VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] - Premium («V8ICMP»)

• Installing and Configuring ESXi Hosts
• Deploy and configure vCenter
• Using the vSphere Client to create the vCenter inventory and assign roles to vCenter users
• Create virtual networks using vSphere standard switches and distributed switches
• Create and configure datastores with storage technologies supported by vSphere
• Use the vSphere Client to create virtual machines, templates, clones, and snapshots
• Create content libraries for template management and virtual machine provisioning
• Manage resource allocation for virtual machines
• Migrate virtual machines with vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion
• Create and configure a vSphere cluster enabled with vSphere High Availability (HA) and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
• Manage the lifecycle of vSphere to keep vCenter, ESXi hosts, and virtual machines up-to-date

1 Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

2 vSphere and Virtualization Overview

• 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

3 Installing and Configuring ESXi

• Install an ESXi host
• Recognize ESXi user account best practices
• Configure the ESXi host settings using the DCUI and VMware Host Client

4 Deploying and Configuring vCenter

• 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

5 Configuring vSphere Networking

• 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

6 Configuring vSphere Storage

• 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

7 Deploying Virtual Machines

• Create and provision VMs
• Explain the importance of VMware Tools
• Identify the files that make up a VM
• Recognize the components of a VM
• Navigate the vSphere Client and examine VM settings and options
• Modify VMs by dynamically increasing resources
• Create VM templates and deploy VMs from them
• Clone VMs
• Create customization specifications for guest operating systems
• Create local, published, and subscribed content libraries
• Deploy VMs from content libraries
• Manage multiple versions of VM templates in content libraries

8 Managing Virtual Machines

• 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
• Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion
• Take a snapshot of a VM
• 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

9 Deploying and Configuring vSphere Clusters

• 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

10 Managing the vSphere Lifecycle

• 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

In this course, you will be supported with a blended learning approach through expert-led content and a collection of VMware videos. Prepare for your upcoming exams in the best possible way with VMware Customer Connect Learning, interact with peers as well as experts over a one-year period, and learn about other continuing topics.

The trainer works with the participants from the beginning to lifecycle management to build an environment that corresponds to the natural flow in production environments.

Benefits during the course:

• Independent repetition of certain tasks with only minimal instructions encourages independent thinking and research.
• Experienced participants can test out requirements from their work environment and experiment with new topics.
• The trainer helps to identify new relevant topics and acts according to the motto help for self-help.
• Great motivation and fun factor in learning through practical challenges.

Long-term benefits:

• Participants learn to set up their own home lab and can therefore later evaluate other VMware products independently.
• The newly created environment can be taken home / office on an SSD (provided by Digicomp).
• The participants can continue the learning process after the course, with the familiar Lab environment and documentation.
• In addition, there is a reference installation to take home.
• Integrate more relevant content in a more sustainable way by combining hands-on exercises with appropriately tailored theory.

This course is designed for system administrators and engineers: Newcomers, experts, everyone in between and exam candidates

Experience in system administration on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems is required.

Attending this course fulfills the training requirement to obtain the following certification: VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV).

VMware Certification: Click here for an overview of the VMware certifications.

• VCP - Data Center Virtualization 2023

Bonus material:

• Video sequences that replay the entire setup are available during / after the course
• Many updated and further links complementary to the course slides
• Additional practical implementation (configuration) of topics:
  • Fault Tolerance
  • vCenter HA
  • vSAN
  • vSphere Configuration Profiles