VMware Data Center & vSphere Foundation — Career Accelerator

Logistics and objectives.

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

Where vSphere fits.

• Explain basic virtualization concepts
• Describe how vSphere fits in the software-defined data center and the cloud infrastructure
• Recognize the user interfaces for accessing vSphere
• Explain how vSphere interacts with CPUs, memory, networks, storage and GPUs

Build the hosts.

• Install an ESXi host
• Recognize ESXi user account best practices
• Configure ESXi host settings using the DCUI and VMware Host Client
• Lab: vCenter and ESXi hostsLab

Central management.

• Recognize how ESXi hosts communicate with vCenter
• Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance
• Configure vCenter settings
• Use the vSphere Client to add and manage license keys
• Create and organize vCenter inventory objects
• Recognize the rules for applying vCenter permissions
• View vCenter logs and events

Virtual switches and policies.

• Configure and view standard switch configurations
• Configure and view distributed switch configurations
• Recognize the difference between standard switches and distributed switches
• Explain how to set networking policies on standard and distributed switches
• Lab: virtual networkingLab

Datastores and storage protocols.

• Recognize vSphere storage technologies
• Identify types of vSphere datastores
• Describe Fibre Channel components and addressing
• Describe iSCSI components and addressing
• Configure iSCSI storage on ESXi
• Create and manage VMFS datastores
• Configure and manage NFS datastores
• Lab: datastores and storageLab

Create, template and clone.

• Create and provision VMs
• Explain the importance of VMware Tools
• Identify the files that make up a VM
• Recognize the components of a VM
• Navigate the vSphere Client and examine VM settings and options
• Modify VMs by dynamically increasing resources
• Create VM templates and deploy VMs from them
• Clone VMs
• Create customization specifications for guest operating systems
• Create local, published and subscribed content libraries
• Deploy VMs from content libraries
• Manage multiple versions of VM templates in content libraries
• Lab: create a virtual machineLab

Migrations, snapshots and resources.

• Recognize the types of VM migrations within a vCenter instance and across vCenter instances
• Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion
• Describe the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility in migrations
• Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Take a snapshot of a VM
• Manage, consolidate and delete snapshots
• Describe CPU and memory concepts in a virtualized environment
• Describe how VMs compete for resources
• Define CPU and memory shares, reservations and limits
• Lab: snapshots, templates and Content LibraryLab

HA and DRS.

• Create a vSphere cluster enabled for vSphere DRS and vSphere HA
• View information about a vSphere cluster
• Explain how vSphere DRS determines VM placement on hosts in the cluster
• Recognize use cases for vSphere DRS settings
• Monitor a vSphere DRS cluster
• Describe how vSphere HA responds to various types of failures
• Identify options for configuring network redundancy in a vSphere HA cluster
• Recognize vSphere HA design considerations
• Recognize the use cases for various vSphere HA settings
• Configure a vSphere HA cluster
• Recognize when to use vSphere Fault Tolerance
• Lab: vMotion, HA and DRSLab

Updates and upgrades.

• Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager in a vSphere cluster
• Describe features of the vCenter Update Planner
• Run vCenter upgrade prechecks and interoperability reports
• Recognize features of vSphere Lifecycle Manager
• Distinguish between managing hosts using baselines and managing hosts using images
• Describe how to update hosts using baselines
• Describe ESXi images
• Validate ESXi host compliance against a cluster image and update ESXi hosts
• Update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager
• Describe vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatic recommendations
• Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade VMware Tools and VM hardware

Introductions, course logistics and objectives.

• Introduction and course logistics
• Course objectives

The key features, use cases, architecture and components of vSphere Foundation, and the VCF Operations UI.

• Define the vSphere Foundation key features
• Explain vSphere Foundation use cases
• Explain the architecture of vSphere Foundation
• Explore the components of vSphere Foundation
• Introduction to VCF Operations
• Navigate the VCF Operations UI and the vSphere UI

Managing and assigning licenses and enabling VCF Operations integration for vCenter.

• Describe the process for managing and assigning licenses
• Enable VCF Operations integration for vCenter
• Explain license usage by product

Virtualization concepts, vSphere architecture, installing ESXi and organising vCenter inventory.

• Explain basic virtualization concepts
• Describe how vSphere fits in the software-defined data center
• Describe vSphere architecture and use cases
• Recognize the user interfaces for accessing vSphere
• Install and configure the ESXi host
• Create and organize vCenter inventory objects

Standard and distributed switches and networking policies.

• Create and configure a standard switch
• Create and configure a distributed switch
• Differentiate between standard and distributed switches
• Explain how to set networking policies

vSphere storage technologies, datastore types, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, VMFS and NFS.

• Recognize vSphere storage technologies
• Identify the types of vSphere datastores
• Describe Fibre Channel components and addressing
• Describe iSCSI components and addressing
• Configure iSCSI storage on ESXi
• Create and manage VMFS datastores
• Configure and manage NFS datastores

Creating and provisioning VMs, VMware Tools, clones, customization and content libraries.

• Create and provision VMs
• Explain the importance of VMware Tools
• Manage a virtual machine from the vSphere Client
• Manage virtual machine resources
• Clone VMs and create customization specifications for guest operating systems
• Create local, published, and subscribed content libraries

vMotion and Storage vMotion, snapshots, and CPU/memory resource controls.

• Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion and Storage vMotion
• Perform snapshot operations
• Specify CPU and memory shares, reservations, and limits

Building clusters with vSphere DRS and vSphere HA.

• Create a vSphere cluster enabled for vSphere DRS and vSphere HA
• Explain how vSphere DRS determines VM placement on hosts
• Describe how vSphere HA responds to various types of failures
• Identify options for configuring network redundancy in a vSphere HA cluster
• Recognize vSphere HA design considerations
• Configure a vSphere HA cluster

vSAN features, OSA vs ESA, object health and RAID space consumption.

• Identify the features of vSAN
• Understand the key differences between vSAN OSA and vSAN ESA
• Explain the role of the performance leg and the capacity leg in vSAN ESA
• Examine vSAN ESA object health states
• Compare RAID-0/1/5/6 space consumption
• Identify vSAN component states

vSphere Supervisor architecture, deployment, namespaces and VKS clusters.

• Describe vSphere Supervisor architecture and use cases
• Explain vSphere Supervisor deployment options
• Install vSphere Supervisor
• Explain Supervisor zones, networking and storage
• Configure vSphere Namespaces for hosting VKS clusters
• Manage vSphere Kubernetes Service clusters

Views, reports, dashboards and alerts in VCF Operations.

• Outline the role of metrics in VCF Operations
• Create and configure views and reports in VCF Operations
• Create and configure dashboards and widget interactions
• Describe the purpose of alerts and the components of an alert definition
• Create static symptom definitions

Preparing the infrastructure and deploying vSphere Foundation with the VCF Installer.

• Prepare the infrastructure for VMware vSphere Foundation
• Identify the information required for the Planning and Preparation Workbook
• Download the software using online and offline modes
• Deploy vSphere Foundation using the VCF Installer UI and a JSON spec file
• Deploy and enable VCF Operations Collector, VCF Operations for Logs and VCF Operations Orchestrator
• Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance

vCenter Update Planner and vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

• Describe features of the vCenter Update Planner
• Run vCenter upgrade prechecks and interoperability reports
• Recognize features of vSphere Lifecycle Manager
• Validate and update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager
• Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade VMware Tools and VM hardware