A task-oriented guide with over 150 practical recipes to install, configure, and manage VMware vSphere components About This Book Explore the use of command line interface (CLI) to consistently configure the environment and automate it reasonably - Discover the best practices to deploy stateless and statefull ESXi hosts and upgrade them - Simplified and to-the-point theory to manage vSphere Storage and Networking Environment Who This Book Is For This is an excellent handbook for system administrators, support professionals, or for anyone intending to give themselves a headstart in learning how to install, configure, and manage a vSphere environment. It is also a good task-oriented reference guide for consultants or infrastructure architects who design and deploy vSphere environments. What You Will Learn Upgrade your existing vSphere environment to vSphere 5.5 or build a new one - Autodeploy a large set of stateless/stateful ESXi hosts in your vSphere environment - Configure vSphere networking using standard or distributed virtual switches - Configure and manage FC, iSCSI, and NAS storage - Configure high availability, load distribution, and power savings on an ESXi cluster using vSphere HA, DRS, and DPM - Patch and upgrade the vSphere environment using vSphere Update Manager - Use vSphere Management Assistant as a remote command-line interface - Discover the built-in tools available for monitoring the performance of a vSphere environment In Detail VMware is still the undisputed leader in providing virtualization solutions ranging from server virtualization to storage and network virtualization. VMware vSphere is the industry's most complete and robust virtualization platform, transforming data centers into dramatically simplified cloud infrastructures. VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook will walk you through the procedures involved in installing or upgrading your current vSphere environment to Version 5.5 and also help you perform the most common administration tasks ranging from configuring HA, DRS, and DPM, configuring storage and networking, to patching/upgrading using vSphere Update Manager, performing remote CLI operations using VMA, and monitoring the performance of a vSphere environment. This book is written with simplified and to-the-point theory eliminating the need for lengthy reading before performing a task. Most of the tasks are accompanied with relevant screenshots and flowcharts to facilitate your understanding.