Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster .................................................................................................................. 94
Task 4: Verify vSphere vMotion Configuration on the ESXi Hosts ............................................................. 95
Task 5: Create a Load Imbalance ............................................................................................................................. 95
Task 6: Verify Proper vSphere DRS Cluster Functionality ............................................................................. 96
Lab 26 Using vSphere HA ........................................................................................................ 99
Task 1: Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster ................................................................................................................. 99
Task 2: View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster............................................................................ 100
Task 3: Configure Network Management Redundancy .................................................................................. 101
Task 4: Test the vSphere HA Functionality ....................................................................................................... 102
Task 5: View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage ............................................................................... 103
Task 6: Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to Tolerate ............................................. 104
Lab 27 Configuring vSphere Distributed Switch ............................................................ 106
Task 1: Create a Distributed Switch ....................................................................................................................... 106
Task 2: Add ESXi Hosts to the Distributed Switch.......................................................................................... 108
Task 3: Examine Your Distributed Switch Configuration ............................................................................... 109
Task 4: Migrate VMs to Another Distributed Switch Port Group ............................................................... 110
Lab 28 Managing vSphere Distributed Switches ............................................................. 112
Task 1: Add a New Port Group to VDS ................................................................................................................. 112
Task 2: Enable the VDS Health Check ................................................................................................................... 113
Task 3: Investigate the VDS Health Check Status.............................................................................................114

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Task 4: Remediate the VDS Issue............................................................................................................................114
Task 5: Disable the VDS Health Check Service .................................................................................................. 115
Task 6: Back Up the VDS Configuration................................................................................................................ 115
Lab 29 Using Port Mirroring ..................................................................................................... 116
Task 1: Prepare to Capture Mirrored Network Traffic ..................................................................................... 116
Task 2: Configure Port Mirroring on the Distributed Switch .......................................................................... 118
Task 3: Verify That Port Mirroring Is Capturing Traffic .................................................................................... 119
Task 4: Restore the Distributed Switch Configuration ................................................................................... 120
Lab 30 Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager.......................................................................... 121
Task 1: Import Update Files to the Image Depot................................................................................................ 121
Task 2: Create a Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Enabled ..........................................................124
Task 3: Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster ................................................................................................................. 125
Task 4: Update ESXi Hosts Using the Cluster Image ...................................................................................... 126
Lab 31 Using Host Profiles ....................................................................................................... 129
Task 1: Preconfigure ESXi Hosts..............................................................................................................................129
Task 2: Create and Export a Host Profile ........................................................................................................... 130
Task 3: Import a Host Profile .................................................................................................................................... 132
Task 4: Duplicate and Edit a Host Profile ............................................................................................................. 132
Task 5: Attach an ESXi Host to a Host Profile ................................................................................................... 133
Task 6: Run an Initial Compliance Check...............................................................................................................134
Task 7: Introduce a Configuration Drift ................................................................................................................. 135
Task 8: Run a Compliance Check and Remediate the Configuration Drift .............................................. 136
Task 9: Detach the Host Profile ...............................................................................................................................138
Lab 32 Managing Resource Pools ........................................................................................ 139
Task 1: Maintain VMs .....................................................................................................................................................139
Task 2: Create CPU Contention ...............................................................................................................................141
Task 3: Create Resource Pools ...............................................................................................................................142
Task 4: Verify Resource Pool Functionality ........................................................................................................143
Lab 33 Using Policy-Based Storage .................................................................................... 145
Task 1: Add Datastores for Use by Policy-Based Storage............................................................................145
Task 2: Use vSphere Storage vMotion to Migrate a VM's Storage ...........................................................147
Task 3: Configure Storage Tags ..............................................................................................................................147
Task 4: Create VM Storage Policies ......................................................................................................................149

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Task 5: Assign Storage Policies to VMs .............................................................................................................. 150
Lab 34 Creating vSAN Storage Policies ............................................................................ 153
Task 1: Examine the Default Storage Policy ........................................................................................................ 153
Task 2: Create a Custom Policy with No Failure Tolerance ..........................................................................154
Task 3: Assign the Custom Policy to a VM ......................................................................................................... 155
Task 4: Make the VM Compliant ..............................................................................................................................156
Task 5: Create an Invalid Storage Policy .............................................................................................................. 157
Answer Key ................................................................................................................................... 159

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Lab 1 Accessing the Lab Environment

Objective and Tasks

Log in to the student desktop and access the vSphere Client and VMware Host Client:

1. Access the Student Desktop

2. Log In to an ESXi Host with VMware Host Client

3. Log In to vCenter Server with the vSphere Client

Task 1: Access the Student Desktop

You access and manage the lab environment from the student desktop.

The system assigned to you serves as an end-user terminal.

1. Verify that you are successfully logged into the student desktop.

NOTE

If not, log in to your student desktop by entering vclass\administrator as the user

name and VMware1! as the password.

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Task 2: Log In to an ESXi Host with VMware Host Client
You log in to the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local ESXi host as user root to familiarize yourself with the
VMware Host Client UI.

1. From your student desktop Student-a-01, log in to SA-ESXi-01 as root using VMware Host
Client.

a. Click the Firefox icon on the taskbar of your student desktop.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > Host Client (SA-ESXi-01).

c. To log in, enter root for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

VMware Host Client opens with Host selected in the left pane, also called the Navigator
pane.

2. Explore the user interface by clicking objects in the Navigator pane and viewing information
about them in the right pane.

Q1. How many CPUs and how much memory does this ESXi host have?
A1. This ESXi host has 2 CPUs and 8 GB of memory.

Q2. Is the NTP service running on this ESXi host?

A2. No.

Q3. How many virtual machines are on this host?

A3. Six.

Q4. What are the guest operating system types for the virtual machines on this
host?
A4. Microsoft Windows 10 and VMware Photon OS.

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3. Log out of VMware Host Client.

Task 3: Log In to vCenter Server with the vSphere Client

Using the vSphere Client, you log in to the sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local vCenter Server system and
view information to familiarize yourself with the UI layout.

1. From your student desktop Student-a-01, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local as

administrator@vsphere.local using the vSphere Client.

a. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

b. Log in by entering administrator@vsphere.local as the user name and

VMware1! as the password.
The vSphere Client opens, and the Home page appears.

2. On the Home page, select SA-VCSA-01.VCLASS.LOCAL from the drop-down menu at the
top.

This page provides information about the vCenter Server instance that you are logged into,
such as the total CPU, memory, and storage available.

3. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

The Hosts and Clusters inventory appears in the left pane, also called the navigation pane.

3
4. View the navigation pane.

The navigation pane lists the vCenter Server inventory for sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local.

5. View the items in the inventory.

You might have to expand the items in the inventory to view all the objects.

Q1. Do you see the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host?

A1. No because that host has not yet been added to the vCenter Server inventory.

6. Log out of the vSphere Client.

The logout function is in the Administrator@VSPHERE.LOCAL drop-down menu at the top-

right corner of the window.

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Lab 2 Configuring an ESXi Host

Objective and Tasks

Use VMware Host Client to configure an ESXi host:

1. Add an ESXi Host to Active Directory

2. Log In to the ESXi Host as an Active Directory User

3. Enable the SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell Services

Task 1: Add an ESXi Host to Active Directory

Using VMware Host Client, you configure the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local ESXi host to use a directory
service (Active Directory) for managing users.

1. From your student desktop Student-a-01, log in to sa-esxi-01 as root using VMware Host Client.

a. Click the Firefox icon on the taskbar of your student desktop.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > Host Client (SA-ESXi-01).

c. Log in by entering root for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

VMware Host Client opens with Host selected in the Navigator pane.

2. In the Navigator pane, select Manage.

3. In the right pane, click Security & users.

4. Click Authentication and click Join domain.

The Join domain window opens.

5. In the Domain name text box, enter vclass.local.

6. Leave the Use authentication proxy check box unselected.

7. In the User name text box, enter administrator.

8. In the Password text box, enter VMware1!

9. Click Join domain.

10. Verify that Active directory is enabled on sa-esxi-01 and that this host has joined the
vclass.local domain.

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Task 2: Log In to the ESXi Host as an Active Directory User
You verify that you can log in to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local as the Active Directory user
esxadmin@vclass.local.

esxadmin@vclass.local is a preconfigured user account that is a member of the ESX Admins

domain group.

1. Log out of VMware Host Client.

2. To log back in, enter esxadmin for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

3. Verify that you successfully logged in as this user.

By default, any user that is a member of the ESX Admins domain group has full
administrative access to ESXi hosts that join the domain.

Task 3: Enable the SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell Services

You start the SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell services on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local so that you can
remotely access the ESXi host command line.

IMPORTANT

In a production environment, keep SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell services disabled. Enable
these services only if you must access the command line to troubleshoot problems. When
you finish troubleshooting, disable these services.

1. In the Navigator pane, select Manage.

2. In the right pane, click the Services tab.

3. Scroll down the list of services to find the vSphere ESXi Shell and SSH services.

vSphere ESXi Shell is the Tech Support Mode (TSM) service, and SSH is the TSM-SSH
service. Both of these services are stopped.

4. Select TSM and click Start.

5. Select TSM-SSH and click Start.

6. Verify that the TSM and TSM-SSH services have a status of Running.

7. Log out of VMware Host Client.

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Lab 3 Creating a Virtual Machine

Objective and Tasks

Use VMware Host Client to create and delete a virtual machine:

1. Create a Virtual Machine

2. Delete the Virtual Machine

Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine

You create a virtual machine based on specific requirements.

1. From your student desktop Student-a-01, log in to SA-ESXi-01 as root using VMware Host
Client.

a. Click the Firefox icon from the taskbar of your student desktop.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > Host Client (SA-ESXi-01).

c. Log in by entering root for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

2. Ensure that Host is selected in the Navigator pane.

3. In the right pane, click Create/Register VM.

The New virtual machine wizard opens.

4. On the Select creation type page, verify that Create a new virtual machine is selected and
click Next.

7
5. On the Select a name and guest OS page, configure settings for your virtual machine.

Option Action

Name Enter Win10-Empty.

Compatibility Select ESXi 7.0 virtual machine from the drop-

down menu.

Guest OS family Select Windows from the drop-down menu.

Guest OS version Select Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit) from the

drop-down menu.

Click Next.

6. On the Select storage page, select the ICM-Datastore datastore and click Next.

7. On the Customize settings page, configure virtual hardware settings.

a. Configure CPU, memory, and storage.

Option Action

CPU Select 1 from the drop-down menu.

Memory Enter 1024 MB.

Hard Disk 1 Enter 12 GB.

b. Find CD/DVD Drive 1 and select Datastore ISO file from the drop-down menu.

The Datastore browser window opens.

c. In the Datastore browser window, select ICM-Datastore.

d. From ICM-Datastore, click the ISO folder and select the Windows 10 operating system
ISO image: en_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2019_x64_dvd_5795bb03.iso.

e. Click Select.

f. Click the arrow next to CD/DVD Drive 1.

g. Verify that the Connect at power on check box is selected and click Next.

8
8. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click Finish.

9. In the Navigator pane, select Virtual Machines and verify that your newly created VM
appears in the right pane.

10. Click the Win10-Empty virtual machine name in the right pane.
You must click the name of the VM, not just the row, to view information about the VM.

11. Review the settings under General Information, Hardware Configuration, and Resource
Consumption.

12. In the Hardware Configuration pane, expand Hard disk 1 and record the configuration
information.

• Backing __________

• Capacity __________

• Thin provisioned __________

NOTE

In a production environment, the next step is to install an operating system in the new VM.
However, to save class and lab time, you do not install the guest operating system.

Task 2: Delete the Virtual Machine

You delete the virtual machine that you created to familiarize yourself with the process of
removing a VM from disk.

1. In the Navigator pane, right-click the Win10-Empty virtual machine and select Delete.

2. Click Delete to confirm deleting Win10-Empty.

3. Verify that the Win10-Empty VM does not appear in the Navigator pane and the right pane.

You might have to refresh the screen.

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Lab 4 Installing VMware Tools

Objective and Tasks

Use VMware Host Client to install VMware Tools into an existing Windows VM:

1. Power On and Open a Console to the VM

2. Install VMware Tools

Task 1: Power On and Open a Console to the VM

To install VMware Tools, you must first power on and open a console to the Win10-Tools VM.

1. From your student desktop Student-a-01, log in to SA-ESXi-01 as root using VMware Host
Client.

a. Click the Firefox icon from the taskbar of your student desktop.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > Host Client (SA-ESXi-01).

c. To log in, enter root for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

2. Select Virtual Machines in the Navigator pane.

3. In the right pane, right-click the Win10-Tools virtual machine and select Power > Power on.

4. When the Win10-Tools virtual machine icon shows that the VM is powered on, right-click
Win10-Tools and select Console > Open console in new tab.

5. Verify that the VM starts successfully and that you are automatically logged in to Win10-
Tools as vclass\administrator.

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Task 2: Install VMware Tools
You install VMware Tools in the Win10-Tools VM to improve the overall performance of this VM.

NOTE

You perform the installation using the keyboard because mouse performance is suboptimal
without VMware Tools. After VMware Tools is installed in the Win10-Tools VM, mouse
performance improves substantially.

1. Return to the VMware Host Client window.

2. In the right pane, right-click Win10-Tools and select Guest OS > Install VMware Tools.

The VMware Tools ISO image is mounted on the CD/DVD drive of the Win10-Tools VM.

3. Select the Win10-Tools Console tab.

4. Right-click the Win10-Tools Console tab and select Reload Tab from the drop-down menu.

5. Click anywhere in the console window and press the Tab key to select the Windows Start
icon in the lower left corner of the Win10-Tools desktop.

6. After the Windows Start icon is selected, press Enter.

The Windows Start menu opens.

11
7. Enter D:\ and press Enter.

VMware Tools Setup opens.

8. Install VMware Tools.

a. On the Welcome to the installation wizard for VMware Tools page, press Enter to select
Next.

b. On the Choose Setup Type page, verify that Typical is selected.

c. Press Tab twice to select Next and press Enter.

d. On the Ready to Install VMware Tools page, press Enter to select Install.

e. When the installation is complete, press Enter to select Finish.

A window opens requesting that you restart the system.

f. Press Enter to select Yes to restart the system.

g. Wait for the operating system to reboot.

After the reboot is complete, you are automatically logged in as vclass\administrator.

9. Verify that VMware Tools is installed in the VM.

a. Using your mouse, navigate to the Windows system tray in the lower right to show
hidden icons.

b. Double-click the VMware Tools icon.

The window shows the version of VMware Tools and indicates that the VMware Tools
service is running.

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10. Verify that mouse performance is acceptable.

a. Right-click the Windows Start icon and select File Explorer.

b. Navigate the folders to verify that mouse performance is acceptable.

11. Close the Win10-Tools VM console tab.

12. Power off the Win10-Tools VM.

a. In the right pane of VMware Host Client, right-click Win10-Tools and select Power >
Power off.

b. Click Yes to confirm the shutdown.

c. Verify that the Win10-Tools VM icon indicates that the VM is powered off.

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Lab 5 Adding Virtual Hardware

Objective and Tasks

Use VMware Host Client to examine a virtual machine's configuration and add virtual hardware to
the virtual machine:

1. Examine a Virtual Machine's Configuration

2. Add Virtual Hard Disks to the Virtual Machine

3. Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks

Task 1: Examine a Virtual Machine's Configuration

You use VMware Host Client to examine a VM's configuration.
Viewing a VM's configuration is useful for general VM maintenance and troubleshooting purposes.

1. From your student desktop, log in to SA-ESXi-01 as root using VMware Host Client.

a. Click the Firefox icon from the taskbar of your student desktop.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > Host Client (SA-ESXi-01).

c. To log in, enter root for the user name and VMware1! for the password.

2. In the Navigator pane, click Virtual Machines.

3. Power on the Photon-HW VM.

a. In the right pane, right-click Photon-HW and select Power > Power on.

4. In the right pane, click the Photon-HW link.

5. Minimize the Recent tasks pane by clicking the Minimize icon in the top-right corner of the
Recent tasks pane.

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6. Review the Hardware Configuration pane for the virtual machine.

Q1. What size is the VM's hard disk 1?

A1. 5 GB.

Q2. Is Hard disk 1 a thin-provisioned or thick-provisioned disk?

A2. Thin-provisioned disk.

7. Review the Resource Consumption pane for the virtual machine.

Q3. How much storage space is used by this VM?

A3. A little over 2 GB.

8. Review the General Information pane for the virtual machine.

Q4. Is VMware Tools installed and running?

A4. Yes.

Task 2: Add Virtual Hard Disks to the Virtual Machine

To familiarize yourself with the process of adding virtual hardware, you add two virtual hard disks
to the VM. You configure one hard disk as thin-provisioned and the other as thick-provisioned.

1. In the Navigator pane, right-click Photon-HW and select Edit settings.

The Edit settings dialog box opens.

2. Click Add hard disk and select New standard hard disk.

3. For the new hard disk, change the disk size and disk provisioning type.

a. Change the size of the new hard disk to 1 GB.

b. Expand New Hard disk and click Thin provisioned.

4. Minimize New Hard disk.

5. Click Add hard disk and select New standard hard disk.

6. Expand the second new hard disk, change the disk size and disk provisioning type.

a. Change the size of the new hard disk to 1 GB.

b. Click Thick provisioned, eagerly zeroed.

7. Click Save.

8. In the Hardware Configuration pane, verify that Hard disk 2 is a 1 GB, thin-provisioned disk,
and that Hard disk 3 is a 1 GB, thick-provisioned disk.

16
Task 3: Compare Thin-Provisioned and Thick-Provisioned Disks
You view and compare thin-provisioned and thick-provisioned virtual disk files.
Being aware of the differences between these two disk types is useful for planning your storage
needs and also for troubleshooting storage problems.

1. In the Hardware Configuration pane, view the details for Hard disk 2 and Hard disk 3.

Q1. What is the name of the virtual disk file for Hard disk 2?
A1. Photon-HW_1.vmdk

Q2. What is the name of the virtual disk file for Hard disk 3?
A2. Photon-HW_2.vmdk

Q3. On what datastore are Hard disk 2 and Hard disk 3 located?
A3. ICM-Datastore

2. Verify the size of the Hard disk 2 and Hard disk 3 virtual disk files.

a. In the Navigator pane, click Storage.

The Datastores tab appears in the right pane and ICM-Datastore appears in the list.

b. Highlight the ICM-Datastore row and click Datastore browser.

c. In the Datastore browser window, select the Photon-HW folder and select Photon-
HW_1.vmdk.

Q4. What is the size of Photon-HW_1.vmdk?

A4. 0 Bytes

d. In the Datastore browser window, select Photon-HW_2.vmdk.

Q5. What is the size of Photon-HW_2.vmdk?

A5. 1 Gigabyte

The thin-provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk needs, in this
case, 0 bytes. The thick-provisioned disk has all its space (1 GB) allocated during
creation.

3. Click Close to close the Datastore browser window.

4. Shut down the Photon-HW VM.

a. Select Photon-HW in the Navigator pane and in the right pane, click Shut down.

b. Verify that Photon-HW is powered off.

5. Log out of VMware Host Client.

17
Lab 6 Adding vSphere Licenses

Objective and Tasks

Use the vSphere Client to add vSphere licenses to vCenter Server and assign a license to
vCenter Server:

1. Add vSphere Licenses to vCenter Server

2. Assign a License to the vCenter Server Instance

Task 1: Add vSphere Licenses to vCenter Server

You add vSphere licenses to vCenter Server.

1. Use the vSphere Client to log in to the SA-VCSA-01 vCenter Server system as the
administrator.

a. In the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox, select vSphere Site-A > vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-
01).

b. At the login prompt, enter administrator@vsphere.local for the user name

and VMware1! for the password.

2. Navigate to the License pane.

a. In the vSphere Client, from the Menu drop-down menu, select Administration.

b. In the navigation pane, select Licenses.

The Licenses pane opens to the right.

18
3. Add the vCenter Server and vSphere Enterprise Plus license keys.

a. In the right pane, click Add New Licenses.

b. On the Enter license keys page, enter the vCenter Server and vSphere Enterprise Plus
license keys from this link in the License keys text box.

You must enter the license keys on separate lines.

c. Verify that both licenses are listed correctly in the text box and click NEXT.

d. On the Edit license names page, enter vCenter Server Training and ESXi
Training in the appropriate License name text boxes.
e. Click NEXT.

f. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

4. Verify that the licenses that you added appear in the list.

Task 2: Assign a License to the vCenter Server Instance

You assign a standard license to the sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local vCenter Server instance.

1. In the Licenses pane, select the Assets tab.

The vCenter Server systems are listed.

2. Select the sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local check box and click Assign License.

3. Under Assign License, select the vCenter Server Training license.

4. Click OK.

5. Verify that sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local has a valid license.

19
Lab 7 Creating and Managing the
vCenter Server Inventory

Objective and Tasks

Use the vSphere Client to create and configure objects in the vCenter Server inventory:

1. Create a Data Center Object

2. Add ESXi Hosts to the Inventory

3. View Information About the ESXi Hosts

4. Configure the ESXi Hosts as NTP Clients

5. Create a Folder for the ESXi Hosts

6. Create Folders for VMs and VM Templates

Task 1: Create a Data Center Object

You create a data center object named ICM-Datacenter to organize the hosts and VMs in the
environment.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. In the navigation pane, right-click sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local and select New Datacenter.

The New Datacenter dialog box opens.

4. In the Name text box, enter ICM-Datacenter and click OK.

5. Verify that ICM-Datacenter appears in the navigation pane.

21
Task 2: Add ESXi Hosts to the Inventory
You add the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local ESXi hosts to the vCenter Server
inventory.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Datacenter and select Add Host.

The Add Host wizard opens.

2. On the Name and location page, enter sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click NEXT.

3. On the Connection settings page, enter root as the user name and VMware1! as the
password and click NEXT.

a. If you see a security alert that the certificate store of vCenter Server cannot verify the
certificate, click YES to proceed.

4. On the Host summary page, review the information and click NEXT.

5. On the Assign license page, click the ESXi Training license key and click NEXT.

6. On the Lockdown mode page, leave the default as Disabled and click NEXT.

7. On the VM location page, click NEXT.

8. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

9. Expand the Recent Tasks pane by clicking the arrows in the bottom-right corner of the
window and monitor the progress of the task.

10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 to add sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to the vCenter Server inventory.

For step 2, you enter sa-esxi-02.vclass.local on the Name and location page.

11. Verify that sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local appear in the navigation pane
under ICM-Datacenter.

22
Task 3: View Information About the ESXi Hosts
You view information about the ESXi host, including information about CPU, memory, storage,
NICs, and virtual machines. Knowing where to look in the UI for this information is useful for
monitoring and troubleshooting purposes.

1. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

2. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

3. Expand the Hardware pane and view the hardware details of the ESXi host.

Q1. How many CPUs does this ESXi host have?

A1. 2 CPUs

Q2. How much memory does this ESXi host have?

A2. 8 GB

Q3. How many networks is this ESXi host connected to?

A3. One network

Task 4: Configure the ESXi Hosts as NTP Clients

You configure the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local ESXi hosts to use Network
Time Protocol (NTP) so they can maintain the accurate time and date.

1. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click the Configure tab in the right
pane.

2. In the right pane under System, select Time Configuration.

3. Next to Network Time Protocol, click EDIT.

The Edit Network Time Protocol dialog box opens.

4. Select the Enable check box.

5. In the NTP Servers text box, enter 172.20.10.10.

6. Next to NTP Service Status, select the Start NTP Service check box.

7. From the NTP Service Startup Policy drop-down menu, select Start and stop with host.

8. Click OK.

9. In the Network Time Protocol pane, verify that the NTP client is Enabled and that the NTP
service status is Running.

10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 to configure sa-esxi-02.vclass.local as an NTP client.

23
Task 5: Create a Folder for the ESXi Hosts
You create a folder named Lab Servers to group the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local ESXi hosts together.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Datacenter and select New Folder > New Host and
Cluster Folder.

2. In the Enter a name for the folder text box, enter Lab Servers and click OK.

3. Verify that the Lab Servers folder appears in the navigation pane.

4. Drag sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local into the Lab Servers folder.

5. Verify that both hosts appear under the Lab Servers folder.

Task 6: Create Folders for VMs and VM Templates

You create a folder named Lab VMs and you create a folder named Lab Templates. You
observe the differences in the menu commands between folders.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

2. Create a folder for the VMs and move VMs into the folder.

a. Right-click ICM-Datacenter and select New Folder > New VM and Template Folder.

b. In the Enter a name for the folder text box, enter Lab VMs and click OK.

c. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter.

d. Drag the Win10-02, Win10-04, and Win10-06 virtual machines to the Lab VMs folder.

e. Verify that all three virtual machines appear under the Lab VMs folder.

3. Create a folder for VM templates.

a. Right-click ICM-Datacenter and select New Folder > New VM and Template Folder.

b. In the Enter a name for the folder text box, enter Lab Templates and click OK.

c. Verify that the Lab Templates folder appears in the navigation pane.

24
4. Compare the actions that you can perform on the Lab VMs folder and the Lab
Servers folder.
a. Right-click the Lab VMs folder and review the menu commands in the drop-down
menu.

b. Click the Host and Clusters icon in the navigation pane.

c. Right-click the Lab Servers folder and review the menu commands in the drop-
down menu.

Q1. What is the difference between the menu commands for the Lab VMs folder
and the Lab Servers folder?
A1. The menu commands for the Lab Servers folder relate to host actions, whereas the menu commands for the Lab VMs folder relate to virtual machine actions.

25
Lab 8 Configuring Active Directory:
Joining a Domain

Objective and Tasks

Join vCenter Server to the vclass.local domain:

1. Join vCenter Server to the vclass.local Domain

Task 1: Join vCenter Server to the vclass.local Domain

You join sa-vcsa-01 to the vclass.local domain, which is an Active Directory identity source. After
joining the domain, an AD user can be selected and assigned rights to manage a virtual machine.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Administration.

3. In the navigation pane under Single Sign-On, select Configuration.

4. In the Configuration pane, click Active Directory Domain.

The sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local node is selected.

5. Click JOIN AD.

The Join Active Directory Domain dialog box opens.

6. Configure the Active Directory domain options.

a. Enter vclass.local in the Domain text box.

b. Leave the Organizational Unit text box blank.

c. Enter administrator@vclass.local in the User name text box.

d. Enter VMware1! in the Password text box.

e. Click JOIN.

26
7. Verify that sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local successfully joined Active Directory.

8. Restart vCenter Server Appliance using the vCenter Server Appliance Management
Interface.

vCenter Server Appliance must be restarted for these changes to take effect.
a. Open a new tab in the browser.

b. From the bookmarks toolbar, select vSphere Site-A > vCenter Appliance Management
(SA-VCSA-01).

c. If a security warning appears, click Advanced and click Accept the Risk and Continue.

d. At the login screen, log in by entering root for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

The vCenter Server Management window opens.

e. From the Actions drop-down menu in the top-right corner, select Reboot.

f. Click YES to proceed.

The reboot takes 10–15 minutes. During this time, the vSphere Client is unavailable.

9. Close the VMware Appliance Management browser tab.

10. In the vSphere Client tab, refresh the screen periodically until the vSphere Client login page
appears.

27
Lab 9 Configuring Active Directory:
Adding an Identity Source

Objective and Tasks

Add vclass.local as an identity source:

1. Add vclass.local as an Identity Source

Task 1: Add vclass.local as an Identity Source

You add an identity source to enable the single sign-on configuration.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Administration.

3. In the navigation pane under Single Sign On, select Configuration.

4. In the right pane, click Identity Sources.

The vsphere.local and LocalOS domains appear as identity sources.

5. Click ADD.

The Add Identity Source dialog box opens.

6. For the Identity Source Type, verify that Active Directory (Integrated Windows
Authentication) is selected.

7. Verify that the domain name is vclass.local.

8. Click ADD.

9. Verify that vclass.local is added as an identity source.

28
Lab 10 Users, Groups, and
Permissions

Objective and Tasks

Assign roles and permissions so that an Active Directory user can perform functions in vCenter
Server:

1. View Active Directory Users

2. Assign Object Permission to an Active Directory User

3. Assign Root-Level Global Permission to an Active Directory User

4. Log In as an Active Directory User

5. Use an Active Directory User to Create a Virtual Machine

Task 1: View Active Directory Users

You view the list of Active Directory users to verify that the Administrator single sign-on account
exists.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Administration.

3. Under Single Sign-On in the navigation pane, select Users and Groups.

By default, the list of users for the LocalOS domain appears in the right pane.

4. In the Users pane, select vclass.local from the Domain drop-down menu.

5. Verify that the Administrator user name appears in the list.

29
Task 2: Assign Object Permission to an Active Directory User
You assign permission at the vCenter Server level to the administrator@vclass.local user.

This permission propagates to the child objects of vCenter Server.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

2. In the navigation pane, select sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local.

3. In the right pane, click Permissions.

4. Click the Add Permission icon (the plus sign).

The Add Permission window opens.

5. Configure the permission settings.

a. From the Domain drop-down menu, select vclass.local.

NOTE

Ensure that you select vclass.local, not vsphere.local.

b. In the User/Group search box, enter admin and select Administrator from the list.

c. Leave the role as Administrator.

d. Select the Propagate to children check box.

e. Click OK.

6. Verify that vclass\administrator appears in the list, is assigned the Administrator role, and is
defined in the vCenter Server object and its children.

30
Task 3: Assign Root-Level Global Permission to an Active Directory
User
You grant global permission to administrator@vclass.local to administer content libraries.

Content libraries are located directly under the global root object. By assigning the Content
Library Administrator role to administrator@vclass.local at the global root, this user has
administrator rights for all content libraries.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Administration.

2. In the navigation pane under Access Control, select Global Permissions.

3. In the Global Permissions pane, click the Add Permission icon (the plus sign).

The Add Permission window opens.

4. Configure the permission settings.

a. From the Domain drop-down menu, select vclass.local.

b. In the User/Group search box, enter admin and select Administrator from the list.

c. From the Role drop-down menu, select Content library administrator (sample).

d. Select the Propagate to children check box.

e. Click OK.

5. Verify that vclass.local\administrator appears in the list, is assigned the Content Library
Administrator (sample) role, and is assigned global permission.

Task 4: Log In as an Active Directory User

You log in to the vSphere Client as administrator@vclass.local and verify that the login is
successful.

1. Log out of the vSphere Client.

2. On the vSphere Client login screen, enter administrator@vclass.local as the

user name and VMware1! as the password.

3. Verify that you are logged in to the vSphere Client as administrator@vclass.local.

31
Task 5: Use an Active Directory User to Create a Virtual Machine
You create a virtual machine to show how an Active Directory user can perform administrative
tasks.

1. In the vSphere Client, from the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

2. Create a VM named Test VM in the Lab VMs folder.

a. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter.

b. Right-click Lab VMs and select New Virtual Machine.

The New Virtual Machine wizard opens.

c. On the Select a creation type page, select Create a new virtual machine and click
NEXT.

d. On the Select a name and folder page, enter Test VM in the Virtual machine name
text box.

e. Verify that Lab VMs is selected and click NEXT.

f. On the Select a compute resource page, expand the Lab Servers folder, select sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local, and click NEXT.

g. On the Select storage page, select ICM-Datastore and click NEXT.

h. On the Select compatibility page, leave ESXi 7.0 and later selected and click NEXT.

i. On the Select a guest OS page, select Linux from the Guest OS Family drop-down
menu.

j. Select VMware Photon OS (64-bit) from the Guest OS Version drop-down menu and
click NEXT.

k. On the Customize hardware page, expand the New Hard disk pane and select Thin
Provision from the Disk Provisioning drop-down menu.

l. Click NEXT.

m. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

n. Expand the Lab VMs folder in the navigation pane and verify that Test VM appears
under this folder.

3. Delete Test VM.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Test VM and select Delete from Disk.

b. Click YES to confirm the deletion.

c. Verify that Test VM does not appear under the Lab VMs folder.

4. Log out of the vSphere Client.

32
Lab 11 Using Standard Switches

Objective and Tasks

Create a standard switch and a port group for virtual machines:

1. View the Standard Switch Configuration

2. Create a Standard Switch with a Virtual Machine Port Group

3. Attach Virtual Machines to the Virtual Machine Port Group

Task 1: View the Standard Switch Configuration

You view the vSphere standard switch settings to confirm the proper configuration of the default
switch.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. Select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local in the navigation pane and click the Configure tab in the right
pane.

4. Under Networking, select Virtual switches.

5. Review the information about the vSwitch0 standard switch that is provided in the Virtual
switches pane.

Q1. Which physical adapter is vSwitch0 connected to?

A1. vmnic0

Q2. Which port groups are connected to vSwitch0?

A2. IP Storage, Management Network, and VM Network

Q3. Which virtual machines and templates are connected to the VM Network port
group?
A3. Photon-Hw, Photon-Template, Win10-02, Win10-04, Win10-06, and Win10-Tools.

33
Task 2: Create a Standard Switch with a Virtual Machine Port Group
You create a standard switch and a virtual machine port group on the standard switch to handle
network traffic at the host level in your vSphere environment.

1. Select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local in the navigation pane and click ADD NETWORKING in the
right pane.

The Add Networking wizard opens.

2. On the Select connection type page, click Virtual Machine Port Group for a Standard
Switch and click NEXT.

3. On the Select target device page, click New standard switch and click NEXT.

4. On the Create a Standard Switch page, click the Add adapters icon (the green plus sign).

5. Select vmnic3 and click OK.

6. Review the information for the new active adapter and click NEXT.

7. On the Connection settings page, enter Production in the Network label text box and
click NEXT.

8. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

9. In the Virtual switches pane, minimize the vSwitch0 pane and expand the vSwitch1 pane.

10. Verify that the Production port group is on vSwitch1 and that vmnic3 is the physical adapter.

11. Repeat steps 1 through 10 to create vSwitch1 and the Production port group on sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local.

34
Task 3: Attach Virtual Machines to the Virtual Machine Port Group
You attach virtual machines to the virtual machine port group so that the virtual machines can
communicate with other networked devices.

1. Select VMs and Templates from the Menu drop-down menu.

2. In the navigation pane, expand the Lab VMs folder.

3. Connect the Win10-02 VM to the Production port group.

a. In the navigation pane, select the Win10-02 virtual machine.

b. Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.

c. In the Edit Settings window, find Network adapter 1.

d. Click the downward arrow next to VM Network and click Browse.

e. In the Select Network window, select Production and click OK.

f. Expand Network adapter 1 and verify that the Connect At Power On check box is
selected.

g. Click OK to close the Edit Settings window.

4. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

5. View the VM Hardware pane and verify that the Production port group is listed.

The Production port group has a status of disconnected because the VM is powered off.

6. Power on the Win10-02 VM.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Power > Power On.

7. In Win10-02's Summary tab, verify that you are in the classic view of the vSphere Client.

a. If you see the CUSTOMIZE VIEW drop-down menu in the Summary tab, then select
Switch to classic view from the drop-down menu.

35
8. In Win10-02's Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link.

9. Wait for the boot process to complete.

The Win10-02 VM is configured to automatically log you in as vclass\administrator.

10. Renew the virtual machine’s IP address.

a. In the VM's console, right-click the Windows Start icon and select Run.

b. In the Run dialog box, enter cmd and click OK to open a Command Prompt window.
c. At the command prompt, enter ipconfig /release to release the VM's current IP
address.

d. Enter ipconfig /renew to give the VM a new IP address.

e. View the command's output and record the IPv4 address and the default gateway:

• IPv4 address of the virtual machine __________

• Default gateway of the virtual machine __________

11. At the command prompt, enter ping 172.20.11.10 to verify that the virtual machine
is connected to the Production network.

This command pings the Production network's default gateway. Your ping should be
successful.

12. Close the Win10-02 VM's console tab.

13. Repeat steps 3 through 10 on the Win10-04 VM.

36
Lab 12 Accessing iSCSI Storage

Objective and Tasks

Configure access to an iSCSI datastore:

1. View an Existing ESXi Host iSCSI Configuration

2. Add a VMkernel Port Group to a Standard Switch

3. Add the iSCSI Software Adapter to an ESXi Host

4. Connect the iSCSI Software Adapters to Storage

Task 1: View an Existing ESXi Host iSCSI Configuration

You familiarize yourself with the existing VMkernel and iSCSI software adapter configuration on
sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select the Configure tab in the right
pane.

4. In the right pane under Storage, select Storage Adapters.

5. In the Storage Adapters pane, verify the status of the existing iSCSI software adapter.

a. Select the iSCSI software adapter (vmhba65).

b. Verify that Online appears in the Status column.

37
6. Review the properties of the iSCSI software adapter.

a. In the Storage Adapters pane, select the Properties tab.

b. Review the storage adapter properties.

• Adapter status

• Adapter name

• Adapter iSCSI name

• Adapter iSCSI name

7. Select the Devices tab and review the information in the Datastore column.

8. Verify that the following LUNs appear in the list.

• LUN 2 (11 GB)

• LUN 5 (130 GB)

• LUN 6 (7 GB)

These LUNs should have a status of Not Consumed in the Datastore column.

The LUNs are hosted by an iSCSI provider and can be used to create datastores.

9. Select the Dynamic Discovery tab and record the iSCSI Server IP address. __________

10. Review and record information about the network port binding configuration.

a. Select the Network Port Binding tab.

b. In the Port Group column, select the IP Storage (vSwitch0) check box.

c. Click View Details.

The Details for vmk1 window opens.

d. Review the details in each tab for vmk1.

e. In the VMkernel Adapter > IP Settings tab, record the IPv4 address for vmk1.
__________

f. Click CLOSE.

38
Task 2: Add a VMkernel Port Group to a Standard Switch
You configure a VMkernel port group on vSwitch0 on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to be used for IP
storage traffic.

1. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

2. On the Configure tab, select VMkernel adapters under Networking.

3. Click the Add Networking icon.

The Add Networking wizard opens.

4. On the Select connection type page, verify that VMkernel Network Adapter is selected and
click NEXT.

5. On the Select target device page, click Select an existing standard switch.

6. Click BROWSE and select vSwitch0.

7. Click OK.

8. Click NEXT.

9. On the Port properties page, enter IP Storage in the Network label text box and click
NEXT.

10. On the IPv4 settings page, configure the IPv4 settings.

a. Click Use static IPv4 settings.

b. In the IPv4 address text box, enter 172.20.10.62.

c. In the Subnet mask text box, enter 255.255.255.0.

d. Verify that the default gateway and DNS server address are set to 172.20.10.10.

e. Click NEXT.

11. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

12. Verify that vmk1, labeled IP Storage, appears in the VMkernel adapters list.

39
Task 3: Add the iSCSI Software Adapter to an ESXi Host
You add the iSCSI software adapter to sa-esxi-02.vclass.local so that you can access the iSCSI
server.

1. In the navigation pane, verify that sa-esxi-02.vclass.local is selected.

2. On the Configure tab under Storage, select Storage Adapters.

3. Click Add Software Adapter.

The Add Software Adapter window opens.

4. Confirm that Add software iSCSI adapter is selected and click OK.

5. In the Storage Adapters list, select the newly created iSCSI software adapter.

6. Select the Properties tab.

7. Verify that the adapter status appears as Enabled.

8. Verify that the iSCSI name matches iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:sa-esxi-02-########.

The # symbol represents characters that might change.

Task 4: Connect the iSCSI Software Adapters to Storage

You configure the iSCSI adapter on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to connect directly to a remote iSCSI
target on the IP network.

1. In the Storage Adapters pane, select the Dynamic Discovery tab and click Add.

2. In the Add Send Target Server window, enter 172.20.10.15 in the iSCSI Server text
box and click OK.

A warning appears stating that because of recent configuration changes, a rescan of

vmhba65 is recommended. Do not rescan yet.

3. In the Storage Adapters pane, click the Network Port Binding tab.

4. Click Add.

5. Select the IP Storage (vSwitch0) check box and click OK.

A warning appears stating that because of recent configuration changes, a rescan of

vmhba65 is recommended.

6. Click Rescan Storage.

The Rescan Storage window scans for new storage devices and new VMFS volumes by
default.

7. Click OK.

8. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the rescan tasks to finish.

40
9. In the Storage Adapter pane, select the Devices tab.

10. Verify that the following LUNs appear in the list.

• LUN 2 (11 GB)

• LUN 5 (130 GB)

• LUN 6 (7 GB)

These LUNs should have a status of Not Consumed in the Datastore column.

The LUNs are hosted by an iSCSI provider and can be used to create datastores.

41
Lab 13 Managing VMFS Datastores

Objective and Tasks

Create and manage VMFS datastores:

1. Create VMFS Datastores for the ESXi Host

2. Expand a VMFS Datastore to Consume Unused Space on a LUN

3. Remove a VMFS Datastore

4. Extend a VMFS Datastore

5. Create a Second VMFS Datastore

Task 1: Create VMFS Datastores for the ESXi Host

You set up VMFS datastores on iSCSI-based storage devices to be used as repositories by
virtual machines.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Storage.

3. Create a VMFS datastore called VMFS-2 on the specified LUN on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

The New Datastore wizard opens.

b. On the Type page, verify that VMFS is selected and click NEXT.

c. On the Name and device selection page, enter VMFS-2 in the Datastore name text box.

d. From the Select a host to view its accessible disks/LUNs drop-down menu, select sa-
esxi-01.vclass.local.

A LUN list appears.

42
 e. In the LUN list, select LUN 2 (11 GB in size).

f. Click NEXT.

g. On the VMFS version page, accept VMFS 6 and click NEXT.

h. On the Partition configuration page, move the Datastore Size slider to reduce the
datastore size by 3 GB and click NEXT.

For example, if the datastore size is 11 GB, change the size to 8 GB.

i. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

4. In the navigation pane, verify that the VMFS-2 datastore appears under ICM-Datacenter.

5. In the navigation pane, select VMFS-2.

6. In the right pane, select the Summary tab and record the value for storage capacity.
__________

7. Create a VMFS datastore called VMFS-3 on the specified LUN on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

a. Right-click ICM-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

b. On the Type page, verify that VMFS is selected and click NEXT.

c. On the Name and device selection page, enter VMFS-3 in the Datastore name text box.

d. From the Select a host to view its accessible disks/LUNs drop-down menu, select sa-
esxi-02.vclass.local.

A LUN list appears.

e. In the LUN list, select LUN 6 (7 GB in size) and click NEXT.

f. On the VMFS version page, accept VMFS 6 and click NEXT.

g. On the Partition configuration page, accept the default (Use all available partitions) and
click NEXT.

h. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

8. Verify that the VMFS-3 datastore appears under ICM-Datacenter.

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Task 2: Expand a VMFS Datastore to Consume Unused Space on a
LUN
You dynamically increase the capacity of the VMFS-2 datastore when more space is required by
virtual machines.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click the VMFS-2 datastore and select Increase Datastore
Capacity.

The Increase Datastore Capacity wizard opens.

2. On the Select Device page, select LUN 2 (11 GB in size).

3. Scroll the window to the right and verify that Yes appears in the Expandable column.

4. Click NEXT.

5. On the Specify Configuration page, accept Use “Free Space 3 GB” to expand the datastore
from the Partition Configuration drop-down menu and click NEXT.

6. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

7. When the task is completed, select the VMFS-2 datastore in the navigation pane.

8. On the Summary tab, verify that the datastore size is increased to the maximum capacity.

9. Record the total storage capacity. __________

Task 3: Remove a VMFS Datastore

You delete a VMFS datastore to free up storage space for other purposes. The datastore is
destroyed and removed from all hosts.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click the VMFS-3 datastore and select Delete Datastore.

2. Click YES to confirm deleting the datastore.

3. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the task to finish.

4. Verify that the VMFS-3 datastore is removed from the navigation pane.

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Task 4: Extend a VMFS Datastore
You extend the capacity of a VMFS datastore when extra storage space is needed. You use a
second LUN to extend the size of a datastore based on the first LUN. You also rename the
VMFS datastore to make the name more descriptive.

1. Extend the capacity of the VMFS-2 datastore.

a. In the navigation pane, select VMFS-2.

b. Select the Configure tab in the right pane.

c. Select General and next to Capacity, click INCREASE.

The Increase Datastore Capacity wizard opens.

d. On the Select Device page, select LUN 6 (7 GB) and click NEXT.

e. On the Specify Configuration page, select Use all available partitions from the Partition
Configuration drop-down menu.

f. Click NEXT.

g. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

h. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and when the task finishes, refresh the page.

2. Verify that the size of the VMFS-2 datastore is increased.

a. Select Device Backing in the right pane.

b. Verify that two extent names appear in the Device Backing pane.

c. Click the Summary tab.

d. Record the new value for the total storage capacity. __________

e. Verify that the recorded value is larger than the final value in task 2, step 8.

3. Click the Hosts tab in the right pane.

sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local are in the list, indicating that this new
datastore is shared between your two ESXi hosts.

4. Rename the VMFS-2 datastore to Shared-VMFS.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click VMFS-2 and select Rename.

b. In the Enter the new name text box, enter Shared-VMFS.

c. Click OK.
d. Verify that the datastore is renamed to Shared-VMFS.

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Task 5: Create a Second VMFS Datastore
You use an iSCSI-shared LUN to create another VMFS datastore.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

The New Datastore wizard starts.

2. On the Type page, verify that VMFS is selected and click NEXT.

3. On the Name and device selection page, enter iSCSI-Datastore in the Datastore
name text box.

4. From the Select a host to view its accessible disks/LUNs drop-down menu, select sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local.

A LUN list appears.

5. From the LUN list, select LUN 5 (130 GB in size) and click NEXT.

6. On the VMFS version page, accept VMFS 6 and click NEXT.

7. On the Partition Configuration page, accept Use all available partitions and click NEXT.

8. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

9. In the navigation pane, verify that iSCSI-Datastore appears under ICM-Datacenter.

10. Select iSCSI-Datastore and in the right pane, click the Configure tab.

11. In the Configure tab, select Connectivity and Multipathing.

12. Verify that sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local are connected to the datastore.

46
Lab 14 Accessing NFS Storage

Objective and Tasks

Create an NFS datastore and record its storage information:

1. Configure Access to an NFS Datastore

2. View NFS Storage Information

Task 1: Configure Access to an NFS Datastore

You mount an NFS share to your ESXi hosts and use it as a datastore.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Storage.

3. Create an NFS datastore called NFS-Datastore.

a. Right-click ICM-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

The New Datastore wizard starts.

b. On the Type page, click NFS and click NEXT.

c. On the Select NFS version page, click NFS 4.1 and click NEXT.

d. On the Name and configuration page, enter NFS-Datastore in the Datastore name
text box.

e. Enter /NFS-Data in the Folder text box.

f. Enter 172.20.10.10 in the Server text box.

g. Click the Add server icon (the green plus sign) to add the server.

Clicking the plus sign adds 172.20.10.10 to the box that appears below.

h. Click NEXT.

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 i. On the Configure Kerberos authentication page, accept the default and click NEXT.

j. On the Host accessibility page, select both the ESXi hosts and click NEXT.

k. On the Ready to complete page, verify the NFS settings and click FINISH.

4. Verify that the NFS datastore is listed in the navigation pane under ICM-Datacenter.

Task 2: View NFS Storage Information

You view information about your NFS storage and the contents in the NFS datastore.

1. In the navigation pane, select NFS-Datastore.

2. Click the Summary tab in the right pane.

3. Review the information about the NFS datastore.

• Datastore type

• Capacity of the datastore

• Free space of the datastore

• Used space of the datastore

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Lab 15 Using a vSAN Datastore

Objective and Tasks

View a vSAN datastore configuration and a virtual machine's components on the vSAN
datastore:

1. View a vSAN Datastore Configuration

2. View the vSAN Default Storage Policy

3. View a Virtual Machine on the vSAN Datastore

Task 1: View a vSAN Datastore Configuration

You view an existing vSAN datastore configuration in the SA-Compute-01 cluster to familiarize
yourself with where to find vSAN information in the vSphere Client.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. Verify that vSAN is enabled on the SA-Compute-01 cluster.

a. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

b. In the navigation pane, expand SA-Datacenter and select SA-Compute-01.

c. In the right pane, click the Configure tab.

d. In the right pane under Configuration, select Quickstart.

e. Verify that vSAN appears as one of the selected services.

3. View the ESXi hosts that belong to the vSAN cluster.

a. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

b. Expand the Cluster Resources pane and view the number of hosts in the vSAN cluster.

c. In the right pane, click the Hosts tab to view the names of the ESXi hosts in the cluster.

49
4. View the disk group configuration on the hosts in the vSAN cluster.

a. In the right pane, click the Configure tab.

b. Under vSAN, select Disk Management.

c. Under the first ESXi host in the list, select the disk group.

Information about the disk group appears in the lower pane.

Q1. How many disks are in this disk group?

A1. Three disks.

Q2. What are the disk drive types?

A2. All three disks are flash drives.

Q3. What disk tier does each drive belong to?

A3. One 5 GB flash drive is used for the cache tier, and two 10 GB flash drives are used for the capacity tier.

d. View the disk groups for the other ESXi hosts.

The number of disk drives, drive types, and tier assignments are the same as the first
host.

50
5. View the VMkernel port configuration that is used to access the vSAN datastore.

a. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-04.vclass.local and, in the right pane, click the
Configure tab.

b. In the right pane, under Networking, select VMkernel adapters.

c. Select vmk2 in the VMkernel adapters list.

d. Click the Properties tab.

e. Verify that vSAN appears as an enabled service.

6. View storage capacity information for the vSAN cluster.

a. In the navigation pane, select SA-Compute-01.

b. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

c. Review the information on the vSAN Overview pane.

This pane shows current storage capacity used.

d. Under vSAN Capacity, click the Details link.

The Monitor tab appears and the Capacity Overview pane shows used space and free
space in the vSAN cluster.

51
Task 2: View the vSAN Default Storage Policy
You view information about the vSAN default storage policy, and you estimate the usable
storage capacity of this policy.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Policies and Profiles.

2. In the navigation pane, select VM Storage Policies.

3. In the right pane, scroll down the menu and select vSAN Default Storage Policy.

4. In the Rules tab, view the rule set for this storage policy.

This storage policy uses RAID 1 (mirroring).

5. Estimate the usable storage capacity of the vSAN default storage policy.

a. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Storage.

b. In the navigation pane under SA-Datacenter, select vsanDatastore.

c. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab.

d. Under vSAN, select Capacity.

In the Usable capacity analysis pane, you can estimate the effective free space available
on the vSAN datastore if you deploy a VM with the specified storage policy. The policy
selected is vSAN Default Storage Policy.

Q1. Why is the policy's effective free space the value that it is?
A1. Because the storage policy uses RAID 1 (mirroring), RAID 1 provides full redundancy. A full copy of the VM is maintained and, therefore, the VM takes up twice the amount of space as a VM that is not mirrored.

52
Task 3: View a Virtual Machine on the vSAN Datastore
You power on a virtual machine on the vSAN datastore, and you familiarize yourself with the
vSAN components that make up the VM.

1. Verify that vsanDatastore is selected in the navigation pane.

2. In the right pane, click the VMs tab.

A virtual machine named Photon-03 appears in the list.

3. In the right pane, click the Photon-03 link.

In the navigation pane, Photon-03 is selected and its Summary tab is displayed.

4. View the vSAN components that make up the Photon-03 virtual machine.

a. Power on Photon-03.
b. Select Photon-03 in the navigation pane.

c. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab.

d. Under vSAN, select Physical disk placement.

e. Review the virtual object components that make up the virtual machine.

5. In the navigation pane, minimize SA-Datacenter.

53
Lab 16 Using VM Templates: Creating
Templates and Deploying VMs

Objective and Tasks

Create a VM template, create a customization specification, and deploy VMs from a template:

1. Create a Virtual Machine Template

2. Create Customization Specifications

3. Deploy Virtual Machines from a Template

Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine Template

You create a template to securely preserve the configuration of a virtual machine and easily
deploy new virtual machines from the template.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter.

4. Convert the Photon-Template virtual machine to a template.

a. In the navigation pane, look at Photon-Template's icon.

The icon indicates that Photon-Template is a virtual machine.

b. Right-click Photon-Template and select Template > Convert to Template.

c. Click YES to confirm the conversion.

d. In the navigation pane, verify that Photon-Template has a new icon.

The icon indicates that Photon-Template is a template.

54
5. Move Photon-Template to the Lab Templates folder.

a. Right-click Photon-Template and select Move to folder.

b. Select Lab Templates in the Move to folder window and click OK.

6. Verify that Photon-Template appears in the Lab Templates folder.

Task 2: Create Customization Specifications

You save the guest operating system settings in a customization specification, which is applied
when you clone virtual machines or deploy virtual machines from templates.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Policies and Profiles.

The VM Customization Specifications pane appears.

2. In the right pane, click New to create a custom specification.

The New VM Customization Specification wizard opens.

3. On the Name and target OS page, configure the specification name and target guest OS.

a. Enter Photon-CustomSpec in the Name text box.

b. Verify that sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local is selected from the vCenter Server drop-down

menu.

c. Under Guest OS, click Linux as the Target guest OS.

d. Click NEXT.

4. On the Computer name page, specify the computer name and the domain name.

a. Click Use the virtual machine name.

b. Enter vclass.local in the Domain name text box.

c. Click NEXT.

5. On the Time zone page, configure the area and location.

a. Select US from the Area drop-down menu.

b. Select Pacific from the Location list.

c. Click NEXT.

6. On the Customization script page, click NEXT.

7. On the Network page, click Use standard network settings for the guest operating system,
including enabling DHCP on all network interfaces and click NEXT.

55
8. On the DNS settings page, configure the DNS server and DNS search path.

a. Enter 172.20.10.10 in the Primary DNS server text box.

b. Enter vclass.local in the DNS search path text box and click ADD.

c. Click NEXT.

9. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

10. In the VM Customization Specifications pane, verify that Photon-CustomSpec is listed.

Task 3: Deploy Virtual Machines from a Template

You use a template to deploy and provision new virtual machines and customize their guest
operating systems.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

2. Deploy a VM from Photon-Template to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-Template and select New VM from This
Template.

The Deploy From Template wizard opens.

b. On the Select a name and folder page, enter Photon-11 in the Virtual machine name
text box.

c. Expand ICM-Datacenter and select Lab VMs.

d. Click NEXT.

e. On the Select a compute resource page, expand ICM-Datacenter > Lab Servers and
select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

f. Click NEXT.

g. On the Select storage page, select iSCSI-Datastore from the list.

h. From the Select virtual disk format drop-down menu, select Thin Provision and click
NEXT.

i. On the Select clone options page, select the Customize the operating system and the
Power on virtual machine after creation check boxes and click NEXT.

j. On the Customize guest OS page, select Photon-CustomSpec and click NEXT.

k. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

56
3. Deploy a VM from Photon-Template to sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-Template and select New VM from This
Template.

The Deploy From Template wizard opens.

b. On the Select a name and folder page, enter Photon-12 in the Virtual machine name
text box.

c. Expand ICM-Datacenter and select Lab VMs.

d. Click NEXT.

e. On the Select a compute resource page, expand ICM-Datacenter > Lab Servers and
select sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

f. Click NEXT.

g. On the Select storage page, select iSCSI-Datastore from the list.

h. From the Select virtual disk format drop-down menu, select Thin Provision and click
NEXT.

i. On the Select clone options page, select the Customize the operating system and the
Power on virtual machine after creation check boxes and click NEXT.

j. On the Customize guest OS page, select Photon-CustomSpec and click NEXT.

k. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

4. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the progress of the two virtual machine cloning tasks and
wait for their completion.

5. When the tasks are complete, verify that the VMs are placed in the inventory correctly.

a. Verify that Photon-11 and Photon-12 appear in the navigation pane under the Lab VMs
folder.

b. Verify that Photon-11 and Photon-12 are powered on.

c. View Photon-11's Summary tab and verify that this VM is located on sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local.

d. View Photon-12's Summary tab and verify that this VM is located on sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local.

6. Open the web consoles to the Photon-11 and Photon-12 VMs.

a. Select each virtual machine and in the Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link.

7. Verify that the login prompt appears in each console.

8. Close the VM console tabs for both virtual machines.

57
Lab 17 Using Content Libraries

Objective and Tasks

Create a content library to clone and deploy virtual machines:

1. Create a Content Library

2. Clone a VM Template to a Template in a Content Library

3. Deploy a VM from a VM Template in the Content Library

Task 1: Create a Content Library

In the vSphere Client, you create a content library that you can use to store templates and
deploy virtual machines in your virtual environment.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Content Libraries.

The Content Libraries pane appears.

3. In the right pane, click Create.

The New Content Library wizard opens.

4. On the Name and location page, enter VM Library in the Name text box and click NEXT.

5. On the Configure content library page, verify that Local content library is selected.

6. Select the Enable publishing check box and click NEXT.

7. On the Add storage page, scroll to the bottom of the list, select vsanDatastore, and click
NEXT.

8. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

9. Verify that the VM Library content library appears in the list.

58
Task 2: Clone a VM Template to a Template in a Content Library
You clone virtual machines or VM templates from the vCenter Server inventory to templates in
the content library. You use the content library templates to provision virtual machines on a
cluster or host.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

2. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter > Lab Templates, right-click Photon-
Template, and select Clone to Library.

The Clone to Template in Library window appears.

3. Next to Clone as, verify that New template is selected.

4. Under the Name column, click VM Library.

5. Enter Photon-LibTemplate in the Template name text box and click OK.

6. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the tasks to completion.

Task 3: Deploy a VM from a VM Template in the Content Library

You use a virtual machine template from a content library to deploy a virtual machine to a host in
your vSphere inventory.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Content Libraries.

2. In the navigation pane, select VM Library.

3. In the right pane, click the Templates tab.

4. Click OVF & OVA Templates.

5. Create a VM from Photon-LibTemplate.

a. Right-click Photon-LibTemplate and select New VM from This Template.

The New Virtual Machine from Content Library wizard opens.

b. On the Select name and folder page, enter Photon-13 in the Virtual machine name
text box.

c. In Select a location for the virtual machine pane, select SA-Datacenter and click NEXT.

d. On the Select a compute resource page, select SA-Datacenter > SA-Compute-01 and
select sa-esxi-04.vclass.local.

e. Click NEXT.

f. On the Review details page, review the information.

A warning appears stating that the OVF package contains advanced configuration
options that might pose a security risk.

59
 g. Click NEXT.

h. On the Select storage page, select vsanDatastore and click NEXT.

i. On the Select networks page, select VM Network from the Destination Network drop-
down menu and click NEXT.
j. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

6. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the progress of the template deployment task and wait
for its completion.

7. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

8. In the navigation pane, verify that Photon-13 appears under SA-Datacenter.

9. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-13 and select Power > Power On.

10. Verify that the Photon-13 VM starts successfully.

a. In Photon-13's Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link.

b. In the VM console window, verify that the boot process is successful and the login
prompt appears.

The boot process takes a couple of minutes.

c. Close the Photon-13 console tab.

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Lab 18 Modifying Virtual Machines

Objective and Tasks

Modify a virtual machine’s hardware and rename a virtual machine:

1. Adjust Memory Allocation on a Virtual Machine

2. Increase the Size of a VMDK File

3. Rename a Virtual Machine in the vCenter Server Inventory

Task 1: Adjust Memory Allocation on a Virtual Machine

You add, change, or configure virtual machine memory resources or options to enhance virtual
machine performance.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. Power on the Win10-06 VM.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Power > Power On.

4. In Win10-06's Summary tab, expand the VM Hardware pane and record the amount (GB) of
total memory. __________

5. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Edit Settings.

6. In the Memory text box, enter 4500 and select MB from the drop-down menu.

The memory hot plug function is enabled for Win10-06. Therefore, you can add memory to
Win10-06 while it is powered on.

7. Click OK.

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8. On the virtual machine’s Summary tab, verify that the memory size has increased.

Task 2: Increase the Size of a VMDK File

You increase the size of the virtual machine disk (VMDK) file and configure the guest operating
system to detect the additional space.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Edit Settings.

2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, record the size (GB) of Hard Disk 1. __________

3. In the Hard disk 1 text box, increase the disk size by 2 GB and click OK.

4. View the VM Hardware pane in Win10-06's Summary tab and verify that Hard disk 1 shows
the correct disk size.

5. Open a Win10-06 web console.

a. In Win10-06's Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link.

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6. Configure the Win10-06 virtual machine’s guest operating system to detect and extend the
increased disk space.

a. Right-click the Windows Start icon and select Disk Management.

The Disk Management window opens.

b. In the lower pane, verify that the 2 GB of unallocated disk space is discovered.

c. If the 2 GB of unallocated space is not discovered, click Action and select Rescan Disks.

d. Right-click the C: drive and select Extend Volume.

The Extend Volume wizard starts.

e. Click Next.

f. On the Select Disks page, verify that Disk 0 is selected in the Selected pane and click
Next.

g. On the Completing the Extend Volume Wizard page, review the information and click
Finish.

7. In the Disk Management window, verify that the local C: drive (Disk 0) is extended.

8. Record the value for the total size of the C: drive. __________

9. Compare the value with the value that you recorded in step 2.

10. Close the Disk Management window.

11. Close the Win10-06 console tab.

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Task 3: Rename a Virtual Machine in the vCenter Server Inventory
You rename an existing virtual machine in the vCenter Server inventory.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Rename.

2. In the Enter the new name text box, enter Win10-New.

3. Click OK.

4. In the navigation pane, select Win10-New.

5. In the right pane, select the Datastores tab.

ICM-Datastore appears in the list. This datastore is where the Win10-New VM's files are
located.

6. Right-click ICM-Datastore and select Browse Files.

7. Record the name of the Win10-New virtual machine's folder. __________

When you change the name of a virtual machine, you change the name that identifies the VM
in the vCenter Server inventory, not the name of the VM’s folder or files on the datastore.

8. Rename Win10-New back to Win10-06.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-New and select Rename.

b. In the Enter the new name text box, enter Win10-06 and click OK.

c. Verify that Win10-06 appears in the navigation pane.

9. Shut down Win10-06.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

b. Click YES to confirm the shut down.

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Lab 19 vSphere vMotion Migrations

Objective and Tasks

Configure vSphere vMotion networking and migrate virtual machines using vSphere vMotion:

1. Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local

2. Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local

3. Prepare Virtual Machines for vSphere vMotion Migration

4. Migrate Virtual Machines Using vSphere vMotion

Task 1: Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-

01.vclass.local
You create a virtual switch and a VMkernel port group on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local that can be used
to move virtual machines from one host to another while maintaining continuous service
availability.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter > Lab Servers and select sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local.

4. In the right pane, select the Configure tab.

5. Under Networking, select Virtual switches.

6. Click ADD NETWORKING.

The Add Networking wizard opens.

7. On the Select connection type page, click VMkernel Network Adapter and click NEXT.

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8. On the Select target device page, click New standard switch and click NEXT.

9. On the Create a Standard Switch page, click the green plus sign to add a physical adapter to
the switch.

10. Select vmnic2 for the vSphere vMotion network and click OK.
11. Review the information and click NEXT.

12. On the Port properties page, enter vMotion in the Network label text box.

13. Select the vMotion check box and click NEXT.

14. On the IPv4 settings page, configure the IP address.

a. Click Use static IPv4 settings.

b. Enter 172.20.12.51 in the IPv4 address text box.

c. Enter 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet mask text box.

d. Click NEXT.

15. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

16. In the Virtual switches pane, verify that the vSwitch2 virtual switch is listed and that vSwitch2
contains the vMotion VMkernel port.

Task 2: Configure vSphere vMotion Networking on sa-esxi-

02.vclass.local
You create a virtual switch and a VMkernel port group on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local that is used for
vSphere vMotion migrations.

1. In the navigation pane, expand ICM-Datacenter > Lab Servers and select sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local.

2. In the right pane, select the Configure tab.

3. Under Networking, select Virtual switches.

4. Click ADD NETWORKING.

The Add Networking wizard opens.

5. On the Select connection type page, click VMkernel Network Adapter and click NEXT.

6. On the Select target device page, click New standard switch and click NEXT.

7. On the Create a Standard Switch page, click the green plus sign to add a physical adapter to
the switch.

8. Select vmnic2 for the vSphere vMotion network and click OK.

9. Review the information and click NEXT.

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10. On the Port properties page, enter vMotion in the Network label text box.

11. Select the vMotion check box and click NEXT.

12. On the IPv4 settings page, configure the IP address.

a. Click Use static IPv4 settings.

b. Enter 172.20.12.52 in the IPv4 address text box.

c. Enter 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet mask text box.

d. Click NEXT.

13. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

14. In the Virtual switches pane, verify that the vSwitch2 virtual switch is listed and that vSwitch2
contains the vMotion VMkernel port.

Task 3: Prepare Virtual Machines for vSphere vMotion Migration

Using vSphere vMotion, you prepare virtual machines for hot migration between hosts.

1. In the navigation pane, verify that the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines are powered
on.

2. Verify that Win10-02 and Win10-04 are connected to the Production network.

a. Select Win10-02 in the navigation pane.

b. Click the Summary tab in the right pane.

c. Expand the VM Hardware pane and verify that network adapter 1 is connected to the
Production network.

d. Repeat steps a through c on Win10-04.

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3. Open the remote console to Win10-02.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02.

b. In Win10-02's Summary tab, click Launch Remote Console.

The VMware Remote Console window to Win10-02 opens.

4. In the remote console, click the search icon in the Windows taskbar and enter cmd to open a
Command Prompt window.

5. When the Command Prompt window opens, enter ipconfig and record the virtual
machine’s default gateway IP address. __________

6. Enter ping -t <default_gateway_IP_address> on the command line to start a

continuous ping.

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Task 4: Migrate Virtual Machines Using vSphere vMotion
You perform hot migrations of virtual machines residing on a shared datastore that is accessible
to both the source and the target ESXi hosts.

1. Leave the Win10-02 console open and return to the vSphere Client.

2. Migrate the Win10-02 virtual machine from host sa-esxi-01.vclass.local to host sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Migrate.

The Migrate wizard opens.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change compute resource only and click
NEXT.

c. On the Select a compute resource page, select sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

The sa-esxi-02.vclass.local host is the destination host to which you migrate the Win10-
02 virtual machine. The migration requirements are validated. If the validation does not
succeed, warning or error messages appear in the Compatibility pane. If errors appear,
you cannot continue with the migration until the errors are resolved.

d. Click NEXT.

e. On the Select networks page, verify that Production is selected from the Destination
Network drop-down menu and click NEXT.

f. On the Select vMotion priority page, leave Schedule vMotion with high priority
(recommended) selected and click NEXT.

g. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

3. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and verify that the Relocate virtual machine task started.

4. Return to the Win10-02 console and monitor to verify that no pings are dropped during the
migration.

5. Switch between the Recent Tasks pane and the Win10-02 console and monitor the
migration progress.

6. When the migration is complete, return to the Win10-02 console and close the Command
Prompt window to stop the ping command.

7. Close the Win10-02 console window.

8. View Win10-02's Summary tab and verify that Win10-02 is located on the sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local host.

9. In the navigation pane, select Win10-04.

10. Verify that Win10-04 is powered on.

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11. On the Summary tab, verify that Win10-04 is on the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host.

12. Migrate the Win10-04 virtual machine from host sa-esxi-01.vclass.local to host sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, drag Win10-04 from sa-esxi-01.vclass.local to sa-esxi-

02.vclass.local.

The Migrate wizard opens.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change compute resource only and click
NEXT.

c. On the Select a compute resource page, verify that sa-esxi-02.vclass.local is selected

and click NEXT.

d. On the Select networks page, verify that Production is selected from the Destination
Network drop-down menu and click NEXT.

e. On the Select vMotion priority page, leave Schedule vMotion with high priority
(recommended) selected and click NEXT.

f. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

13. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Relocate virtual machine task to finish.

14. Verify that Win10-04 appears in the navigation pane under sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

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Lab 20 vSphere Storage vMotion
Migrations

Objective and Tasks

Use vSphere Storage vMotion to migrate virtual machines:

1. Migrate Virtual Machine Files from Local Storage to Shared Storage

2. Migrate Both the Compute Resource and Storage of a Virtual Machine

Task 1: Migrate Virtual Machine Files from Local Storage to Shared

Storage
With vSphere Storage vMotion, you migrate the files of a virtual machine from one datastore to
another while the virtual machine is running.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. In the navigation pane, select the Photon-11 virtual machine and verify that it is powered on.

4. Locate the Related Objects pane on Photon-11's Summary tab.

5. Verify that the Photon-11 virtual machine is located on iSCSI-Datastore.

6. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-11 and select Migrate.

The Migrate wizard opens.

7. On the Select a migration type page, click Change storage only and click NEXT.

8. On the Select storage page, select ICM-Datastore as the destination storage.

9. Click NEXT.

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10. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

11. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Relocate virtual machine task to finish.

This task takes several minutes to finish.

12. In the Related Objects pane on the Summary tab, verify that the Photon-11 virtual machine is
on ICM-Datastore.

Task 2: Migrate Both the Compute Resource and Storage of a Virtual

Machine
You migrate the Photon-11 virtual machine to a different ESXi host and a different datastore.

1. In the navigation pane, select Photon-11.

2. In the Related Objects pane on Photon-11's Summary tab, verify that Photon-11 is on sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local and ICM-Datastore.

3. Migrate the Photon-11 VM to host sa-esxi-02.vclass.local and datastore iSCSI-Datastore.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-11 and select Migrate.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change both compute resource and storage
and click NEXT.

c. On the Select compute resource page, select ICM-Datacenter > Lab Servers > sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local and click NEXT.

d. On the Select storage page, select iSCSI-Datastore and click NEXT.

e. On the Select networks page, select VM Network from the Destination Network drop-
down menu and click NEXT.

f. On the Select vMotion priority page, leave Schedule vMotion with high priority
(recommended) selected and click NEXT.

g. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

4. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the progress of the virtual machine migration.

This task takes several minutes to finish.

5. Verify that the Photon-11 virtual machine migrated successfully.

a. In the Related Objects pane on Photon-11's Summary tab, verify that the host is sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local and that the datastore is iSCSI-Datastore.
6. Shut down the Photon-11 VM.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Photon-11 and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

b. Click YES to confirm the shutdown.

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Lab 21 Working with Snapshots

Objective and Tasks

Take VM snapshots, revert a VM to a different snapshot, and delete snapshots:

1. Take Snapshots of a Virtual Machine

2. Add Files and Take Another Snapshot of a Virtual Machine

3. Revert the Virtual Machine to a Snapshot

4. Delete an Individual Snapshot

5. Delete All Snapshots

Task 1: Take Snapshots of a Virtual Machine

You take a snapshot to preserve the state and the data of a virtual machine at the time that the
snapshot is taken.

You use snapshots when you must revert to a previous virtual machine state.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. Open the Win10-02 VM's web console.

a. Select Win10-02 in the navigation pane.

b. In Win10-02's Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link.

The IOMETER.EXE and CPUBUSY.VBS files are located on Win10-02's desktop.

4. Return to the vSphere Client.

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5. Take a snapshot of Win10-02.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Snapshots > Take Snapshot.

The Take Snapshot window opens.

b. In the Name text box, enter With iometer and cpubusy.

c. Deselect the Snapshot the virtual machine's memory check box.

d. Click OK.

6. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the task to complete.

7. Delete the CPUBUSY.VBS and IOMETER.EXE files from the Windows desktop.
a. Return to the Win10-02 VM's console tab.

b. On the desktop, drag the CPUBUSY.VBS file and the IOMETER.EXE file to the Recycle
Bin.

8. Return to the vSphere Client.

9. Take another snapshot of Win10-02.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Snapshots > Take Snapshot.

The Take Snapshot window opens.

b. In the Name text box, enter Without iometer and cpubusy.

c. Deselect the Snapshot the virtual machine's memory check box.

d. Click OK.

10. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the task to complete.

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Task 2: Add Files and Take Another Snapshot of a Virtual Machine
You add a file to the virtual machine and create another snapshot of the virtual machine.

This snapshot contains a file from which you can see how a virtual machine changes when you
revert to different snapshots in subsequent tasks.

1. Restore the CPUBUSY.VBS file from the Recycle Bin to the virtual machine's desktop.

a. Return to the Win10-02 VM console tab.

b. Double-click the Recycle Bin on the desktop.

c. Right-click CPUBUSY.VBS and select Restore.

d. Close the Recycle Bin window.

e. Verify that CPUBUSY.VBS appears on the desktop.

2. Take a snapshot of Win10-02.

a. Return to the vSphere Client.

b. Right-click Win10-02 and select Snapshots > Take Snapshot.

c. In the Name text box, enter With cpubusy.

d. In the Description text box, enter Restored cpubusy to the desktop.

e. Leave the Snapshot the virtual machine's memory check box selected.

f. Click OK.

3. Monitor the task in the Recent Tasks pane and wait for its completion.

This task takes slightly longer than previous snapshots because the guest memory is also
saved.

4. Close the Win10-02 VM console tab.

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Task 3: Revert the Virtual Machine to a Snapshot
You revert a virtual machine to the state it had at the time when the selected snapshot was
taken.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Snapshots > Manage Snapshots.

You should see three snapshots. The difference in icons is because you selected the
Snapshot the virtual machine’s memory check box when you took the snapshot.

2. In the Manage Snapshots window, view the snapshots tree.

Q1. Where is the You are here pointer located?

A1. Under the snapshot called With cpubusy.

3. Select the Without iometer and cpubusy snapshot and click REVERT TO.

4. Click OK to confirm the revert operation.

Q2. Where is the You are here pointer located now?

A2. Under the snapshot called Without iometer and cpubusy.

5. Click DONE to close the Manage Snapshots window.

Q3. Did the Win10-02 virtual machine power off and why?
A3. Yes. The virtual machine powered off because the memory state was not preserved.

6. Power on Win10-02.

7. Open the Win10-02 VM web console.

Wait for the boot process to finish. When it finishes, you are logged in as
vclass\administrator.

Q4. Is either IOMETER.EXE or CPUBUSY.VBS on the desktop?

A4. No. These files were deleted before creating the snapshot called Without iometer and cpubusy.

8. Close the Win10-02 VM console tab.

9. In the vSphere Client, right-click Win10-02 and select Snapshots > Manage Snapshots.

The You Are Here pointer should appear under the snapshot called Without iometer and
cpubusy.

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10. In the Manage Snapshots window, select the With cpubusy snapshot and click REVERT TO.

11. Click OK to confirm the revert operation.

The You Are Here pointer should appear under the snapshot called With cpubusy.

12. Click DONE to close the Manage Snapshots window.

Q5. Did the virtual machine power off? Why or why not?
A5. No. The virtual machine did not power off because the memory state was preserved.

13. Open the Win10-02 VM web console.

Q6. Is CPUBUSY.VBS on the desktop?

A6. Yes.

Q7. Is IOMETER.EXE on the desktop?

A7. No.

Task 4: Delete an Individual Snapshot

You remove a snapshot to initiate file consolidation to the parent snapshot disk.

1. Return to the vSphere Client.

2. In the navigation pane, right-click the Win10-02 virtual machine and select Snapshots >
Manage Snapshots.

The You are here pointer appears under the With cpubusy snapshot.

3. Select the Without iometer and cpubusy snapshot and click DELETE.

4. Click OK to confirm the deletion.

The Without iometer and cpubusy snapshot should disappear.

5. Click DONE to close Manage Snapshots.

Q1. Did the virtual machine power off?

A1. No.

Q2. In the virtual machine console, is CPUBUSY on the desktop?

A2. Yes. The CPUBUSY file is still on the desktop because deleting the snapshot does not change the virtual machine's current state. Deleting the snapshot removes the ability to return to that snapshot's point in time.

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Task 5: Delete All Snapshots
You use the Delete All function to delete all the snapshots of a virtual machine.

1. Return to the vSphere Client.

2. Right-click the Win10-02 virtual machine and select Snapshots > Manage Snapshots.

3. In the Manage Snapshots window, click DELETE ALL.

4. Click OK to confirm that you want to delete all the remaining snapshots.

Only the You are here pointer should appear in the snapshots tree.

Q1. Were all the remaining snapshots deleted from the Manage Snapshots window?
A1. Yes.

5. Click DONE to close the Manage Snapshots window.

6. Return to the Win10-02 VM console tab.

Q2. Is CPUBUSY on the desktop. If so, why?

A2. Yes. The current state of the virtual machine is not altered. Snapshots are consolidated and then removed. The option to revert to those earlier points in time is no longer available.

7. Close the Win10-02 VM console tab.

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Lab 22 Controlling VM Resources

Objective and Tasks

Control VM CPU resources using shares:

1. Create CPU Contention

2. Verify CPU Share Functionality

Task 1: Create CPU Contention

You create CPU contention between the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines for testing
your lab environment. You use CPU affinity to force both VMs to be scheduled on the same
logical CPU, and you run the CPUBUSY script on both VMs to generate CPU activity. By creating
contention, you force the VMs to compete for and share the limited logical CPU resources on the
ESXi host. This approach might lead to performance degradation.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. Shut down the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click each VM and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

b. Click YES to confirm the shutdown.

4. Migrate Win10-04 from sa-esxi-02.class.local to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-04 and select Migrate.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change compute resource only and click
NEXT.

c. On the Select a compute resource page, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click NEXT.

d. On the Select networks page, verify that Production is selected from the Destination
Network drop-down menu and click NEXT.

e. On the Ready to complete page, review the information and click FINISH.

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5. Verify that Win10-02 is on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. If Win10-02 is not on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local, then migrate the VM to this host.

6. Configure the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines to run only on logical CPU 1.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Edit Settings.

b. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand CPU to view the pane.

c. In the Scheduling Affinity text box, enter 1.

This affinity setting forces the Win10-02 virtual machine to run only on logical CPU 1.

d. Click OK.

IMPORTANT

CPU affinity is used mainly to create CPU contention for training purposes. The use of
this feature in a production environment is discouraged.

e. Repeat steps a through d on the Win10-04 virtual machine.

7. Power on Win10-02 and Win10-04.

8. Verify that Win10-02 and Win10-04 each has a CPU shares value of Normal.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02 and click the Summary tab in the right pane.

b. In the VM Hardware pane, expand CPU.

c. Verify that the Shares value is Normal.

d. Repeat steps a through c on Win10-04.

9. Start the CPUBUSY script on the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machine desktops.
a. Open the Win10-02 VM web console.

b. On the desktop, right-click CPUBUSY and select Open with Command Prompt.

This script runs continuously. It stabilizes in 1–2 minutes. The script repeatedly performs
floating-point computations. The script displays the duration (wall-clock time) of a
computation, for example, I did ten million sines in # seconds.

c. Repeat steps a and b for the Win10-04 virtual machine.

You can use the number of seconds reported as a performance estimate. The program
should run at about the same rate in each virtual machine.
10. After 1 or 2 minutes, verify that the duration of computation value (in seconds) is similar
between Win10-02 and Win10-04.

Q1. Why are the values similar?

A1. The values are similar because the CPU share allocation of Win10-02 and Win10-04 gives them equal share of the CPU on which they are both running.

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Task 2: Verify CPU Share Functionality
You verify that VMs receive the correct CPU allocation during contention. CPU allocation is
based on the number of shares given to the VM.

1. Return to the vSphere Client.

2. Change the number of CPU shares for Win10-02 to High.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Edit Settings.

b. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand the CPU pane.

c. From the Shares drop-down menu, select High.

d. Click OK.

3. Change the number of CPU shares for Win10-04 to Low.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-04 and select Edit Settings.

b. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand the CPU pane.

c. From the Shares drop-down menu, select Low.

d. Click OK.

4. In each virtual machine's Summary tab, verify that CPU shares are set to High for Win10-02
and Low for Win10-04.

5. Return to each VM console to monitor the results of the CPUBUSY script.

If you are logged out of the console because of inactivity, log in again as vclass\administrator
with VMware1! as the password.

Q1. What is the difference in performance between the two virtual machines?
A1. Win10-04 has only one-fourth of the CPU shares that Win10-02 has. So Win10-04 receives only one-fourth of the CPU cycles of the logical CPU to which the virtual machines are pinned.

6. Close the Command Prompt window to stop the CPUBUSY script in each VM console.

This script must be stopped in each virtual machine. If the script is left running, the
performance of other labs might be affected.

7. Close the Win10-02 and Win10-04 VM console tabs.

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Lab 23 Monitoring Virtual Machine
Performance

Objective and Tasks

Use the system monitoring tools to review the CPU workload:

1. Create a CPU Workload

2. Use Performance Charts to Monitor CPU Use

3. Remove CPU Affinity and Change CPU Shares to Normal

Task 1: Create a CPU Workload

You run the CPUBUSY script in each virtual machine to create a heavy CPU workload in your lab
environment.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. Verify that the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines are powered on.

4. In each VM's Summary tab, open VM web consoles for Win10-02 and Win10-04.

5. On both virtual machine desktops, right-click the CPUBUSY script file and select Open with
Command Prompt.

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Task 2: Use Performance Charts to Monitor CPU Use
You use performance charts to monitor CPU metrics.

1. Return to the vSphere Client.

2. View the CPU performance chart for the Win10-02 virtual machine.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02.

b. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab and select Advanced under Performance.

The real-time CPU usage graph appears.

c. Click the Chart Options link.

The Chart Options dialog box opens.

d. In the Chart Metrics pane, verify that CPU is selected.

e. In the Timespan drop-down menu, verify that Real-time is selected.

f. In the Select object for this chart pane on the right, deselect the 0 check box.

The Win10-02 VM should be the only selected object.

g. In the Select counters for this chart pane, verify that the Readiness and Usage check
boxes are the only boxes that are selected.

h. Click OK.

The CPU/Real-time chart for the Win10-02 virtual machine opens.

3. Open a new tab in the web browser and start a second vSphere Client instance.

a. To start the vSphere Client, select vSphere Site-A > vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01) in
the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox.

4. In the second vSphere Client instance, repeat step 2 to view the CPU performance chart for
the Win10-04 virtual machine.

5. In the vSphere Client windows that show the CPU charts for Win10-02 and Win10-04, view
the Latest column for the Readiness metric.

6. Record the latest CPU readiness value for each virtual machine and leave the Performance
Chart windows open.

• Win10-02 __________

• Win10-04 __________

7. In each VM console, close the Command Prompt window to stop the CPUBUSY script.

This script must be stopped in each virtual machine. If the script is left running, the
performance of other labs might be affected.

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8. In the vSphere Client windows that show the CPU charts for Win10-02 and Win10-04, view
the Latest column for the Readiness metric.

9. Wait for the chart to be updated and compare the CPU ready value with what you recorded
in step 6.

Performance charts update every 20 seconds.

Q1. Did the CPU ready value change? If it did, what is the reason for the change?
A1. Yes. After the scripts stop, the CPU ready value decreases significantly because CPU contention does not occur.

10. Close the Win10-02 console tab, the Win10-04 console tab, and the second vSphere Client
tab.

Task 3: Remove CPU Affinity and Change CPU Shares to Normal

You shut down the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines, remove CPU affinity from both
virtual machines, and change the CPU shares of both virtual machines to Normal.

1. Shut down the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click each VM and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

b. Click YES to confirm the shutdown.

2. Change the CPU shares to Normal and remove CPU affinity from Win10-02 and Win10-04.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Edit Settings.

b. Expand the CPU pane.

c. From the Shares drop-down menu, select Normal.

d. In the Scheduling Affinity text box, delete the value 1.

Entering 0 is not the same as deleting the value. The text box must be blank.

e. Click OK.

f. Repeat steps a through e to change the CPU shares and remove the scheduling affinity
value on Win10-04.

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Lab 24 Using Alarms

Objective and Tasks

Create alarms to monitor virtual machine events and conditions:

1. Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor a Condition

2. Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm

3. Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor an Event

4. Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm

5. Disable Virtual Machine Alarms

Task 1: Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor a Condition

You create an alarm to monitor a condition that occurs on a virtual machine.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select VMs and Templates.

3. Power on the Win10-02 virtual machine.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Power > Power On.

4. Right-click Win10-02 and select Alarms > New Alarm Definition.

The New Alarm Definition wizard opens.

Because you are creating an alarm for the Win10-02 virtual machine object, this alarm
monitors only that object. If you set the alarm on an object higher in the vCenter Server
inventory, the alarm applies to the parent object and all relevant child objects in the hierarchy.

5. On the Name and Targets page, enter Win10-02 CPU Usage in the Alarm Name text
box.

The target type is Virtual Machine and the target object is Win10-02.

6. Click NEXT.

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7. On the Alarm Rule 1 page, define the trigger condition.

If VM CPU Usage is above 50% for 30 seconds, then trigger the alarm and show the alarm
as Warning.

a. From the first drop-down menu, select VM CPU Usage.

b. From the select an operator drop-down menu, select is above.

c. In the % text box, enter 50.

d. From the last drop-down menu, select 30 sec.

e. From the select severity drop-down menu, select Show as Warning.

The alarm rule should look like this:

f. Click NEXT.

8. On the Reset Rule 1 page, read the rule and do not change anything.

The reset rule is to reset the alarm to Normal if the warning condition is no longer met.

9. Click NEXT.

10. On the Review page, review the alarm information.

The alarm is enabled by default.

11. Click CREATE.

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12. Verify that the alarm definition is created.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02 and click the Configure tab.

b. In the right pane, select Alarm Definitions.

c. Verify that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm appears in the alarm list.

d. If you cannot easily find the alarm, use the filter in the Alarm Name column and search
for some or all of the alarm name.

Task 2: Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm

You trigger the virtual machine alarm, reset the virtual machine alarm, and view the events that
occurred when the alarm was triggered.

1. Generate CPU activity in Win10-02 to trigger the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm.

a. In Win10-02's Summary tab, click the Launch Web Console link to open the VM web
console.

b. On Win10-02's desktop, right-click CPUBUSY.VBS and select Open with Command

Prompt.

The CPUBUSY script should generate enough activity to reach 50 percent CPU usage.

2. Return to the vSphere Client.

3. Verify that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm is triggered.

a. Click Win10-02's Monitor tab, and select Triggered Alarms under Issues and Alarms.

b. Wait for at least 30 seconds and refresh the Triggered Alarms pane.

c. Verify that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm appears in the Triggered Alarms list.

4. In the right pane under Tasks and Events, select Events.

An entry states that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm changed from green to yellow.

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5. Acknowledge the triggered alarm.

a. In the right pane under Issues and Alarms, click Triggered Alarms.

b. Select the check box next to Win10-02 CPU Usage.

c. Click ACKNOWLEDGE.

The Triggered Alarms pane shows the time that the alarm was acknowledged and the
user that acknowledged the alarm.

6. Stop the CPUBUSY script.

a. Return to the Win10-02 console tab.

b. Close the Command Prompt window to stop the CPUBUSY script.

7. Verify that Win10-02 returns to a normal state.

a. Return to the vSphere Client.

b. Refresh the Triggered Alarms pane and verify that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm no
longer appears.

You might have to wait a minute for CPU usage to decrease.

c. In the navigation pane, verify that Win10-02's icon does not show the warning symbol.

d. In the right pane under Tasks and Events, select Events.

An entry states that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm changed from yellow to green.

8. Close the Win10-02 console tab.

Task 3: Create a Virtual Machine Alarm to Monitor an Event

You create an alarm to monitor an event that occurs on any virtual machine in ICM-Datacenter.

1. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Datacenter and click the Configure tab in the right pane.

2. In the Alarm Definitions pane, click ADD.

The New Alarm Definition wizard starts.

3. On the Name and Targets page, configure the alarm name and target type.

a. Enter VM Suspended in the Alarm Name text box.

b. Select Virtual Machines from the Target type drop-down menu.

The target objects are all virtual machines in ICM-Datacenter.

c. Click NEXT.

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4. On the Alarm Rule 1 page, define the trigger condition.

If a VM is suspended, then trigger an alarm, and show the alarm as Warning.

a. From the first drop-down menu, select VM suspended.

The VM suspended event appears under the Power and Connection State category.

b. From the select severity drop-down menu, select Show as Warning.

The alarm rule should look like this:

c. Click NEXT.

5. Configure the reset rule.

If the VM is powered on, then reset the alarm to normal.

a. On the Reset Rule 1 page, enable Reset the alarm to green by clicking the toggle switch.

b. Click the first drop-down menu and enter powered in the Search box.

c. Select VM powered on from the search results.

The reset rule should look like this:

d. Click NEXT.

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6. On the Review page, review the alarm information.

The alarm is enabled by default.

7. Click CREATE.

8. Verify that the alarm definition is created.

a. If you cannot easily find the alarm, use the filter in the Alarm Name column and search
for some or all of the alarm name.

Task 4: Trigger the Virtual Machine Alarm

You trigger the virtual machine alarm, reset the virtual machine alarm, and view the events that
occurred when the alarm was triggered.

1. Trigger the VM Suspended alarm by suspending Win10-02.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Power > Suspend.

b. Click YES to confirm suspending the VM.

2. Verify that the VM Suspended alarm is triggered.

a. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Datacenter.

b. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab and under Issues and Alarms, select Triggered
Alarms.

c. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Suspend virtual machine task to
complete.

d. Refresh the Triggered Alarms pane.

e. Verify that the VM Suspended alarm appears in the Triggered Alarms list.

3. Power on Win10-02.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Power > Power On.

4. Verify that Win10-02 has returned to a normal state.

a. In the navigation pane, verify that Win10-02's icon does not show the warning symbol.

b. Refresh the Triggered Alarms pane.

The VM Suspended alarm no longer appears in the list.

c. Under Tasks and Events, select Events.

You should see an entry stating that the VM Suspended alarm changed from yellow to
green.

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Task 5: Disable Virtual Machine Alarms
You disable the Win10-02 CPU Usage and the VM Suspended alarms.

1. Disable the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02.

b. Click the Configure tab and select Alarm Definitions.

c. Search for the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm.

If necessary, use the filter in the Alarm Name column to search for the alarm.

d. Click Win10-02 CPU Usage and click DISABLE.

e. Verify that the Win10-02 CPU Usage alarm is disabled.

2. Repeat step 1 to disable the VM Suspended alarm.

Perform this step on the ICM-Datacenter object because the alarm is defined on this object.

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Lab 25 Implementing vSphere DRS
Clusters

Objective and Tasks

Implement a vSphere DRS cluster and verify proper functionality:

1. Create a Cluster That Is Enabled for vSphere DRS

2. Modify vSphere DRS Settings

3. Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster

4. Verify vSphere vMotion Configuration on the ESXi Hosts

5. Create a Load Imbalance

6. Verify Proper vSphere DRS Cluster Functionality

Task 1: Create a Cluster That Is Enabled for vSphere DRS

You create a vSphere DRS cluster to ensure that the resource requirements for the virtual
machines in the cluster are satisfied.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Datacenter and select New Cluster.

The New Cluster dialog box opens.

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4. Configure the new cluster.

a. In the Name text box, enter ICM-Compute-01.

b. Click the vSphere DRS toggle button to on.

c. Leave the default settings for the other options and click OK.

5. Verify that the ICM-Compute-01 cluster appears in the navigation pane under ICM-
Datacenter.

In the right pane, the Cluster quickstart pane appears.

6. Verify that vSphere DRS is listed under Selected services.

Task 2: Modify vSphere DRS Settings

You modify the automation level and migration threshold settings for testing purposes.

1. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01 and click the Configure tab.

2. Under Services, select vSphere DRS and click EDIT.

The Edit Cluster Settings dialog box opens.

3. Select Manual from the Automation Level drop-down menu.

With Manual mode, you can manually apply vSphere DRS recommendations.

4. Move the Migration Threshold slider to Aggressive, which is to the right side of the slider.

5. Leave other settings at their default values and click OK.

Task 3: Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster

You add sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to the ICM-Compute-01 cluster.

1. In the navigation pane, drag sa-esxi-01.vclass.local to ICM-Compute-01.

The Move Host into Cluster dialog box opens.

a. Leave the default and click OK.

2. In the navigation pane, drag sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to ICM-Compute-01.

The Move Host into Cluster dialog box opens.

a. Leave the default and click OK.

3. In the navigation pane, verify that sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local appear
under the ICM-Compute-01 cluster.

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Task 4: Verify vSphere vMotion Configuration on the ESXi Hosts
You verify that a VMkernel port is configured for vSphere vMotion on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and
sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

1. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click the Configure tab.

2. In the right pane under Networking, select VMkernel adapters.

3. Select the VMkernel adapter labeled vMotion.

4. On the All tab in the lower pane, verify that vMotion appears as an enabled service.

5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

Task 5: Create a Load Imbalance

You create a load imbalance in the ICM-Compute-01 cluster to test how vSphere DRS works.

1. In the navigation pane, verify that Win10-02 is powered on.

2. In Win10-02's Summary tab, verify that Win10-02 is on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

3. If Win10-02 is not on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local, migrate Win10-02 to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-02 and select Migrate.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change compute resource only and click
NEXT.

c. On the Select a compute resource page, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click NEXT.

d. On the Select networks page, click NEXT.

e. On the Select vMotion priority page, leave the default and click NEXT.

f. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

g. Verify that Win10-02 is successfully migrated to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

4. Power on Win10-04 and Win10-06 and place both VMs on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-04 and select Power > Power On.

The Power On Recommendations window opens. vSphere DRS provides you with one
or more recommendations for placing the VM when it is powered on.

b. Select the recommendation that places Win10-04 on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click OK.

c. In the navigation pane, right-click Win10-06 and select Power > Power On.

The Power On Recommendations window opens.

d. Select the recommendation that places Win10-06 on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click OK.

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5. Verify that Win10-02, Win10-04 and Win10-06 are on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

a. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

b. In the right pane, click the VMs tab and verify that Win10-02, Win10-04 and Win10-06
are listed.
6. Open the web consoles for Win10-02 and Win10-04.

7. Start the CPUBUSY script on the Win10-02 and Win10-04 virtual machines.

a. In Win10-02's web console, right-click the CPUBUSY script and select Open with
Command Prompt.

b. In Win10-04's web console, right-click the CPUBUSY script and select Open with
Command Prompt.

Task 6: Verify Proper vSphere DRS Cluster Functionality

You can run vSphere DRS in either manual, partially automated, or fully automated modes. In
manual mode, you review the recommendations for optimal virtual machine placement provided
by vSphere DRS and decide whether to make the changes.

1. Return to the vSphere Client.

2. Select ICM-Compute-01 in the navigation pane and click the Monitor tab in the right pane.

3. In the right pane under vSphere DRS, select Recommendations.

4. Click RUN DRS NOW.

Clicking the button forces vSphere DRS to immediately evaluate the cluster and provide
recommendations instead of waiting the standard 5 minutes before generating
recommendations.

If recommendations appear in the list, do not apply them yet.

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5. View information about the vSphere DRS cluster.

a. Click the Summary tab and expand the vSphere DRS pane.

b. View the cluster DRS score and the VM DRS score.

c. Click the Information icon next to VM DRS Score to review how to interpret the VM
DRS score.

Q1. Are any VMs experiencing resource contention?

A1. Yes. Three VMs are experiencing serious contention.

Q2. How many vSphere DRS recommendations and DRS faults are shown?
A2. The answer might vary, but you should see at least one recommendation.

d. Click VIEW ALL VMS.

Q3. Look at the DRS Score. Are Win10-02, Win10-04, and Win10-06 experiencing
serious CPU contention?
A3. Yes, they should be experiencing serious CPU contention.

e. On the Monitor tab under vSphere DRS, select CPU Utilization.

f. View the CPU consumption on each ESXi host and click each of the colored boxes to
view the CPU consumption of each virtual machine.

6. Generate new vSphere DRS recommendations.

a. In the right pane under vSphere DRS, select Recommendations.

b. Click RUN DRS NOW to refresh the recommendations list.

c. Review the recommendations listed.

7. Click APPLY RECOMMENDATIONS to apply all recommendations in the list.

8. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the virtual machine migration tasks to complete.

9. In the DRS Recommendations pane, click RUN DRS NOW to force vSphere DRS to evaluate
the cluster status.

Q4. Are any new recommendations listed?

A4. No.

10. Click the Summary tab and view the vSphere DRS pane.

Q5. Have the cluster and VM DRS scores improved?

A5. Yes.

11. Click the Monitor tab and select CPU Utilization under vSphere DRS.

The virtual machines should spread across the two ESXi hosts. You might need to refresh
the window.

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12. In the Win10-02 and Win10-04 console tabs, stop the CPUBUSY script.

You must ensure that the CPUBUSY script is stopped in all VMs to avoid performance
problems.

a. Right-click the VM console tab and select Reload Tab.

b. Close the Command Prompt window.

13. Close the Win10-02 and Win10-04 console tabs.

It might take several minutes for the virtual machines to stabilize and the alerts to clear.

14. Disable vSphere DRS in the ICM-Compute-01 cluster.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Compute-01 and select Settings.

The vSphere DRS pane appears.

b. In the right pane, click EDIT.

c. Click the vSphere DRS toggle button to disable vSphere DRS and click OK.

d. Verify that vSphere DRS is turned off.

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Lab 26 Using vSphere HA

Objective and Tasks

Use vSphere HA functionality:

1. Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster

2. View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster

3. Configure Network Management Redundancy

4. Test the vSphere HA Functionality

5. View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage

6. Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to Tolerate

Task 1: Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster

You enable vSphere HA on the ICM-Compute-01 cluster to achieve higher levels of virtual
machine availability than each ESXi host can provide individually.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

3. Select ICM-Compute-01 and click the Configure tab in the right pane.

4. Under Services, select vSphere Availability and click EDIT.

The Edit Cluster Settings dialog box opens.

5. Click the vSphere HA toggle button to on and click OK.

6. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the vSphere HA configuration tasks to
complete.

7. Click the Configure tab and verify that vSphere HA is turned on.

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Task 2: View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster
You view status and configuration information about the ICM-Compute-01 cluster. You notice
that the ESXi hosts in the cluster have only one management network port.

1. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab.

2. Under vSphere HA, select Summary.

The vSphere HA summary information appears.

3. Record the name of the master host. __________

a. If a master host is not listed, click REFRESH.

vSphere HA might still be in the initialization process.

Q1. Does the number of protected virtual machines match the number of powered-
on virtual machines in the cluster?
A1. Yes. If both hosts are added to the cluster and no errors occur on the cluster, the number of protected VMs equals the number of powered-on VMs.

4. Under vSphere HA, select Heartbeat.

Q2. How many datastores are used to monitor heartbeat?

A2. Two datastores. Because both datastores are shared by all the hosts in the cluster, the datastores are automatically selected for heartbeating.

5. Under vSphere HA, select Configuration Issues and review errors or warnings that are
displayed.

You should see warning messages that each ESXi host has no management network
redundancy. Currently, each ESXi host has a single management network port. vSphere HA
still works if an ESXi host is configured with one management network port, but a second
management network port is necessary for management network port redundancy.

Configuring management network port redundancy is also a best practice.

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Task 3: Configure Network Management Redundancy
You configure a second management network port on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local to create redundancy and remove the single point of failure.

1. Configure a second management network port on the ESXi hosts in the cluster.

You use the vMotion VMkernel adapter as the second management network port.

a. In the navigation pane, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and click the Configure tab.

b. In the right pane under Networking, select VMkernel adapters.

c. Select the vMotion VMkernel adapter and click Edit settings.

The Edit Settings wizard opens.

d. On the Port properties page, verify that the vMotion check box is selected and select
the Management check box.

e. Click OK.

f. In the navigation pane, right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select Reconfigure for

vSphere HA.

g. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the reconfiguration task to complete.

h. Repeat steps a through g for sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

2. Verify that no configuration issues are listed for vSphere HA.

a. In the navigation pane, select the ICM-Compute-01 cluster and click the Monitor tab.

b. In the right pane under vSphere HA, select Configuration Issues.

Q1. Do you see any warning messages about no host management network
redundancy?
A1. No, the warning messages are no longer present.

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Task 4: Test the vSphere HA Functionality
You set up vSphere HA to monitor the cluster environment and detect hardware failures.

When an ESXi host outage is detected, vSphere HA automatically restarts the virtual machines
on the other ESXi hosts in the cluster.

1. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01 and click the Monitor tab.

2. Under vSphere HA, select Summary and record the name of the master host.
__________

3. Verify that the master host contains one or more powered-on virtual machines.

a. Select the master host in the navigation pane.

b. In the right pane, click the VMs tab and verify that Virtual Machines is selected.

c. If all the virtual machines are powered off on the master host, power on at least one of
the virtual machines.

4. Record the name of one or more powered-on virtual machines on the master host.
__________

5. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01.

6. Click the Monitor tab and select Summary under vSphere HA.

7. In the Virtual Machines pane, verify that the Protected field matches the number of
powered-on VMs within the cluster and that the Unprotected field value is 0.

8. Simulate a host failure by rebooting the master host in the cluster.

Ensure that you reboot the system. Do not shut down the system.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click the master ESXi host and select Power > Reboot.

A warning message appears stating that you chose to reboot the host, which is not in
maintenance mode.

b. Enter Testing vSphere HA as the reason for rebooting and click OK.

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9. View the events that occur while the vSphere HA cluster recovers from the host failure.

a. Select ICM-Compute-01 in the navigation pane and click the Monitor tab in the right
pane.

b. Under Tasks and Events, select Events.

The cluster entries are sorted by time. Note the entries that appear when the host
failure was detected.

c. In the navigation pane, select the host that you rebooted and click the VMs tab in the
right pane.

Q1. Do you see the virtual machines that were running on this host (the original
master host) and whose names you recorded earlier?
A1. No. The virtual machines previously running on this host are running on the remaining host in the cluster.

d. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01.

e. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab.

f. In the right pane under vSphere HA, select Summary.

Q2. Has the master host changed?

A2. Yes. The subordinate host is elected as the new master host.

10. Monitor the original master ESXi host in the navigation pane until it is fully running again.

It might take several minutes for the original master host to become fully running.

Task 5: View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage

You examine the CPU and memory resource usage information of the ICM-Compute-01 cluster.

1. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01 and click the Monitor tab in the right pane.

2. Examine CPU reservation information for the cluster.

a. In the right pane under Resource Allocation, select CPU.

b. Record information for the cluster.

• Total Reservation Capacity (GHz) __________

• Used Reservation (GHz) __________

• Available Reservation (GHz) __________

c. Verify that the CPU reservation is not set on the virtual machines.

The Reservation column shows 0 (MHz).

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3. Examine memory reservation information for the cluster.

a. Under Resource Allocation, select Memory and record the information for the cluster.

• Total Reservation Capacity (GB) __________

• Used Reservation (GB) __________

• Available Reservation (GB) __________

b. Verify that the memory reservation is not set on the virtual machines.

The Reservation column shows 0 (MB).

Task 6: Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to

Tolerate
In your vSphere HA cluster, you specify the percentage of resource degradation to tolerate and
you verify that a message appears when the reduction threshold is met.

You must enable vSphere DRS to use this admission control option.

1. Enable vSphere DRS on the ICM-Compute-01 cluster.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click ICM-Compute-01 and select Settings.

b. In the right pane under Services, select vSphere DRS and click EDIT.

The Edit Cluster Settings window appears.

c. Click the vSphere DRS toggle button to on.

d. From the Automation Level drop-down menu, select Fully Automated and click OK.

2. Configure the percentage of resource degradation to tolerate.

a. In the right pane under Services, select vSphere Availability.

b. Click EDIT.

The Edit Cluster Settings window appears.

c. Click Admission Control.

d. In the Performance degradation VMs tolerate text box, enter 0.

If you reduce the threshold to 0%, a warning is generated when cluster usage exceeds
the available cluster capacity.

e. Click OK.

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3. Generate CPU activity in the Win10-02 VM.

a. In the navigation pane, select Win10-02 and in the right pane, click the Summary tab.

b. Click the Launch Web Console link to open the VM console.

c. Right-click the CPUBUSY script and select Open with Command Prompt.

4. Verify that a message appears about the configured failover resources in the ICM-Compute-
01 cluster.

a. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-01 and click the Summary tab in the right
pane.

You should see an informational message that says Running VMs utilization
cannot satisfy the configured failover resources on the
cluster ICM-Compute-01 in ICM-Datacenter.
5. In the Win10-02 console tab, close the Command Prompt window to stop the CPUBUSY
script.

You must ensure that the CPUBUSY script is stopped to avoid performance problems.

6. Close the Win10-02 console tab.

7. In the vSphere Client, refresh the window.

8. Verify that the message about the configured failover resources is not shown.

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Lab 27 Configuring vSphere
Distributed Switch

Objective and Tasks

Create and configure a distributed switch:

1. Create a Distributed Switch

2. Add ESXi Hosts to the Distributed Switch

3. Examine Your Distributed Switch Configuration

4. Migrate VMs to Another Distributed Switch Port Group

Task 1: Create a Distributed Switch

You create a distributed switch that functions as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts
in your vSphere environment.

1. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar, and select
vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

If you are not logged in from a previous activity, log in using the vCenter Server lab
credentials:
User name administrator@vsphere.local
Password VMware1!

2. Select Menu > Networking.

3. Right-click SA-Datacenter and select Distributed Switch > New Distributed Switch.

The New Distributed Switch wizard appears.

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4. Create a distributed switch.

a. On the Name and location page, enter dvs-Lab in the Name blank and click NEXT.

b. On the Select version page, leave 7.0.0 - ESXi 7.0 and later selected and click NEXT.

c. On the Configure settings page, enter pg-SA-Production in the Port group name
blank, keep all other default values, and click NEXT.

d. On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration settings and click FINISH.

5. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter and verify that the dvs-Lab distributed switch
appears.

6. Configure the pg-SA-Production port group to use only Uplink 1.

a. In the left pane, expand dvs-Lab distributed switch.

b. Right-click pg-SA-Production port group and select Edit Settings.

c. In the Edit Settings window, select Teaming and failover.

d. Under the Failover Order section, move Uplink 2, Uplink 3 and Uplink 4 down until they
appear under the Unused uplinks section.

e. To apply these changes, click OK.

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Task 2: Add ESXi Hosts to the Distributed Switch
You add ESXi hosts and physical adapters to the new distributed switch.

1. In the left pane, right-click dvs-Lab and select Add and Manage Hosts...

2. On the Select task page, leave Add hosts selected and click NEXT.

3. On the Select hosts page, click New hosts (the green plus sign).

4. Select check boxes for the hosts listed here and click OK.

sa-esxi-04.vclass.local
sa-esxi-05.vclass.local
sa-esxi-06.vclass.local

5. Click NEXT.

6. On the Manage physical adapters page, assign vmnic2 to Uplink 1 on sa-esxi-04, sa-esxi-05,
and sa-esxi-06.

a. Under sa-esxi-04.vclass.local, select vmnic2 and click Assign uplink.

b. Select Uplink 1.

c. To apply this adapter assignment to all selected hosts, select Apply this uplink
assignment to the rest of the hosts and click OK.

Selecting this check box applies your physical adapter assignments to each host
selected earlier through this wizard.

d. When ready, click NEXT.

7. On the Manage VMkernel adapters page, click NEXT.

8. On the Migrate VM networking page, click NEXT.

9. On the Ready to complete page, review settings and click FINISH.

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Task 3: Examine Your Distributed Switch Configuration
You examine distributed switch features, including the maximum transmission unit (MTU) value,
VLAN capabilities, NetFlow, and Network I/O Control.

1. In the left pane, select dvs-Lab.

2. In the right pane, click the Configure tab and select Settings > Topology.

3. In the distributed switch topology diagram, expand Uplink 1.

4. Verify that the vmnic2 is attached and appears under Uplink 1 for ESXi hosts sa-esxi-04, sa-
esxi-05, and sa-esxi-06.

5. Select Settings > Properties and verify the settings.

• Network I/O Control is Enabled.

• Number of uplinks is 4.

• The MTU size is 1500 Bytes.

• The Discover Protocol Type is set to Cisco Discovery Protocol and operation is set to
Listen.

6. Click each remaining configuration link on the left under Settings to verify the current
configuration.

• LACP: No entries are in the main window.

• Private VLAN: No entries are in the main window.

• NetFlow: No Collector IP address is set in the main window.

• Port Mirroring: No entries are in the main window.

• Health Check: All items are set to Disabled in the main window.

7. In the left pane, select the pg-SA-Production port group.

8. In the right pane, click the Configure tab and select Properties on the left.

9. Verify the distributed port group settings in the main window.

• General > Port binding, is set to Static binding.

• General > Port allocation, is set to Elastic.

• General > Number of ports, is set to 8.

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Task 4: Migrate VMs to Another Distributed Switch Port Group
You move VMs from their current port groups on the dvs-SA-Datacenter distributed switch to
the pg-SA-Production port group on the dvs-Lab distributed switch.

1. In the left pane, expand the SA-Datacenter and dvs-SA-Datacenter distributed switch.

2. Right-click pg-SA-Management and select Migrate VMs to Another Network.

The Migrate VMs to Another Network wizard appears.

3. Migrate the VMs.

a. In the Migrate VMs to Another Network page, for the Destination network click
BROWSE....

b. Select pg-SA-Production and click OK.

c. On the Select source and destination networks page, click NEXT.

d. On the Select VMs to migrate page, select VMs Linux01 & Linux02 and click NEXT.

e. On the Ready to complete page, review settings and click FINISH.

f. Monitor the task to completion using Recent Tasks.

4. Verify your distributed switch configuration.

a. In the left pane, select dvs-Lab and click Hosts in the right pane.

b. Verify that sa-esxi-04, sa-esxi-05, and sa-esxi-06 are connected to the distributed
switch.

The state of the ESXi hosts should be Connected.

c. Click VMs and verify that the Linux01 and Linux02 VMs are listed.

If the VMs are listed, they reside on the new distributed switch.

d. Click Ports and verify that pg-SA-Production is listed in the Port Group column. Also
verify that an uplink port group is listed which you previously mapped between vmnic2
and Uplink1.

You can expand the Port Group column to view the full name of the uplink port group.

5. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

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6. Power on Linux01 and log in to its console.

a. In the left pane, select Linux01.

b. Right-click Linux01 and select Power > Power On.

c. In the right pane, click Launch Web Console.

Wait for the VM to boot.

d. Log in by entering user name root and password VMware1!.

7. At the command prompt, ping 172.20.10.10 (the domain controller’s IP address) to verify that
the VM has full network connectivity.

ping -c 3 172.20.10.10
8. If the ping command is successful, continue to Step 10.

9. If the ping command is unsuccessful, restart the networking in the VM.

a. Enter the command to ensure that your VM has a valid DHCP-assigned IP address.

service network restart

b. Repeat steps 7 and 8.

10. Close the VM Linux01 web console tab.

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Lab 28 Managing vSphere Distributed
Switches

Objective and Tasks

Perform a health check, remediate the vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) issue and back up a
distributed switch:

1. Add a New Port Group to VDS

2. Enable the VDS Health Check

3. Investigate the VDS Health Check Status

4. Remediate the VDS Issue

5. Disable the VDS Health Check Service

6. Back Up the VDS Configuration

Task 1: Add a New Port Group to VDS

You add a port group to the dvs-Lab vSphere distributed switch.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client on Site A.

a. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar.

b. Select vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

c. On the login page, enter the vCenter Server lab credentials.

User name: administrator@vsphere.local

Password: VMware1!

2. Select Menu > Networking.

3. In the left pane, select the VDS dvs-Lab.

4. Right-click dvs-Lab and select Distributed Port Group > New Distributed Port Group.

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5. On the Name and location page, enter pg-SA-Testing in the Name text box and click
NEXT.

6. On the Configure settings page, select VLAN under VLAN type from the drop-down menu,
enter 10 for the VLAN number, and click NEXT.

7. On the Ready to complete page, review the information about your new DVS port group
and click FINISH.

Task 2: Enable the VDS Health Check

You enable the VDS health check service on the dvs-Lab vSphere distributed switch to verify its
configuration for errors or mismatches.

1. Select Menu > Networking.

2. In the left pane, select dvs-Lab.

3. In the right pane, click Configure > Health Check on the left.

4. Click Edit in the top-right corner.

5. Under VLAN and MTU, select Enabled from the State drop-down menu.

6. Under Teaming and failover, select Enabled from the State drop-down menu.

7. Click OK.

NOTE

After the health check is enabled, the VDS health check begins testing for selected
configuration options (VLAN and MTU, Teaming and Failover, or both) by creating many
fictitious MAC addresses. These MAC addresses continue to be created and sent through
the vSphere and physical networks as long as the VDS health check is enabled.

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Task 3: Investigate the VDS Health Check Status
You check for results from the VDS health check service.

The health check can take some time.

1. Select dvs-Lab in the left pane.

2. Select Monitor > Health in the right pane.

3. Observe the Host Name list in the right pane.

This list should comprise all hosts that were added to vSphere Distributed Switch.

This list continuously updates with health check results while the health check service is
enabled.

4. Highlight a host listing, where a warning appears, to view the additional information displayed
below it.

VLAN is the default tab under Health status details. To check MTU or other settings, you
must click the individual tabs.

When you set a VLAN in task 1, it was a bad VLAN because it is a mismatch to the physical
environment.

Task 4: Remediate the VDS Issue

You fix the bad VLAN configured on your new port group that you confirmed through the VDS
health check.

1. Expand the dvs-Lab vSphere distributed switch.

2. Right-click the pg-SA-Testing port group and select Edit settings....

3. On the VLAN page, select None for the setting VLAN type.

Selecting None for this value removes any previously applied VLAN tags on the pg-SA-
Testing port group.

NOTE

VMkernel port configuration is managed independently. However, VDS port group

configuration can affect VMkernel port configuration.

4. To apply the VLAN change, click OK.

5. Verify your change.

a. Select Monitor > Health and verify that VLAN Health Status has changed and now
indicates Normal.

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Task 5: Disable the VDS Health Check Service
You disable the VDS health check service on the dvs-Lab vSphere distributed switch.

Disabling the VDS health check service is important because of the many fictitious MAC
addresses generated at one-minute intervals to facilitate troubleshooting efforts in the network
infrastructure. The environment will need time for those MAC addresses to time out of the
infrastructure, according to the network policy after the VDS health check is disabled.

1. Select Menu > Networking.

2. In the left pane, select VDS dvs-Lab.

3. In the right pane, click Configure > Health Check on the left.

4. Click Edit.

5. Under VLAN and MTU, select Disabled from the State drop-down menu.

6. Under Teaming and failover, select Disabled from the State drop-down menu.

7. Click OK.

Task 6: Back Up the VDS Configuration

You back up the configuration for the dvs-Lab vSphere distributed switch.

1. In the left pane, right-click dvs-Lab and select Settings > Export Configuration.

2. In the Export Configuration dialog box, leave Distributed switch and all port groups
selected and click OK.

3. Save the distributed switch configuration to the desktop with the filename dvs-Lab-
backup.zip.

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Lab 29 Using Port Mirroring

Objective and Tasks

Configure port mirroring and capture network traffic on a distributed switch:

1. Prepare to Capture Mirrored Network Traffic

2. Configure Port Mirroring on the Distributed Switch

3. Verify That Port Mirroring Is Capturing Traffic

4. Restore the Distributed Switch Configuration

Task 1: Prepare to Capture Mirrored Network Traffic

You use the Linux01 VM to capture and monitor mirrored traffic.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client on Site A.

a. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar.

b. Select vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

c. On the login page, enter the vCenter Server lab credentials.

User name: administrator@vsphere.local

Password: VMware1!

2. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

3. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter and expand SA-Compute-01.

4. In the left pane, select the Linux01 VM.

The Linux01 VM is used for traffic capture.

5. In the right pane, click Summary and click Launch Web Console.

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6. In the Linux01 web console, enter the tcpdump command at the command prompt.

tcpdump -nn icmp

This command line is used to monitor ICMP network traffic.

7. Monitor the command output for a few seconds and verify that ICMP traffic is not being
captured.

The tcpdump output does not have any information to display until ICMP traffic is detected
on the network.

8. Leave the console window open with the tcpdump command running uninterrupted.

9. Return to the vSphere Client tab.

10. Power on the Linux02 VM and log in to its console.

a. In the left pane, select Linux02.

b. Right-click Linux02 and select Power > Power On.

c. In the right pane, click Summary and click Launch Web Console.

d. Click the Linux02 Web Console tab in the browser and click in the window to capture
keyboard input.

Wait for the VM to fully boot.

e. Log in by entering user root with password VMware1! .

The Linux02 VM is used as the traffic source to be monitored.

11. At the Linux02 command prompt, enter the ping command.

ping 172.20.10.10
This command pings the default router IP address.

12. If the ping command does not work, enter the following command to restart network
services and then repeat step 11.

service network restart

13. After the ping command begins to work, click the Linux01 console tab.

14. In the Linux01 console window, verify that the running tcpdump command output remains
silent and did not capture any ICMP traffic.

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Task 2: Configure Port Mirroring on the Distributed Switch
You configure port mirroring so that the port connected to the Linux02 VM is the mirror source
and the port connected to the Linux01 VM is the mirror destination.

All the traffic present on the Linux02 port is forwarded to the Linux01 port for examination.

1. From the vSphere Client, select Menu > Networking.

2. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter and select dvs-Lab.

3. In the right pane, click Configure and select Port Mirroring on the left.

4. Add a port mirroring session.

a. In the Port Mirroring panel, click +New.
The Add Port Mirroring Session wizard appears.
b. On the Select session type page, accept the default Distributed Port Mirroring and click
NEXT.
When you select this session type, distributed ports can only be local. If the source and
destination ports are on different hosts, port mirroring does not work between them.
Ensure that the Linux01 and Linux02 VMs both reside on sa-esxi-04.vclass.local.
c. On the Edit properties page, configure the port mirroring session.
i. From the Status drop-down menu, select Enabled.
ii. From the Normal I/O on destination ports drop-down menu, select Allowed and
click NEXT.
d. On the Select sources page, configure the port mirroring source.

i. Click the Select distributed ports to add to this port mirroring session icon.

ii. In the Select Ports dialog box, select Linux02 and click OK.

iii. Click NEXT.

e. On the Select destinations page, configure the port mirroring destination.

i. Click the Select distributed ports to add to this port mirroring session icon.

ii. In the Select Ports dialog box, select Linux01 and click OK.

iii. Click NEXT.

f. On the Ready to complete page, review settings and click FINISH.

g. Monitor to completion using Recent Tasks.

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Task 3: Verify That Port Mirroring Is Capturing Traffic
With port mirroring configured, you view the tcpdump command output and verify that any
ICMP traffic appearing on the Linux02 port is duplicated on the Linux01 port.

1. Return to the Linux02 console tab.

2. Verify that the ping command is still reaching the default router IP address.

3. Go to the Linux01 console tab.

4. In the Linux01 console, examine the tcpdump output in the terminal window.

The output looks similar to the following screenshot.

5. Record the local address that appears in the captured traffic.

_________________

The local address begins with 172.20.11.

6. In the Linux01 console window, press Ctrl+C to stop the tcpdump command.

a. If pressing Ctrl+C does not work, click anywhere inside the tab screen and repeat.

7. Click the Linux02 console tab.

8. In the Linux02 console window, press Ctrl+C to stop the ping command.

9. At the Linux02 command prompt, use ifconfig to examine the IP configuration.

ifconfig
10. Use the command output to verify that the Linux02 IP address matches the address that
you recorded in step 5.

11. Close the Linux01 and Linux02 console tabs.

12. Shut down Linux01 and Linux02.

a. In your vSphere Client, select Hosts and Clusters from the Menu drop-down menu.

b. In the left pane, right-click Linux01 and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

c. In the pop-up window, click Yes to confirm the shutdown operation.

d. Repeat substeps b and c to shut down Linux02.

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Task 4: Restore the Distributed Switch Configuration
You restore the VDS dvs-Lab configuration to reset any configuration change made since the
configuration was saved.

1. Select Menu > Networking.

2. In the left pane, right-click VDS dvs-Lab and select Settings > Restore Configuration.

The Restore Configuration wizard appears.

3. On the Restore switch configuration page, click BROWSE, select the file dvs-Lab-
backup.zip, and click Open.
4. Leave Restore distributed switch and all port groups selected and click NEXT.

5. On the Ready to complete page, review the settings and click FINISH.

a. If you lose connection to the vSphere Client, restart Firefox.

6. After the switch configuration is restored, verify the configuration.

a. If the switch configuration did not restore properly, repeat steps 1 through 5.

b. View the port mirroring configuration and verify that the VDS dvs-Lab has no sessions
configured.

The port mirroring configuration was removed by the VDS restore operation.

7. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Home.

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Lab 30 Using vSphere Lifecycle
Manager

Objective and Tasks

Update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager:

1. Import Update Files to the Image Depot

2. Create a Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Enabled

3. Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster

4. Update ESXi Hosts Using the Cluster Image

Task 1: Import Update Files to the Image Depot

You import an ESXi image, sample vendor add-ons, and sample test components to the vSphere
Lifecycle Manager image depot. You use these images to update the hosts in the ICM-Compute-
01 cluster.

1. Using the vSphere Client, log in to sa-vcsa-01.vclass.local by entering

administrator@vsphere.local for the user name and VMware1! for the
password.

2. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Lifecycle Manager.

The Image Depot page appears in the right pane.

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3. Import an ESXi image to the image depot.

a. In the right pane, select Import Updates from the ACTIONS drop-down menu.

The Import Updates dialog box opens.

b. Click BROWSE and navigate to Desktop > Class Materials and Licenses
> Downloads.

c. Double-click VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15847920-depot.zip.

The Import Updates window opens, displaying a progress bar for Step 1 of 2.

After Step 1 completes, the window closes, and the Import updates task appears in the
Recent Tasks pane. This task represents Step 2 in the process.

d. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Import updates task to complete.

e. Verify that your uploaded image file appears in the Image Depot pane.

4. Import sample vendor add-ons and components to the image depot.

a. From the ACTIONS drop-down menu, select Import Updates.

b. Click BROWSE and double-click SampleAddonsComponents.zip in

C:\Materials\Downloads.
c. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Import updates task to complete.

d. Click VENDOR ADDONS and verify that four items appear in the list.

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5. Import one more component to the image depot.

a. From the ACTIONS drop-down menu, select Import Updates.

b. Click BROWSE and double-click VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15847920-vib-test-certs.zip in

C:\Materials\Downloads.
c. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the Import updates task to complete.

d. Click COMPONENTS and verify that the Test VIB signing certs component and two test
components appear in the list.

6. View details about the images, add-ons, and components that you uploaded.

a. On the Image Depot tab, click ESXI VERSIONS.

b. Select the ESXi entry in the list and review the details and components that appear to
the right.

The ESXi version, release date, category, and a full list of components are provided.

c. Click VENDOR ADDONS and select the first add-on in the list.

d. Review the details that appear to the right.

The add-on version, release date, category, and a list of added components are
provided.

e. Select the other add-ons in the list and review their details to the right.

f. Click COMPONENTS and select the first component on the list.

g. Review the details that appear to the right.

The component version, release date, category, and severity are provided.

h. Select the other components in the list and review their details to the right.

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Task 2: Create a Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Enabled
You create a vSphere cluster, and you configure the cluster to manage multiple ESXi hosts using
a single image to maintain consistency in the cluster.

1. From the Menu drop-down menu, select Hosts and Clusters.

2. In the navigation pane, right-click the ICM-Datacenter object and select New Cluster.

The New Cluster dialog box opens.

3. Configure the new cluster.

Option Action

Name Enter ICM-Compute-02.

vSphere DRS Click the toggle button to turn on this

service.

vSphere HA Leave the service turned off.

vSAN Leave the service turned off.

Manage all hosts in the cluster with a Click the Information icon, read the
single image information provided, and close the box.

Select the check box.

ESXi Version Select 7.0 GA - 15847920.

Vendor Addon (optional) Select None.

Click OK.

4. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the progress as the cluster is created.

5. Verify that ICM-Compute-02 appears in the navigation pane under ICM-Datacenter.

In the right pane, the Cluster quickstart pane appears.

6. Verify that vSphere DRS and Lifecycle Management (Manage all hosts with one image) are
listed under Selected services.

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Task 3: Add ESXi Hosts to the Cluster
You remove sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local from the ICM-Compute-01 cluster
and add them to the ICM-Compute-02 cluster.

1. Shut down all VMs that are on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

You must shut down the VMs on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local because
you will be placing these hosts into maintenance mode.

a. Right-click a powered-on VM and select Power > Shut Down Guest OS.

b. Click YES to confirm the shutdown.

2. Record the ESXi build number for sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

a. Click the ESXi host's Summary tab.

b. View the Hypervisor information and record the ESXi build number for sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local. __________

The build number should be the same for both hosts.

3. Place sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local in maintenance mode.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select Maintenance Mode

> Enter Maintenance Mode.

b. Deselect the Move powered-off and suspended virtual machines to other hosts in the
cluster check box.
c. Click OK to confirm placing the host in maintenance mode.

d. Repeat steps a through c on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local.

e. Verify that sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local are in maintenance mode.

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4. In the navigation pane, drag sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to the ICM-
Compute-02 cluster.

The Move Host into Cluster dialog box opens.

a. Leave the default and click OK.

These hosts should no longer be part of the ICM-Compute-01 cluster and are still in
maintenance mode.

5. Take sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local out of maintenance mode.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select Maintenance Mode

> Exit Maintenance Mode.

b. Right-click sa-esxi-02.vclass.local and select Maintenance Mode > Exit Maintenance

Mode.

6. Power on the Win10-02, Win10-04, and Win10-06 VMs.

You power on these VMs to demonstrate that vSphere Lifecycle Manager can update the
ESXi hosts while VMs are powered on.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click the VM and select Power > Power On.

Task 4: Update ESXi Hosts Using the Cluster Image

You scan hosts for compliance and update the hosts using the defined cluster image.

1. In the navigation pane, select ICM-Compute-02 and click the Updates tab in the right pane.

2. Add vendor add-ons and components to the base ESXi image.

a. In the Image pane, click EDIT.

The Edit Image pane appears.

b. Next to Vendor Addon, click SELECT.

The Select Vendor Addon window opens.

c. Click VMWTestAddon1 and click SELECT.

d. Verify that VMWTestAddon1 2.0-1 appears next to Vendor Addon.

e. Next to Components, click Show details.

f. Click ADD COMPONENTS.

The Add Components window opens.

g. Select the Test VIB signing certs check box and the vmwTestComponent3 check box
and click SELECT.

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 h. Verify that the components that you selected appear in the list.

i. In the Edit Image pane, click SAVE.

You might have to scroll down to see the SAVE button.

3. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane.

Several tasks are started. Saving the changes to the image automatically starts the Check
compliance of cluster with image task.

4. Wait for the task to complete.

5. View the Image Compliance pane and read any warning and information messages.

6. Select each host in the list and view its compliance information.

a. Verify that each host is out of compliance with the image.

b. Verify that the host versions and image versions are different for each of the images.

7. In the Image Compliance pane, click RUN PRE-CHECK to ensure that the ICM-Compute-02
cluster is ready to remediate.

8. Wait for the precheck tasks to complete and verify that No pre-check issues
found appears in the Image Compliance pane.
9. In the Image Compliance pane, click REMEDIATE ALL to remediate the hosts in the cluster.

The Review Remediation Impact window opens.

10. Read the information in the remediation impact summary, accept the terms of the End User
License Agreement and click START REMEDIATION.

11. Monitor the remediation from the Image Compliance pane.

12. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane to view the status of the individual tasks that are started
during the remediation.

vSphere DRS migrates VMs off a host before remediating the host.

The hosts are rebooted as part of the remediation. When the hosts come back online, a
second compliance check automatically runs.

13. When the remediation is complete, verify that the Image Compliance pane shows that all
hosts in the cluster are compliant.

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Lab 31 Using Host Profiles

Objective and Tasks

Use host profiles to manage host configuration compliance:

1. Preconfigure ESXi Hosts

2. Create and Export a Host Profile

3. Import a Host Profile

4. Duplicate and Edit a Host Profile

5. Attach an ESXi Host to a Host Profile

6. Run an Initial Compliance Check

7. Introduce a Configuration Drift

8. Run a Compliance Check and Remediate the Configuration Drift

9. Detach the Host Profile

Task 1: Preconfigure ESXi Hosts

You use the vSphere Client to preconfigure an ESXi host.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client on Site A.

a. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar.

b. Select vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

c. On the login page, enter the vCenter Server lab credentials.

User name: administrator@vsphere.local

Password: VMware1!

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2. Configure NTP on an ESXi host.

a. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

b. In the left pane, select ESXi host sa-esxi-05.vclass.local.

c. Select Configure > System > Time Configuration.

d. In the right pane under Network Time Protocol settings, click EDIT.

e. Change the NTP Servers setting to 1.2.3.4 and click OK.

IMPORTANT

The NTP server for this host is being intentionally configured to an incorrect value for
this lab exercise and will be corrected later on.

f. Monitor the task to completion.

Task 2: Create and Export a Host Profile

You create and export a host profile.

1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. Select Host Profiles in the left pane and click EXTRACT HOST PROFILE in the right pane.

3. Extract a host profile.

a. On the Select host page, select sa-esxi-04.vclass.local and click NEXT.

b. On the Name and Description page, enter Extracted-Profile-saesxi04 in the
Name text box and click FINISH.

c. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

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4. Export the host profile to a file.

a. In the right pane, right-click Extracted-Profile-saesxi04 and select Export Host Profile.

b. In the Export Host Profile page, click SAVE.

c. Save the profile as Extracted-Profile-saesxi04_host_profile.vpf on

the desktop.

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Task 3: Import a Host Profile
You import the host profile that you exported in the previous task.

Because host profiles do not store the reference host, host profiles can easily be imported and
exported.

1. In the right panel, click the Import Host Profile icon.

2. In the Import Host Profile dialog box, import the host profile that you previously saved.

a. On the Profile location line, click Browse..., select the file Extracted-Profile-
saesxi04_host_profile.vpf, and click Open.
b. In the Name text box, enter Imported-Profile-saesxi04 and click OK.

c. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

Task 4: Duplicate and Edit a Host Profile

You duplicate and edit the host profile that you imported in the previous task.

This editing process reduces the number of items checked for compliance through the profile on
the ESXi host. This process also streamlines host configuration individually or in a cluster.

1. Duplicate a host profile.

a. On the Host Profiles screen, select Imported-Profile-saesxi04 by clicking the horizontal

row containing the profile name.

b. Click DUPLICATE HOST PROFILE.

c. On the Duplicate Host Profile page, enter Basic-Host-Configuration for the

new profile name and click OK.

d. On the Recent Tasks page, monitor the task to completion.

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2. Edit a host profile.

a. On the Host Profiles screen, select Basic-Host-Configuration.

The profile currently contains all items/fields exported from the sa-esxi-04 host, by
default.
Because the host responsibilities and cluster membership might not be determined,
some configuration items will be deselected from the host profile for compliance
checking.

b. Click Configure and click EDIT HOST PROFILE... on the right side.

c. Deselect General System Settings > Device Alias Configuration.

d. Deselect Security and Services > Service Configuration.

e. Deselect Storage configuration.

f. Click SAVE.

Deselecting these items reduces the number of individual profile compliance checks for
any attached host.

g. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

Task 5: Attach an ESXi Host to a Host Profile

You attach an ESXi host or cluster to a host profile.

This profile has been edited and is based on the host profile that you previously imported.

Individual ESXi hosts and clusters can be attached or detached from a host profile in the Host
Profile or the Host and Clusters view.

1. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. From the navigation pane, select Host Profiles.

3. In the right window pane, click Basic-Host-Configuration to navigate to that object.

4. In the right pane, click the Configure tab.

You can review and edit the comprehensive list of configuration settings that define the host
profile.

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5. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Attach/Detach Hosts and Clusters.

The Attach/Detach wizard appears.

6. Attach the host to the host profile.

a. From the Host/Cluster list, select sa-esxi-05.vclass.local and click SAVE.

b. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

Task 6: Run an Initial Compliance Check

You run a compliance check to verify the attached host configuration against all the settings that
are specified by the host profile.

1. In the right pane, click the Monitor tab for the host profile.

2. Verify compliance for sa-esxi-05.vclass.local.

a. Select sa-esxi-05.vclass.local and click CHECK COMPLIANCE.

b. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the compliance check to completion.

3. Under the Host Profile Compliance column, click Not Compliant and view the compliance
information near the middle of the screen.

For greater visibility, minimize the Recent Tasks pane.

The sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host is not compliant because the date and time configuration
does not match the information in the host profile. The NTP server information is incorrect.

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4. Resolve the date and time configuration issue occurring on the ESXi host.

a. Click the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host to transfer to the Host and Clusters view.

b. In the right pane, select Configure > System > Time Configuration and click EDIT across
from Network Time Protocol.
c. In the NTP Servers box, enter 172.20.10.10 and click OK.

Because this is the correct entry for the ESXi host configuration, it will match the host
profile information.

d. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

e. In the left pane, select Host Profiles.

Now that you have corrected the erroneous NTP Servers entry, it is time to check
compliance.

f. In the right pane, click Basic-Host-Configuration.

g. Select Monitor > Compliance, select sa-esxi-05.vclass.local, and click CHECK

COMPLIANCE.

Monitor the task in the Recent Tasks pane to completion.

h. The host is now compliant.

Task 7: Introduce a Configuration Drift

You test host profile compliance verification and remediation by introducing a noncompliant
change on the host.

The noncompliant change is that you remove the vmnic2 adapter from the VDS dvs-Lab.

1. Select Menu > Networking.

2. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter, right-click distributed switch dvs-Lab, and select
Add and Manage Hosts.

The Add and Manage Hosts wizard appears.

3. On the Select task page, select Manage host networking and click NEXT.

4. On the Select hosts page, click +Attached hosts.

5. In the Select member hosts window, select the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local, click OK, and click
NEXT.

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6. On the Manage physical network adapters page, unassign the vmnic2 adapter.

a. Under the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host entry, expand this switch, select vmnic2, and
record the attached uplink. ___________________

b. Click Unassign adapter and click NEXT.

c. In the Warning dialog box, review the information and click OK.

7. On the Manage VMkernel adapters page, click NEXT.

8. On the Migrate VM networking page, click NEXT.

9. On the Ready to complete page, review the selections and click FINISH.

10. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

Task 8: Run a Compliance Check and Remediate the Configuration

Drift
You run a compliance check to detect noncompliant configuration changes that were made to
hosts attached to a host profile. You then remediate the host.

1. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. In the left pane, click Host Profiles.

3. In the right pane, click Basic-Host-Configuration.

4. In the right pane, select Monitor > Compliance.

5. Select sa-esxi-05.vclass.local and click CHECK COMPLIANCE.

In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the compliance check to completion.

6. Click the Not Compliant entry for sa-esxi-05.vclass.local under the Host Profile Compliance
column for additional details.

7. In the Compliance panel, review the compliance categories.

Q1. How do the results of the compliance check differ from the compliance check
performed in task 6?
A1. The Date and Time configuration did not match. If the category was previously reported, a new issue is added relating to the uplink reconfiguration.

Q2. In the new category Virtual Network Setting, does the specific issue reported
relate to the configuration change made in task 7?
A2. Yes. The uplink is not connected to the expected physical NIC on VDS dvs-Lab.

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8. Remediate the host.

a. Select the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host, click EDIT HOST CUSTOMIZATIONS, and click
OK.

With this customization step, you can review and edit information specific to the
attached host.

b. With the host selected, click PRE-CHECK REMEDIATION.

The precheck remediation takes several moments to complete.

c. Review the results of the pre-check remediation.

This remediation action updates host settings to match those of the host profile that it is
attached to.

Q3. Will the host need to be put in maintenance mode?

A3. Yes.

For the host to enter maintenance mode, the VMs on this host must be powered off or
moved to another host.

d. Right-click the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host and select Maintenance Mode > Enter
Maintenance Mode.

The Enter Maintenance Mode dialog box appears.

e. Review the information and click OK.

The Host Profile window is updated to indicate that the host is Ready to
remediate.
f. Select sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host and click REMEDIATE.

The Remediate - Basic-Host-Configuration dialog box appears.

g. Review the information in the Remediate - Basic-Host-Configuration dialog box, accept

the defaults, and click OK.

h. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the remediation and subsequent compliance check
tasks to completion.

i. If the first host remediation attempt is unsuccessful, verify that the host is selected and
attempt remediation again.

j. Verify that the host is now compliant.

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9. Verify the action taken by host remediation.

a. Select Menu > Networking.

b. In the left pane, select the distributed switch dvs-Lab under SA-Datacenter.

c. In the right pane, select Configure > Settings > Topology.

d. From the left side of the topology diagram, click pg-SA-Production and expand Uplink1
on the right side.

e. Verify that remediation automatically reconnected vmnic2 on sa-esxi-05.vclass.local to

the appropriate uplink Uplink1.

10. Return the host to production.

a. Select Menu > Host and Clusters.

b. Right-click sa-esxi-05.vclass.local and select Maintenance Mode > Exit Maintenance

Mode.

c. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

Task 9: Detach the Host Profile

Detach the host profile from the sa-esxi-05.vclass.local host.

1. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. In the left pane, click Host Profiles.

3. In the right pane, click Basic-Host-Configuration.

4. In the right pane, select Actions > Attach/Detach Hosts and Clusters.

The Attach/Detach Hosts and Clusters wizard appears.

5. Detach the host from the host profile.

a. In the Host/Cluster list, deselect sa-esxi-05.vclass.local and click SAVE.

b. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the task to completion.

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Lab 32 Managing Resource Pools

Objective and Tasks

Create and use resource pools:

1. Maintain VMs

2. Create CPU Contention

3. Create Resource Pools

4. Verify Resource Pool Functionality

Task 1: Maintain VMs

You rename one VM and then configure it and another VM to facilitate CPU contention.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client on Site A.

a. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar.

b. Select vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

c. On the login page, enter the vCenter Server lab credentials.

User name: administrator@vsphere.local

Password: VMware1!

2. Select Menu > Host and Clusters.

3. Ensure that the VMs Win10-02 and Win10-06 reside on the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host.

If necessary, use vSphere vMotion to migrate Win10-02 and Win10-06 to sa-esxi-

01.vclass.local.

4. Move the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host out of the ICM-Compute-02 cluster.

a. Ensure that the VMs Win10-02 and Win10-06 are shut down.
b. Right-click the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host and select Maintenance Mode > Enter
Maintenance Mode.

c. Deselect the Move powered-off and suspended virtual machines to other hosts in the
cluster check box.

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 d. Click OK to confirm placing the host in maintenance mode.

e. Select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and drag the host to the Datacenter ICM-Datacenter.

f. Right-click the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host and select Maintenance Mode > Exit
Maintenance Mode.
5. Rename a VM.

a. Select the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host.

b. In the Navigator pane, right-click the WIN10-06 VM and select Rename.

c. Enter WIN10-03 and click OK.

6. Configure the VM.

a. In the Navigator pane, right-click the Win10-02 virtual machine and select Edit Settings.

b. On the Virtual Hardware tab, click the arrow next to CPU.

c. In the Scheduling Affinity text box, enter 1.

This affinity setting forces the Win10-02 VM to run only on logical CPU 1.

CAUTION

CPU affinity is primarily used to create CPU contention for training purposes. VMware
strongly discourages the use of this feature in a production environment.

d. To apply these CPU configuration changes, click OK.

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7. Connect the WIN10-02 VM to the Production network.

a. Right-click WIN10-02 and select Edit Settings.

b. On the Virtual Hardware tab, locate Network Adapter 1 and select Browse... from the
drop-down menu.
c. On the Select Network page, select Production and click OK.

d. Quickly verify your selection and, when ready, click OK to apply this networking change.

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for the Win10-03 VM.

9. After preconfiguration is complete, power on VMs WIN10-02 and WIN10-03.

10. Return to the vSphere Client in the Firefox browser.

Task 2: Create CPU Contention

You use a tool to create CPU contention in your lab environment for testing. You force the VMs
to compete for and share the limited logical CPU resources on the ESXi host, which might lead to
performance degradation.

1. Select Menu > Host and Clusters.

2. Expand ICM-Datacenter.

3. Verify that the WIN10-02 and WIN10-03 VMs are powered on and running on sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local.

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4. Start the CPUBUSY script on the VM desktops.

a. Select WIN10-02 in the left column.

b. Select Launch Web Console.

If you are asked to choose between VMRC and Web Console, choose the web console.

c. On the desktop, right-click CPUBUSY and select Open with Command Prompt.

This script runs continuously. It stabilizes in 1 to 2 minutes. This script repeatedly does
floating-point computations. The script displays the duration (wall-clock time) of a
computation, for example, I did ten million sines in # seconds.

d. Repeat steps a through c on the WIN10-03 VM.

You use the number of seconds reported as a performance estimate. The script
CPUBUSY should run at approximately the same rate in each VM.
5. Leave the CPUBUSY script to run for 2 or more minutes to see contention.

Task 3: Create Resource Pools

You create resource pools to delegate control of a host's or a cluster's resources, and to
compartmentalize all resources in a cluster.

1. Select Menu > Host and Clusters.

2. Right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local in the Navigator pane and select New Resource Pool.

3. Assign properties to the resource pool.

Option Action

Name Enter RP-Test.

CPU Shares Select Low from the Shares drop-down menu.

All other settings Leave the default settings.

4. Click OK.

5. In the Navigator pane, right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select New Resource Pool.

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6. Assign properties to the resource pool.

Option Action

Name Enter RP-Production.

CPU Shares Select High from the Shares drop-down menu.

All other settings Leave the default settings.

7. Click OK.

Task 4: Verify Resource Pool Functionality

You assign VMs to resource pools with different resource settings to monitor and compare the
performance differences.

1. Select the RP-Test resource pool in the Navigator pane and click the Summary tab.

2. Right-click RP-Test > Edit Resource Settings to inspect the number of shares in the RP-
Test resource pool.

Q1. What is the number of shares for this RP-Test (Low) resource pool?
A1. 2,000.

3. Click CANCEL.

4. Select RP-Production in the Navigator pane and click the Summary tab.

5. Right-click RP-Production > Edit Resource Settings to inspect the number of shares in the
RP-Production resource pool.

Q2. What is the number of shares for this RP-Production (High) resource pool?
A2. 8,000.

6. Click CANCEL.

7. Drag the WIN10-02 VM to the RP-Production resource pool.

8. Drag the WIN10-03 VM to the RP-Test resource pool.

9. Switch between VM consoles to monitor the results of the CPUBUSY script.

a. Wait several minutes for CPU contention to occur.

The contention should be evidenced on the WIN10-03 console by increased duration for
the same executions. For example, calculations took 8 seconds before the VM was
placed in the resource pool, and now it takes 32 seconds due to lower shares in the
resource pool.

Q3. What is the difference in performance between the two virtual machines?
A3. The RP-Test resource pool and the virtual machine in it have only one-fourth of the CPU shares that the RP-Production resource pool has. Therefore, the virtual machine in the RP-Test resource pool receives only one-fourth of the CPU cycles of the logical CPU to which the virtual machines are pinned.

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10. In the vSphere Client, change the CPU shares of the RP-Test resource pool to Normal.

a. Right-click the resource pool RP-Test in the Navigator pane and click Edit Resource
Settings.

b. From the CPU > Shares drop-down menu, select Normal and click OK.
c. In each VM console, leave the script to run for a few minutes and compare the
performance of the CPUBUSY script on each VM.

As contention diminishes on the WIN10-03 VM, a difference in performance is

noticeable.

11. Repeat the previous step to change CPU shares for the RP-Production resource pool to
Normal.

As contention diminishes, performance balances between the two VMs.

12. Press Ctrl+C in each Web Console window for VMs WIN10-02 and WIN10-03 to stop the
CPUBUSY script.
13. Close the WIN10-02 and WIN10-03 web consoles.

14. Perform a graceful guest OS shutdown on VMs WIN10-02 and WIN10-03.

a. In the navigation pane, right-click WIN10-02 and select Power> Shut Down Guest OS
selecting YES to confirm graceful Guest OS shutdown.

b. In the navigation pane, right-click WIN10-03 and select Power> Shut Down Guest OS
selecting YES to confirm graceful Guest OS shutdown.

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Lab 33 Using Policy-Based Storage

Objective and Tasks

Use policy-based storage to create tiered storage:

1. Add Datastores for Use by Policy-Based Storage

2. Use vSphere Storage vMotion to Migrate a VM's Storage

3. Configure Storage Tags

4. Create VM Storage Policies

5. Assign Storage Policies to VMs

Task 1: Add Datastores for Use by Policy-Based Storage

You create two small datastores, as simple tiered storage, for use by your vCenter Server
instance.

1. Log in to the vSphere Client on Site A.

a. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar.

b. Select vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

c. On the login page, enter the vCenter Server lab credentials.

User name: administrator@vsphere.local

Password: VMware1!

2. Select Menu > Storage.

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3. Create a datastore named ds-gold.

a. In the left pane, right-click SA-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

The New Datastore wizard appears.

b. On the Type page, leave VMFS selected and click NEXT.

c. On the Name and device selection page, enter ds-gold in the Datastore name text
box.

d. From the Select a host... drop-down menu, select ESXi host sa-esxi-04.vclass.local.

e. From the LUN list, select the entry description FreeNAS ISCSI Disk (naa..) with capacity
8.00 GB, and click NEXT.

Local drives are labeled as Local VMware Disk. Do not select these drives.

f. On the VMFS version page, leave VMFS 6 selected and click NEXT.

g. On the Partition configuration page, keep the default values and click NEXT.

h. On the Ready to complete page, review settings and click FINISH.

i. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter and verify that the datastore ds-gold appears.

4. Create a datastore named ds-silver.

a. In the left pane, right-click SA-Datacenter and select Storage > New Datastore.

The New Datastore wizard appears.

b. On the Type page, leave VMFS selected and click NEXT.

c. On the Name and device selection page, enter ds-silver in the Datastore name
text box.

d. From the Select a host... drop-down menu, select ESXi host sa-esxi-04.vclass.local.

e. From the LUN list, select the entry description FreeNAS ISCSI Disk (naa..) with capacity
12.00 GB, and click NEXT.

Local drives are labeled as Local VMware Disk. Do not select these drives.

f. On the VMFS version page, leave VMFS 6 selected and click NEXT.

g. On the Partition configuration page, keep the default values and click NEXT.

h. On the Ready to complete page, review settings and click FINISH.

i. Verify that the datastore ds-silver appears in the left pane.

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Task 2: Use vSphere Storage vMotion to Migrate a VM's Storage
You use vSphere Storage vMotion to migrate the Photon-01 VM to the ds-gold datastore.

1. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

2. In the left pane, right-click Photon-01 and select Migrate.

The Migrate wizard appears.

3. On the Select a migration type page, click Change storage only and click NEXT.

4. On the Select storage page, select the datastore ds-gold, leave all other settings with their
default values, and click NEXT.

5. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

6. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the migration task to completion.

7. Verify that the migration was successful.

You might need to refresh the vSphere Client to see that the migration is complete.

a. In the left pane, select Photon-01.

b. In the right pane, click the Datastores tab and verify that the ds-gold datastore is listed.

Task 3: Configure Storage Tags

You create the tags necessary to implement simple tiering.

The Storage Tiers tag category contains the Gold and Silver identifier tags associated with
individual datastores.

1. Select Menu > Tags & Custom Attributes.

2. In the right pane, click the Tags tab.

3. Configure a new tag category and the Gold Tier identifier tag.

a. In the Tags panel, click NEW.

b. In the Name text box, enter Gold Tier.

c. Click the Create New Category link next to the Category drop-down menu.

A dialog box appears that includes tag and category configuration options.

Categories can be created only as part of the identifier tag creation process.
d. In the Category Name text box, enter Storage Tiers.

e. Keep the default values for the remaining settings and click CREATE.

f. In the Create Tag dialog box, click CREATE.

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4. Create a Silver Tier identifier tag.

a. In the Tags panel, click NEW.

b. In the Name text box, enter Silver Tier.

c. Select Storage Tiers from the Category drop-down menu and click CREATE.

5. Assign the Gold Tier tag to the ds-gold datastore.

a. Select Menu > Storage.

b. In the left pane, right-click ds-gold and select Tags & Custom Attributes > Assign Tag.

c. Select the Gold Tier tag and click ASSIGN.

d. In the left pane, select ds-gold.

e. In the Tags panel on the Summary tab, verify that the Gold Tier tag is associated with
the ds-gold datastore.
6. Assign the Silver Tier tag to the ds-silver datastore.

a. In the left pane, right-click the ds-silver datastore and select Tags & Custom Attributes
> Assign Tag.

b. Select the Silver Tier tag and click ASSIGN.

c. In the left pane, select the datastore ds-silver.

d. In the Tags panel on the Summary tab, verify that the Silver Tier tag is associated with
the ds-silver datastore.

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Task 4: Create VM Storage Policies
You assign storage policies to VMs and you specify the configuration settings to be enforced.

1. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. In the left pane, click VM Storage Policies.

3. Create a Gold Tier storage policy.

a. In the VM Storage Policies panel, click Create VM Storage Policy.

The Create VM Storage Policy wizard appears.

b. On the Name and description page, enter Gold Tier Policy in the Name text box
and click NEXT.

c. On the Policy structure page, select Enable tag based placement rules and click NEXT.

d. On the Tag based placement page, select Storage Tiers from the Tag category drop-
down menu.

e. Click BROWSE TAGS, select Gold Tier, click OK, and click NEXT.

f. On the Storage compatibility page, verify that the datastore ds-gold is listed under
Compatible storage and click NEXT.

g. On the Review and finish page, click FINISH.

4. Repeat step 3 to create Silver Tier Policy by using the Silver Tier tag.

5. Verify that Gold Tier Policy and Silver Tier Policy are entries in the Name column.

a. If the entries cannot be found, repeat any steps needed to add the entries.

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Task 5: Assign Storage Policies to VMs
You assign the Gold and Silver storage policies to individual VMs and you mitigate compliance
issues.

A storage policy can be assigned to a VM while the VM is powered on or powered off.

1. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

2. In the left pane, expand SA-Datacenter and the cluster SA-Compute-01.

3. Apply the Gold Tier storage policy to the Photon-01 VM.

a. Right-click Photon-01 and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage Policies.

b. On the Edit VM Storage Policies page, select Gold Tier Policy from the VM storage
policy drop-down menu and click OK.

c. In the left pane, select Photon-01.

d. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

e. Scroll down and expand the Storage Policies panel, if necessary.

f. Verify that Gold Tier Policy appears and that Photon-01 is compliant.

The Photon-01 VM is compliant because it was already moved to a policy-appropriate

datastore.

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4. Apply the Silver Tier storage policy to the Photon-02 VM.

a. In the left pane, right-click Photon-02 and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage
Policies.

b. On the Edit VM Storage Policies page, select Silver Tier Policy from the VM storage
policy drop-down menu and click OK.

c. In the left pane, select Photon-02.

d. In the right pane, click the Summary tab.

e. View the VM Storage Policies panel, verify that Silver Tier Policy appears and that
Photon-02 is noncompliant.

The Photon-02 VM is noncompliant because its virtual disk is stored on a datastore that
is not tagged as a part of the assigned policy.

5. Remediate the compliance issue for Photon-02.

a. In the left pane, right-click Photon-02 and select Migrate.

The Migrate wizard appears.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change storage only and click NEXT.

c. On the Select storage page, select datastore ds-silver and click NEXT.

With a VM storage policy assigned to the Photon-02 VM, datastores are listed as either
Compatible or Incompatible.

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 d. On the Ready to complete page, review the migration details and click FINISH.

e. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the migration task to completion.

The migration must complete successfully.

6. Verify that Photon-02 is reported as compliant.

a. In the right pane, verify that the status in the VM Storage Policies panel is Compliant.

b. If the status is not Compliant, click the Check Compliance link in the VM Storage Policies
panel.

c. Verify that the status changes to Compliant.

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Lab 34 Creating vSAN Storage Policies

Objective and Tasks

Create and review vSAN storage policies:

1. Examine the Default Storage Policy

2. Create a Custom Policy with No Failure Tolerance

3. Assign the Custom Policy to a VM

4. Make the VM Compliant

5. Create an Invalid Storage Policy

Task 1: Examine the Default Storage Policy

You examine the vSAN default storage policy.

A vSAN datastore has been preconfigured for you.

1. Open the Firefox web browser, click vSphere Site-A on the bookmarks toolbar, and select
vSphere Client (SA-VCSA-01).

a. If you are not logged in from a previous activity, log in using the vCenter Server lab
credentials.

2. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

3. In the left pane, select VM Storage Policies.

4. In the right pane, select vSAN Default Storage Policy and click Edit Settings.

5. On the Name and description page, click NEXT.

6. On the vSAN page, examine the rules under the Availability, Advanced Policy Rules, and
Tags tabs.

Q1. How many failures can be tolerated?

A1. One.

7. Click CANCEL.

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Task 2: Create a Custom Policy with No Failure Tolerance
You create a custom vSAN storage policy that does not provide failure tolerance.

1. In the right pane, click Create VM Storage Policy.

2. On the Name and description page, enter vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0 in the

Name text box and click NEXT.

3. On the Policy structure page, select the Enable rules for “vSAN” storage check box and
click NEXT.

4. On the vSAN page Availability tab under Failures to tolerate, select No data redundancy
from the drop-down menu.

View the consumed storage space information below the drop-down menu.

Q1. Why is the storage space size equal to the VM size?

A1. Because the number of failures to tolerate is zero, a mirrored copy of the VM is not created.

5. To complete the vSAN page, click NEXT.

6. On the Storage compatibility page, click NEXT.

Only the vSAN datastore is listed under Compatible storage.

7. On the Review and finish page, click FINISH.

8. Verify that the vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0 storage policy is created and appears in the
list.

You might need to scroll through the VM Storage Policies list.

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Task 3: Assign the Custom Policy to a VM
You create a second VM and apply your new vSAN storage policy.

1. In the vSphere Client, Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

2. Clone a VM from Photon-01.

a. In the left pane, right-click Photon-01 and select Clone > Clone to Virtual Machine.

b. On the Select a name and folder page, enter Payload-02 in the Virtual machine
name text box and click NEXT.

c. On the Select a compute resource page, expand SA-Compute-01, select sa-esxi-

05.vclass.local, and click NEXT.

d. On the Select storage page, select Datastore Default from the VM Storage Policy
drop-down menu.

e. Select OPSCALE-Datastore from the datastore list and click NEXT.

f. On the Select clone options page, select only Power on virtual machine after creation
and click NEXT.

g. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

h. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane to verify that the Clone virtual machine task completes
successfully.

3. Verify that your new VM is listed in the left pane and is powered on.

If you do not see the VM listed and powered on, click the Refresh icon.

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4. Assign the vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0 storage policy to Payload-02.

a. In the left pane, right-click Payload-02 and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage
Policies.

b. Select vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0 from the VM storage policy drop-down menu.

Q1. Why do the VM home and Hard disk 1 objects have warning icons?
A1. The selected storage policy is only compatible with vSAN datastores and the VM is currently on a VMFS datastore.

c. Click OK.

d. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane to verify that the Reconfigure virtual machine task
completes successfully.

5. In the left pane, select Payload-02.

6. On the Summary tab, review the Related Objects panel and the VM Storage Policies panel.

You might need to scroll down in the right pane to see these panels.

Q2. On which datastore is the VM located?

A2. OPSCALE-Datastore.

Q3. Which storage policy is the VM using?

A3. vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0.

Q4. Is the VM compliant with its storage policy?

A4. No. The status is Not Applicable.

Task 4: Make the VM Compliant

You migrate the Payload-02 VM from the shared VMFS datastore to the vSAN datastore to
make it compliant with its storage policy.

1. Migrate the Payload-02 VM to the vSAN datastore to ensure its compliance.

a. In the left pane, right-click Payload-02 and select Migrate.

b. On the Select a migration type page, click Change storage only and click NEXT.

c. On the Select Storage page, leave Keep existing VM storage policies selected in the
VM Storage Policy drop-down menu.

d. In the datastore list, select vsanDatastore and click NEXT.

e. On the Ready to complete page, click FINISH.

f. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane until the task completes successfully.

2. In the right pane, view the VM Storage Policies panel and click Check Compliance.

The compliance status might have been refreshed automatically by the vSphere Client. If so,
clicking Check Compliance is not required.

3. Verify that the compliance status of Payload-02 changes to Compliant.

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Task 5: Create an Invalid Storage Policy
You create a storage policy that is invalid for the vSAN datastore and you apply it to a VM.

The purpose of this task is to provide another example of the warning messages that appear
when an invalid storage policy is created.

1. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

2. In the left pane, click VM Storage Policies.

3. Create a vSAN storage policy.

a. In the right pane, click Create VM Storage Policy.

b. On the Name and description page, enter RAID5 in the Name text box and click NEXT.

c. On the Policy structure page, select the Enable rules for “vSAN” storage check box
and click NEXT.

d. On the vSAN page under the Availability tab, select 1 failure - RAID-5 (Erasure Coding)
from the Failures to tolerate drop-down menu and click NEXT.

e. On the Storage compatibility page, click NEXT.

Compatible datastores do not exist.

f. On the Review and finish page, click FINISH.

4. Assign the RAID5 storage policy to Payload-02.

a. Select Menu > Hosts and Clusters.

b. In the left pane, right-click Payload-02 and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage
Policies.

c. Select RAID5 from the VM storage policy drop-down menu.

Q1. Why do the VM home and Hard disk 1 objects have warning icons?
A1. The storage policy requires at least four fault domains contributing all-flash storage but only three were found.

5. Click CANCEL.

6. Select Menu > Policies and Profiles.

7. In the left pane, click VM Storage Policies.

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8. In the right pane, select RAID5 and click Delete.

9. On the Delete VM Storage Policy page, click OK.

10. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Home.

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Answer Key

Lab 1 Accessing the Lab Environment

Q1. How many CPUs and how much memory does this ESXi host have?
A1. This ESXi host has 2 CPUs and 8 GB of memory.
Q2. Is the NTP service running on this ESXi host?
A2. No.
Q3. How many virtual machines are on this host?
A3. Six.
Q4. What are the guest operating system types for the virtual machines on this host?
A4. Microsoft Windows 10 and VMware Photon OS.
Q1. Do you see the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local host?
A1. No because that host has not yet been added to the vCenter Server inventory.
Lab 5 Adding Virtual Hardware
Q1. What size is the VM's hard disk 1?
A1. 5 GB.
Q2. Is Hard disk 1 a thin-provisioned or thick-provisioned disk?
A2. Thin-provisioned disk.
Q3. How much storage space is used by this VM?
A3. A little over 2 GB.
Q4. Is VMware Tools installed and running?
A4. Yes.
Q1. What is the name of the virtual disk file for Hard disk 2?
A1. Photon-HW_1.vmdk
Q2. What is the name of the virtual disk file for Hard disk 3?
A2. Photon-HW_2.vmdk
Q3. On what datastore are Hard disk 2 and Hard disk 3 located?

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A3. ICM-Datastore
Q4. What is the size of Photon-HW_1.vmdk?
A4. 0 Bytes
Q5. What is the size of Photon-HW_2.vmdk?
A5. 1 Gigabyte
Lab 7 Creating and Managing the vCenter Server Inventory
Q1. How many CPUs does this ESXi host have?
A1. 2 CPUs
Q2. How much memory does this ESXi host have?
A2. 8 GB
Q3. How many networks is this ESXi host connected to?
A3. One network
Q1. What is the difference between the menu commands for the Lab VMs folder and the Lab
Servers folder?
A1. The menu commands for the Lab Servers folder relate to host actions, whereas the menu
commands for the Lab VMs folder relate to virtual machine actions.
Lab 11 Using Standard Switches
Q1. Which physical adapter is vSwitch0 connected to?
A1. vmnic0
Q2. Which port groups are connected to vSwitch0?
A2. IP Storage, Management Network, and VM Network
Q3. Which virtual machines and templates are connected to the VM Network port group?
A3. Photon-Hw, Photon-Template, Win10-02, Win10-04, Win10-06, and Win10-Tools.
Lab 15 Using a vSAN Datastore
Q1. How many disks are in this disk group?
A1. Three disks.
Q2. What are the disk drive types?
A2. All three disks are flash drives.
Q3. What disk tier does each drive belong to?
A3. One 5 GB flash drive is used for the cache tier, and two 10 GB flash drives are used for
the capacity tier.

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Q1. Why is the policy's effective free space the value that it is?
A1. Because the storage policy uses RAID 1 (mirroring), RAID 1 provides full redundancy. A
full copy of the VM is maintained and, therefore, the VM takes up twice the amount of
space as a VM that is not mirrored.
Lab 21 Working with Snapshots
Q1. Where is the You are here pointer located?
A1. Under the snapshot called With cpubusy.
Q2. Where is the You are here pointer located now?
A2. Under the snapshot called Without iometer and cpubusy.
Q3. Did the Win10-02 virtual machine power off and why?
A3. Yes. The virtual machine powered off because the memory state was not preserved.
Q4. Is either IOMETER.EXE or CPUBUSY.VBS on the desktop?
A4. No. These files were deleted before creating the snapshot called Without iometer and
cpubusy.
Q5. Did the virtual machine power off? Why or why not?
A5. No. The virtual machine did not power off because the memory state was preserved.
Q6. Is CPUBUSY.VBS on the desktop?
A6. Yes.
Q7. Is IOMETER.EXE on the desktop?
A7. No.
Q1. Did the virtual machine power off?
A1. No.
Q2. In the virtual machine console, is CPUBUSY on the desktop?
A2. Yes. The CPUBUSY file is still on the desktop because deleting the snapshot does not
change the virtual machine's current state. Deleting the snapshot removes the ability to
return to that snapshot's point in time.
Q1. Were all the remaining snapshots deleted from the Manage Snapshots window?
A1. Yes.
Q2. Is CPUBUSY on the desktop. If so, why?
A2. Yes. The current state of the virtual machine is not altered. Snapshots are consolidated
and then removed. The option to revert to those earlier points in time is no longer
available.

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Lab 22 Controlling VM Resources
Q1. Why are the values similar?
A1. The values are similar because the CPU share allocation of Win10-02 and Win10-04 gives
them equal share of the CPU on which they are both running.
Q1. What is the difference in performance between the two virtual machines?
A1. Win10-04 has only one-fourth of the CPU shares that Win10-02 has. So Win10-04
receives only one-fourth of the CPU cycles of the logical CPU to which the virtual
machines are pinned.
Lab 23 Monitoring Virtual Machine Performance
Q1. Did the CPU ready value change? If it did, what is the reason for the change?
A1. Yes. After the scripts stop, the CPU ready value decreases significantly because CPU
contention does not occur.
Lab 25 Implementing vSphere DRS Clusters
Q1. Are any VMs experiencing resource contention?
A1. Yes. Three VMs are experiencing serious contention.
Q2. How many vSphere DRS recommendations and DRS faults are shown?
A2. The answer might vary, but you should see at least one recommendation.
Q3. Look at the DRS Score. Are Win10-02, Win10-04, and Win10-06 experiencing serious
CPU contention?
A3. Yes, they should be experiencing serious CPU contention.
Q4. Are any new recommendations listed?
A4. No.
Q5. Have the cluster and VM DRS scores improved?
A5. Yes.
Lab 26 Using vSphere HA
Q1. Does the number of protected virtual machines match the number of powered-on virtual
machines in the cluster?
A1. Yes. If both hosts are added to the cluster and no errors occur on the cluster, the number
of protected VMs equals the number of powered-on VMs.
Q2. How many datastores are used to monitor heartbeat?
A2. Two datastores. Because both datastores are shared by all the hosts in the cluster, the
datastores are automatically selected for heartbeating.
Q1. Do you see any warning messages about no host management network redundancy?

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A1. No, the warning messages are no longer present.
Q1. Do you see the virtual machines that were running on this host (the original master host)
and whose names you recorded earlier?
A1. No. The virtual machines previously running on this host are running on the remaining host
in the cluster.
Q2. Has the master host changed?
A2. Yes. The subordinate host is elected as the new master host.
Lab 31 Using Host Profiles
Q1. How do the results of the compliance check differ from the compliance check performed
in task 6?
A1. The Date and Time configuration did not match. If the category was previously reported,
a new issue is added relating to the uplink reconfiguration.
Q2. In the new category Virtual Network Setting, does the specific issue reported relate to
the configuration change made in task 7?
A2. Yes. The uplink is not connected to the expected physical NIC on VDS dvs-Lab.
Q3. Will the host need to be put in maintenance mode?
A3. Yes.
Lab 32 Managing Resource Pools
Q1. What is the number of shares for this RP-Test (Low) resource pool?
A1. 2,000.
Q2. What is the number of shares for this RP-Production (High) resource pool?
A2. 8,000.
Q3. What is the difference in performance between the two virtual machines?
A3. The RP-Test resource pool and the virtual machine in it have only one-fourth of the CPU
shares that the RP-Production resource pool has. Therefore, the virtual machine in the
RP-Test resource pool receives only one-fourth of the CPU cycles of the logical CPU to
which the virtual machines are pinned.
Lab 34 Creating vSAN Storage Policies
Q1. How many failures can be tolerated?
A1. One.
Q1. Why is the storage space size equal to the VM size?
A1. Because the number of failures to tolerate is zero, a mirrored copy of the VM is not
created.

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Q1. Why do the VM home and Hard disk 1 objects have warning icons?
A1. The selected storage policy is only compatible with vSAN datastores and the VM is
currently on a VMFS datastore.
Q2. On which datastore is the VM located?
A2. OPSCALE-Datastore.
Q3. Which storage policy is the VM using?
A3. vSAN-VM-Custom-Policy-FTT0.
Q4. Is the VM compliant with its storage policy?
A4. No. The status is Not Applicable.
Q1. Why do the VM home and Hard disk 1 objects have warning icons?
A1. The storage policy requires at least four fault domains contributing all-flash storage but
only three were found.

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