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:
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