vCenter Server 6.0: Deep Dive

Silicon Valley VMUG User Conference

Transcript

1. © 2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved. Nick Marshall Integration Architect vCenter Server 6.0: Deep Dive
2. CONFIDENTIAL Who is this guy? Nick Marshall – Author: Mastering vSphere – Blog: NickMarshall.com.au – Twitter: @NickMarshall9 – Community: AutoLab, vBrownBag
3. CONFIDENTIAL Agenda • vCenter 6 Enhancements • Platform Services Controller • vCenter Server Install • vCenter Server Upgrade • vSphere Web Client 6.0 • vCenter Performance and Scalability • vCenter Availability • Reference Architectures
4. vCenter 6 Enhancements
5. vCenter Server 6.0 Platforms 5 Metric Windows Appliance Hosts per VC 1,000 1,000 Powered on VMs per VC 10,000 10,000 Hosts per cluster 64 64 VMs per cluster 8,000 8,000 Linked Mode ✔ ✔
6. CONFIDENTIAL Linked Mode 6 vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0 Windows Yes Yes Appliance No Yes Single Inventory View Yes Yes Single Inventory Search Yes Yes Replication Technology Microsoft ADAM Native • Roles & Permissions Yes Yes • Licenses Yes Yes • Policies No Yes • Tags No Yes
7. Platform Services Controller
8. CONFIDENTIAL VMware Platform Services IS SSO Web 1 VM/Host 2 VMs/Hosts IS Web SSO IS SSO Web 4 VMs/Hosts Single Sign-On (SSO) 5.1 – 1st release of platform services (SSO 1.0) 5.5 – 2nd release of platform services (SSO 2.0) 5.1 and 5.5 5.0 No Platform Services 8
9. CONFIDENTIAL VMware Platform Services Controller (PSC) No longer just Single Sign-On We’re adding additional services Platform Services Controller includes a set of common infrastructure services that are used by the vCloud Suite (vCenter, vCAC, vCOPS, etc) • Single Sign-On (SSO) • Licensing • Certificate Authority • Certificate Store • Service (Product) Registration • Other Services will be added in future releases Platform Services Controller supports data replication 9 Platform Services Controller Platform Services Controller Platform Services Controller
10. CONFIDENTIAL Recommended vSphere 6.0 Deployment Models 10 Platform Services Controller vCenter Server Host or VM vCenter Server vCenter
 Server 6.0 SSO
 Server Web Client Platform Services Controller vCenter
 Server 6.0 vCenter
 Server 6.0 vCenter Server with Embedded PSC • Sufficient for most environments. Easiest to deploy and maintain • Multiple standalone instances supported • Replication between embedded instances not supported • Supports Windows & Appliance vCenter Server with External PSC • Recommend this if deploying/growing to multiple vCenter instances that need to be linked • Reduces footprint by sharing Platform Services Controller across several vCenter Servers • Supports Windows & Appliance
11. vCenter Server Install
12. CONFIDENTIAL vCenter Server Install vCenter Server Installer Appliance vCenter Server Installer Windows 12
13. CONFIDENTIAL vCenter Server Install For Windows One installer Choose deployment type All input up front & validated Custom Paths/Ports Pre-Check functionality Scripted Install for Advanced Administrators 13
14. CONFIDENTIAL vCenter Server Appliance Install New Guided Install Choose deployment type All input up front & validated Pre-Check functionality Scripted Install for Advanced Administrators 14
15. vCenter Server Upgrade
16. vCenter Server Upgrade Supported Paths CONFIDENTIAL Platform vCenter 4.x vCenter 5.0 vCenter 5.1 vCenter 5.5 Windows vCenter Yes (Multi-step upgrade: 4.x-to-5.x-to-6.0) Yes Yes Yes vCSA No No Yes (5.1 U3 onwards only) Yes 16 Information before upgrading: kb.vmware.com/kb/2110293 Update sequence: kb.vmware.com/kb/2109760
17. CONFIDENTIAL vCenter Server Upgrade: vCenter 5.0 to vCenter 6.0 5.0 6.0 6.0 5.0 vCenter PSC To External PSC (pre-requisite: PSC must exist) Step 1: Install PSC vCenter PSC To Embedded PSC Step 2: Upgrade 5.0 to 6.0 17
18. © 2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved. vSphere Web Client 6.0
19. vSphere Web Client – The Solution ▪ Single Platform Support (Windows) – vSphere Web Client is Platform Agnostic (sort of) ▪ Scalability Limits – Built to handle thousands of objects ▪ White Screen of Death – Performance ▪ Inconsistent look and feel across VMware solutions – Extensibility ▪ Workflow Lock – Pause current task and continue later right where you left off – Browser Behavior ▪ Upgrades – Upgrade a Single server side component 19
20. Putting tasks back in their place Problem: Hard to troubleshoot using Recent Tasks due to limited screen real estate. Fix: Display more information by moving Recent Tasks to the bottom of the screen. 20 Before After
21. Dockable UI (customizable UI) Problem: Workspace (or another pane) needs to be wider to display more information, or panes need to be Fix: Customizable UI. Every pane but the central work space can be dragged like a window to different locations 21 Default 6.0 Customized for more workspace
22. Making right-click work like it did before Problem: Too slow to navigate to frequent actions. Fix: Flatten the right-click menus, make them closer to Windows Client 22 Before After
23. Improving Lateral Navigation – Home menu Problem: Lots of up and down navigation via Home. Fix: Add menu for navigation across functions. 23
24. vCenter Performance and Scalability
25. CONFIDENTIAL Performance and Scalability in vSphere 6.0 • Significant Performance Improvements in vCenter 6.0 – Increase in supported cluster size: 64 hosts and 8000 VMs – Improvements in operational latencies (up to 10x) – Improvements in concurrency (up to 2x throughput improvements) – Feature/Performance Parity between Windows and Embedded vCenter Appliance – Upto 2 X improvements in average page response times through the Web client for typical user actions such as Navigation, Settings, and Action-Menu 25
26. Performance Improvements (vSphere Client) Problem: Everything is slow. Fix: Performance improvements made in as many common actions as possible 26 - 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 VirtualM achine - M enu H ost - M enu D istributedSw itch - M enu C luster - M enu R elatedO bjects - Tab H osts - Tab D istributedSw itches - Tab Vm Tem plates - Tab N etw orks - Tab D istributedPortgroups - Tab VirtualM achines - Tab D atstores - Tab U plinkPortgrous - Tab vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0
27. vCenter Server Availability
28. Options for protecting vCenter • Backup (VDP / Third Party VADP) • Database Clustering (RAC / WSFC) • VMware HA • Hardware failure • Guest OS failure • VMware SMP-FT • Hardware Failure • Relevant to vCenter sizes of 4 vCPU and below • Windows Server Failover clustering for protecting vCenter server services • Multiple PSC instances with a load balancer 28
29. Deployment Modes
30. Configuration #1 – Embedded Deployment Model ▪ Sufficient for most environments. Easiest to deploy and maintain ▪ Multiple standalone instances supported ▪ Replication between embedded instances not supported ▪ Supports Windows & Appliance Host OS Embedded Platform Services Controller vCenter Server 30
31. Configuration #2 – External Deployment Model
 Local PSC High Availability ▪ Multiple PSC nodes locally ▪ vCenter interacts with the PSCs through a load balancer ▪ vCenter instances are clustered with WSFC ▪ PSCs replicate state information between them vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller Load Balancer vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server Replicating 31
32. 32 Common SSO Domain Los Angeles New York Miami Configuration #3 – External Deployment Model
 Multiple Site PSC and vCenter Server By Default ▪ Each site is independent ▪ PSC automated replication ▪ Site awareness Enhanced Linked Mode ▪ Facilitated via Platform Services Controller ▪ Maintains single management point ▪ Works in Windows and VCVA ▪ Replicates Licenses, permissions, tags
 and roles PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server
33. 33 Common SSO Domain Los Angeles New York Miami Configuration #4 – External Deployment Model
 Multiple Site PSC and vCenter Server with High Availability Setup ▪ Each site configured then populated with at least two PSCs ▪ vCenters are clustered with WSFC for availability ▪ Load balancer is required at each site to provide PSC high availability PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller PSC Host OS External Platform Services Controller Load Balancer Load Balancer Load Balancer vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server vCenter Server Host OS Clustered vCenter Server
34. Configuration #5 – External Deployment Model
 Local Windows vCenter Server High Availability ▪ Leverages Windows Server Failover Cluster (previously MSCS) ▪ Protects vCenter Services and Databases separately ▪ Requires two physical RDM disks that are shared between the primary and standby nodes ▪ RDM uses separate SCSI controller with bus sharing enabled ▪ Multiple Platform Services Controllers for resilience 34 Windows Server Failover Cluster (VCDB) SQL Server (VM1) Node 1 SQL Server (VM1) Node2 Windows Server Failover Cluster (VPXD) vCenter Server (VM1) Node 1 vCenter Server (VM1) Node 2 External Platform Services Controller (VM) Node 1 External Platform Services Controller (VM) Node 2 Replicating
35. Questions? Then a few housekeeping items…
36. We Want to Hear From You! Download the mobile app and provide your feedback • Search “VMUG” in your app store and download the free app • Select the session you are in • Rate the session by selecting the
37. Thank You Stay up to date with vCenter Server http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/ @NickMarshall9