vSphere 5 Changes for Backups and Administration

Rick Vanover

MCITP vExpert VCP

Veeam Software

http://www.veeam.com/blog

Twitter

: @RickVanover @Veeam

About the Speaker

Contributor to industry publications

Agenda

About VMware vSphere5 Major changes in scale Virtual machine hardware version8 Major changes in storage Storage DRS VDDK 5 VMFS-5 New version of HA How backups are impacted with vSphere5

Why vSphere 5 Changes are Important

 Over time our vSphere administration practice needs to change as the technology changes ● ● ● ESX 2 / GSX -> VMware Infrastructure 3 VMware Infrastructure 3 -> vSphere 4 vSphere 4 -> vSphere 5  The technology changes impact everything ● ● ● ● Virtual machine characteristics Storage Networking Supported configuration  Impacts backup configuration, performance and design

About VMware vSphere 5

Leading virtualization platform

Robust features: DRS, HA, VMFS, Advanced storage VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows

ESX(i) host(s) Shared storage resources

About VMware vSphere 5

 First major series to be ESXi only ● Important for anything where host-based agents are required ESXi – vmkernel Hardware monitoring agents System management agents Host processes and 3 rd party agents

Major Changes in Scale

 Incredible limits for the virtual machine ● 32 vCPUs, 1 TB RAM among others  Scaled up hosts ● 2 TB RAM, more network interfaces vSphere5 Configuration Maximums ● ● http://vee.am/vSphere5Max Authoritative resource for vSphere configuration parameters

Virtual Machine Hardware Version 8

 New virtual machine format for vSphere5 ● ● ●

Version 4: Version 7: Version 8:

VMware Infrastructure 3 vSphere 4 vSphere 5    Updated with vSphere Client or Update Manager New configuration maximums permitted with new virtual machine hardware Up-to-date configuration is important for feature-rich backups

Major Changes in Storage

  Most vSphere5 major new features are for storage Advancing features for additional performance ESX(i) host(s)  Not just limited to VMFS ● ● Storage I/O control for NFS VAAI offloads for NFS storage iSCSI NFS DAS Fibre Channel Storage resources

Storage DRS

 Technique to pool VMFS volumes logically

VMFS Cluster at 6 TB

Logical datastore 6 individual VMFS-5 datastores (6x1 TB, example)

Storage DRS

  Core metrics: free space and latency Allows administrator to customize priority for response



VDDK 5

Virtual disk development kit5

was released with vSphere5, updating the previous release from vSphere4  Use for hot-add of virtual disks  Code-level changes  Many backup products may use hot-add for improved backup performance ● ● Reads Writes

Traditional explicit VMDK assignment to this VM

ESX(i) host(s)

VM

Storage resources

VM Backup During a snapshot, temporary co-mapping of VMDK

VMFS-5

      For fibre channel and iSCSI storage protocols VMFS is a clustered file system ● ● Purpose built for virtual machines No coordinator node or software mechanism VMFS-3 is both backward and forward compatible ● vSphere 5 can downward format at VMFS-3 (3.54) Easy to upgrade from VMFS-3 to VMFS-5 ● Consider new format Numerous enhancements ● ● ● 1 MB block size Sub-block algorithm Atomic Test and Set (ATS) primitive command Block size now supports all support file sizes ● Important for snapshots

VMware HA Rewritten for vSphere 5

   Protects against host failures New HA architecture: Fault Domain Manager (FDM) No dependency on DNS ● Still provision DNS in a correct, robust manner  New master / slave node concept

vSphere 5 Clustering technical deepdive

Best book to learn this and other vSphere features

How Backups are Impacted with vSphere 5

  Changes in core features, such as VDDK underscore the importance of full support of vSphere features Clean configuration is critical to successful backups: ● ● ● ● Storage Networking Virtual machine up to date Supporting infrastructure

Additional vSphere 5 resources

 VMware vSphere5 documentation ● http://vee.am/vSphere5 (Short URL for Pubs.VMware.com)  Getting started with vSphere5 (VMware KB TV) ● http://vee.am/KBTV (Short URL for blogs.vmware.com) vLaunchPad ● ● ● ● ● ● http://vlp.vsphere-land.com/ Blogs Documentation Podcasts Storage resources News resources

What We Covered

About VMware vSphere5 Major changes in scale Virtual machine hardware version8 Major changes in storage Storage DRS VDDK 5 VMFS-5 New version of HA How backups are implicated with vSphere5 Additional vSphere5 resources

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