Knowledge

• Identify minimum hardware requirements
  The minimum hardware requirements are stated in the Installation Guide or the Best Practice Guide. In short these are 
  • for: ESX
  • VMware ESX 4.0 will only install and run on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.
  • 2 GB RAM
    
    For vCenter Server the specs are:
  • Processor – 2 CPUs 2.0GHz or higher Intel or AMD x86 processors. Processor may be higher if the database runs on the same machine.
  • Memory – 3GB RAM. RAM requirements may be higher if your database runs on the same machine.
  • Disk storage – 2GB. Disk requirements may be higher if your database runs on the same machine.
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express disk requirements. The bundled database requires up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation archive.
  • Networking – 1Gbit recommended.
• Download, prepare and validate installation media
  You can download the ISO files from the VMware website if you have a valid log in ID and are authorized to download vSphere ISO files. To check you can use the MD5 checksum and during installation the verification step in the wizard. The ISO files can be mounted using tools like iLO, Daemon tools of the VI Client. When physical installation media is required the ISO file needs to be burned to a CD / DVD. Native support is available in Windows 7 and Mac OSX. Other OSes require a third party tool.
• Determine appropriate ESX/ESXi configuration in a given situation
  • Obtain required information for environment
    Obtain information on the following aspects about your environment:
    • System compatibility
    • I/O compatibility (Network and HBA cards)
    • Storage compatibility
    • Backup software compatibility
  • Verify hardware against the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide
    Before purchasing hardware it is best to validate against the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide (HCL). This ensures the correct function of the ESX OS on the hardware and ensures VMware support. You can find the HCL here.
• Perform a custom installation
  • Customize storage layout for given situations
    ESX hosts have required and optional partitions.
    /boot and vmkcore are physical partitions. /, swap, /var/log, and all the optional partitions are stored on a virtual disk called esxconsole-<system-uuid>/esxconsole.vmdk. The virtual disk is stored in a VMFS volume.
    You can read all about the required partitions here.
    And all about the optional partitions here.
• Configure ESXi from the direct console
  You can log on to the console the manage the system (if that is what they mean here…).
• Configure ESX/ESXi NTP
  Both ESX and ESXi can use an NTP (Time Server) for the time sync. This ensures that the ESX clock is always up to date.
  
  GUI
  The configure a time server change this in “Time Configuration” in the tab Configuration when a ESX server is selected
  
  CLI
  Edit:
  

  /etc/ntp.conf

  and add the time servers you deem necessary. For example:
  

  server 0.nl.pool.ntp.org

• Manage ESX/ESXi licensing
  • Compare/Contrast VMware vSphere editions
    VMware has two lines of editions. One for Small Business and one for mid-size and Enterprise. Both lines combined this leads to 7 version of the product, 3 aimed at small businesses and 4 aimed at medium and enterprise corporations. These versions differ on the amount of resources supported and the supported functionality. You can find a schematic overview here.
  Manage license keys
  License reporting and management are centralized. If you upgrade all your hosts, you no longer need a license server or host-based license files. All product licenses are encapsulated in 25-character license keys that you can manage and monitor from vCenter Server. Each host requires a license, and each vCenter Server instance requires a license. You cannot assign multiple license keys to a host or to a vCenter Server system. You can license multiple hosts with one license key if the key has enough capacity for more than one host. Likewise, you can license multiple vCenter Server instances with one license key if the key has a capacity greater than one.
  
  When you apply a minor upgrade or patch the ESX/ESXi or vCenter Server software, you do not need to replace the existing license key with a new one. If you upgrade the edition of the license (for example, from standard to enterprise), you must replace the existing license key in the inventory with a new upgraded license key.

Tools

• VMware Hardware Compatibility Guid
• VMware ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server Installation Guide
• Configuration Maximums Guide
• Product Documentation
• VMware Virtualization Toolkit