VMware vSphere 4.1 Boot Camp

Format

Instructor lead class on VMware vSphere. Intensive introduction to vSphere delivered over 5, 10-hour days

Course Books

Study Guide (800+ pages). Lab Guide (250+ pages)

vSphere Version

Covers VMware vSphere 4.1 including ESXi 4.1 and vCenter

Delivery

Remote access via MS Terminal Services (or WebEx) to a rack of HP DL360/DL365 servers and iSCSI SAN, etc. Each attendee gets their own server.

Max Attendees

Limited by server availability. We currently have 150 student servers available for rent

Requirements

Course can be run from any location that has a reliable Internet connection. Each attendee needs a PC that supports Microsoft Terminal Services or MS Internet Explorer

Lab Time

40+% of class time is devoted to hands-on labs

Availability

February, 2011

Certification

Prepares attendees to challenge the ESXLab Certified Virtualization Specialist exam
One exam voucher included with this class

Suggested Price

$4,495

Overview

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.

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

Who Should Attend?

  • System architects or others who need to design virtual infrastructure
  • Senior vSphere administrators and/or senior Windows or Linux administrators or others responsible for technical design and implementation of new Virtual Infrastructure projects
  • Security specialists responsible for monitor, managing, securing and administering Virtual Infrastructure
  • Performance and capacity analysts who need to understand, provision, monitor and performance tune Virtual Infrastructure
  • Business Continuity specialists responsible for disaster recovery and high availability
  • Storage administrators who need to understand how Virtual Infrastructure sees and uses Fibre SAN and iSCSI SAN volumes and NAS datastores

Chapter Outline

Chapter 0 – Class Introduction

Chapter 1 – Virtualization Infrastructure

Chapter 2 – Installing ESXi 4.1

Chapter 3 – Virtual and Physical Networking

Chapter 4 – NAS Shared Storage

Chapter 5 – Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines

Chapter 6 – vCenter

Chapter 7 – VM Rapid Deployment using Templates, Clones

Chapter 8 – ESX and vCenter Permission Model

Chapter 9 – Advanced Virtual Networking

Chapter 10 – Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage

Chapter 11 – VMware File System (VMFS)

Chapter 12 – Resource Management and Resource Pools

Chapter 13– Guided Consolidation

Chapter 14 – VM Hot and Cold Migration, Storage VMotion

Chapter 15 – Load Balancing w. Distributed Resource Scheduler

Chapter 16 – Failure Recover with High Availability Clusters

Chapter 17 – VM Back Up, Recovery

Chapter 18 – Consolidation with vCenter Converter

Chapter 19 – ESX and vCenter Alarms

Chapter 20 – Patch Management with VMware Update Manager

Chapter 21 – Managing Scalability and Performance

Chapter 22 – vCenter Linked Mode

Chapter 23 – VMware Fault Tolerance

Chapter 24 – ESXi Host Profiles

Chapter 25 – VMware vApp

Chapter 26 – Final Thoughts

Hands On Labs

Attendees will complete the following hands on labs during this class:

  • Install ESXi onto an HP DL365 server. Configure ESXi for efficient power management. Join a Windows Domain for improved user management
  • Create and update Virtual Switches including setting Cisco Discovery Protocol. Create NIC teams and explore vSwitch security properties
  • Learn how to test for Jumbo Frame hardware support, determine the maximum frame size and configure ESXi NICs to use Jumbo Frames
  • Connect to and browse NFS file shares. Easily move files between Windows and ESXi
  • Create a Virtual Machine. Install Windows 2003 into the VM. Install VMware Tools into the VM. Add 3rd party tools and utilities to the VM
  • Install and configure vCenter on Windows 2003. Install vCenter Modules
  • Configure vCenter's inventory views to organize inventory objects
  • Create redundant vCenter Linked Mode configuration for higher up time
  • Work with Clones and Templates. Convert a VM into a template. Rapidly deploy new VMs from template. Copy VMs using cloning. Use guest OS customization to easily change the identity of a VM. Create, update and deploy VMs using Guest OS Customization Specifications
  • Work with virtual disks. Hot add a secondary virtual disk. Grow a non-system volume. Grow a Windows system disk and partition
  • Convert virtual disks between Thick and Thin format to maximize either performance or space efficiency
  • Hot plug VM virtual hardware including memory, disks and NICs
  • Create custom virtual CPU configurations (such as dual core vCPUs) to minimize software licensing costs and maximize performance
  • Work with vCenter permissions. Use and customize Roles
  • Create, update and work with Network Distributed vSwitches. Create NIC Teams for added performance and redundancy
  • Create, configure a router to create isolated virtual LAN segments
  • iSCSI, Fibre Storage Area Networks. Connecting to shared storage
  • VMware VMFS – VMware's proprietary cluster file system. How to create, tune and grow VMFS volumes
  • Resource management. Work with resource tuning settings. Create, manage and monitor Resource Pools
  • VM migration including Cold Migration, Storage Migration and VMotion
  • Automated VM load balancing with VMware DRS clusters
  • Manage server power consumption with Distributed Power Mgt clusters
  • Use HA clusters to minimize VM down time due to server failures
  • Use VMware Fault Tolerance to deliver 100% VM up time
  • Guided Consolidation. Rapidly discover, monitor and migrate physical machines into VMs
  • Back up and restore a VM using VMware Data Recovery appliances
  • Set up and use VMware Guided Consolidation to import a Windows server
  • Using Converter Enterprise to migrate physical machines to VMs
  • Performance analysis and benchmarking storage and networking
  • vCenter alarms for monitoring key infrastructure objects. Send SNMP traps to a trap receiver on high VM resource consumption
  • Create and edit VMware ESXi Host Profiles
  • Apply updates to Windows using VMware Update Manager

Detailed Chapter List

Chapter 0 – Class Introduction

  • Virtualization concepts
  • Class overview

Chapter 1 – Virtualization Infrastructure

  • Virtualization explained
  • How VMware virtualization compares to traditional PC deployments
  • Common pain points of physical deployments
  • How virtualization effectively addresses issues and brings new
  • VMware vSphere software products

Chapter 2 – Installing ESXi 4.1

  • Understanding ESXi
  • Selecting, validating and preparing your server
  • Join ESXi to an Active Directory Domain
  • Set ESXI power policies to balance performance and power consumption

Chapter 3 – Virtual and Physical Networking

  • vNetwork standard and distributed virtual Switches
  • Virtual Switches, Ports and Port Groups
  • Creating VMkernel ports
  • Creating, sizing Virtual Switches
  • Enabling and using Cisco Discovery Protocol
  • Testing for and implementing Jumbo Frame support

Chapter 4 – NAS Shared Storage

  • Benefits Shared Storage offer to Virtual Infrastructure
  • Shared Storage options
  • NFS Overview
  • Configuring ESXi to use NFS Shares
  • Troubleshooting NFS connections

Chapter 5 – Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines

  • VM virtual hardware, options and limits
  • Creating a new VM
  • Assigning, modifying and removing Virtual Hardware
  • Installing an OS into a VM
  • Customizing virtual hardware

Chapter 6 – vCenter

  • vCenter feature overview and components
  • VMware Licensing
  • Organizing vCenter's inventory views
  • Importing ESX hosts into vCenter management

Chapter 7 – VM Rapid Deployment using Templates, Clones

  • Templates - Virtual Machine Golden Master images
  • Creating, modifying, updating and working with Templates
  • Patching, and refreshing Templates
  • Cloning, one time copies of VMs
  • Best practices for cloning and templating
  • Hot-plug virtual CPU, Memory
  • Manage VM virtual disk capacity, including Basic and System disks

Chapter 8 – ESX and vCenter Permission Model

  • VMware Security model
  • Configuring local users and groups
  • Managing local permissions
  • vCenter security model
  • Local, Domain and Active Directory users and groups
  • How permissions are applied

Chapter 9 – Advanced Virtual Networking

  • Uplinking Virtual and Physical Network segments using NICs
  • Distributed virtual switches and distributed Port Groups
  • NIC teaming for redundancy and Performance
  • Connecting to vLAN
  • Enhanced Network Security
  • Virtual routers and firewalls

Chapter 10 – Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage

  • Fibre SAN overview
  • Identifying and using Fibre Host Bus Adapters
  • Scanning and Rescanning Fibre SANs
  • iSCSI overview
  • Virtual and physical iSCSI adapters
  • Connecting to iSCSI storage
  • Scanning and rescanning iSCSI SANS
  • Performance and redundancy considerations and best practices
  • Configuring Software iSCSI for optimal performance and redundancy

Chapter 11 – VMware File System (VMFS)

  • Unique file system properties of VMFS
  • Managing shared Volumes
  • Creating new VMFS partitions
  • Managing VMFS capacity with LUN spanning and LUN expansion
  • Native and 3rd party Multipathing with Fibre and iSCSI SANs
  • VMFS performance considerations

Chapter 12 – Resource Management and Resource Pools

  • How ESX delivers resources to VMs
  • Shares, Reservations and Limits
  • CPU resource scheduling
  • Memory resource scheduling
  • Resource Pools
Chapter 13 – Guided Consolidation
  • Use Guided Consolidation to discover, Domains, Workgroups and servers
  • Extract hardware profiles from select servers
  • Monitor physical server resource consumption
  • Select and convert physical servers to VMs

Chapter 14 – VM Hot and Cold Migration, Storage VMotion

  • Cold Migrations to new ESX hosts, datastores
  • Hot Migrations with VMotion
  • VMotion requirements and dependencies
  • How VMotion works – detailed explanation
  • Troubleshooting VMotion
  • Storage VMotion for hot VM disk migrations

Chapter 15 – Load Balancing w. Distributed Resource Scheduler

  • Delegated resource management with Resource Pools
  • Resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
  • DRS Cluster configuration and tuning
  • Per-VM cluster policy overrides

Chapter 16 – Failure Recover with High Availability Clusters

  • High Availability options to minimize unplanned VM down time
  • Setting HA Cluster Admission Control policies
  • Understanding HA clusters Isolation Response policies

Chapter 17 – VM Back Up, Recovery

  • Pro’s and Con’s of traditional back up strategies
  • Backing up VMs with VMware Data Recovery
  • Backing and restoring your ESXi server configuration
  • Third party VM back up solutions

Chapter 18 – Consolidation with vCenter Converter

  • vCenter Converter overview
  • Converting physical machines, virtual machines and OS Images
  • Cold migrations of physical machines to virtual machines
  • Hot migrations of physical machines to virtual machines

Chapter 19 – ESX and vCenter Alarms

  • Alarm categories and definitions
  • Creating custom alarms and actions
  • Reviewing alarms and acknowledging them

Chapter 20 – Patch Management with VMware Update Manager

  • Configure and enable VMware Update Manager
  • Establishing a patch baseline
  • Verifying compliance and patching Windows VMs

Chapter 21 – Managing Scalability and Performance

  • VMkernel CPU and memory resource management mechanisms
  • Tuning VM storage I/O performance
  • Monitoring VM and ESX host performance
  • Performance and capacity planning strategies

Chapter 22 – vCenter Linked Mode

  • Using vCenter Linked Mode to provide vCenter management redundancy
  • Adding a Linked Mode vCenter server to a Stand Alone vCenter server
  • Administering inventory through Linked Mode peers

Chapter 23 – VMware Fault Tolerance

  • Overview of VMware Fault Tolerance
  • Creating and monitoring a Fault Tolerant VM
  • Use cases for VMware Fault Tolerance

Chapter 24 – ESXi Host Profiles

  • Create and refine a new Host Profile template
  • Verify host configuration compliance using Host Profiles
  • Enforce configuration standards on non-compliant ESXi hosts

Chapter 25 – VMware vApp

  • Creating and working with vApps
  • Adding VMs to a vApp
  • Setting vApp properties such as start up/shutdown sequence
  • Administering, customizing vApps

Chapter 26 – Final Thoughts

  • Consolidation guidelines for VMs and Storage
  • Determining which workloads to consolidate
  • Other considerations

For More Information

This class can be customized to meet your unique training and delivery needs, including:

  • On-site delivery at your facility
  • Custom timetables including 3-day rapid delivery boot-camps
  • Content and Lab customization to meed your unique training needs
  • Distance training
  • Mentoring, implementation planning and assistance

For group discounts or content for instructor lead deliveries please contact your authorized ESXLab.com training partner, or sales@esxlab.com

Last modified: 2016-12-08, 16:28

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