1. VMware vSphere Boot Camp
Course Summary
Description
This class is an introduction to VMware’s vSphere™ including VMware ESX™ 4 and vCenter™ 4. All key aspects
of VMware vSphere are covered – from installation of ESX 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.
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.
Objectives
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
• Explain the many significant benefits of • Use VMware Data Recovery to back up and
virtualization recover VMs and files
• Install ESX Server according to best • Configure, manage, monitor and secure
practices users and groups
• Configure and manage local storage • Create and manage Distributed Resource
• Create virtual, distributed virtual, and virtual Schedule load balanced clusters
to physical LAN segments • Understand and use Distributed Power
• Define and use NAS datastores Management
• Create virtual machines, install operating • Create and manage VMware High
systems and applications Availability clusters to protect against VM
• Install, configure and administer VMware service loss caused by ESX server failures
vCenter • Use Fault Tolerance to deliver 100% VM
• Rapidly deployment of VMs using golden- uptime
master templates • Monitor and tune both ESX and virtual
• Create clones - one-time copies of virtual machine performance
machine • Patch management using vCenter Update
• Use VMware vNetwork Distributed Manager
vSwitches to deliver consistent network • Understand how VMware and third party
configurations products, including operating systems, are
• Understand and use shared SAN storage impacted by virtualization
including Fibre and iSCSI SANs • Secure and lock down the Service Console
• Perform VM cold migrations, hot migrations • Create and enforce server configuration with
and Storage VMotion Host Profiles
• Use VMware Consolidated Back Up to back • Troubleshoot common problems
up and restore running VMs
VMware vSphere Boot Camp
Due to the nature of this material, this document refers to numerous hardware and software products by their trade names. References to other companies and their products are for informational
purposes only, and all trademarks are the properties of their respective companies. It is not the intent of ProTech Professional Technical Services, Inc. to use any of these names generically
VMWAREVSPHEREBOOTCAMP-110205092212-PHPAPP02.DOC

2. Course Summary (cont’d)
Topics
• Virtualization Infrastructure • VM Hot and Cold Migration, Storage
• Stand Alone ESX Server Installation VMotion
• Virtual and Physical Networking • Load Balancing w. Distributed Resource
• NAS Shared Storage Scheduler
• Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines • Failure Recover with High Availability
• vCenter Clusters
• vCenter Inventory • VMware Fault Tolerance
• VM Rapid Deployment using Templates, • VMware Consolidated Back Up
Clones • VMware Data Recovery
• ESX and vCenter Permission Model • Consolidation with vCenter Converter
• Advanced Virtual Networking • Effective Performance Monitoring
• Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage • ESX and vCenter Alarms
• VMware File System (VMFS) • ESX Host Profiles
• Resource Management and Resource Pools • Update Manager
• Guided Consolidation • Securing the ESX Service Console
• Final Thoughts
Audience
• System architects or others who need to design virtual infrastructure
• Senior administrators responsible for technical design and implementation of new Virtual Infrastructure
projects
• Security specialists responsible for monitor, managing, securing and administering Virtual Infrastructure
• Operators responsible for day-to-day operation of Virtual Infrastructure
• Performance and capacity analysts who need to understand, provision, monitor and performance tune
Virtual Infrastructure
• Backup Administrators who need to understand the impact of existing and new back up strategies in a
virtual environment
• 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
• Managers who need an unbiased understanding of virtualization before committing their organization to a
virtual infrastructure deployment.
Prerequisites
No prior virtualization experience is assumed, but a willingness to work hard is required.
Duration
Five days
Due to the nature of this material, this document refers to numerous hardware and software products by their trade names. References to other companies and their products are for informational
purposes only, and all trademarks are the properties of their respective companies. It is not the intent of ProTech Professional Technical Services, Inc. to use any of these names generically
VMWAREVSPHEREBOOTCAMP-110205092212-PHPAPP02.DOC

3. Mware vSphere Boot Camp
Course Outline
I.Virtualization Infrastructure H. VM best practices for monitoring and
A. Virtualization explained scalability
B. How VMware virtualization compares to I. Understanding what should and should not
traditional PC deployments be virtualized
C. Common pain points of physical
deployments VI.vCenter
D. How virtualization effectively addresses A. vCenter architectural and feature overview
issues and brings new B. vCenter components
E. VMware vSphere software products C. VMware Licensing
II.Stand Alone ESX Server Installation VII.vCenter Inventory
A. Understanding ESXi and full ESX A. vCenter's views into Virtual Infrastructure
B. Selecting, validating and preparing your B. Role of the datacenter
server C. Using folders to impart political, geographic
C. Sizing Service Console and VMkernel or technical boundaries
resources D. Importing ESX hosts into vCenter
D. Storage controllers, disks and partitions management
E. Software installation and licensing E. Troubleshooting vCenter
F. Installation recommendations and best
practices VIII.VM Rapid Deployment using Templates,
G. First look at the VMware vSphere Client Clones
A. Templates - Virtual Machine Golden Master
III.Virtual and Physical Networking images
A. vNetwork standard and distributed virtual B. Creating, modifying, updating and working
Switches with Templates
B. Virtual Switches, Ports and Port Groups C. Patching, and refreshing Templates
C. Service Console and VMkernel ports D. Cloning, one time copies of VMs
D. Creating, sizing Virtual Switches E. Best practices for cloning and templating
F. Performance considerations
IV.NAS Shared Storage
A. Benefits Shared Storage offer to Virtual IX.ESX and vCenter Permission Model
Infrastructure A. VMware Security model
B. Shared Storage options B. Configuring local users and groups
C. NFS Overview C. Managing local permissions
D. Configuring ESX to use NFS Shares D. vCenter security model
E. Troubleshooting NFS connections E. Local, Domain and Active Directory users
and groups
V.Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines F. How permissions are applied
A. VM virtual hardware, options and limits
B. Sizing and creating a new VM X.Advanced Virtual Networking
C. Assigning, modifying and removing Virtual A. Uplinking Virtual and Physical Network
Hardware segments using NICs
D. Working with a VM’s BIOS B. Distributed virtual switches and distributed
E. VMware remote console applications Port Groups
F. Installing an OS into a VM C. NIC teaming for redundancy and
G. Driver installation and customization Performance
Due to the nature of this material, this document refers to numerous hardware and software products by their trade names. References to other companies and their products are for informational
purposes only, and all trademarks are the properties of their respective companies. It is not the intent of ProTech Professional Technical Services, Inc. to use any of these names generically
VMWAREVSPHEREBOOTCAMP-110205092212-PHPAPP02.DOC

4. VMware vSphere Boot Camp
Course Outline (cont’d)
D. Connecting to vLANs B. Extract hardware profiles from select servers
E. Enhanced Network Security C. Monitor physical server resource
F. Virtual routers and firewalls consumption
G. Assigning physical NICs to VMs D. Select and convert physical servers to VMs
XI.Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage XV.VM Hot and Cold Migration, Storage VMotion
A. Fibre SAN overview A. Moving Virtual Machines
B. Identifying and using Fibre Host Bus B. Cold Migrations to new ESX hosts,
Adapters datastores
C. Scanning and Rescanning Fibre SANs C. Hot Migrations with VMotion
D. Partitioning and formatting Fibre SAN D. VMotion requirements and dependencies
Storage E. How VMotion works – detailed explanation
E. Performance and redundancy F. Troubleshooting VMotion
considerations and best practices G. Storage VMotion for hot VM disk migrations
F. iSCSI overview
G. Virtual and physical iSCSI adapters XVI.Load Balancing w. Distributed Resource
H. Creating virtual iSCSI adapters Scheduler
I. Connecting to iSCSI storage A. Delegated resource management with
J. Scanning and rescanning iSCSI SANS Resource Pools
K. Performance and redundancy B. Resource balanced clusters with VMware
considerations and best practices Distributed Resource Scheduler
C. DRS Cluster configuration and tuning
XII.VMware File System (VMFS) D. Isolation response and per-VM policy
A. VMFS Overview overrides
B. Unique file system properties of VMFS E. Using Distributed Power Management to
C. Managing shared Volumes reduce server power demands
D. Creating new VMFS partitions
E. Managing VMFS capacity with LUN XVII.Failure Recover with High Availability
spanning Clusters
F. Native and 3rd party Multipathing with Fibre A. High Availability options
and iSCSI SANs B. Manually take ownership of a VM from a
G. VMFS performance considerations failed server
C. VMware High Availability clusters
XIII.Resource Management and Resource Pools D. VMware Fault Tolerance
A. How ESX delivers resources to VMs
B. Shares, Reservations and Limits XVIII.VMware Fault Tolerance
C. CPU resource scheduling A. Overview of VMware Fault Tolerance
D. Memory resource scheduling B. Creating and monitoring a Fault Tolerant VM
E. Disk I/O bandwidth management C. Use cases for VMware Fault Tolerance
F. Network bandwidth management
G. Resource Pools XIX.VMware Consolidated Back Up
A. Pro’s and Con’s of traditional back up
XIV.Guided Consolidation strategies
A. Use Guided Consolidation to discover, B. Backup and recovery with VMware
Domains and servers Consolidated Back Up
Due to the nature of this material, this document refers to numerous hardware and software products by their trade names. References to other companies and their products are for informational
purposes only, and all trademarks are the properties of their respective companies. It is not the intent of ProTech Professional Technical Services, Inc. to use any of these names generically
VMWAREVSPHEREBOOTCAMP-110205092212-PHPAPP02.DOC

5. C. Third party back up solutions
D. Backing up the ESX Service Console
VMware vSphere Boot Camp
Course Outline (cont’d)
XX.VMware Data Recovery XXV.Update Manager
A. Deploying the VMware Data Recovery A. Overview of ESX patch management
virtual appliance B. Create patch baselines
B. Creating and running VM backups using C. Scan ESX host for compliance with
Data Recovery baselines
C. Scheduling back ups D. Automatically apply critical patches
D. Restoring a VM using Data Recovery
XXVI.Securing the ESX Service Console
XXI.Consolidation with vCenter Converter A. Service Console default services
A. vCenter Converter overview B. Locking down enabled services
B. Converting physical machines, virtual C. Setting custom restrictions on access
machines and OS Images
C. Cold migrations of physical machines to XXVII.Final Thoughts
virtual machines A. Consolidation guidelines for VMs and
D. Hot migrations of physical machines to Storage
virtual machines B. Determining which workloads to consolidate
E. Performing physical to virtual conversions C. Other considerations
from Guided Consolidation
XXII.Effective Performance Monitoring
A. VMkernel CPU and memory resource
management mechanisms
B. Identifying and resolving resource
contention
C. Monitoring VM and ESX host performance
D. Configuring and customizing resource based
alarms
E. Performance and capacity planning
strategies
XXIII.ESX and vCenter Alarms
A. VMware Capacity Planner overview
B. Finding and monitoring physical workloads
C. Reviewing physical server performance data
XXIV.ESX Host Profiles
A. Create and refine a new Host Profile
template
B. Verify host configuration compliance using
Host Profiles
C. Enforce configuration standards on non-
compliant ESX hosts
Due to the nature of this material, this document refers to numerous hardware and software products by their trade names. References to other companies and their products are for informational
purposes only, and all trademarks are the properties of their respective companies. It is not the intent of ProTech Professional Technical Services, Inc. to use any of these names generically
VMWAREVSPHEREBOOTCAMP-110205092212-PHPAPP02.DOC