Planning vSphere Networking
The process of configuring networks largely employs skills and competences obtained from vSphere Networking. However, it is crucial to mention that the latter mainly offers information and guidelines on how networks can be configured. In this case, planning of the entire process is fundamental. For instance, it is not possible to come up with vSphere standard switches and distributed switches without articulate planning. VMware vSphere requires complex networking that can only be achieved through the initial planning phase (Ferguson, 2012).
During planning, networking best practices, managing network resources and monitoring networks should be put into consideration. In other words, planning of vSphere networking should take into consideration the targeted audience and of course the anticipated benefits or gains. This implies that usage is of great importance.
System administrators who are well experienced in either Linux systems or Windows should be part of the planning team. In any case, network configuration usually follows immediately after the planning phase. Therefore, administrators should be very familiar with systems at hand. In addition, there are numerous aspects or elements of virtual machine technology that equally count towards planning a vSphere network.
When planning this type of network, a number of factors are worth considering. First, the working principle of a vSphere standard switch should be established. For instance, the same switch is used to create a connection among several Virtual Machines (VMs). Several physical and virtual machines using the same host on both vSSs and ESX/ESXi hosts (Mousannif, Khalil & Kotsis, 2013). This type of planning can take place on any location of a physical environment. Moreover, planners should be conversant with the capabilities of various vSS. This is crucial because it reaches a time when they are supposed to be developed, mounted and may be deleted.
Configuring vSphere Networking
In order to successfully configure vSphere networking, it is prudent to begin the procedure by establishing the capabilities of a vSS. The latter refers to a standard switch to be used in the configuration process. The external networks are linked to this switch. Hence, traffic can flow between the switch and VMS after the process of configuration is complete (Mousannif, Khalil & Kotsis, 2013). In the ESXi host, the vSS contains two ports. One of the ports plays the role of network management.
The port is connected to a network interface card. Alternatively, a physical world uplink can still be used to create such a connection. Each port utilizes an uplink adapter during configuration. Nevertheless, vSSs connections and the manner of creating them are the most important aspects when configuring vSphere networking.
There are two main types of vSS connections that can be created. It is mandatory to make use of both connections even though their distinctions are dramatic. VM ports and VMkernel ports are the two types of distinct connections in this case. Unless the working principles of each connection is vividly understood, the process of configuring vSphere networks can be very complex and challenging (Rong, Tsai, Chen & Huang, 2014).
VMkernel is connected to services VMkernel ports. In this case, the ESXi host contains a single VMkernel even though numerous ports of this type can be used in a configured system. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended that VMkernel service type should utilize an independent port. The VMkernel port offers a number of VMkernel services in a configured system (Henderson & Allen, 2010). IP storage is the first service provided by the above ports. The storage is attached to a given network. vMotion is yet another service offered by the ports. Other services include fault-tolerant logging and management because console parts are not available.
References
Ferguson, B. (2012). The Official VCP5 Certification Guide (VMware Press Certification). New York: VMware Press. Web.
Henderson, T., & Allen, B. (2010). VSphere rounds into form. Network World, 27(16), 24. Web.
Mousannif, H., Khalil, I., & Kotsis, G. (2013). Collaborative learning in the clouds. Information Systems Frontiers, 15(2), 159-165. Web.
Rong, C., Tsai, H., Chen, C., & Huang, C. (2014). Analysis of virtualized cloud server together with shared storage and estimation of consolidation ratio and TCO/ROI. Engineering Computations, 31(8), 1746. Web.