VMware

VMware vSphere is still central to many enterprise environments. It provides the virtualization layer that turns physical hosts into pools of compute, storage, and network resources for production workloads.

Part of my Infrastructure learning notes.

Core components

Component	Role
ESXi	Hypervisor running directly on physical hosts
vCenter	Central management for hosts, VMs, clusters, and policies
vSphere	The broader platform including compute, storage, and networking features
vMotion	Live migration of running VMs between hosts
HA / DRS	High availability and resource balancing across clusters

What operators manage daily

Host and cluster health
VM creation, sizing, and placement
Datastore capacity and performance
Network port groups and VLAN mapping
Patching and version upgrades
Migration planning between vCenter environments

Common migration pattern

Inventory current VMs and dependencies
        ↓
Validate compute, storage, and network on target
        ↓
Migrate with vMotion / storage vMotion / cold migration
        ↓
Validate application behavior and monitoring
        ↓
Document new placement and rollback path

UCS integration

In Cisco UCS environments, VMware hosts are often deployed from service profiles that standardize BIOS, boot policy, vNIC/vHBA layout, and firmware. That makes host builds repeatable and reduces configuration drift.

Operational lessons

Cluster design matters more than individual host specs
Storage latency often drives VM performance complaints
Snapshot misuse creates long-term risk
Upgrade planning should include both vCenter and ESXi compatibility matrices