The Bottom Line - Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5 - page 752

Master It Name two features that are supported without vCenter Server but with a li-
censed installation of ESXi.
Solution Features that are supported by VMware ESXi without vCenter Server include
core virtualization features like virtualized networking, virtualized storage, vSphere
vSMP, and resource allocation controls.
Understand how vSphere differs from other virtualization products. VMware vSphere's
hypervisor, ESXi, uses a Type 1 bare-metal hypervisor that handles I/O directly within the
hypervisor. This means that a host operating system, like Windows or Linux, is not required
in order for ESXi to function. Although other virtualization solutions are listed as “Type 1
bare-metal hypervisors,” most other Type 1 hypervisors on the market today require the
presence of a “parent partition” or “dom0” through which all VM I/O must travel.
Master It One of the administrators on your team asked whether he should install
Windows Server on the new servers you purchased for ESXi. What should you tell him,
and why?
Solution VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor that does not require the installa-
tion of a general-purpose host operating system. Therefore, it's unnecessary to install
Windows Server on the equipment that was purchased for ESXi.
Chapter 2: Planning and Installing VMware ESXi
Understand ESXi compatibility requirements. Unlike traditional operating systems like
Windows or Linux, ESXi has much stricter hardware compatibility requirements. This helps
ensure a stable, well-tested product line that is able to support even the most mission-critical
applications.
Master It You have some older servers onto which you'd like to deploy ESXi. They aren't
on the Hardware Compatibility Guide. Will they work with ESXi?
Solution They might, but they won't be supported by VMware. In all likelihood, the
CPUs in these older servers don't support some of the hardware virtualization exten-
sions or don't support 64-bit operation, both of which would directly impact the ability of
ESXi to run on that hardware. You should choose only hardware that is on the Hardware
Compatibility Guide.
Plan an ESXi deployment. Deploying ESXi will affect many different areas of your orga-
nization—not only the server team but also the networking team, the storage team, and the
security team. There are many issues to consider, including server hardware, storage hard-
ware, storage protocols or connection types, network topology, and network connections.
Failing to plan properly could result in an unstable and unsupported implementation.
Master It Name three areas of networking that must be considered in a vSphere design.
Solution Among other things, networking areas that must be considered include VLAN
support, link aggregation, network speed (1 Gbps or 10 Gbps), load-balancing algorithms,
and the number of NICs and network ports required.
Master It What are some of the different types of storage that ESXi can be installed on?
Solution By far the most common way to boot ESXi is the Local/Direct attached disks,
but also supported are USB storage, an isolated SAN boot LUN, and utilizing iSCSI.