# I'm interested in VMware..plz help me with basics



## happita (Jul 22, 2013)

Ok, so I just got a job a few months ago at a data center doing infrastructure support. A one-year contract with intentions of hiring permanent after one-year which is a big foot in the door for me. However, after seeing how things are and talking to various extremely knowledgeable people, I think I want to take an interest in virtulization technology. I've seen some of the job postings on a bunch of different sites and the rate they are paying seems good enough for me to spend a good chunk of my time trying to learn the stuff. Besides doing the usual infrastructure work like rack/stack servers, cable runs, application monitoring, becoming mainframe friendly, etc... I also use the Symantec Netbackup Java Version 7.1 utility to monitor all the backups that run on the servers.
Ok, now that I'm done with that. Is there anyway to learn about let's say VMware or even Hyper-V on a very basic level? The company I work for is almost always behind in technology, I found that out from the guys here in my first week. I'm pretty much 100% clueless about what kind of info I need in order to achieve my aspiration of getting into virtulization. Where should I start?


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## Red_Machine (Jul 22, 2013)

I'd suggest starting simple.  Play around with Oracle VirtualBox or Microsoft's VirtualPC 2007 SP1, seeing as they're both free and easy to use.  Get ISO's of every OS you can find and experiment with setting them up, using the advanced integration features such as filesharing between host & guests, maybe look into writing scripts to set them up automagically.  My knowledge on them is fairly limited, but I've used them enough to know that they can be VERY useful in business environments.

EDIT: You also might want to look into setting up a VM server that you can directly remote into VMs stored on it.  That's what ESX is all about, and essentially thinclients remote into a virtual desktop environment stored on a server.


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## Sasqui (Jul 22, 2013)

You could start with VMWare player (free):  https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/5_0

Problem is you need an OS image to run on it.  I used to have several but where I am now, none available to me.  Someone here might be able to help you, or Google "VMWare images".


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

Sure. Get ESXi 5 free and run it on a second rig. I am using my old P55 box for this. Added an Intel NIC and an IBM M1015 (rebranded LSI) RAID card. Can get 180 Day free trials of Windows server too both to use as VMs and also try Hyper V if you install it bare metal.

"Desktop" virtualization options like VMWare player won't really teach you much.


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## THRiLL KiLL (Jul 22, 2013)

i would start with vsphere 5  or hyperv 2012 version.


vsphere 5.1 has much more system requirements and would require a chunk of change to get going.

You can pick up a dl360 g5 for a couple of hundred dollars. Dont bother with sas drives, do sata laptop drives  and that would be a good starting system for learning. 

you will also want to set up a vcenter, but the hardware requirements are very low ( i want to say p4 socket 775 is a minimum) vcenter also interfaces with AD, so you can set permissions based on your ad permissions 

if you want to learn about iscsi and how it interacts, you can take old hardware, and install Openfiler  http://www.openfiler.com/   and connect it to the vsphere host, and that will teach you about managing luns 


then once you have everything up.. then installing os'es in vm's is the simple part 


as for 2012 hyper-v  the dl360 g5 work fine as well... but you can go as low as an icore3 or a amd apu


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

You can find some good deals on old rackmount servers but don't get the impression that you absolutely NEED one to learn system administration. Can use a custom build (or take a look at HP Microserver line). Rackmounts are *loud* and power hungry and harder to get parts for going forward.


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## THRiLL KiLL (Jul 22, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> You can find some good deals on old rackmount servers but don't get the impression that you absolutely NEED one to learn system administration. Can use a custom build (or take a look at HP Microserver line). Rackmounts are *loud* and power hungry and harder to get parts for going forward.




i agree with this.. just keep in mind for vsphere finding a list of official supported hardware is a pain, and you will need to find postings of what other people have used and worked.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

This can be true. Hence the PCI-e Intel NIC in place of my two onboard Broadcom ports and a real HBA for storage instead of the onboard Intel SATA ports. I actually boot EXSi off a thumb drive. Not production-worthy in the least but fine for learning. Do have to dick around with it to get it play ball more than I probably would on a 'real server' at times though.

Here's a good resource (is also a vmware and/or general /r/virtualization sub iirc):

reddit.com/r/homelab


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## happita (Jul 22, 2013)

Ok. Very informative stuff. Here's a question. If I want to learn virtulization on the server side (not concerning myself with the desktop/consumer side of it), would I have to purchase a server, or even 2 in order to get started? I have no problem spending money to learn in order to make more money. I want nothing to do with being able to virtulize stuff in my home, I want to be able to bring it with me on my resume and show companies that I can do it for their server infrastructure. So, would an Intel Xeon be in order or something similar? I'm completely noob when it comes to server hardware.


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## remixedcat (Jul 22, 2013)

Please feel free to ask me about hypervisors.

I currently have hyper v and vmware esxi.


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## Sasqui (Jul 22, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> "Desktop" virtualization options like VMWare player won't really teach you much.



For a beginner, it's a place to start.  There are some virtualization fundamentals that need to be understood on the client side.



happita said:


> I want nothing to do with being able to virtulize stuff in my home, I want to be able to bring it with me on my resume and show companies that I can do it for their server infrastructure. So, would an Intel Xeon be in order or something similar? I'm completely noob when it comes to server hardware.



My only experience is with VMWare, creating, using and sharing images for testing and design.  In that case, the client machines were running WinXP and Vista and running the VM at the desk, reading the image locally, or from a nearby server.


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## happita (Jul 22, 2013)

Thanks guys, I'll have to do some research and come up with some more questions later. At work right now and things are about to get a tad busy in a minute. Looking at it from a noob standpoint, I'll have to read up on this a bit. Maybe a "vmware for dummies" book


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

Sure can start with VMWare player on your present main rig just to get a better feel for the client side of things. You will also be using that present PC to actually set up and manage the ESXi box remotely once it is installed. That's how it's designed. 

Again, you don't *need* a true server box. Just another box with some generally-supported hardware. And you also don't really need more than one "host" provided it's pretty powerful (32GB+ RAM and ideally some SSDs for the VM guest OS's themselves); you will virtualize an entire network of various servers on that one physical rig (that's the point/goal). Google "vmware white box supported hardware". Here's a start:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1766958

Edit: The CPU choice matters too somewhat by the way; while they all support "VT-x" these days you also really want one supporting *VT-d* for direct passthrough of certain hardware like your storage adapter to the guest OS. For example, the i5 3570 has such but the 3570K does not. Can't remember what AMD calls it.

See here under "Advanced Technologies:

http://ark.intel.com/products/65702


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## xvi (Jul 22, 2013)

Would be a good time to learn a little Linux, even if it's just Ubuntu Desktop and Synaptic Package Manager. If you can swing it, I'd suggest picking up Ubuntu Server and sticking that on a secondary machine.

I had a few attempts at diving in to Linux with minor success, but what did it for me was sticking Debian/Ubuntu on my laptop. I had my main rig running Windows that I could rely on, but my laptop gave me the right mix of "relying on Linux to learn how to do tasks as needed" and "being able to crawl back to Windows if it was too much to handle right now".



Spoiler: Crash course in Linux command line



The main difference between a "Desktop" Linux distribution and a "Server" Linux distribution is that the "Desktop" version has a GUI where as the "Server" distro is command line (although a GUI can be easily installed). For servers, be doing a bit in command line. If you're using a Debian based distribution of Linux (such as Ubuntu), the basic commands you'll want to know are:
*sudo*: SuperUser DO, elevates you to root privileges to perform tasks that require admin rights. Kind of like UAC in Windows.
*apt-get*: Pretty much THE way to install things. It's like Steam's command line grandfather. Downloads and installs anything you want as long as it's in your current repositories. (examples, "apt-get update", "apt-get install firefox", "apt-get dist-upgrade")
*vi* or *nano*: A file editor. vi is generally hard to learn, but "better". nano is quite simple, but not always recommended. Start with nano, switch to vi once you get the hang of things.
*man*: Short for "manual". Basically Google for command line syntax. Example, "man apt-get")
*pwd*: Print Working Directory. Useful if you're lost.
*apropos*: The "Hey, Linux, what's that command to do this? I forgot." command. For example, "apropos directory" returns a list of commands that has the word "directory" in the description.

The filesystem is a little different than Windows. Everything is a "file". Your hard drive is a "file". Your video card frame buffer is a "file". Saving anything to those "files", your frame buffer for example, simply writes that info to your frame buffer. It starts with root (aka "/") and things are mounted from there. The Linux version of "Documents and Settings" or "Users" is "/home". Navigation is similar to DOS. 
Also, always use tab to autocomplete. If pressing tab once doesn't do anything, press it again and it should give you a list of possible options. Example, instead of typing out "nano ./AReallyLongAndComplicatedFileName.txt", you could type "nano ./AReally" and press tab to autocomplete. If you have a second file in there that starts the same way, for example, a file called "AReallyAnnoyingAlternativeFile.txt", pressing tab twice will give you a list of the two files in which case you would add a "L", making "nano ./AReallyL" and press tab again to have it autocomplete properly.
It also works for some programs such as apt-get. Pressing tab twice after typing "apt-get" will give you a list of commands you can stick after it. Pressing tab twice after typing "apt-get install" will give you a (very, VERY large list) of all the packages you can install.

Anything more than that, stay away from compiling from source code for now and consult the almighty Google as needed.



Sensible businesses understand, respect, and (more importantly for you) generally pay more for a sysadmin that knows Linux (unlike the one I work for). Also, everything is free.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

Yes definitely. And also because Linux, being free, gives you more options for more types of guest virtual machines. Also kind of boring and a bit limiting (and less "real world") to just install 10 or 20 instances of Windows Server Whatever even if they all perform different roles/services.


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## repman244 (Jul 22, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> The CPU choice matters too somewhat by the way; while they all support "VT-x" these days you also really want one supporting VT-d for direct passthrough of certain hardware like your storage adapter to the guest OS. For example, the i5 3570 has such but the 3570K does not. Can't remember what AMD calls it.



AMD-V and AMD-Vi (IOMMU) if I remember correctly. All CPU's should support it but it really comes down to the BIOS.


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## Sasqui (Jul 22, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> Edit: The CPU choice matters too somewhat by the way; while they all support "VT-x" these days you also really want one supporting VT-d for direct passthrough of certain hardware like your storage adapter to the guest OS. For example, the i5 3570 has such but the 3570K does not. Can't remember what AMD calls it.



That's interesting, looked more, and same is true for the 3770 vs the 3770k.


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## Aquinus (Jul 22, 2013)

Sasqui said:


> That's interesting, looked more, and same is true for the 3770 vs the 3770k.



It's part of the reason why I got a 3820. I still get VT-d and the ability to overclock without having to invest in a 6-core beast, just skt2011 and memory that I'm going to be using anyways. You don't need VT-d to play around with virtualization though.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 22, 2013)

Yeah it's just marketing, for the most part. The K series are targeted at enthusiasts and gamers and overclockers who don't care about virtualization and hyper threading and such. This makes the locked multi chips more attractive to other folks who do. Though I don't see why they need so many variants in the first place really. But hey I'm not a sales guy!


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## Aquinus (Jul 22, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> Yeah it's just marketing, for the most part. The K series are targeted at enthusiasts and gamers and overclockers who don't care about virtualization and hyper threading and such. This makes the locked multi chips more attractive to other folks who do. Though I don't see why they need so many variants in the first place really. But hey I'm not a sales guy!



It's not all marketing. vPro and remote management is great for large-scale deployments where VT-d is good for virtualized workloads with a lot of virtual disk IO like databases. My 3820 (or any other SB-E cpu for that matter,) doesn't have vPro or remote management but some Xeons, and S or T model variants of the i7 and i5 do. You just buy what you need.


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## v12dock (Jul 22, 2013)

esxi, hyper-v, xen, openvz (container) or kvm


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 23, 2013)

http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/...-deployment/getting-started-esxi-5-part1.html


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## Deleted member 3 (Jul 23, 2013)

If you pick Hyper-V, be sure to use an Intel NIC. Yukons cause huge problems, and from that experience I don't trust other cheap vendors either with Hyper-V.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2013)

I would give Ubuntu and KVM a try to be honest.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 23, 2013)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> If you pick Hyper-V, be sure to use an Intel NIC. Yukons cause huge problems, and from that experience I don't trust other cheap vendors either with Hyper-V.



Same thing for vmware generally.



Aquinus said:


> I would give Ubuntu and KVM a try to be honest.
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM



I plan to do so as well as I am doing this for general learning but, frankly, he should really be focusing on whatever infrastructure(s) is predominant at his particular datacenter and try to replicate that on a smaller scale. He worked there already and just scored a great opportunity on the actual tech/IT side of things...


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> I plan to do so as well as I am doing this for general learning but, frankly, he should really be focusing on whatever infrastructure(s) is predominant at his particular datacenter and try to replicate that on a smaller scale. He worked there already and just scored a great opportunity on the actual tech/IT side of things...



I get that. He never said what he would be using though.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 23, 2013)

That's true and I guess I did speculate on vmware.


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## VulkanBros (Jul 23, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> I actually boot EXSi off a thumb drive. Not production-worthy in the least but fine for learning.



Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
and HP 4000 SAN ´s) 

All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)


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## happita (Jul 23, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> I get that. He never said what he would be using though.



I would be more comfortable learning more about VMWare (vSphere5.1, I want to be as current as possible) more than anything seeing as they pretty much dominate the market right now in virtulization. I'm not stubborn though and I'm open to other companies that have their own software to use for virtulization. I was more or less looking at the big picture in the next 5-10 years down the road.



VulkanBros said:


> Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
> and HP 4000 SAN ´s)
> 
> All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)



How would 2-3 small/fast 64GB SSDs in a small box fit into an equation of getting ESXi 5.1 to run on them? Would it be financially sound? Educationally sound? SANELY SOUND???

I will end up building a new rig anyway that's compatible for this small endeavor that I'm trying to accomplish. I want things to run decently fast, but not too hot.


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## VulkanBros (Jul 23, 2013)

ESXi 5.0/5.1 does not require a fast disk to run on - it is a host.
It would be waste of good disks to put vSpere on them.

The SSD´s or other fast disks (10.000 or 15.000 rpm SAS/Sata/SCSI disks) are for the virtual machines and storage.....


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 23, 2013)

VulkanBros said:


> Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
> and HP 4000 SAN ´s)
> 
> All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)



I was referring to my "consumer" old-gaming-PC-turned-server-box as not being 'production-worthy'...

Yes the SSDs are for the virtual machine guest OS's themselves. That's what really benefits from the high IOPS they bring to the table over regular HDD even in RAID. Though, honestly, the load you are going to see and the bandwidth required is a lot less in a testlab but SSDs are still worth it. Especially when booting up the VMs which can happen more often in a lab as you change and add to your setup. You also will probably shut it off when not actively using it unless you happen to get free power somehow.


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## Aquinus (Jul 23, 2013)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> You also will probably shut it off when not actively using it unless you happen to get free power somehow.



I just thought that I should mention that idle VMs allow the host to idle as well. Turning off VMs won't reduce power usage unless the VM is actually loaded and doing things, in which case you probably don't want to go turning it off. So generally speaking, what you said isn't true.


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## remixedcat (Jul 24, 2013)

I also want to get a dedicated SSD drive for my VMs.


also if you wanna see vmception (vmware esxi within hyper-v):
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/427502?start=0&tstart=0 

we are still getting the full networking to work, however we are making a lot of progress!!


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## Aquinus (Jul 24, 2013)

remixedcat said:


> also if you wanna see vmception (vmware esxi within hyper-v):
> http://communities.vmware.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0
> 
> we are still getting the full networking to work, however we are making a lot of progress!!



Is this just a proof-of-concept thing? I can't think of any reason why you would want to run a virtualization layer inside a virtualization layer. It seems counter productive. Even more so when ESXi offers you more than Hyper-V does.


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## remixedcat (Jul 24, 2013)

Portable labs. (at least for me). As well as other stuff


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## Aquinus (Jul 24, 2013)

remixedcat said:


> Portable labs. (at least for me). As well as other stuff



No offense but your plan isn't very good since Hyper-V can't support more than 4 CPUs. Also you're probably emulating instead of virtualizing on ESXi because it might not be able to tunnel VT commands through a VT layer. If you want it to be portable, Hyper-V and ESXi are not the tools you want to be using together. VMs themselves are supposed to be easily portable since all it really is, is a configuration and a virtual disk. You copy it and you're done.

If you start a new thread about it, I'm sure some of us could help you think of a better, less limited, option. Nifty proof-of-concept project imho though, but I would never use something like that in production.


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## remixedcat (Jul 24, 2013)

Like I said I'm not taking that seriously.... it's a challenge and it's fun.


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## VulkanBros (Jul 24, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> No offense but your plan isn't very good since Hyper-V can't support more than 4 CPUs. Also you're probably emulating instead of virtualizing on ESXi because it might not be able to tunnel VT commands through a VT layer. If you want it to be portable, Hyper-V and ESXi are not the tools you want to be using together. VMs themselves are supposed to be easily portable since all it really is, is a configuration and a virtual disk. You copy it and you're done.



+1 for that


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 24, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> I just thought that I should mention that idle VMs allow the host to idle as well. Turning off VMs won't reduce power usage unless the VM is actually loaded and doing things, in which case you probably don't want to go turning it off. So generally speaking, what you said isn't true.



I meant shutting off the whole host machine but good to know about the idling capabilities as power management under ESXi is something I still needed to look into.

And I have heard of people virtualizing ESXi itself (mainly in lab settings) but never under Hyper V.


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## happita (Jul 29, 2013)

So what kind of hardware do you suggest that I get? I know that I'm completely new to all of this, but I've made up my mind about learning all about this stuff and applying into my resume for the next 10-15 years down the road. I want to spend as much as I can so that a system can last me at least 7-8 years doing virtualization stuff with VMWare vSphere/ESXi. Max budget is ~$1200

Stuff to take into consideration:
1. I like a hybrid of a high-end performance setup but at the same time being considerate with regards to power consumption.
2. Don't have much room on my desk for another PC, most likely going to go with a Micro-ATX setup.


p.s. You guys are awesome  My mom always said be thankful for what you've got


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