vCenter Server Prerequisites

Before installing vCenter Server, review the prerequisites.

■	You must have the installation DVD or download the installation ISO image.
■	Your hardware must meet the vCenter Server hardware requirements.
■	If the machine on which you are installing vCenter Server has VirtualCenter installed, you might want to upgrade instead of performing a fresh installation of vCenter Server.
■	No Network Address Translation (NAT) must exist between the vCenter Server system and the hosts it will manage.
■	For small-scale deployments, VMware recommends installing the bundled SQL Server 2005 Express database on one of the supported operating systems. If SQL Native Client is already installed, uninstall SQL Native Client before you begin the vCenter Server installation.
■	The system that you use for your vCenter Server installation must belong to a domain rather than a workgroup. If assigned to a workgroup, the vCenter Server system is not able to discover all domains and systems available on the network when using such features as vCenter Guided Consolidation Service. To determine whether the system belongs to a workgroup or a domain, right-click My Computer and click Properties and the Computer Name tab. The Computer Name tab displays either a Workgroup label or a Domain label.
■	During the installation, the connection between the machine and the domain controller must be working.
■	The computer name cannot be more than 15 characters.
■	The NETWORK SERVICE account is required on the folder in which vCenter Server is installed and on the HKLM registry.
■	The DNS name of the machine must match the actual computer name.
■	Make sure the system on which you are installing vCenter Server is not an Active Directory domain controller.
■	On each system that is running vCenter Server, make sure that the domain user account has the following permissions: ■ Member of the Administrators group ■ Act as part of the operating system ■ Log on as a service
■	Assign a static IP address and host name to the Windows server that will host the vCenter Server system. This IP address must have a valid (internal) domain name system (DNS) registration that resolves properly from all managed hosts.
■	If you install vCenter Server on Windows Server 2003 SP1, the disk for the installation directory must have the NTFS format, not the FAT32 format.
■	vCenter Server, like any other network server, should be installed on a machine with a fixed IP address and well-known DNS name, so that clients can reliably access the service. If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for vCenter Server, make sure that the vCenter Server computer name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). One way to test this is by pinging the computer name. For example, if the computer name is host-1.company.com, run the following command in the Windows command prompt:ping host-1.company.com If you can ping the computer name, the name is updated in DNS.

 

Virtual center architecture (vCenter)

Virtual center is composed of five main components:

• Virtual center management server is the central control node for configuring, provisioning and managing virtualized IT environments. The management server runs as a service on windows 2000, win xp and windows 2003
• Virtual center database is used to store persistent information about the physical servers, resource pools and virtual machines managed by the virtual center management server. The database resides on standard versions of oracle, sql server.
• Virtual infrastructure client allows administrators and users to connect remotely to the virtual center management server or individual ESX servers from any windows PC.
• Virtual center agent connects VMware ESX server with the virtual center management server.
• Virtual infrastructure web access allows virtual machine management and access to virtual machine graphical consoles without installing a client.

vCenter server 5.x

the minimum hardware requirements:

Hardware	Requirement
Processor	Intel or AMD x86 processor with two or more logical cores, each with a speed of at least 2GHz. The Intel Itanium (IA64) processor is not supported. Processor requirements might be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
Memory	4GB RAM. RAM requirements may be higher if your database runs on the same machine. VMware VirtualCenter Management WebServices requires 512Mb to 4.4GB of additional memory.  The maximum Webservices JVM memory can be specified during the installation depending on the inventory size.
Disk storage	4GB. Disk requirements may be higher if the vCenter Server database runs on the same machine. In vCenter Server 5.0, the default size for vCenter Server logs is 450MB, which is larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this increase.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express disk requirements	Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted after the installation is complete.
Networking	1Gbit connection recommended.

Windows 2003/2008 –std, enter or datacenter 64bit

Supported database: IBM DB2, sql server 2005/2008, oracle 10g, 11g

 

 

Security Groups in AD

There are four types of security groups and each has its own security scope.

• Machine local groups
  This type of group can be created on a local computer. The security scope of this group is limited to this local machine. This group can include members that are Domain local groups, domain global groups and users within its domain and forest.

• Domain local groups
  This type of group can be created on a domain controller of its perspective domain. This group can only be used to assign permission on resources within the same domain. This group can include user accounts, universal groups, and global groups from any domain.

• Domain global groups
  This type of group can be created on a domain controller of its perspective domain. This group can be used to assign permission on resources in any trusted domain. This group can include user accounts, universal groups, and global groups from any domain.

• Universal groups
  This type of group can be created on a domain controller of its perspective domain that is running in mixed mode or higher. This group is known as “jack-of-all-trade” because it is used to assign permissions to resources in multiple domains. This group can include user accounts, universal groups, and global groups from any domain.

 

Windows 2008 Booting Process

The boot process has five major stages: preboot, boot, load, initialization, and logon.

Within each of these stages, several steps take place that load and use files. In each of

these stages, look at the process that is taking place, how the particular files are used, and

what you see on the screen.

Preboot Preboot is the hardware-dependent, Basic Input-Output System (BIOS)-enabled

startup process. It is started either by power coming on or the system being reset. The

first step is to see what hardware is available and its condition by using the power-on self

test (POST) routine. Next, BIOS executes the initial program load (IPL), which locates the

boot device and, if the device is a hard disk, the master boot record (MBR) is read from

the first sector on the disk. Otherwise, the equivalent information is obtained from the

boot device. From this information, partition information is obtained, the boot sector is

read, and the Windows Boot Manager (Bootmgr.exe) is started. On the screen, you see the

memory check, the identification of hardware, and the search for a boot device.

Boot Windows Boot Manager reads the boot configuration data (BCD) and, if there is

more than one boot partition, asks the user to choose a partition and its OS. If a choice is

not made before the timeout, the default partition and OS is loaded. If you are booting

Windows Server 2008, the Windows Boot Loader (Winload.exe) is started. If you have

more than one hardware profile, you are given the option of pressing the spacebar to

select the hardware profile you want to use, for example, if you have a laptop that you

sometimes use with a docking station. If you press the spacebar , you can choose the

hardware profile you want; otherwise, the default profile is used.

Load Following the operating system and hardware profile selection, the Windows

Server 2008 “splash” screen is displayed with the moving bars in the center. While this

is happening, Windows Boot Loader loads the operating system kernel, the hardware

abstraction layer that provides the interface between the operating system and a

particular set of hardware, the Registry file, and the drivers for basic hardware devices,

such as the monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

Initialization The OS kernel is initialized and takes over from the Windows Boot

Loader, bringing up the graphical display and filling the Registry with HKEY_LOCAL_

MACHINE\HARDWARE key, and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\SELECT

subkey (called the “Clone Control Set”) and loads the remainder of the device drivers.

Finally, the session manager is started, which executes any boot-time command files,

creates a paging file for the Virtual Memory Manager, creates links to the file system that

can be used by DOS commands, and finally starts the I/O subsystem to handle all I/O

for Windows Server 2008.

Logon The Windows Server 2008 graphic user interface (GUI) is started and the logon

screen is displayed. After a successful logon, the necessary services are started, the Last

Known Good control set is written on the basis of the Clone Control Set, and the startup

programs are started.