If you are interested in getting started using VMware on Sun servers, then a quick start guide by Ron Graham is certainly a resource worth reading. This document goes through the basic steps of setting up VMware Infrastructure 3 functionality on the Sun Fire X4150.

Designed for system administrators, the 10-page PDF provides an evaluation guide that concisely summarizes information available on the VMware Website into a single document to facilitate the process.

Screen shots help guide readers through the topics presented, which include installing VirtualCenter Server, the VI Client, and ESX Server, along with how to start the VI Client and configure the Sun Storage 7210 Unified Storage System which is used as shared storage.

Some highlights in Graham's document involve installing the VMware Infrastructure client and VirtualCenter server components separately or on the same Windows system. He notes that this process will use the default Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express database that comes with VirtualCenter server. However, for production environments, Sun recommends using an Oracle or a SQL Server database, and that the VirtualCenter Server is installed on Windows 2003 or 2008.

Installation of the ESX Server software on the Sun Fire X4150 uses the graphical installer. To accept the hard drive located on the Sun Fire X4150, the partitions should remain the same and the installation will automatically select the first disk. If no disk drives appear, reboot the machine and press the key required (crtl-S) to enter the machine’s hard drive setup page.

The VI Client is the interface to VirtualCenter Server and ESX hosts, so management of the VirtualCenter Server as well as all the ESX hosts and virtual machines are done via the VI client. ESX Server hosts serve as the virtualization platform for the virtual machines. Hosts provide the CPU and memory resources to the virtual machines, give virtual machines access to storage, and offer network connectivity. In the event of a VirtualCenter failure, the VI Client can connect to ESX Server hosts directly and then each of them can be managed individually as a standalone host.

More Information

VMware on Sun Quick Start Guide

VMware Products

Sun Fire X4150 Server Product page

Sun Storage 7210 Product Page [...read more...]

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