Course Introduction

1. Introductions and course logistics

2. Course objectives

Introduction to vSphere and the Software-Defined Data Center

1. Explain basic virtualization concepts

2. Describe how vSphere fits into the software-defined data center and the cloud infrastructure

3. Explain how vSphere interacts with CPUs, memory, networks, and storage

4. Recognize the user interfaces for accessing the vCenter Server system and ESXi hosts

5. Use VMware Host Client™ to access and manage ESXi host

Virtual Machines

1. Create and remove a virtual machine

2. Provision a virtual machine with virtual devices

3. Identify the files that make up a virtual machine

4. Explain the importance of VMware Tools™

vCenter Server

1. Describe the vCenter Server architecture

2. Discuss how ESXi hosts communicate with vCenter Server

3. Deploy and configure vCenter Server Appliance

4. Use the vSphere Client to manage the vCenter Server inventory

5. Add data center, organizational objects, and hosts to vCenter Server

6. Use roles and permissions to enable users to access objects in the vCenter Server inventory

7. Back up vCenter Server Appliance

8. Monitor vCenter Server tasks, events, and appliance health

9. Use vCenter Server High Availability to protect a vCenter Server Appliance

Configuring and Managing Virtual Networks

1. Create and manage standard switches

2. Describe the virtual switch connection types

3. Configure virtual switch security, traffic-shaping and load-balancing policies

4. Compare vSphere distributed switches and standard switches

Configuring and Managing Virtual Storage

1. Identify storage protocols and storage device types

2. Discuss ESXi hosts using iSCSI, NFS, and Fibre Channel storage

3. Create and manage VMFS and NFS datastores

4. Explain how multipathing works with iSCSI, NFS, and Fibre Channel storage

5. Deploy virtual machines on a VMware vSAN™ datastore

Virtual Machine Management

1. Use templates and cloning to deploy new virtual machines

2. Modify and manage virtual machines

3. Create a content library and deploy virtual machines from templates in the library

4. Dynamically increase the size of a virtual disk

5. Use customization specification files to customize a new virtual machine

6. Perform vSphere vMotion and vSphere Storage vMotion migrations

7. Create and manage virtual machine snapshots

8. Examine the features and functions of VMware vSphere® Replication™

Resource Management and Monitoring

1. Discuss CPU and memory concepts in a virtualized environment

2. Describe what overcommitment of a resource means

3. Describe methods for optimizing CPU and memory usage

4. Use various tools to monitor resource use

5. Create and use alarms to report certain conditions or events

vSphere Cluster

1. Describe options for making a vSphere environment highly available

2. Explain the vSphere HA architecture

3. Configure and manage a vSphere HA cluster

4. Examine the features and functions of VMware vSphere® Fault Tolerance

5. Configure a vSphere cluster using ESXi Cluster Quickstart

6. Describe the functions of a vSphere DRS cluster

7. Create a vSphere DRS cluster

vSphere Lifecycle

1. Describe how VMware vSphere® Lifecycle Manager™ works

2. Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to update ESXi hosts in a cluster