About this Course

VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale is designed for experienced VMware vSphere® users. It teaches advanced skills for configuring and maintaining a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure. Through a mix of lecture and hands-on labs, you will configure and optimize the vSphere features that build a foundation for a truly scalable infrastructure and discuss when and where these features have the greatest effect. Anyone who is ready to take their understanding of vSphere to a deeper level and learn how to use advanced features and controls will greatly benefit from this course.

Audience Profile

• Experienced system administrators
• Systems engineers
• System integrators

At Course Completion

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

• 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
• Harden the vSphere environment against security threats
• 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

Prerequisites

Completion of one of the following courses:

• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [5.5 or 6]
• VMware vSphere: Fast Track

Or equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server

Experience working at the command prompt is highly recommended.

Course Outline

1.Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives
• Additional resources

2.VMware Management Resources

• Understand the purpose of VMware vSphere® Command-Line Interface commands
• Discuss options for running vSphere CLI commands
• Deploy and configure vSphere Management Assistant
• Use vmware-cmd for virtual machine operations

3.vSphere Security

• Describe the features and benefits of the Platform Services Controller
• Configure ESXi host access and authorization
• Secure ESXi, vCenter Server, and virtual machines

4.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

5.Network Scalability

• Create, configure, and manage vSphere distributed switches
• Migrate virtual machines from standard switches to distributed switches
• Explain distributed switch features such as port mirroring, LACP, QoS tagging, and NetFlow

6.Network Performance Troubleshooting

• 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

7.Storage Scalability

• Explain vSphere storage APIs for array integration and storage awareness
• Configure and assign virtual machine storage policies
• Configure VMware vSphere® Storage DRS™ and VMware vSphere® Storage I/O Control
• Create and use virtual volumes in vSphere

8.Storage Optimization

• Diagnose storage access problems
• Configure VMware vSphere® Flash Read Cache™
• Monitor key storage performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common storage performance problems

9.CPU Performance

• Explain the CPU scheduler operation, NUMA support, and other features that affect CPU performance
• Monitor key CPU performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems

10.Memory Performance

• 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

11.Virtual Machine and Cluster Optimization

• Describe guidelines for optimizing virtual machine configuration
• Discuss how vGPU usage affects virtual machine performance
• Discuss guidelines for using resource allocation settings
• Discuss guidelines for using resource pools
• Discuss guidelines for using vSphere DRS clusters
• Troubleshoot common vSphere cluster problems

12.Host and Management Scalability

• Describe and use host profiles
• Define and use content libraries
• Upgrade ESXi and vCenter Server instances
• Use VMware vSphere® PowerCLI™
• Use Virtual Machine Converter
• Use VMware vSphere® ESXi™ Image Builder CLI and vSphere Auto Deploy