In this course, you'll learn how to configure and maintain a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure. The course is based on VMware ESXi™ 5.5 and VMware® vCenter Server™ 5.5.
What You'll Learn
- 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 to manage vSphere
- Use VMware vSphere Auto Deploy™ to provision ESXi hosts
Who Needs to Attend
- Experienced system administrators
- Systems engineers and integrators
Prerequisites
The courses below or equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server. Experience working at the command prompt is highly recommended.
- VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.5]
- VMware vSphere: What's New [V4.x to V5.5]
Follow-On Courses
There are no follow-ons for this course.
Certification Programs and Certificate Tracks
This course is part of the following programs or tracks:
- VMware Certified Professional - Datacenter Virtualization (VCP-DCV)
- VMware Certified Advanced Professional - Datacenter Administration (VCAP-DCA)
Course Outline
1. Course Introduction
- Introductions and course logistics
- Course objectives
2. VMware Management Resources
- Deploy and configure vSphere Management Assistant
- Configure ESXi technical support mode and SSH access
- Use the esxcli, vicfg, and vmware-cmd commands
- Review ESXi and vCenter Server log files
3. Performance in a Virtualized Environment
- Review the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology
- Explain software and hardware virtualization techniques and their effects on performance
- Use vSphere performance monitoring tools
4. Network Scalability
- Create, configure, and manage vSphere distributed switches
- Migrate virtual machines from standard switches to distributed switches
- Explain distributed switch features such as PVLANs, VMware vSphere® Network I/O Control, port mirroring, LACP, and NetFlow
5. Network Optimization
- Explain the performance features of network adapters
- Explain the performance features of vSphere networking
- Monitor key network performance metrics
- Use vSphere Management Assistant to manage virtual network configurations
- Troubleshoot common network performance problems
6. Storage Scalability
- Explain vSphere storage APIs for array integration and storage awareness
- Configure profile-driven storage
- Add a storage policy to a virtual machine storage profile
- Configure VMware vSphere Storage DRS™ and VMware vSphere Storage I/O Control
7. Storage Optimization
- Diagnose storage access problems
- Explain how storage protocols, VMware vSphere VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance
- Explain vSphere Flash Read Cache
- Monitor key storage performance metrics
- Use vSphere Management Assistant to manage virtual storage
- Troubleshoot common storage performance problems
8. CPU Optimization
- Explain the CPU scheduler operation, NUMA support, and other features that affect CPU performance
- Monitor key CPU performance metrics
- Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems
9. Memory Optimization
- Explain ballooning, memory compression, and host swapping techniques for memory reclamation when memory is overcommitted
- Monitor key memory performance metrics
- Troubleshoot common memory performance problems
10. Virtual Machine and Cluster Optimization
- Describe 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
11. Host and Management Scalability
- 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
Labs
Five days of instructor-led training
- 60% lecture, 40% hands-on lab
