VMware Tips

This article describes the installation of vmware components using a sample system architecture as shown in the next figure.

For a failover configuration as described in the previous chapter (Hardware Requirements and Virtualisation Environments) the following vmware software modules are required:

• vSphere/ESXi
• vCenter

These modules are covered by following license schemes:

• vSphere Standard
• vSphere Essential plus

Remark: information above is based on vmware products and licensing in 2021. For most updated information please refer to the vmware website.

The two servers shown in the above figure should have a similar hardware configuration.

The network connection should have at least 2.5 GBit but better 10 GBit bandwidth. The network should be fully redundant to avoid single point of failures.

The storage hardware should be a SAN system. The figure shows two storage systems to achieve also there a high availability. If the storage system is already redundant in itself it can be acceptable to use only one storage system. Alternatives to the SAM storage are:

1. vmware vSAN:
   • requires at least 2 SSD and additional 10GB RAM per host
   • requires minimal 2 full nodes and a low performance witness node
   • more information: https://core.vmware.com/resource/vmware-vsan-design-guide
2. NAS (data throughput performance is lower than SAN)

An account on vmware customer connect center is required to download the software packages: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/

On Server 1:

• install vSphere/ESXi
• install vCenter (e.g. ISO image Vmware-VCSA-all-7.0.2-17694817.iso from vmware)

On Server 2:

• clone Server A installation

• start vCenter on both servers
• configure data centre shared storage (must be accessible by both servers)
• create VMs on shared storage
• install OS on VMs or use an image
• enable CPU virtualisation support in the VMs! otherwise ESXi will not run VMs
• on the vSwitch enable in ‘security’ all options! (enable Promiscuous Mode and Forged Transmit)
• switch on HA for all VMs

• add 3 new VMs, and install ESXi on them, standard installation with additional HD Storage 100 GByte for cluster storage

• create cluster with cluster storage, add the 2 VMs, do not enable HA first
• add HA to the cluster
• enable VM Monitoring and Application Monitoring
• create VM with HA enabled

• configure shared storage

More information can be found here:

• vmware documentation website
• vSphere-Availability-Guide
• vSphere-Storage-Guide