Free E-book: How to setup nested VMware vSphere lab on a PC or laptop? Ever wanted to test the latest vSphere Suite without having enough hardware? Features like vMotion, Fault Tolerance, DRS (distributed ressource scheduler) or HA (High Availability) can be tested in nested environment by using VMware Workstation.
In VMware Workstation 9 you can directly choose to install ESXi host, as a virtual machine. An ESXi 4.x and ESXi 5.x are two templates added to the drop down menu when choosing to install ESXi. The whole process of setting up vSphere Lab on a PC or laptop can be challenging. Especially for new people coming to learn something new about virtualization. You have to save every Gb of space, because the solution must obviously run on a SSD drive.
That’s why I started this little project – a Free E-book. I’m giving away a small E-book to download for free. In this e-book you’ll be able to find the exact step-by-step instructions with screenshots on how to setup the lab. You’ll find the exact steps to do in order to install and configure VMware vSphere lab in nested environment. I’m not saying that this is the ONLY way it can be done…. -:)
What’s inside of the E-book?
- What you’ll need to get started (hardware, software..)
- The network design of vSphere lab in VMware Workstation
- Preparation of Windows templates used to save disk space (linked clones)
- Installation of nested ESXi hosts
- Instalation of vCenter
- Choosing shared storage in order to implement HA, vMotion and FT
- Network design of nested ESXi hosts
- Bonus chapter.. -:)
The E-book is free, if you sign up to our weekly newsletter. You’ll receive weekly e-mail with the latest articles from the blog. ESX Virtualization website has the latest news from virtualization, news and how-to articles and videos.
Actually, why would one want to run nested vSphere lab? What would be the reasons to push people to run nested ESXi hosts? For several reasons nested lab is the only way that some of us. Here are some of those reasons:
Financial – usually to build a physical lab cost some real money. You’ll need at least 2 whiteboxes, shared storage, management station, switches….People who don’t have the money to build a decent lab at home to learn stuff can use the possibility to run nested hypervisors in order to test quickly the configuration. Usually everyone has a PC or Laptop at home with Intel x64 capable CPU. So with simple adding an SSD to run VMs on it you can
- Polyvalency – The PC or laptop where you’ll install the necessary components can of course be used for other stuff, games, etc… You can do more with a PC or laptop running linux or Windows and having your nested vSphere lab running inside of VMware Workstation 8.
- Ecological - You don’t want to end up each month with an astronomical electricity bill, and, you do want to save the planet, right? Another reason to build a nested VMware vSphere lab !
I hope that you’ll enjoy it and it will be usefull.
Article by Vladan SEGET
Vladan is as an Independent consultant, vExpert 2009 - 2013, VCP 4/5 and owner of this website. Feel free to subscribe via RSS
Great Vladan. I am a regular visitor of your blogs and I find quite useful VM stuss. Greatly appriciated.
I have been a follower of yor blog for a few years now and find it very informative. I recently started looking at the new esxi5 and wanted to test it in a virtual lab. I registered for your sphere lab free book but I can’t seem to be able to down load it. Pls help.
The download link is in the follow-up Welcome e-mail message, when you subscribed. If you did not threw it away yet, you can just right click the link which is in that message. Otherwise you can un-subscribe and subscribe again, to get this welcome e-mail sent again.
Best regards,
Vladan
Hi Vladan!
It´s the same to me. I can´t see the book “vsphere lab on PC” free ebook and i did not receive the link in folow-up welcome. I test two ou three times and the link didn´t came.
Best Regards
Carlos
You’ll receive the E-book the next business day.
it’s the same for me
@vladan – Signed up for your newsletter on friday and have yet to receive the download link and welcome follow up email
I’m still working on a solution with my e-mail service provider to deliver this right away. Right now, pls. allow one business day. You’ll get the download link through e-mail. Check your spam folder as well.
Best
Vladan
i didn’t receive that download link yet. could you please send that link ? my email [email protected]
Hi Vladan,
many thanks for sharing your knowledge. Since I’m currently renewing my homelab hardware these are very valuable ressources
Sincerely
Marco
Hello, thank you very much for your booklet. I was able to do vMotion and Storage vMotion on VMware Workstation 8 with no problems. However, I was unable to get FT to work. Errors included “long mode is disabled for this virtual machine” and “using software virtualization with a software MMU. Hardware MMU virtualization with Record/Replay is unsupported.” My processor is a desktop i5-2400 which does have support for EM64T and VT-x. Or must I have a Xeon as described in the VMware knowledge base: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008027
Try adding this to your Primary and secondary VMs. (in the VMX file):
replay.allowBTOnly = TRUE
hi guys
i have cpu core i 5 760 and i cant enable FT in host nested workstation 8 because my cpu dont support This feature. in esxi5 also get error that the host dont support FT check host.
can i enable FT in my workstation for test?
hi vladan.thanks for you book it was very useful and i can implement nested esxi5 inside of my pc but when i turn on FT secondary vm be create but in windows loading be hang and FT be Stop but Secondary vm steel ON What do you Think?