Introductions and course logistics

Course objectives

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

Install an ESXi host

Recognize ESXi user account best practices

Configure the ESXi host settings using the DCUI and VMware Host Client

Recognize ESXi hosts communication with vCenter

Deploy 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

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

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

Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter instance and across vCenter instances

Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion

Describe the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility in migrations

Take a snapshot of a VM

Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion

Manage, consolidate, and delete snapshots

Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment

Describe how VMs compete for resources

Define CPU and memory shares, reservations, and limits

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

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