VMware vSphere 7.0 with ESXi and vCenter

This powerful 5-day class is an intensive introduction to VMware vSphere including VMware ESXi 7 and vCenter 7. This course has been completely updated to reflect the most recent changes introduced in vSphere 7.

Assuming no prior virtualization experience, this class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to advanced topics. With 45+% of class time is devoted to labs, students learn the skills they need to become effective vSphere administrators. Students use dedicated labs that start with installation and configuration of stand-alone ESXi servers and progress to shared storage, networking and centralized management. 

The class continues to advanced topics including resource management, high availability, replication, performance, disaster preparedness, rapid deployment and VM cold, hot and storage migration. This class is unique in its approach; which is to identify and eliminate common IT pain points using vSphere. Students learn how to deliver business value; not just the technical or mechanical aspects of the software. 

By the end of the class, attendees will have learned the skills, and best practices of virtualization. Attendees will be able to design, implement, deploy, configure, monitor, manage and troubleshoot vSphere 7. 

Prerequisites

Attendees should have user, operator or administrator experience on common operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, UNIX, etc. Experience installing, configuring and managing operating systems, storage systems and or networks is useful but not required. 

We assume that all attendees have a basic familiarity with PC server hardware, disk partitioning, IP addressing, O/S installation, networking, etc.

Course Topics:

Chapter 1 - Introduction to VMware vSphere 7.0

• Virtualization explained
• How VMware virtualization compares to traditional PC deployments
• Common pain points in PC Server management
• How virtualization effectively addresses common IT issues
• VMware vSphere software products
• Hyperconverged Storage with VMware vSAN
• Hyperconverged Networking with VMware NSX
• What's New in vSphere 7.0

Chapter 2 – How to Install, Configure ESXi 7.0

• Understanding ESXi
• Selecting, validating and preparing your server
• Storage controllers, disks and partitions
• Software installation and best practices
• Joining ESXi to a Domain
• Local User Management and Policies
• First look at the VMware vSphere Host Client

 Chapter 3 – Introduction to Virtual and Physical Networking

• vNetwork standard virtual Switches
• Virtual Switches, Ports and Port Groups
• Creating VMkernel NICs
• Creating, sizing and customizing Virtual Switches

Chapter 4 – Connecting to NAS / NFS Shared Storage

• Benefits Shared Storage offer to Virtual Infrastructure
• Shared Storage options
• NFS Overview
• Configuring ESX to use NFS Shares
• Configuring NFS for performance and redundancy
• NFS Use Cases
• Troubleshooting NFS connections

Chapter 5 – Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines

• VM virtual hardware, options and limits
• Sizing and creating a new VM
• Assigning, modifying and removing Virtual Hardware
• Working with a VM’s BIOS
• VMware remote console applications
• Installing an OS into a VM
• Driver installation and customization

Chapter 6 – How to Install and Configure vCenter Server Appliance 7.0

• The need for Identity Source management
• Installing and configuring vCenter Server Appliance with embedded Platform Service Controller
• Connecting Single Sign On (SSO) to Active Directory and other identity sources
• vCenter feature overview and components
• Organizing vCenter's inventory views
• Importing ESXi 7 hosts into vCenter management
• Managing vCenter with vSphere Client

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
• Adding and resizing virtual disks

Chapter 8 - Working with VM Hot Plug Virtual Hardware

• Upgrade VM vHardware with no downtime with hotplug virtual hardware
• Preparing to hotplug vCPUs and vRAM into a running VM
• Hotplugging vNICs and vDisks into a running VM
• Hotplug Hardware and Guest OS support 

Chapter 9 – The ESXi and vCenter Permission Model

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

Chapter 10 – Fibre, iSCSI and NFS v4.1 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
• Understanding the benefits of VMware VAAI compliant storage 

Chapter 11 – VMFS – VMware's Cluster File System

• Unique file system properties of VMFS
• Managing shared Volumes
• Creating new VMFS partitions
• Introduction to VMFS 6 features and capabilities
• Managing VMFS capacity with LUN spanning and LUN expansion
• Native and 3rd party Multipathing with Fibre and iSCSI SANs
• VMFS performance considerations
• VMFS scalability and reliability

Chapter 12 – Virtual Infrastructure Monitoring with vCenter Alarms

• Alarm categories and definitions
• Creating custom alarms and actions
• Reviewing alarms and acknowledging them
• Configure vCenter so it can send E-mail and SNMP alerts
• Work with alarm conditions, triggers and actions
• Identify most useful alarms to review and enable

Chapter 13 – Compute Resource Management with Resource Pools

• Delegate resources in bulk using Resource Pools
• How ESX delivers resources to VMs
• Shares, Reservations and Limits
• CPU resource scheduling
• Memory resource scheduling
• Resource Pools

Chapter 14 – VM Cold, Hot VMotion and Storage VMotion Migration

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

Chapter 15 – Distributed Resource Scheduling Load Balanced Clusters

• CPU and Memory resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
• Resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
• DRS Cluster configuration and tuning
• Per-VM cluster policy overrides
• Learn the features and benefits of DRS Power Management 

Chapter 16 – Rapid VM Failure Recovery with High Availability Clusters

• High Availability options to minimize unplanned down time
• VMware High Availability clusters
• How VMware HA protects against ESXi host, storage network and SAN volume failures
• Introduction to VMware Fault Tolerance

Chapter 17 – Patch Management with VMware Lifecycle Manager

• Configure and enable VMware Lifecycle Manager
• Establishing a patch baseline
• Verifying compliance and patching ESXi hosts

Chapter 18 – Managing Scalability and Performance

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

Chapter 19 – Final Thoughts

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

HSG courses are taught by the experienced instructors who are proven experts in their field. Our instructors are highly knowledgeable, HSG courses are taught by the experienced instructors who are proven experts in their field. Our instructors are highly knowledgeable, friendly, reliable and inspiring. They speak and teach industry's best practices and often customize classes to meet individual needs. 

Students are encouraged to ask questions and participate in discussions and training-labs.