I'm rebuilding my vsphere home lab from scratch. This is deck/video 1 - esxi 5.1 installation. See the whole video at my blog - http://wp.me/p2ngZY-4k

1. VMWARE VSPHERE
5.1HOME LAB BUILD Part I – ESXi installation
OUT

2. OVERVIEW
 Differences between ESXi 4.x and 5.x installs
 ESXi Installation Options
 Best Practices for ESXi 5.1 Installation
 My Lab Hardware
 The Install
 Next Steps
 In my blog post @ http://wp.me/p2ngZY-4k is the video of the install.

3. INSTALLATION DIFFERENCES
W/5.X
Service Console is gone – instead we’ll be using vCLI and PowerCLI
commands
No boot disk required – local or shared
No graphical installer
New installs use GUID partition table which supports disks larger than 2TB

4. INSTALL OPTIONS
ESXi can be installed using several methods:
1. Interactive – you sit at the server, boot the CD/DVD/USB/PXE installer,
and press Enter a few times
2. Scripted – can use PXE to kick off a scripted, unattended installation
3. Auto Deploy – several options
 Stateless Provisioning – vCenter loads the ESXi image into host memory. Can use with host
profiles but no ESXi state is stored on host disk.
 Stateful Provisioning – after initial provisioning by Auto Deploy, ESXi image and
configuration is stored on host accessible disk. Subsequent boots load the local image and
configuration.
 Stateless Caching – like Stateful except subsequent boots continue to use Auto Deploy
except when Auto Deploy not available – then the host boots off local “cached” image and
configuration.

5. BEST PRACTICES FOR ESXI
5.1 INSTALLATION
There is a “Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 5.1” that I
recommend reading. Pg. 17-37 are ESXi 5.1 specific. Also….
ESXi installation doc - “vSphere Installation and Setup – vSphere 5.1”
 “Recommendations for Enhanced ESXi Performance” pg. 31- 32
Ensure hardware is supported with the VMware Compatibility Guide
Minimum of 2GB RAM – the installer will not proceed if less
Place the management network and vm network on different physical NICs
 Even in a home lab if possible have at least 2 ports, preferably 4 (I’ll cover later)

6. MY LAB HARDWARE
Switch 1
2Gb LAG
Switch 2
My PC w/ Iomega
HP MicroServer HP MicroServer
Dedicated PC w/ iSCSI
VMware AMD 2core/8GB AMD 2core/8GB
VMware Workstation
Workstation
AMD 4core/8GB
AMD 4core/8GB

7. INSTALL
1. Boot physical server to CD and run install
 Autoconfiguration Mode
2. Basic configuration to get “on net”
 Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) aka Direct Console ESXi Interface
3. Install client from new host
4. Mention next video – ESXi configuration