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Annex B
DS.02.02
Virtualization
Student Outline
Data Systems Administrator Course
M09CVQ1
Date of Revision: 20211014

APPROVED BY: CTB ACADEMICS DATE: 20211001

DS.02.01 Intro to Virtualization

Table of Contents
Terminal Learning Objective ....................................................................................................... 2
Introduction to VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) ..................................................... 3

What is VCSA ............................................................................................................................... 3

Why use vCenter Server ? ...................................................................................................... 4
What is the difference between vCenter and ESXi? ................................................................ 5
References ............................................................................................................................ 7
https://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization.html ...................................................... 7

Terminal Learning Objective

1. Given a command's mission, threat assessment, operational environment, operational

plans, equipment, and personnel, establish a virtualized environment infrastructure in
accordance with applicable STIGs and local cybersecurity policies in support of the
communications plan. (0671-IMPL-1001)

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DS.02.01 Intro to Virtualization

Introduction to VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

What is VCSA
VMware vCenter Server provides the centralized management plane of the VMware vSphere
solution and allows creating clusters of VMware ESXi hosts. By creating vSphere clusters with
vCenter Server, this enables the enterprise vSphere capabilities and features. These include, but
are not limited to, the following:
 VMware High Availability (HA)
 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
 vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS)
 vMotion
 vSAN

VMware vCenter Server also provides centralized RESTful API communication for interacting
with vSphere for the purpose of automation as well as integrating solutions with vSphere such
as data protection or other third-party providers.

Other highlights of using VMware vCenter Server as part of your vSphere infrastructure include:
Easy deployment – VMware vCenter Server is deployed using a purpose-built vSphere Server
Appliance (VCSA). The appliance is easily deployed using the vCenter Server installer. This
makes provisioning the management solution for your vSphere environment extremely easy.

Streamlined Management and Optimization – vCenter Server allows you to streamline

management and optimization of the resources across your vSphere environment. With
vSphere HA and DRS, organizations have the built-in tools needed for availability and resource
scheduling across the vSphere cluster.

Extend to hybrid cloud – With new VMware vSphere-centric public cloud environments such as
VMware Cloud on AWS, customers now have the ability to easily extend and scale their
VMware vSphere environment from on-premises to cloud environments.

Role-based access – VMware vCenter Server provides the centralized management tool of your
VMware vSphere environment. This provides the ability to delegate permissions among
administrators in a granular fashion.

Native availability and data protection – With the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), it provides
the ability to configure an Active-Passive vCenter Server pairing that enables a standby vCenter
Server ready to take over if there is a primary vCenter Server failure. In addition, the VCSA
appliance provides a native, file-based backup solution built into the appliance itself.

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DS.02.01 Intro to Virtualization

Third-party extensibility – With vCenter Server, you get a powerful platform that is commonly
extended by third-party providers. Most of the major hardware vendors now offer plugin
integration with vCenter Server that allows integrating native hardware management into
vCenter, such as storage devices, right from within the vSphere Client.

Why use vCenter Server ?

The question may arise, if I can run VMware ESXi hosts as standalone hypervisors, why do I
really need a vCenter Server? It is true that VMware ESXi is the platform that actually runs your
virtual machines and not vCenter Server. So, you can technically run virtual machines on top of
ESXi without vCenter. VMware vCenter Server is the component of the vSphere infrastructure
that unlocks all of the really great features that are needed for production environments such
as vMotion, High-Availability (HA), and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). Production
environments, in most cases, need to have the ability to withstand a host failure. VMware
vCenter Server enables creating vSphere clusters. A vSphere cluster is a logical grouping of
multiple ESXi hosts that are able to communicate with one another in a way that allows
aggregating resources. This also makes possible truly de-coupling the VM from a particular set
of ESXi host hardware. This allows unleashing and benefiting from the true nature of
virtualization – hardware abstraction. If a host fails in a vSphere cluster, VMware HA takes over
and the VM is restarted on a healthy host in the cluster.

In addition, this provides flexibility in scheduling maintenance periods for your ESXi hosts. If a
particular host is in need of maintenance or updates, the VMs can simply be evacuated from
the particular host using vMotion, and moved to a different host. This essentially develops
maintenance periods. With VMware vMotion technology, organizations can effectively perform
maintenance and other operations during normal business hours, without issue.

Aside from creating vSphere clusters, VMware vCenter Server makes management of multiple
standalone ESXi hosts much easier. A single ESXi host or two can be managed by logging into
each host and performing management operations and actions. However, if your environment
grows to multiple or perhaps dozens of ESXi hosts, managing your hosts on a host-by-host basis
will be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Operations and management tasks can be performed across your various hosts, all from within
the same login session. Additionally, vCenter provides a centralized API to interact with your
entire vSphere environment. This means that any third-party backup solutions or other third-
party tools used by your organization will be able to do so from a single vCenter Server
connection instead of individual connections to multiple hosts.

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DS.02.01 Intro to Virtualization

Another benefit of running vCenter Server over running single ESXi hosts is you can take
advantage of advanced networking features including the vSphere Distributed
Switches (vDS). The vSphere Distributed Switch is a much more flexible virtual networking
construct from a management perspective that allows easily provisioning virtual networking in
a consistent, uniform way across your vSphere landscape.

The vDS switch is only possible when you are running vCenter Server. Instead of virtual
networking configuration held locally with each ESXi host, the virtual networking configuration
is housed in the vCenter Server database. This allows centralizing your networking
configuration and creating network switch “templates” for port groups and settings that you
can apply to your ESXi hosts. Once a host is “added” to a vDS, the host will receive all of the
switch configurations, including port groups, etc.

What is the difference between vCenter and ESXi?

 vCenter Server – The management component of VMware vSphere. In vSphere 7.0,
vCenter Server is provided as a purpose-built PhotonOS-based appliance that is easily
deployed using the vCenter Server 7 installer. This is an ISO from VMware that provides
the GUI install/upgrade/migration tool. VMware vCenter Server provides the centralized
management plane for your vSphere environment and is required to unlock most of the
enterprise features needed for production environments.

 ESXi – This is the bare-metal type 1 hypervisor that allows running virtual instances of
guest operating systems on bare metal. ESXi hypervisor virtualizes the underlying
hardware so that each guest operating system interacts with the virtual hardware layer
instead of the bare metal hardware. The ESXi hypervisor provides the CPU scheduler
and other components necessary to allow running multiple operating systems on the
same underlying hardware platform. ESXi can operate as a standalone host, or it can be
configured as part of a cluster of ESXi hosts called a vSphere cluster.

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DS.02.01 Intro to Virtualization

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References

MASTERING VMWARE VSPHERE 7.0 ISBN: 978-1-119-51294-3

https://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization.html

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-
vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc/GUID-302A4F73-CA2D-49DC-8727-
81052727A763.html

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