VMware

VMware is by far one of the most popular platforms for virtualisation today. It allows to virtualise a plethora of different operating systems based on Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD, Apple and more.

VMware massively contributed to data centers density by reducing the compute resources required culminating into a SDDC offering (Software Defined Data Center) which provides the state of art Data Center.

VMware is also the most wide spread solution for creating and running homelab configurations. Either for testing, learning, sandbox or simply reproducing production scenarios it offers and ever growing line of separate solutions covering not just at the hypervisor level but also the Network with solution like the popular NSX and Storage like VSAN and VVOL. More is coming as well from a Container point of view with the recent adoption and inclusion in the ecosystem of Kubernetes.

This section covers the steps on how to deploy, install and configure different solutions including and not limited to:

•  vCenter

Windows based Server Appliance to manage the vSphere environment

• VCSA

Linux based Server Appliance to manage the vSphere environment

• vSphere

Suite of tools developed for cloud computing mainly based on VMware ESX/ESXi hypervisor Hosts

• VSAN

Virtual Storage Area Network part of the SDDC offering and working with enterprise solutions that support Hyperconverged (HCI) systems.

• VVOL

Virtual Volumes on VMware Datastores

• vCloud

Virtual Cloud Director for managing vApps and other resources from a single console. Typically deployed for large customers and Service Providers

• and more..

The idea is to provide the initial steps and then build up on configurations allowing to learn more about different solutions and why not also reproduce production environments just leveraging commodity hardware.