Course Description

This training course, for experienced VMware vSphere® personnel, teaches advanced skills for configuring and maintaining a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure.

The course is based on VMware vSphere® ESXi„ 5.0 and VMware® vCenter Server„ 5.1.This course prepares the student for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Datacenter Administration [V5] certification (VCAP5-DCA). Completion of this course also satisfies the prerequisite for taking the VMware Certified Professional 5 exam.

Target Student

Experienced system administrators and system integrators

Pre-Requisites

Completion of one of the following courses:

• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.1]
• VMware vSphere: What™s New [V5.1]
• VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V5.1]

Or Equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server

Experience working at the command prompt is highly recommended.

Instructor led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured hands-on activities

Course Objectives 

         Configure and manage ESXi networking and storage for a large and sophisticated enterprise.

         Manage changes to the vSphere environment.

         Optimize the performance of all vSphere components.

         Troubleshoot operational faults and identify their root causes.

         Use VMware vSphere® ESXi„ Shell and VMware vSphere®

         Management Assistant (vMA) to manage vSphere.

         Use VMware vSphere® Auto Deploy„ to provision ESXi hosts.

         Note: About one-third of the VMware vSphere: What™s New [V5.1] course content is repeated in this course. The scalability topics in VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V5.1] are repeated in this course.

Course Content

         Course Introduction

         Introductions and course logistics

         Course objectives

         VMware Management Resources

         Configure vMA

         Understand the esxcli and vicfg commands

         Configure ESXi technical support mode and SSH access

         Understand important ESXi and vCenter Server log files

         Performance in a Virtualized Environment

         Understand the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology

         Understand software and hardware virtualization techniques and their effects on performance

         Use vSphere performance monitoring tools

         Network Scalability

         Create, configure, and manage vSphere distributed switches

         Migrate virtual machines from standard switches to distributed switches

         Understand distributed switch features such as PVLANs,

         VMware vSphere® Network I/O Control, port mirroring, and NetFlow

         Network Optimization

         Understand performance features of network adapters

         Understand performance features of vSphere networking

         Monitor key network performance metrics

         Use vMA to manage virtual network configuration

         Troubleshoot common network performance problems

         Storage Scalability

         Configure storage multipathing

         Understand vSphere storage APIs for array integration and storage awareness

         Explain profile-driven storage

         Add a storage policy to a virtual machine storage profile

         Describe VMware vSphere® Storage DRS„ operation

         Configure Storage DRS and VMware vSphere® Storage I/O Control

         Storage Optimization

         Diagnose storage access problems

         Understand how storage protocols, VMware vSphere® VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance

         Monitor key storage performance metrics

         Use vMA to manage virtual storage

         Troubleshoot common storage performance problems

         CPU Optimization

         Understand CPU scheduler and other features that affect CPU performance

         Monitor key CPU performance metrics

         Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems

         Memory Optimization

         Understand memory reclamation techniques and overcommitment

         Monitor key memory performance metrics

         Troubleshoot common memory performance problems

         Virtual Machine and Cluster Optimization

         Understand performance guidelines for virtual machines, resource allocation settings, VMware vSphere® Distributed

         Resource Scheduler„ clusters, resource pools, and VMware vSphere® High Availability admission control policies

         Troubleshoot virtual machine power-on failures

         Troubleshoot vSphere cluster problems

         Host and Management Scalability

         Understand how vCenter Linked Mode manages multiple vCenter Server inventories

         Explain VMware vSphere® Distributed Power Management„

         Use Host Profiles to manage ESXi configuration compliance

         Use VMware vSphere® PowerCLI„ to perform vSphere administrative tasks#

         Use Image Builder to create an ESXi installation image

         Use vSphere Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts