vSphere Configuration and Management will show the students most of the new features within vSphere while still giving them the backdrop of the older virtualization technologies. This class gives them a good base of knowledge on how to install and configure vSphere in an enterprise environment.

The vSphere Configuration and Management class will provide the administrators who are new to virtualization and those who have experience with virtualization with a solid understanding of VMware virtualization. The student will have plenty of opportunity to install and configure the various features of vSphere. The class is approximately 50% lecture and 50% demo and lab. The class will show some of the new features of vSphere while still teaching the critical pieces of VMware virtualization that are not new to vSphere 5.0. There is no expected history of virtualization experience or training for the students. Experience with networks and various operating systems will be very beneficial.

Course duration

5 days

VMware Training Course outline

I. Introduction

II. What is virtualization?
      a. VMware products
          i. ESXi
          ii. vCenter
          iii. VMware Server
          iv. VMware Player
          v. VMware Workstation
      b. Other virtualization products
      c. Virtualization on top of general purpose O/S
      d. Virtualization as the operating system

III. Installation and Configuration of ESXi
      a. VMware's Enterprise Product Line
          i. ESXi
          ii. vCenter
          iii. vSphere Client
      b. ESXi
          i. Hardware supported
          ii. Min/Max
          iii. Install ESXi
          iv. Console interface
          v. Management
               1. Local user accounts and Shell Access
               2. vSphere Client
                  a. Supported operating systems
                  b. Installation
               3. System logs
      c. Virtualization Layer
          i. VMkernel
          ii. 4 Core resources
               1. CPU
               2. RAM
               3. Disk
               4. NIC
      d. Physical Hardware
      e. What is a Virtual Machine?
          i. Other virtual hardware
      f. ESXi Virtual machines
          i. Files
      g. Best Practices

IV. vCenter
      a. Management Suite
      b. Added functionality
          i. Templates
          ii. DRS
          iii. DPM
          iv. HA
          v. Management of Multiple ESXi hosts
          vi. Distributed vSwitch
      c. Installation
          i. SQL - local or remote?
          ii. SQL Express?
          iii. As a VM?
      d. Join ESXi hosts

V. Networking
      a. Standard vSwitch
          i. Port Groups
               1. VMkernel
               2. Service Console
               3. Virtual Machine Network
               4. VLAN
               5. Security
               6. Bandwidth shaping
          ii. Physical NIC
               1. Uplink
               2. NIC teaming
          iii. Virtual NIC
          iv. Network I/O Control
      b. Distributed vSwitch
          i. Advantages
          ii. Owned and Managed by vCenter
          iii. Nexus 1000v overview
      c. Best Practices

VI. Shared and Local Storage
      a. Local
          i. RAID
      b. Shared
          i. NFS
          ii. iSCSI
               1. Hardware vs Software Initiator
          iii. Fibre Channel
          iv. Multipathing
      c. vSphere File System
      d. Storage I/O Control
      e. vSphere Storage DRS

VII. Virtual Machines and Rapid VM Creation and Deployment
      a. Virtual Machine version 8
      b. Templates
      c. Deploy VM from Template
      d. Snapshots and snapshot management
      e. Virtual Appliances
      f. Best Practices

VIII. Physical to Virtual (P2V)
      a. Guided Consolidation
      b. P2V
      c. V2V
      d. Best Practices

IX. Access Control
      a. AD Domain Admin and local admin have full control by default
      b. RBAC
      c. Default Roles
      d. Custom Roles
      e. Create Microsoft user and Group accounts and attach to VMware Role
      f. Best Practices

X. Resource Allocation and Performance
      a. Core Resources
      b. Limits
      c. Shares
      d. Reservations
      e. Resource Management
      f. Resource Pools
      g. Best Practices

XI. Performance and Resource Monitoring
      a. VMkernel memory and CPU scheduling
      b. HT vs multiple cores
      c. Resource tabs using VIC
      d. CLI via SSH (using putty)

XII. Data Protection
      a. Manual Backup of VMs
      b. VMware Data Recovery

XIII. Scalability
      a. vMotion
      b. DRS
      c. Storage DRS
      d. vCenter Linked Mode
      e. Host Profiles

XIV. High Availability and Power Management
      a. HA
      b. VMware Fault Tolerance
      c. DPM

XV. Update Management
      a. Traditional - WSUS
      b. Virtual Infrastructure - VUM

XVI. Deploy, Upgrade and Patch Management
      a. vSphere Auto-Deploy
      b. Upgrade 4.1 to 5.0
      c. ESX to ESXi

XVII. Licensing

XVIII. Overview of New Features of vSphere 5.0