VMware Infrastructure

Key Features

• A virtualization platform or hypervisor, which partitions a single server into multiple self-contained virtual machines
• Virtual Infrastructure services that aggregate entire farms of virtualized servers, storage and the network into unified, standardized logical resources
• Virtual Infrastructure management solutions to automate end-to-end IT processes

Virtualization Platform

Partition a single physical machine into multiple self contained virtual machines.

VMware ESX

Bare metal architecture. Runs directly on server hardware for near native virtual machine performance, reliability and scalability.

Resource virtualization. Comprehensively virtualize CPU, memory, network and storage resources and make them intelligently available and balanced among numerous virtual machines for greater hardware utilization and no impact to service levels.

Scalability. Scale virtual machines with support for upto 64GB of RAM and consolidate onto very large servers with support for upto 128 GB of physical memory.

Performance. Optimize virtual machine performance and run many machines on the same server with the following techniques:

• Transparent page sharing to utilize memory more efficiently by storing a single instance of shared memory pages
• RAM over-commitment to increase memory utilization
• Memory ballooning to ensure workloads are not starved
• Network performance optimizations to reduce CPU overhead 
• Large memory pages and hardware page table support to optimize memory access
• Paravirtualization support for virtualization aware Linux operating systems

VMware ESXi

Server integration. Simplify and speed up virtualization deployments with VMware ESXi pre-integrated into server hardware and available from all the leading server vendors.

Small footprint. Reduce virtualization complexity with VMware ESXi , a compact 32MB formfactor of VMware ESX, that is a fraction of the size of a general purpose operating system, providing unmatched security and reliability.  Learn more about the difference between VMware ESX and VMware ESXi.

Security and reliability. Minimizes surface area for potential security attacks, making it the most secure and reliable hypervisor.

VMFS

Clustered file system. Store virtual machines as disk files on local or shared storage centrally managed by the high performance VMFS file system.

• When using shared storage such as Fibre channel or iSCSI , VMFS functions as a logical volume manager and manages interaction of VMware ESX with the physical storage arrays.
• VMFS allows multiple VMware ESX hosts to access the same LUN by controlling access to individual VM files with on-disk file locking

VSMP

Symmetric Multi-processing. Enable a single virtual machine to use upto four physical processors simultaneously with 4-way VSMP.

Virtual Infrastructure Services

Aggregate entire farms of systems, storage and network into unified logical resources.

Mobility. Move virtual machines independent of the underlying hardware.

• VMware VMotion. Live migrate running virtual machines from one server to another with no disruption or downtime.
• VMware Storage VMotion. Live migrate running virtual machine disks from one storage array to another with no disruption or downtime.
• Minimizes service disruptions due to planned storage downtime previously incurred for rebalancing or retiring storage arrays with VMware Storage VMotion
• Cold migrate virtual machines from one server to another or virtual machine disks from one storage array to another.

Availability. Lower unplanned downtime by protecting against hardware failures.

• Protect against physical machine failures through low cost, easy to setup VMware HA. VMware HA automatically restarts virtual machines on other physical machines in a shared storage environment.
• Protect against operating system failures with virtual machine failure monitoring(experimental) in VMware HA.
• Centralize your backups by using your backup solution with VMware Consolidated Backup.
• One-step restore of virtual machine consolidated backup images with VMware Converter or VMware VirtualCenter.

Resource Management. Align resource allocation with business priorities.

• Abstract your hardware resources such as CPU and memory into unified pools of resources that can be shared by virtual machines running on many separate physical servers.
• VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). Dynamically allocate resources to virtual machines based on business priorities with VMware DRS.
• VMware Distributed Power Management. Reduce power consumption in the datacenter by consolidating workloads and powering down hosts in a cluster when resource requirements are low with Distributed Power Management (DPM). Hosts are automatically brought back online when resource requirements increase.

Security. Secure virtual infrastructure from vulnerabilities.

• VMware Update Manager. Automate patch management with VMware Update Manager enforcing compliance to patch standards for VMware ESX hosts as well as Microsoft or Linux virtual machines. Secure patching of offline virtual machines as well as automated snapshots and rollback capabilities reduce risk in the environment. Integration with DRS allows for non-disruptive VMware ESX patching with little to no administrative overhead.

Recovery. Fully automate the entire disaster recovery process.

• VMware Site Recovery Manager. Integrates with VMware VirtualCenter and guides users through the process of creating, automating, and testing disaster recovery plans for their virtual infrastructure. VMware Site Recovery Manager transforms disaster recovery into a dramatically simpler, faster, and more reliable process that adapts to today’s dynamic datacenters

Virtual Infrastructure Management

Automate end to end IT processes

VMware VirtualCenter

Consolidation management. Analyze physical servers in smaller environments, plan for consolidation of good virtualization candidates and convert physical machines to virtual machines with VMware VirtualCenter Guided Consolidation.

Provisioning management. Copy, clone or make templates from virtual machines. Deploy virtual machines instantly from templates .

Configuration management. Establish and ensure compliance with corporate configuration standards through virtual machine templates. Configure and control all the virtual infrastructure services.

Infrastructure Management

• Automate operations through task scheduling and alerting
• Comprehensively map the inventory and topology of your datacenter with topology maps in VMware VirtualCenter.
• Control access to virtual assets and functionality through fine grained access controls, custom roles & permissions and integration with existing Microsoft Active Directory authentication mechanisms.
• Convert physical machines, other virtual machines as well as backup images of virtual machines to running virtual machines through the integrated conversion capability in VMware Virtual Center.

Capacity management. Monitor performance and utilization of physical servers and the virtual machines they are running with detailed reporting of CPU, memory and I/O performance.

Management of virtual infrastructure services. Administer and manage all virtual infrastructure services from VMware VirtualCenter.