Preface

What began as an attempt to virtualize x86 architecture has now grown beyond the limits of a server’s hardware and has gone into the realm of storage and network virtualization. Today, most modern data centers aim to achieve a hundred percent virtualization. Although there are multiple players offering virtualization solutions, with its extensive portfolio of products and solutions, VMware is still the market leader in data center virtualization.

Learning VMware vSphere is written with an aim to help you understand the concepts behind server virtualization and act as a handy guide to creating a scalable and responsive virtualization platform for hosting the virtual machine workloads of any business. VMware vSphere is the platform with its core suite of products that helps you lay the foundation of a fully functional virtualized data center for your application workloads, cloud, and the business.

We begin by introducing you to the concepts of CPU, memory, and IO virtualization and delve deeper into the architecture of a hypervisor—more specifically, VMware’s ESXi. You will be introduced to the concepts of a virtual machine and learn how to create and manage them. You will learn how to create a management layer for your vSphere environment by deploying VMware vCenter Server. The book further covers vSphere Storage and Networking concepts and configuration, monitoring the performance of a vSphere environment, securing a vSphere environment, and the life cycle management of a vSphere environment.

You will walk away with enough knowledge to plan, implement, manage, and monitor a VMware vSphere environment.