This powerful 5-day 10hr/day class is an intensive introduction to VMware vSphere™ 5 including VMware ESX™ 5 and vCenter™. Assuming no prior virtualization experience, this class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to advanced topics. 40+% of class time is devoted to labs so concepts, skills and best practices are developed and reinforced. Labs start with installation and configuration of stand-alone ESXi servers and progress to shared storage, networking and centralized management. The class continues to advanced topics including resource balancing, high availability, power management, back up and recovery, performance, vCenter redundancy, VM redundancy. Disaster recovery, rapid deployment, hot migration and workload consolidation are also covered. This class is unique in its approach; which is to identify and eliminate common IT pain points and then to use virtualization to deliver clear, tangible benefits. Each topic is presented from the perspective of delivering key business value; not just the technical or mechanical aspects of the software. 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 5.0.

VMware Training Audience

System Architects, security specialists, analysts, back-up and storage administrators.

VMware Training Prerequisites

Attendees should have user, operator or administrator experience on common operating systems such as Microsoft Windows®, Linux™, UNIX™, etc. Experience installing, configuring and managing operating systems, storage systems and or networks is useful but not required. All attendees should have a basic familiarity with PC server hardware, disk partitioning, IP addressing, O/S installation, networking, etc

Course duration

5 days.

VMware Training Course outline


1. Introduction to vSphere 5.0


VMware vSphere
Problems and Opportunities
Server Resource Utilization
Server Consolidation
Datacenter Issues
OS, Application Imaging
Back Up & Recovery
Server Refresh
Hardware Maintenance
High Windows OS Costs
MS Virtualization Calculator
Disaster Recovery
Test, Development & QA
IT Technical Career Benefits
Virtualization Over Time
VMware ESXi
vSphere Hardware Limits
Small Business Bundles
vRAM
VMware vCenter
Single Host Deployment
Multiple ESXi w. Shared Storage
vSphere Private Cloud
Cloud Computing
Storage, Server, Network Cloud
New Features in vSphere 5
VMSF and SSD

2. VMware ESXi 5.0


Scalable ESXi Deployment
Installing ESXi
Hardware Virtualization Assist
ESXi 5.0
ESXi Configuration
Configure Management Network
Select Management NIC(s)
IP, DNS Configuration
Custom DNS Suffixes
Network Changes and Test
ESXi Ready for Service
Security Warning
vSphere Client>ESXi Host
ESXi > Configuration
User Groups, Host Roles
Properties
Sizing ESXi CPU, Memory, Storage,
NICs

3. Virtual Networking

Virtual Hardware
Virtual and Physical Networking
ESXi Networking
Project Plan
vNetwork Switches
Standard vSwitches
Distributed vSwitches
Physical and Virtual Networking
Multi-homed Networking
Port Groups
vSwitch Properties
Add Network Wizards
ESXi Physical NICs
vSwitch Rules

4. NAS/NFS

Network Attached Storage / Network
File System
NAS Options
Network File System
NAS/NFS Uses
Defining NFS Shares on Linux
NFS Share in Storage Roster
NAS/NFS Trade-offs
Troubleshooting NFS

5. Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines & Hardware
Creating Virtual Machines
Datastore Browser
New Virtual Machine Wizard
Multicore vCPUs
VM Wizard Memory, Disk
Snapshot Manager
Complete the Virtual Machine
Remote Console
VMware Tools
USXi 5.0 Supports USB
Windows Performance Tips
Supported Guest OS

6. vCenter

Central Management w. vCenter
Introduction to vCenter
Licensed Add-On Features
vCenter Deployment
Supported Databases
MS SQL Express
vCenter is a Management Proxy
Database Size Estimates
Install/Select Database
vCenter uses a Java VM
vSphere Client Plug-ins
Restart vCenter
Home View
Organizing Inventory
Folders in Datacenters
VMs run on Clusters
Resource Maps
Licensing
vCenter Power Management
Power Mgt. uses Wake on LAN
VM Actions
Web Access

7. Templates, Clones

VM Rapid Deployment
Template Theory
Template Benefits
Disk Formats
Creating a New Template
Clone a VM
Clone a Template
Windows VM Customization
Non-Windows OS Customization
Virtual Appliance / Pros and
Cons
Import/ Export Virtual
Appliances
Adding Virtual Hardware
All VMs Support Simple
Changes
Hot Add Virtual Disk
Hot Grow Disks

7.1 Advanced Virtual Hardware

VM Customizations
To Change vCPU Properties
Hotplug Hardware
Converting Virtual Disks
Raw Device Map (RDM)
Microsoft Cluster Services

8. Permissions

Permission Privileges, Roles, Users
Determining Permissions
Privilege Hierarchy
Role Assignments
vCenter Users, Groups
View vCenter Base Permissions
ESXi Users, Groups
Permissions

9. Shared Storage

Fibre Storage Area Networks
World Wide Names
Hardware Paths
iSCSI
LUN Discovery Options
CHAP Authentication Process
Troubleshooting iSCSI
Storage Views
vSphere Storage Appliance

10. VMware File System

VMFS 5.0 Features
Building a VMFS
New VMFS
Create/Grow a LUN Span
To Add an Extent
Grow Volumes
Multipathing
iSCSI SAN Multipathing
Pluggable Storage Architecture

11. Alarms

Performance Alarms
vCenter Alarms
ESXi Host Alarms
Alarm Reporting
Triggered vCenter Alarms
Custom Alarms
Alarm Best Practices

12. Host Profiles

Managing ESXi Host
Configuration
Host Profiles
Edit, Review, Attach a Profile
Perform Compliance Check

13. Resource Management & Resource Pools

Resource Administration
CPU Resource Tunables
Dynamic Memory Balancing
Memory Resources Tunables
Shares
Expandable Reservations
Resource Pools
Memory/Storage Resource
Allocations
Virtual Hardware Resources

14. VMware vSphere Converter Standalone

VMware vCenter Converter
Clone & Update Disks
Converter Steps
Prepare for Conversion
Clone Physical Disk(s)
Copy & Resize Disk
Create the New Virtual Machine
VM Reconfiguration
New VM Housekeeping

15. Data Recovery

VM Backup Challenge
Traditional Network Backup
Reduce Backup Stress
ESXi Configuration Back Up
Data Recovery
VMDR Web UI
Creating a Backup Job
Backup Reports

16. VM Migration

Virtual Machine Migration
Cold Migration
VMotion Migration
VMotion Requirements
Progress is Monitored
VM is Descheduled
VM Context is Transferred
Switch Over
VM Scheduled to Run
Housekeeping
Failed Validation
Compatibility
Storage VMotion
Adopting DRS

17. DRS

Distributed Resource Scheduler
DRS Functions
DRS Automation Level
Migration Threshold
Power Management
EVC for Intel CPUs
EVC Benefits
DRS Groups Manager
Resource Management
Adopting DRS
HA and DRS

17.1 Power Management

DRS Power Management
Power Management Requirements
PM Powering Off /On an ESXi Host
Configure ESXi for Power Mgt
Power Standby
CPU Power Management

18. VMware HA

VMware High Availability Clusters
HA VM Requirements
VMware HA Host Failures
HA Reserve Resources
VM Monitoring
HA Cluster Slots
ESXI Console NIC Failure
Maintenance Mode
Resolving HA Problems
HA and DRS

18.1 VMware FT

VMware Fault Tolerance
FT Use Cases
FT VM Requirements
Enable FT on a VM
FT Impact on VM Memory
Testing Fault Tolerance
VMware FT Recommendations

19. Update Manager

VMware Update Manager
Patch Management
VUM Components
Install, Enable & Configure
VUM
Patch Baselines
Patch Options
Scan for Compliance
VUM & DRS Clusters

20. Peformance

Performance Analysis & Tuning
ESXi CPU Usage Strategy
Physical to Virtual CPU
Memory Ballooning
Ballooning vs. VMkernel Swap
Performance Charts
Monitoring Memory Stress
Page Faults in Task Manager
VM CPU, Memory Consumption

21. Linked Mode

Sizing vCenter – CPU, RAM,
Disk
vCenter Windows Server
Join a Windows Domain
Isolated or Linked Mode
Joining a Linked Mode Group
Authentication Best Practice
Troubleshooting Linked Mode
Cloning vCenter Servers

22. Advanced Networking

Advanced Virtual Networking
Distributed vSwitches
Building a New dvSwitch
Physical Adapter Details
Migrate VMs to dvPort Groups
DvSwitch Port Assignments
Management, VMkernel Ports
Manage Physical/Virtual
Adapters
DvSwitch Properties
Port Group Security
Traffic Shaping
NIC Team Settings
Originating Port Forwarding
IP Hash Forwarding
Physical NIC Load Forwarding
Active and Standby NICs
Network Failure
Resilient Network Configuration
Standard vSwitch VLANs
VLANs & VLAN Trunking
Private VLans