This class is an intensive 5-day introduction to VMware's vSphere™ including VMware ESXi™ 4 and vCenter™ 4.1 delivered in 5, 10 hour days. It is intended for experienced Windows and Linux administrators who need to take charge of their VMware implementation/operation and then drive it to the max.

No prior virtualization experience is assumed, but a willingness to work hard is required! This class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to advanced topics. More than 40% of class time is devoted to labs so technical skill development and best practices are reinforced.

All key aspects of VMware vSphere 4.1 are covered - from installation of ESXi and vCenter through to resource & power management, back up & recovery, monitoring and alarms, load balancing, service availability, and much more. Each topic is presented from the perspective of delivering key business and/or economic value - not just the technical or mechanical aspects of the software. Advanced topics address both vSphere and Virtual Machine scalability, performance, reliability, availability and security.

By the end of the class, attendees will have learned the benefits, skills, and best practices of virtualization. Attendees will be able to design, implement, deploy, configure, monitor, manage and troubleshoot VMware vSphere 4.1.

VMware Training Objectives

At the end of the course, attendees will be able to:

• Explain the many significant benefits of virtualization
• Install ESXi Server according to best practices
• Configure and manage local storage
• Create virtual, distributed virtual, and virtual to physical LAN segments
• Connect to, and use NAS datastores
• Create virtual machines, install operating systems and applications
• Hotplug virtual hardware including CPUs, RAM, NICs, Disks and USB
• Install, configure and administer VMware vCenter
• Rapidly deployment of VMs using golden-master templates
• Create clones - one-time copies of virtual machine
• Use VMware vNetwork Distributed vSwitches to deliver consistent network configurations
• Understand and use shared SAN storage including Fibre and iSCSI SANs
• Perform VM cold migrations, hot migrations and Storage VMotion
• Use VMware Consolidated Back Up to back up and restore running VMs
• Use VMware Data Recovery to back up and recover VMs and files
• Configure, manage, monitor and secure users and groups
• Create and manage Distributed Resource Schedule load balanced clusters
• Understand and use Distributed Power Management
• Create and manage VMware High Availability clusters to protect against VM service loss caused by ESXi server failures
• Use Fault Tolerance to eliminate unplanned VM down time
• Monitor and tune both ESXi and virtual machine performance
• Patch management using vCenter Update Manager
• Understand how VMware and third party products, including operating systems, are impacted by virtualization
• Create and run distributed applications using VMware vApp
• Create and enforce server configuration with Host Profiles
• Troubleshoot common problems