Jan

Virtualization products: VMware

In a previous article we explained in a "simple" what was the virtualization and what it did. In this article we will try to dig a little deeper into the issue and present a product: VMWare and an example: an area of virtualization systems with 3 servers.

What is VMWare?

VMWare is a virtualization system software company VMware Inc. subsidiary of EMC Corporation. A virtual system is a software program that simulates a physical system (a computer, hardware) with a certain hardware features. When you run the program (simulator), provides a runtime environment similar to all effects a physical computer (except pure physical access to hardware simulation), CPU (can be more than one), BIOS, graphics card, RAM, network card, sound system, USB, hard drive (can be more than one), etc..

A virtualized software lets you run (simulate) multiple computers (operating systems) within the same hardware simultaneously, thus allowing better use of resources. Nevertheless, being an intermediate layer between the physical system and operating system running on the emulated hardware, the execution speed of the latter is smaller, but in most cases sufficient for use in production environments.

VMware Approach to Virtualization

VMware directly inserted a layer of software (VMWare ESX Server) in the computer hardware or the host operating system. This software layer creates virtual machines and contains a virtual machine monitor or "hypervisor" that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single physical computer without even realizing it.

However, virtualizing single physical computer is just the beginning. VMware offers a robust virtualization platform that can extend for hundreds of storage devices and interconnected physical computers to form a virtual infrastructure complete.

What issues / licensing exists for VMWare Server?

VMWare provides a variety of licensing its server versions.

- VMWare ESXi: free version operating limitations

- VMWare ESX: paid version with limited licensing operation according to chosen

For those readers who want to try the tool just download the free server virtualization VMWare ESXi. Click here .

The different types of licenses that VMWare are as follows and we have classified by type of company:

- For medium and large companies:

VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus, which includes the full range of vSphere features for transforming datacenters into cloud computing environments incredibly simplified pave the way for the new generation of flexible IT services and reliable.
VMware vSphere Enterprise provides key capabilities to minimize downtime, protect data and automate the management of resources.
VMware vSphere Advanced is a strategic consolidation solution that protects all applications against planned downtime and unplanned, resulting in high availability applications.
VMware vSphere Standard is an entry-level solution for basic consolidation of applications that can reduce hardware costs significantly and accelerate the deployment of applications.

- For small businesses:

VMware vSphere Essentials is a solution "all inclusive" which allows small offices to virtualize three physical servers to consolidate and manage applications, reducing hardware and operating costs and a low initial investment.
VMware vSphere Essentials Plus is a solution "all inclusive" which allows small offices to virtualize three physical servers, reducing hardware costs and ensuring high application availability and data protection.

You can view all products with VMWare on this link. Click here

Definition of the main features of VMWare

In the following table we summarize the main features of VMWare licensing and what we need:

- VMware ESX: allows multiple virtual machines share physical resources

- VMware vCenter Server, VMware vCenter Server allows centralized management, automate operations, optimize resources and high availability to IT environments.

- VMware Update Manager: This product manages the distribution of patches and VMware ESX virtual machines unattended. This ensures infrastructure from vulnerabilities.

- VMware High Availability (HA), VMware HA is a feature that continuously monitors all physical servers and in case of failure, affected virtual machines restarted on another physical server.

- VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) + (DPM): VMware DRS monitors resource utilization and dynamically shared among virtual machines.

- VMware VMotion, VMware VMotion allows hot move virtual machines from one physical server to another. This allows maintenance of HW without cutting the service or an instant.

- VMware Storage Vmotion: if the machines did not share physical storage, Storage VMotion lets you move virtual machines hot local storage of a physical server to another.

- Fault Tolerance (Fault Tolerance), an innovative application service, provides availability without downtime or data loss to all applications against hardware failures without the cost and complexity of clustered solutions hardware or software.

- VMsafe-provides X-ray vision into virtual machines to detect and stop viruses, rootkits and malware previously undetectable before they can infect the system.

- Adding hot (Hot Add) of virtual CPUs, memory and network devices in virtual machines allows applications to fit perfectly without disruption or downtime.

- VMware Data Recovery provides a backup and recovery features simple, cost, agent of virtual machines for smaller environments.

- VMware Consolidated Backup: allows hot backups of the systems directly from the files that make up the virtual machine. This product integrates with most backup products like Symantec Backup Exec.

I hope you liked this article about the product such as VMware virtualization solution. You can get more information on www.vmware.com/es/

The next article will explain a practical example of how to virtualize a system area with an existing structure.

Virtualization products: VMware

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