Course Introduction

1. Introductions and course logistics

2. Course objectives

vSphere and Virtualization Overview

1. Explain basic virtualization concepts

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

3. Recognize the user interfaces for accessing vSphere

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

Installing and Configuring ESXi

1. Install an ESXi host

2. Recognize ESXi user account best practices

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

Deploying and Configuring vCenter

1. Recognize ESXi hosts communication with vCenter

2. Deploy vCenter Server Appliance

3. Configure vCenter settings

4. Use the vSphere Client to add and manage license keys

5. Create and organize vCenter inventory objects

6. Recognize the rules for applying vCenter permissions

7. View vCenter logs and events

Configuring vSphere Networking

1. Configure and view standard switch configurations

2. Configure and view distributed switch configurations

3. Recognize the difference between standard switches and distributed switches

4. Explain how to set networking policies on standard and distributed switches

Configuring vSphere Storage

1. Recognize vSphere storage technologies

2. Identify types of vSphere datastores

3. Describe Fibre Channel components and addressing

4. Describe iSCSI components and addressing

5. Configure iSCSI storage on ESXi

6. Create and manage VMFS datastores

7. Configure and manage NFS datastores

Deploying Virtual Machines

1. Create and provision VMs

2. Explain the importance of VMware Tools

3. Identify the files that make up a VM

4. Recognize the components of a VM

5. Navigate the vSphere Client and examine VM settings and options

6. Modify VMs by dynamically increasing resources

7. Create VM templates and deploy VMs from them

8. Clone VMs

9. Create customization specifications for guest operating systems

10. Create local, published, and subscribed content libraries

11. Deploy VMs from content libraries

12. Manage multiple versions of VM templates in content libraries

Managing Virtual Machines

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

2. Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion

3. Describe the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility in migrations

4. Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion

5. Take a snapshot of a VM

6. Manage, consolidate, and delete snapshots

7. Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment

8. Describe how VMs compete for resources

9. Define CPU and memory shares, reservations, and limits

Deploying and Configuring vSphere Clusters

1. Create a vSphere cluster enabled for vSphere DRS and vSphere HA

2. View information about a vSphere cluster

3. Explain how vSphere DRS determines VM placement on hosts in the cluster

4. Recognize use cases for vSphere DRS settings

5. Monitor a vSphere DRS cluster

6. Describe how vSphere HA responds to various types of failures

7. Identify options for configuring network redundancy in a vSphere HA cluster

8. Recognize vSphere HA design considerations

9. Recognize the use cases for various vSphere HA settings

10. Configure a vSphere HA cluster

11. Recognize when to use vSphere Fault Tolerance

Managing the vSphere Lifecycle

1. Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager in a vSphere cluster

2. Describe features of the vCenter Update Planner

3. Run vCenter upgrade prechecks and interoperability reports

4. Recognize features of vSphere Lifecycle Manager

5. Distinguish between managing hosts using baselines and managing hosts using images

6. Describe how to update hosts using baselines

7. Describe ESXi images

8. Validate ESXi host compliance against a cluster image and update ESXi hosts

9. Update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager

10. Describe vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatic recommendations

11. Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade VMware Tools and VM hardware