Chapter 2. Managing ESXi Hosts

This chapter focuses on different tasks related to host management in vCenter. We will discuss options available for storage, support, and redundancy.

Networking concepts incorporated in vSphere will be a large part of the discussion.

We will also talk about options available for the support of hosts with different processors.

The last part of this chapter is devoted to host profiles; a feature that can greatly simplify host management.

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Adding and removing existing hosts

• Host storage adapters and storage configuration—Fibre Channel, Internet SCSI, network-attached storage (NAS)

• Storage logical unit number (LUNs) and datastores

• Storage multipathing and failover

• Storage Thin Provisioning

• Network adapters and network configuration

• Virtual switch concept—vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch

• Setting up networking with redundancy

• Managing hosts with different CPUs

• Host profiles—profile workflow, managing profiles, and checking compliance