Session INF4712
Compatibility Maximums – Review the document and stay within the guidelines.
vCenter 6 Platform choice: Windows and VCSA support same maximums and performance
- Up to you, but look at things like Linux experience, licensing, existing skills, etc.
vCenter – New deployment architecture
- PSC – SSO, License service, lookup service, vmdir, VMCA
- vCenter – web client, inventory service, auto deploy, ESXi dump collector, syslog collector, etc.
PSC – Which architecture?
- Embedded: Single site, no expansion past one vCenter
- External: Supports up to 4 vCenters. HA mode is much more complex (3rd party load balancer)
- Multiple sites – PSCs in each site, and replicate with each other.
- Max size: 6 PSCs, 3 sites, 10 vCenters
- Once a deployment model is chosen, you can’t change it in 6.0. U1 will allow changes.
VMware Certificate Authority – Favorite feature.
- VMCA removes a lot of the certificate complexity
- No longer uses self signed certificates
- Built into the PSC
- VMCA should you use it? Yes.
- See KB 2111219 or my vSphere 6.0 install guide here
Standard vs. Distributed Switches
- Always use VDS if you are licensed for it
- Many of the past issues with VDS are now no longer an issue
VSAN and VVOLS
- Policy based storage management
- Not all vSphere hardware is supported. Carefully check HCLs.
- Learning curve for operational procedures and recovery
- May require new hardware purchase
SMP Fault Tolerance
- Long awaited SMP support (up to 4 vCPU)
- Basically a continuous vMotion that only stops when there’s a hardware failure
- 10Gb NIC requirement
- Max 4 FT VMs per host
Content Library
- New to vSphere 6.0
- Storage for templates, appliances, ISOs, scripts, etc.
- Should you use it? Definitely
