Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The operating environment within the virtual machine is unaware that it is being
virtualized and, therefore, can remain unmodified.
A fully virtualized approach negates the need for using hardware virtualization
assistance. Nevertheless, to support 64-bit guests, ESX requires the use of AMD-V
or Intel-VT CPUs. ESX also uses the hardware-assisted memory management ca-
pabilities provided by AMD Rapid Virtualization Index (RVI) and Intel Extended
Page Table (EPT) to improve performance. In the case of ESX 4.x, the use of
these features plus the use of large memory pages further increases performance.
VMware ESX 4.0 installs and runs only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs; in other
words, it does not work on 32-bit systems.
VMware vSphere key features include the following:
VMFS high-performance concurrent (cluster-aware) file system
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Shared SAN, iSCSI, and NAS storage
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Network virtualization
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VMotion (live migration)
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Storage VMotion
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High availability
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Dynamic resource scheduling
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Centralized multiserver management with Virtual Center and VI Client
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Fault-tolerant VMs on ESX 4.x
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Update Manager
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The availability of many of these features depends on the type of distribution
purchased: VMware Infrastructure Foundation, Standard or Enterprise for V3.x
and Essentials, Standard, Advanced, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus for V4.x.
Virtual Center or vCenter is required to take advantage of some of the more ad-
vanced features; these tools must be purchased separately.
VMware ESX provides guest paravirtualized drivers called VMware Tools. In the
case of Solaris, the installation of these tools enhances graphics and mouse op-
eration. The first step in the installation of the tools is via the VMware Virtual
Infrastructure Client console, where the VMware Tools CD image is extended to
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