background image

VMware ESX 4 on

Dell PowerEdge Systems

Deployment Guide

Summary of Contents for External OEMR 2800

Page 1: ...VMware ESX 4 on Dell PowerEdge Systems Deployment Guide ...

Page 2: ...ntel Corporation in the U S and other countries AMD is a registered trademark and AMD Opteron is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices Inc Microsoft SQL Server and Windows are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks of Novell Inc in the United States and other countries Oracle is a ...

Page 3: ...tion Solutions 24 Configuring ESX 4 Using Dell Fibre Channel SAN 24 Fibre Channel Environment Setup With ESX 25 Configuring vSphere 4 Using iSCSI SAN 26 Setting up iSCSI Environment With ESX 27 Deploying ESX and vCenter 27 Guidelines for Deploying ESX 27 Installing ESX 28 Disk Partitioning for ESX 28 Post Installation 29 Tips for Configuring VMotion 30 Installing vCenter Server 30 Related Informat...

Page 4: ...4 Contents ...

Page 5: ...te and patch releases Future major releases of vSphere will include only the ESXi architecture It is recommended that you consider a plan for migrating to ESXi starting with this release NOTE vSphere Essentials Plus is an all inclusive package that includes licenses for three physical systems each system with up to two processors It also includes VMware vCenter Server to centrally manage the syste...

Page 6: ...vironments referred to as virtual machines VMs can be created and managed faster than conventional systems The VMs do not interact directly with the physical hardware Each of these VMs runs in a resource isolated secure environment and can include Microsoft Windows Linux Novell NetWare and Solaris operating systems with their associated applications Figure 1 ESX 4 Architecture ...

Page 7: ...nitors and manages Virtual Machines VM and copies of ESX With vCenter Server you can create start stop and migrate VMs across the entire physical data center vCenter Server is optional and is required for advanced management capabilities such as VMware VMotion Distributed Resource Scheduling DRS and High Availability HA PowerEdge System as ESX Host Storage Interconnect Fabric Ethernet Fabric vCent...

Page 8: ...erver vSphere Client Manages an ESX host by directly connecting to it or through the vCenter Server It is installed on a system running a supported Windows operating system VM DataStore Stores VMs configuration and virtual disk files The VM storage can either be an internal storage local to ESX or an external storage that can be shared by multiple copies of ESX Advanced features such as VMotion HA...

Page 9: ...D Opteron 6100 6200 series Minimum Memory 4 GB Internal Storage Two 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter PowerEdge RAID Controller PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 Integrated External Disk Storage Adapter Not applicable Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity All supported HBAs Networking Four integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access Integrated Dell Remote Acces...

Page 10: ...BA SAN connectivity All supported daughter cards Networking Four integrated network ports and all supported NIC daughter cards Remote Access iDRAC6 PowerEdge M710 Processors Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 4 GB Internal Storage Four 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR Integrated CERC 6 i Modular PERC 6 i Integrated PERC H200 Modular and PERC H700 Modular External Disks ...

Page 11: ...network ports and all supported NIC daughter cards Remote Access iDRAC6 PowerEdge M610 Processors Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 4 GB Internal Storage Two 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR Integrated CERC 6 i Modular PERC H200 Modular and PERC H700 Modular External Disks Storage Adapter Not applicable Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity All supported daughter cards Ne...

Page 12: ...ks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity All supported HBAs Networking Four integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R815 Processors AMD Opteron 6100 6200 series Minimum Memory 8 GB Internal Storage Up to six 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 In...

Page 13: ...HBA SAN connectivity All supported HBAs Networking Four integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R715 Processors AMD Opteron 6100 6200 series Minimum Memory 8 GB Internal Storage Up to six 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 Integrated External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PER...

Page 14: ...Four integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R610 Processors Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 4 GB Internal Storage Six 2 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter PERC 6 i Integrated SAS 6 iR Integrated PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 Integrated External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 6 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fi...

Page 15: ...e Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R510 Processor Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Upto twelve 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR Integrated PERC 6 i Integrated PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 Integrated NOTE An x12 backplane supports only PERC H200 and PERC H700 cards External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 6 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H80...

Page 16: ...all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R410 Processor Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Four 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR Integrated PERC 6 i Integrated PERC H200 Integrated and PERC H700 Integrated External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 6 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity A...

Page 17: ...ty All supported HBAs Networking Two integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R300 Processor Intel Xeon 3300 5400 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Two 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR Integrated External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 5 E and PERC 6 E Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity Not applicable Net...

Page 18: ...ts and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge R210 Processor Intel Xeon 3400 series or Core i3 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Two 2 5 or 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR and PERC H200 External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 6 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity Not applicable Networking One integrat...

Page 19: ... SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity All supported HBAs Networking Four integrated network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge T610 Processors Intel Xeon 5500 5600 series Minimum Memory 4 GB Internal Storage Eight 2 5 or 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter PERC 6 i Integrated SAS 6 iR Integrated PERC H200 Integrated and PER...

Page 20: ...ed network ports and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge T310 Processor Intel Xeon 3400 series or Core i3 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Four 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR PERC 6 i PERC H200 and PERC H700 External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E PERC 6 E 6 Gbps SAS HBA and PERC H800 Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity Not applica...

Page 21: ...rated network port and all supported peripheral NICs Remote Access iDRAC6 Enterprise PowerEdge T110 Processor Intel Xeon 3400 series or Intel Core i3 series Minimum Memory 2 GB Internal Storage Four 3 5 SAS SATA disks Internal Storage Adapter SAS 6 iR and PERC H200 External Disks Storage Adapter SAS 5 E and 6 Gbps SAS HBA Fibre Channel HBA SAN connectivity Not applicable Networking One integrated ...

Page 22: ...d the VMware patch ESX400 201002001 from downloads vmware com For more information see kb vmware com kb 1017458 When ESX is installed on a PowerEdge R815 system the keyboard and mouse do not function if you connect them to the top USB port on the back panel of the system To resolve the issue do not use the top USB port on the back panel of the system Alternatively you may use iDRAC vKVM to install...

Page 23: ...ory modules NOTE For more information about NUMA see VMware knowledge base articles kb vmware com kb 1003690 and kb vmware com kb 1570 Also see VMware s Resource Management Guide for ESX 4 at vmware com support pubs Storage Logical Unit Numbers LUNs on local system are supported only with PERC based RAID configurations Dell PowerVault NX1950 is supported only as an iSCSI storage device It is not s...

Page 24: ...If you use Fibre Channel storage you can have a single Fibre Channel HBA connected to a Fibre Channel switch that provides paths to both storage processors SPs on the Fibre Channel storage system It is recommended that you use two Fibre Channel HBAs on the ESX host connected to separate Fibre Channel switches The Fibre Channel switches provide redundant paths to the SPs on the storage unit This pr...

Page 25: ... This is highly recommended for better load balancing 5 Use Naviagent to register the servers hosts connected to the SAN 6 Create storage groups and assign ESXs and LUNs to each of them For more information about SAN environment configuration see the Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide for ESX 4 and vCenter Server 4 under VMware vSphere 4 at vmware com support pubs For more information about set...

Page 26: ...o separate Ethernet switches to provide redundant paths to the storage processors on the storage unit Figure 4 Configuring vSphere 4 Using iSCSI SAN NOTE For more information on Dell supported storage arrays on VMware see VMware ESX ESXi 4 on Dell PowerEdge Systems and Storage Compatibility Matrix at support dell com manuals vSphere Client vCenter Server Ethernet Fabric ESX Hosts ESX Hosts Redunda...

Page 27: ...pecific steps that need to be followed for a successful upgrade Determine the kind of storage local SCSI SAS SATA iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN for hosting VMs that best suits the deployment environment and design your storage infrastructure accordingly Determine the number of logical unit numbers LUNs size of LUNs RAID level of the LUNs and the number of storage groups Determine the number of VMs th...

Page 28: ...roller to USB on with BIOS Support if available on the system This enables support for USB devices both during and after the ESX boot process Configuring Boot From SAN ESX 4 supports Boot from SAN with both QLogic and Emulex Fibre Channel adapters For more information about configuring ESX to boot from SAN see the SAN Configuration Guide under VMware vSphere 4 at vmware com support pubs Configurin...

Page 29: ...VMs are created by default during the ESX installation Table 4 Recommended Disk Partitioning Mount Point Type Recommended Size Notes swap swap 1 GB This is for the Service Console only and not for ESX boot ext3 1 1 GB Holds the boot kernel image ext3 10 GB Holds the Service Console and ESX kernel var ext3 4 GB Holds the log files none vmkcore 110 MB Holds the core dump file for the VMkernel none v...

Page 30: ...ade Guide for ESX 4 under VMware vSphere 4 at vmware com support pubs vCenter Server is supported on a limited set of Windows operating systems For more information see vmware com support pubs Related Information NOTE For Dell VMware documentation including systems management for VMware see support dell com manuals Navigate to Software select Virtualization Solutions and then VMware Software For i...

Page 31: ... articles see vmware com support For the Hardware Compatibility Guides see vmware com resources compatibility search php For licensing information see VMware vSphere on Dell PowerEdge Systems Getting Started Guide at support dell com manuals For information on ESX other Dell VMware products technical publications including white papers articles and case studies see dell com vmware For information ...

Page 32: ...32 ESX Deployment Guide ...

Reviews: