Lab 3 Part 1 - Working with Virtual Machines / Data Stores
This lesson focuses on working with virtual machines and examines data stores and guest operating systems within the data store. The data stores contain all the files for each virtual machine, you can also store templates there. Participants learn step by step instructions in creating a virtual machine in a screen-by-screen, hands on lab-based form...
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14 hours 13 minutes
This lesson focuses on working with virtual machines and examines data stores and guest operating systems within the data store. The data stores contain all the files for each virtual machine, you can also store templates there. Participants learn step by step instructions in creating a virtual machine in a screen-by-screen, hands on lab-based format.
All right. Welcome to lab number three,
where we finally get to start working with some virtual machines.
So we have a host selected.
We do need to know the host
root password in case you're not already connected.
Well, look at the data stores available to us
for this host.
We'll also see what kind of guest operating systems we might have available in our
So the data store is used for lots of things. It's it's used for storing ice, Oh, files, for instance,
which could be used to build any operating system.
It's also where you store of the V EMS themselves. All the files are contained in one folder
for each virtual machine,
and we can also store templates there,
so we'll explore different options for data stores
in a later section of the course.
All right, so now we want to create a virtual machine.
So we'll go back to her home tab
if you get lost. And one of the interface is, always remember the home tab so you can
start again and drill down to wherever it was that you were. When the problem happened,
we'll go back to our inventory
inventory is pretty simple
at this stage.
You'll notice if you click it some of these tabs in the address bar that you can get other menu choices.
Once this host is joined to the center, we'll look at some other inventory options that get a little more complex.
Anyway, I want to do a little bit of cleanup. I made some clones of my servers earlier
so that I can revert to that clone in case I make a mistake or something gets corrupted, something gets broken.
This is a great practice if you have the available storage.
Once you get a server, configure the way you like,
just make a clone of it.
Now that clone,
remains a perfect copy that you can store in a different folder. A different directory, different
So you've got a nice emergency backup plan in case
the there's some kind of catastrophe.
But I don't want to look at these clones anymore, someone to remove them from my inventory so I don't have to see them.
What I can do is right click
go down to remove from inventory.
It asks me if I want to remove from the inventory.
it does not remove the files.
It just removes it from the inventory
that's on this particular host.
The files that make up those V EMS are still
existing on the data store, Whichever data store they might be
okay, So I'm back to my summary tab for the host.
Let's look at this for a minute.
We can see a top
a little noticed that I've got my sshh server configured.
This is for convenience. When your first building the host
leaving sshh enabled
it gives you an easy way to connect to the system.
For instance, I can just go here and launch party.
Some of you might be familiar with Putty.
It's a free
sshh. Tell Net and are logging Client.
I've already got some things configured here, so I'll just double click my host.
That should open the
Here it is
to make this full screen.
That's a great future of party, Actually, that allows you to go full screen.
Now. I logged into my host
and I can do all kinds of interesting things. I could look at my file systems.
run some commands to, uh check the configuration of my network.
You'll notice some of the commands that you would normally use on a typical UNIX system. Do not work
on your E S X I host.
This is due to the fact that there's a
ah, a limited command sat in order to make the device more secure.
That means that if somebody was able to brute force
a root log in to your host, they wouldn't be able to run the commands they're familiar with.
They would have to do their research ahead of time to know which
VM where commands they would need to run in order to display these parameters were. Look at those options later. I just wanted to show
how that would fail.
Okay, so we're done with the SS H session for now. So exit from that
back to our host summary tab is very useful.
It gives you a nice at a glance view of all of your configuration parameters
the actual hardware, how much memory and see if you you you're using,
I can tell it a glance that I have three different types of storage attached
Looking at capacity statistics. How much is free?
I know which network I'm connected to.
I can see details about the hardware.
I've got four cores
at nearly 2.7 gigahertz, and so on
tells you which image profile I used to build this
moving Anne s ex I host is very easy. By the way, if you've never tried it and you've been filing along up to this point, I highly recommend
pausing the video
after I'm done explaining.
It's very easy to download
trial version of US X I from Vienna, where dot com
You just register with your email address and some other details,
and you can build this and
from the eye. So image, which means that you can run it from VM or player
so you don't have to spend any money to do this. That's that's the beautiful thing.
Once you've got it built, then you can explore the other trial options for things like the center or the server appliance and so on.
And you have a generous 60 day window
to build an environment,
test your knowledge, test your skills, do these labs again and again until you until you get all of them right. That's that's really the key.
And because it's virtual, it makes it very simple, too.
Build and destroy as you will in order to accomplish your different training goals.
All right, so I was getting rid of the EMS earlier. This other one here? Yes, that's one. I'm gonna leave that guy behind when we need him for later.
All right, So your next task is to create a virtual machine
the lots of different ways to do this.
Ah, but since we're connected directly to the host the using squares to right, click the host
and select new virtual machine.
You'll notice that there are shortcuts next to the menu choice,
and I always recommend learning the shortcuts. Try to force yourself a little bit if you can.
Because once you're in the interface,
it makes a lot more sense to know quick keyboard shortcuts to do what you want. So you're not screwing around with the mouse.
I think the mouse really slows you down.
Um, once the interface is open, you hit tab, move around, shift time to go backwards. It's It's pretty easy.
Anyways, we'll use the menu for this time.
New virtual machine.
Okay. For our purposes, we're going to can configure a custom virtual machine.
You see the options change between typical and custom,
so we'll call this V M one
or something that you like better.
I have three different data stores configured
so I can pick from these
local disc is is generally going to be the fastest data store.
It'll it will give the best performance.
Local disc could mean a lot of things that could be a single disk drive,
which is the case with my particular host.
Or it could be a raid array.
I could have five discs, 7 12
that could all be local desk.
But because it has the shortest distance to travel between the storage media and
the network, and after
this is this gives the best performance. There's last late and see. We don't have to deal with the network or anything like that.
I also have configured
and the ice scuzzy storage
allows me to run scuzzy commands over the network.
So those of you familiar with scuzzy Dr Know that
you used to have a wide ribbon cable
and the commands for
reading writing data, you know, were sent over. That scuzzy was invented for multi user computer systems so that we could get
a lot of people accessing the storage simultaneously with decent performance.
So with ice cosy now, those same commands could be sent over the network
to a virtual drive.
Sorry, not a virtual drive, but it of
that's a virtual disc. In a sense, because it is a partition on a larger storage unit,
it's using logical volume manager. You can subdivide that storage,
by the way.
So the same commander sent over the network that used to be central with wire, and the disc behaves the same.
And then our third option is NFS,
which is your typical share drive from a UNIX system. Or if you share a folder from Windows
that's using on a fast, same thing.
Okay, in this case, we're gonna stick with local disc for the performance reasons I mentioned.
You can clearly see all the stats you would want to know about your very storage options
for this particular configuration. I can only go as high as virtual machine version ache.
That is the most recent version. If you had legacy equipment that not support,
that virtual hardware version you could use version seven, Version four.
That would be the only reason to downgrade. Maybe you've got an older host
that can't be upgraded for some reason and that you're stuck.
So that's why you have these options to use a lower version.