About this Course

This hands-on training course explores installation, configuration, and management of VMware® vSphere®, which consists of VMware ESXi™ and VMware® vCenter Server™. This course is based on versions of ESXi 5.5 and vCenter Server 5.5. Completion of this course satisfies the prerequisite for taking the VMware® Certified Professional 5 exam.

Audience Profile

• System administrators
• Systems engineers
• Operators responsible for ESXi and vCenter Server

At Course Completion

By the end of the course, you should understand vSphere 5.5 functions and features and be able to meet the following objectives:

• Deploy an ESXi host
• Deploy a vCenter Server instance
• Deploy a vCenter Server appliance
• Manage an ESXi host using vCenter Server
• Manage ESXi storage using vCenter Server
• Manage ESXi networking using vCenter Server
• Manage virtual machines using vCenter Server
• Deploy and manage thin-provisioned virtual machines
• Migrate virtual machines with VMware vSphere® vMotion®
• Manage vSphere infrastructure with VMware vSphere® Web Client
• Migrate virtual machines using VMware vSphere® Storage vMotion®
• Manage access control using vCenter Server
• Monitor resource usage using vCenter Server
• Manage VMware vSphere® High Availability, VMware vSphere® Fault Tolerance, and VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ using vCenter Server
• Apply patches using VMware® vCenter™ Update Manager™

Prerequisites

System administration experience on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems. Understanding of virtual data center concepts comparable to those needed for VCA-DCV certification.

Course Outline

1. Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

 2. Virtualized Data Center

• Introduce components of the virtualized data center
• Describe where vSphere fits into the cloud architecture
• Introduce VMware® vCenter™ Single Sign-on
• Install and use vSphere Web Client

 3. Creating Virtual Machines

• Introduce virtual machines, virtual machine hardware, and virtual machine files
• Deploy a single virtual machine

 4. VMware vCenter Server

• Introduce the vCenter Server architecture
• Introduce VMware® vCenter™ Server Appliance™
• Configure and manage vCenter Server Appliance
• Manage vCenter Server inventory objects and licenses

 5. Configuring and Managing Virtual Networks

• Describe, create, and manage a standard switch
• Describe and modify standard switch properties
• Configure virtual switch load-balancing algorithms

 6. Configuring and Managing Virtual Storage

• Introduce storage protocols and device names
• Configure ESXi with iSCSI, NFS, and Fibre Channel storage
• Create and manage vSphere datastores
• Deploy and manage VMware® Virtual SAN™

 7. Virtual Machine Management

• Use templates and cloning to deploy virtual machines
• Modify and manage virtual machines
• Create and manage virtual machine snapshots
• Perform vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion migrations
• Create a VMware vSphere® vApp(s)™

 8. Access and Authentication Control

• Control user access through roles and permissions
• Configure and manage the ESXi firewall
• Configure ESXi lockdown mode
• Integrate ESXi with Active Directory

 9. Resource Management and Monitoring

• Introduce virtual CPU and memory concepts
• Describe methods for optimizing CPU and memory usage
• Configure and manage resource pools
• Monitor resource usage using vCenter Server performance graphs and alarms

 10. High Availability and Fault Tolerance

• Introduce the new vSphere High Availability architecture
• Configure and manage a vSphere HA cluster
• Introduce vSphere Fault Tolerance
• Describe VMware vSphere® Replication

 11. Scalability

• Configure and manage a VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™ (DRS) cluster
• Configure Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
• Use vSphere HA and DRS together

 12. Patch Management

• Use vCenter Update Manager to manage ESXi patching
• Install vCenter Update Manager and the vCenter Update Manager plug-in
• Create patch baselines
• Scan and remediate hosts

 13. Installing VMware Components

• Introduce ESXi installation
• Describe boot-from-SAN requirements
• Introduce vCenter Server deployment options
• Describe vCenter Server hardware, software, and database requirements
• Install vCenter Server (Windows-based)