Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
center on how the vSphere deployment will impact your staff, your business processes, and
your operational procedures. Although still important, we're not going to help you answer those
sorts of questions here; instead, let's just focus on the technical issues.
vSphere Design Is a Topic on Its Own
h e fi rst section of this chapter barely scratches the surface of what is involved in planning and
designing a vSphere deployment. vSphere design is signifi cant enough a topic that it warranted
its own book:
VMware
vSphere
Design
,
Second
Edition
(Sybex, 2013). If you are interested in a more
detailed discussion of design decisions and design impacts, that's the topic for you.
In the next few sections, we'll discuss the three major questions that we outlined previ-
ously that are a key part of planning your vSphere deployment: compute platform, storage, and
network.
Choosing a Server Platform
The i rst major decision to make when planning to deploy vSphere is choosing a hardware, or
“compute,” platform. Compared to traditional operating systems like Windows or Linux, ESXi
has more stringent hardware restrictions. ESXi won't necessarily support every storage
controller or every network adapter chipset available on the market. Although these hardware
restrictions do limit the options for deploying a supported virtual infrastructure, they also
ensure that the hardware has been tested and will work as expected when used with ESXi. Not
every vendor or white-box coni guration can play host to ESXi, but the list of supported hard-
ware platforms continues to grow as VMware and hardware vendors test newer models.
You can check for hardware compatibility using the searchable Compatibility Guide available
on VMware's website at
www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility
/. A quick search returns
dozens of systems from major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, IBM, and Dell. For exam-
ple, at the time of this writing, searching the HCG for
HP
returned 202 results, including blades
and traditional rack-mount servers supported across several different versions of vSphere 4.1
U3 to 5.1. Within the major vendors like HP, Dell, Cisco, and IBM, it is generally not too difi cult
to i nd a tested and supported platform on which to run ESXi, especially their newer models of
hardware. When you expand the list to include other vendors, it's clear that there is a substantial
base of compatible servers that are supported by vSphere from which to choose.
The Right Server for the Job
Selecting the appropriate server is undoubtedly the fi rst step in ensuring a successful vSphere
deployment. In addition, it is the only way to ensure that VMware will provide the necessary sup-
port. Remember the discussion from Chapter 1, though—a bigger server isn't necessarily a better
server!
Finding a supported server is only the i rst step. It's also important to i nd the
right
server—
the server that strikes the correct balance of capacity and affordability. Do you use larger servers,
