Review: Virtualization With VMWare ESX Server

From Mikel King <mikel.king@ocsny.com>

I found this new Syngress publication Virtualization With VMWare ESX Server (ISBN:1597490199) both a joy to read and extremely informative. The volume was filled with numerous real world examples. Further, the book is well written and it is clear that the various authors utilize their collective experience not just their certifications to achieve the best results. One thing I enjoyed about their writing style was that while they presented mock case studies, they did it without the usual, boring case study fluff. I really appreciate the brevity with which they were able to convey the material. I especially liked the fact that they covered some of the trickier command line level options as well as the MUI (management user interface).

The first three chapters cover the basics of planning and installing a VMware ESX Server followed by advanced configurations as titled in Chapter Four. Here they discuss the concepts of network traffic shaping, resource affinity, and the various types of clustering that can be achieved with an ESX server. In addition they cover a section on how to build a two node cluster with Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition.

In addition, Chapter 5 covered the trickier nuances of virtual switching and cleanly explained the differences between VMnets and VMnics. It took me a while to step back and allow myself to fully visualize the virtual switches and the relationship to the virtual networking devices. This is one chapter you will want to give a careful read to, as an improperly configured virtual network could leave your ESX server virtually unreachable.

My absolute favorite chapter was Chapter 6, the p2v solutions. The authors did an excellent job of articulating the in's and out's of each method they choose to employ in converting a physical server to a virtual one. I have to admit that was more than a bit excited that they chose to discuss a CLI method first, especially when I found out later that it was the most reliable as well as versatile method that they have found thus far.

Chapter 11 covers the underlying structure of the ESX server. It describes the boot process, file system hierarchy as well as the relationship between the server console, the ESX kernel, and the virtual machines. The authors discuss in fairly good detail the critical ESX Server Configuration files. Several sections of this chapter make very handy "how-to" guides. Like how to change your service console's ip address, by editing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0. This chapter is invaluable to anyone managing an ESX server.

Yet another critical chapter worth it weight follows right after: Chapter 12. It covers backup solutions and best practices. If there is one thing I've learned in all my years of working in IT, it is that your job security is only as secure as the integrity of your backups. The chapter is chocked full of various solutions and suggestions for backing up your instances, complete with the pros and cons of each method they outline. Additionally, they provide several urls to resources found on VMware's site detailing the company's own guidelines for backing up.

The chapter on Administering a Virtual Infrastructure explains the details of working with VirtualCenter as well as VMotion. If you are considering deploying multiple ESX servers then you really need to all of the intricacies of working with VirtualCenter. It is worth noting that VC is an add-on product and will require additional licensing. Basically it consists of a client server solution where by you install the server portion of the product onto Windows 2k3 server with either a locally running or a remote database (ORACLE 8i/9i or MS SQL 2000/Seven are supported). The VC is installed client onto another machine from which you wish to manage the VMWare servers.

According to the authors, if you are building a server farm then VC is a must. After reading the chapter 9, which covers this product in great detail, I can see why they recommend it. The VirtualCenter product includes a license for VMotion which enables you to push a running instance from one VMware server to another. Yes that is correct cowboy, you can move a LIVE instance from one server to the another in your farm, without downing it first.

Chapter 13 titled 'Common and Necessary Command-Line Interface (CLI) Commands' was yet another wonderful chapter chocked full of extremely useful tips and techniques for managing your ESX server via the console or and ssh terminal. It was written for people who find CLI an unfriendly experience, but with enough detail to aide even a pro CLI jockey in working with some of the special vm-commands. In addition, it covers working with vm hardware devices, as well as changing hardware. There is even a section that covers the two editors: vi, and my personal favorite, nano.

The final chapter is a sort of catch all and covers of all things Microsoft Virtual Server and a favorable mention toward XEN. It is a light chapter, almost a desert in comparison to the previous 13 chapters that one has to digest. It was nice wrap up to the entire virtualization concept presented in the text. One reference missing was the XEN Virtualization Management Console which is to XEN what VirtualCenter is to VMware.

Over all this book is an excellent reference for anyone wishing to administer a VMWare ESX Server. I would even go so far as to say that it is a must for your shop library. I would like to remark on the clarity of the some of the screen captures, however; there were many that were nearly impossible to read. I found myself squinting time and again to make out what was actually being shown. My eyes would've appreciated some image doctoring or at the very lest some details in the footnotes.

Since the book lacked any refences to BSD as a whole I would like to offer some notes regarding FreeBSD running under VMware ESX. My company is currently running several instances of the FresBSD 5.4, and 6.x without issue that we are vigorously testing in our lab at my office. Sadly though only FreeBSD 4.9 & 4.10 are officially supported; however, I think it is worth noting that for all intents and purposes all of these 5.x and 6.x instances are running solid. On these guests we have been experimenting with serving files via Samba, as well as pushing some MySql databases around the LAN, and all of the things one would normally do when evaluating new hardware.

Unfortunately for those of us who are running FreeBSD under this product, we are limited a single cpu because smp is not yet supported for FreeBSD on VMware ESX Server. Neither are the VMware Tools which would allow for utilizing the advanced fetures like Snapshot. Use the following links to learn more about what Operating Systems are currently supported or about VMware Tools support under ESX. This is an issue for my environment as it depends heavily upon FreeBSD, therefore; I shall quite honestly will be watching the developments of FreeBSD 6.1, ESX, as well as XEN.

Finally, I would like to say that although I may have not covered every chapter in extensive detail and everything listed in the table of contents, I felt that it would have been pointless fluff and of little value to some one wishing to determine if they should spend $49.00 US as listed for this volume. I am fortunate enough to have a single ESX server available to me at this time and a couple of GSX servers, which enabled me to complete my initial read through in relatively short time. It is in retrospect that I can certify that the tip and guidelines presented in this book would have been good to know before deploying my first ESX server. If this is your first experience with server virtualization technologies then I will imagine that you will find it a bit slower go but ultimately you will finish up this text ready to rock 'n roll into VMware.

Cheers,
Mikel