Esx 4 installation best practice

If the machine on which you are installing vCenter Server has a previous version of vCenter installed if it's on 64 bit hardware , you might want to upgrade instead of performing a fresh installation of vCenter Server. Check on the HCL hardware compatibility list page…. VMware ESX 4. Source: Installing ESX 4.

Connect on: Facebook. Feel free to network via Twitter vladan. Aaaaa… Sure, I know that… I better take my time to read my articles before I post them!!! You can download it here. During installation, this information is propagated to all the storage controller VMs and corresponding hosts.

The servers are automatically synchronized on storage cluster startup. Select a time zone for the storage controller VMs. It is used to determine when to take scheduled snapshots. The following table details the memory resource reservations for the storage controller VMs. C Rack Server delivers outstanding levels of expandability and performance in a two rack-unit 2RU form-factor. Used for handling email sent from all the storage controller VM IP addresses.

Enabling Auto Support is strongly recommended because it provides historical hardware counters that are valuable in diagnosing future hardware issues, such as drive failure for a node. If it is not directly reachable from the controller VM, then configure the location explicitly using Installer Advanced Settings.

Skip to content Skip to search Skip to footer. Book Contents Book Contents. Find Matches in This Book. PDF - Complete Book 9. Updated: September 9, Chapter: Installation Prerequisites.

Upgrade the UCS Infrastructure. Upgrade HXDP. Upgrade ESXi. Important Do not upgrade to these versions of firmware. Do not upgrade to these versions of UCS Manager. For more details, see CSCvh Ensure that the following host requirements are met. Install and configure VMware vSphere. Disk Requirements The disk requirements vary between converged nodes and compute-only nodes.

The following applies to all the disks in a HyperFlex cluster: All the disks in the storage cluster must have the same amount of storage capacity. Note New factory servers are shipped with appropriate disk partition settings. Do not remove disk partitions from new factory servers. Only the disks ordered directly from Cisco are supported. Note Do not mix storage disks type or storage size on a server or across the storage cluster.

All nodes must use same size and quantity of SSDs. Do not mix SSD types. Compute-Only Nodes The following table lists the supported compute-only node configurations for compute-only functions. Note When adding compute nodes to your HyperFlex cluster, the compute-only service profile template automatically configures it for booting from an SD card.

Important Ensure that only one form of boot media is exposed to the server for ESXi installation. SAN boot. Browser Recommendations - 4. Table 2. Adobe Flash Player 10 or higher is required for some features. ESXi is the management IP for the hypervisor. The comprehensive list of ports required for component communication for the HyperFlex solution is located in Appendix A of the HX Data Platform Security Hardening Guide Tip If you do not have standard configurations and need different port settings, refer to Table C-5 Port Literal Values for customizing your environment.

SMTP Port Number: 25 Enabling Auto Support is strongly recommended because it provides historical hardware counters that are valuable in diagnosing future hardware issues, such as a drive failure for a node. Fabric Interconnect Uplink Provisioning Prior to setting up the HyperFlex cluster, plan the upstream bandwidth capacity for optimal network traffic management. Figure 1. HyperFlex Data Platform Connectivity for a Single Host Set the default vSwitch NIC teaming policy and failover policy to yes to ensure that all management, vMotion, and storage traffic are locally forwarded to the fabric interconnects to keep the flow in steady state.

Figure 2. Traffic Flow in Steady State In case one or more server links fail, for instance, if Host 1 loses connectivity to Fabric A while Host 2 loses connectivity to Fabric B, the traffic must go through the upstream switches.

Figure 3. HyperFlex does not support IPv6 addresses. Each ESXi host needs the following networks. A minimum of 4 IP addresses.

Subnet mask For example, Default Gateway For example, Note Data and Management networks must be on different subnets. To define the storage cluster, provide the following parameters. Field Description Name Enter a name for the storage cluster. Data Replication Factor Data Replication Factor defines the number of redundant replicas of your data across the storage cluster.

This is set during HX Data Platform installation and cannot be changed. Choose a Data Replication Factor. The choices are: Data Replication Factor 3 —A replication factor of three is highly recommended for all environments except HyperFlex Edge. Attention This is the recommended option. Enable vMotion. Datacenter Name Note An existing datacenter object can be used. Enter the required name for the vCenter datacenter. Cluster Name Enter the required name for the vCenter cluster.

Note Before configuring the storage cluster, manually verify that the NTP server is working and providing a reliable source for the time. Note All the VMs must be in the same time zone. Yes C Rack Server delivers outstanding levels of expandability and performance in a two rack-unit 2RU form-factor. C Server delivers expandability in a one rack-unit 1RU form-factor. If you enable Auto Support, notifications are sent from HX Data Platform to designated email addresses or email aliases that you want to receive the notifications.

Note Enabling Auto Support is strongly recommended because it provides historical hardware counters that are valuable in diagnosing future hardware issues, such as drive failure for a node.

Was this Document Helpful? Yes No Feedback. Do not upgrade to these versions of firmware. New factory servers are shipped with appropriate disk partition settings. The below customized partitions provides enough data storage for an ESX server without the need to re-partition or re-install ESX. Make sure you have enough free space on the disk to support the partition sizes below. Select the correct timezone either by selecting your country, city on the map, or you can also set it manually by clicking on the Advanced button.

You can enter in an NTP server or manually select the time. Keeping the time synchronized among your ESX infrastructure is essential for logging purposes.

Enter in the root password. You can add additional accounts by clicking Add. In a production environment I would recommend setting additional users. By default ESX does not allow remote access to the system using the root account. This can be changed after installation by using this tutorial — Allow remote root access to ESX. You are finally presented with an installation summary. If you are happy with all the settings click Next to start the installation, otherwise click Back and make the necessary changes.

Installation is now complete. You are prompted to reboot to complete the installation.