Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
contain an installation of a guest OS and are often used by software developers as a way of
delivering their software preinstalled into a guest OS inside a VM.
Master It
A vendor has given you a Zip i le that contains a VM they are calling a
virtual
appliance
. Upon looking inside the Zip i le, you see several VMDK i les and a VMX i le.
Will you be able to use vCenter Server's Deploy OVF Template functionality to import
this VM? If not, how can you get this VM into your infrastructure?
Solution
You will not be able to use vCenter Server's Deploy OVF Template feature; this
requires that the virtual appliance be provided with an OVF i le that supplies the infor-
mation that vCenter Server is expecting to i nd. However, you can use vCenter Converter
to perform a V2V conversion to bring this VM into the VMware vSphere environment,
assuming it is coming from a compatible source environment.
Export a VM as an OVF template.
To assist in the transport of VMs between VMware
vSphere installations, you can use vCenter Server to export a VM as an OVF template. The
OVF template will include the coni guration of the VM as well as the data found in the VM.
Master It
You are preparing to export a VM to an OVF template. You want to ensure
that the OVF template is easy and simple to transport via a USB key or portable hard
drive. Which format is most appropriate, OVF or OVA? Why?
Solution
The OVA format is probably a better option here. OVA distributes the entire
OVF template as a single i le, making it easy to copy to a USB key or portable hard drive
for transport. Using OVF would mean keeping several i les together instead of working
with only a single i le.
Work with vApps.
vSphere vApps leverage OVF as a way to combine multiple VMs into a
single administrative unit. When the vApp is powered on, all VMs in it are powered on, in
a sequence specii ed by the administrator. The same goes for shutting down a vApp. vApps
also act a bit like resource pools for the VMs contained within them.
Master It
Name two ways to add VMs to a vApp.
Solution
There are four ways to add VMs to a vApp: Create a new VM in the vApp,
clone an existing VM into a new VM in the vApp, deploy a VM into the vApp from a tem-
plate, and drag and drop an existing VM into the vApp.
Chapter 11: Managing Resource Allocation
Manage virtual machine memory allocation.
In almost every virtualized datacenter,
memory is the resource that typically comes under contention i rst. Most organizations run
out of memory on their VMware ESXi hosts before other resources become constrained.
Fortunately, VMware vSphere offers advanced memory-management technologies as well as
extensive controls for managing the allocation of memory and utilization of memory by VMs.
Master It
To guarantee certain levels of performance, your IT director believes that all
VMs must be coni gured with at least 8 GB of RAM. However, you know that many of
your applications rarely use this much memory. What might be an acceptable compro-
mise to help ensure performance?
Solution
One way would be to coni gure the VMs with 8 GB of RAM and specify a res-
ervation of only 2 GB. VMware ESXi will guarantee that every VM will get 2 GB of RAM,
