Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
physical or geographical focus, while the VMs And Templates view may rel ect a departmental
or functional focus. Because permissions are granted based on these structures, organizations
have the ability to build inventory structures that properly support their administrative struc-
tures. Chapter 8 will describe the security model of vCenter Server that will work hand in hand
with the management-driven inventory design.
With that basic understanding of vCenter Server inventory views and the hierarchy of inven-
tory objects behind you, it's time for you to actually build out your inventory structure and start
creating and adding objects in vCenter Server.
Creating and Adding Inventory Objects
Before you can really build your inventory—in either Hosts And Clusters view or VMs And
Templates view—you must get your ESXi hosts into vCenter Server. And before you can get
your ESXi hosts into vCenter Server, you need to have a datacenter object.
Creating a Datacenter Object
You might have created the datacenter object as part of the Getting Started Wizard, but if you
didn't, you must create one now. Don't forget that you can have multiple datacenter objects
within a single vCenter Server instance.
Perform the following steps to create a datacenter object:
1.
Launch the vSphere Web Client, if it is not already running, and connect to a vCenter
Server instance.
2.
From the Home screen, select Hosts And Clusters.
3.
In the Navigator, right-click the vCenter Server object, and select New Datacenter.
4.
Type in a name for the new datacenter object and click OK.
Make Sure Name Resolution Is Working
Name resolution—the ability for one computer to match the hostname of another computer to its
IP address—is a key component for a number of ESXi functions. We have witnessed a number of
problems that were resolved by making sure name resolution was working properly.
We strongly recommend you ensure that name resolution is working in a variety of directions. You
will want to do the following:
Ensure that the vCenter Server computer can resolve the hostnames of each and every ESXi
host added to the inventory.
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Ensure that each and every ESXi host can resolve the hostname of the vCenter Server computer
by which it is being managed.
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Ensure that each and every ESXi host can resolve the hostnames of the other ESXi hosts in the
inventory, especially if those hosts might be combined into a vSphere HA cluster.
For the most scalable and reliable solution, ensure that your Domain Name System (DNS) infra-
structure is robust and functional, and make sure the vCenter Server computer and all ESXi hosts
are confi gured to use DNS for name resolution. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble later by investing
a little bit of eff ort in this area now.
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