VMware vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp

VMware vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Courseware (VS70BC)

VMware

This powerful 5-day 10hr/day boot camp 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.

Boot Camp Content

The core of this course is ESXLab's 5-day VMware vSphere 7.0 with ESXi and vCenter course. The additional 10hrs of class time is made up of 5 additional chapters and their corresponding hands-on labs. The topics included in our Boot Camp class that are not included in our vSphere 7.0 with ESXi and vCenter class are:

  1. Advanced Virtual Networking - includes network security, pNIC teams, network health...
  2. Content Libraries - structured repositories for VM templates, media, documentation...
  3. Raw Device Maps - direct VM-to-SAN LUN ownership for advanced storage configurations
  4. Fault Tolerance - how to deliver Zero-Unplanned-Downtime to a VM in an HA cluster
  5. dvSwitches - advanced capability vSwitches with central management, configuration, health checks, backup and restore...

Remote Lab Availability

Student labs for this class is available at a cost of $200USD / lab for a 5-day event (instructor labs are always free). Please contact us to get more details.

Note: VMware vSphere is enterprise class software that is very hardware intensive. Because of the hardware costs, software licensing costs, build complexity and the very low likelihood of success, we do not offer an option to set up compatible labs on your local PCs or servers.

Publisher: ESXLab

Benefits

  • Learn the significant benefits of virtualization.
  • Learn to install ESXi 7.0 according to best practices.
  • Learn to use Host Client to manage standalone ESXi hosts.
  • Learn to configure and manage local storage resources.
  • Learn to create virtual and virtual to physical network configurations.
  • Learn to configure and use advanced vSwitch features including Teaming, Security, and Jumbo Frames.
  • Learn to define and use file share (NAS/NFS) datastores.
  • Learn to create virtual machines, install operating systems, and applications.
  • Learn to install, configure, and upgrade VMware Tools.
  • Learn to install, configure, and update vCenter Server Appliance.
  • Learn to rapidly deploy VMs using golden-master VM templates.
  • Learn to create clones – one-time copies of virtual machines.
  • Learn to use Guest OS customization to rapidly configure new VMs according to requirements.
  • Learn to create Content Libraries to manage shared files.
  • Learn to deploy VMs from Templates stored in Content Libraries.
  • Learn to connect CD/DVD media in Content Libraries to a VM's CD/DVD reader.
  • Learn to configure and use hotplug hardware including hot-add vCPUs and memory.
  • Learn to configure, manage, monitor, and secure users and groups.
  • Learn the benefits and trade-offs of network-attached storage and Fibre, iSCSI SANs.
  • Learn to configure and use shared SAN storage including Fibre SAN, iSCSI SAN.
  • Learn to configure direct VM to SAN volume storage with Raw Device Maps.
  • Learn to add and grow virtual disks including system disks and secondary volumes.
  • Learn to use vCenter alarms to monitor ESXi, VM, storage, and network health, performance, state.
  • Learn to use Resource Pools to bulk delegate resources to meet Service Level Agreements.
  • Learn to perform VM cold migrations, hot VMotion migrations, and hot Storage VMotion migrations.
  • Learn to configure and manage server CPU and memory capacity and maintain VM responsiveness with Distributed Resource Schedule load-balanced clusters.
  • Learn to deliver high VM service availability using VMware High Availability clusters.
  • Learn to provide zero unplanned VM downtime using vSphere Fault Tolerance.
  • Learn to use HA to successfully minimize unplanned VM downtime caused by ESXi host failures, storage network failures, or SAN volume failures.
  • Learn to patch and update ESXi servers using vCenter Lifecycle Manager.
  • Learn to create Distributed Virtual Switches and migrate VM and VMkernel networking over to dvSwitches.
  • Learn to monitor and tune both ESXi and virtual machine performance.
  • Learn how VMware and third-party products, including operating systems, are impacted by virtualization.
  • Learn to troubleshoot common problems.

Outline

  1. Introduction to VMware vSphere 7.0
    1. Virtualization explained
    2. How VMware virtualization compares to traditional PC deployments
    3. Common pain points in PC Server management
    4. How virtualization effectively addresses common IT issues
    5. VMware vSphere software products
    6. Hyperconverged Storage with VMware vSAN
    7. Hyperconverged Networking with VMware NSX
    8. What's New in vSphere 7.0
  2. How to Install, Configure ESXi 7.0
    1. Understanding ESXi
    2. Selecting, validating and preparing your server
    3. Storage controllers, disks and partitions
    4. Software installation and best practices
    5. Joining ESXi to a Domain
    6. Local User Management and Policies
    7. First look at the VMware vSphere Host Client
  3. Introduction to Virtual and Physical Networking
    1. vNetwork standard virtual Switches
    2. Virtual Switches, Ports and Port Groups
    3. Creating VMkernel NICs
    4. Creating, sizing and customizing Virtual Switches
  4. Advanced Virtual Networking
    1. Explore advanced vSwitch properties
    2. Explain vSwitch Security properties and their use cases
    3. Explain the five NIC Teaming strategies, their implementation, pros, cons and use cases
    4. Explore Jumbo frames including how to test, configure and verify Jumbo frames
    5. Identify Jumbo frame use cases and where to avoid using Jumbo frames
  5. Connecting to NAS / NFS Shared Storage
    1. Benefits Shared Storage offer to Virtual Infrastructure
    2. Shared Storage options
    3. NFS Overview
    4. Configuring ESX to use NFS Shares
    5. Configuring NFS for performance and redundancy
    6. NFS Use Cases
    7. Troubleshooting NFS connections
  6. Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines
    1. VM virtual hardware, options and limits
    2. Sizing and creating a new VM
    3. Assigning, modifying and removing Virtual Hardware
    4. Working with a VM’s BIOS
    5. VMware remote console applications
    6. Installing an OS into a VM
    7. Driver installation and customization
  7. How to Install vCenter Server Appliance 7.0
    1. The need for Identity Source management
    2. Installing and configuring vCenter Server Appliance with embedded Platform Service Controller
    3. Connecting Single Sign On (SSO) to Active Directory and other identity sources
    4. vCenter feature overview and components
    5. Organizing vCenter's inventory views
    6. Importing ESXi 7 hosts into vCenter management
    7. Managing vCenter with vSphere Client
  8. VM Rapid Deployment using Templates, Clones
    1. Templates - Virtual Machine Golden Master images
    2. Creating, modifying, updating and working with Templates
    3. Patching, and refreshing Templates
    4. Cloning, one time copies of VMs
    5. Best practices for cloning and templating
    6. Adding and resizing virtual disks
  9. Working with Content Libraries
    1. The purpose, features and benefits of Content Libraries
    2. The 3 types of Content libraries and their use cases
    3. How to create a Content Libraries and upload VMs and media to them
    4. How to deploy a new VM from a template in a Content Library
    5. How to upload media images and use them from VMs
  10. Working with VM Hot Plug Virtual Hardware
    1. Upgrade VM vHardware with no downtime with hotplug virtual hardware
    2. Preparing to hotplug vCPUs and vRAM into a running VM
    3. Hotplugging vNICs and vDisks into a running VM
    4. Hotplug Hardware and Guest OS support
  11. The ESXi and vCenter Permission Model
    1. VMware Security model
    2. Configuring local users
    3. Managing local permissions
    4. vCenter security model
    5. Local, Domain and Active Directory users and groups
    6. How permissions are applied
  12. Fibre, iSCSI and NFS v4.1 Shared Storage
    1. Fibre SAN overview
    2. Identifying and using Fibre Host Bus Adapters
    3. Scanning and Rescanning Fibre SANs
    4. iSCSI overview
    5. Virtual and physical iSCSI adapters
    6. Connecting to iSCSI storage
    7. Scanning and rescanning iSCSI SANS
    8. Performance and redundancy considerations and best practices
    9. Understanding the benefits of VMware VAAI compliant storage
  13. Raw Device Maps
    1. Connecting VMs directly to SAN volumes using Raw Device Maps (RDM)
    2. RDM features, benefits and use cases
    3. Virtual and Physical RDMs explained
    4. How to set up and use RDMs
    5. How to correctly tear down RDMs
  14. VMFS – VMware's Cluster File System
    1. Unique file system properties of VMFS
    2. Managing shared Volumes
    3. Creating new VMFS partitions
    4. Introduction to VMFS 6 features and capabilities
    5. Managing VMFS capacity with LUN spanning and LUN expansion
    6. Native and 3rd party Multipathing with Fibre and iSCSI SANs
    7. VMFS performance considerations
    8. VMFS scalability and reliability
  15. Virtual Infrastructure Monitoring with Alarms
    1. Alarm categories and definitions
    2. Creating custom alarms and actions
    3. Reviewing alarms and acknowledging them
    4. Configure vCenter so it can send E-mail and SNMP alerts
    5. Work with alarm conditions, triggers and actions
    6. Identify most useful alarms to review and enable
  16. Compute Resource Management with Resource Pools
    1. Delegate resources in bulk using Resource Pools
    2. How ESX delivers resources to VMs
    3. Shares, Reservations and Limits
    4. CPU resource scheduling
    5. Memory resource scheduling
    6. Resource Pools
  17. VM Cold, Hot, and Storage VMotion Migration
    1. Cold Migrations to new ESXi hosts, datastores
    2. Hot Migrations with VMotion
    3. VMotion requirements and dependencies
    4. How VMotion works – detailed explanation
    5. How to test ESXi hosts and VMs for VMotion compatibility
    6. Troubleshooting VMotion
    7. Storage VMotion for hot VM disk migrations
  18. VM Load Balancing with DRS Clusters
    1. CPU and Memory resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
    2. Resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
    3. DRS Cluster configuration and tuning
    4. Per-VM cluster policy overrides
    5. Learn the features and benefits of DRS Power Management
  19. VM High Availability with HA Clusters
    1. High Availability options to minimize unplanned downtime
    2. VMware High Availability clusters
    3. How VMware HA protects against ESXi host, storage network and SAN volume failures
    4. Introduction to VMware Fault Tolerance
  20. Eliminate VM Downtime with Fault Tolerance
    1. Introduction to continuous VM availability using VMware Fault Tolerance
    2. Configuring host networking to support Fault Tolerance
    3. Fault Tolerant protected VMs restrictions and limitations
    4. Configuring and enabling VM Fault Tolerance protection
    5. Testing Fault Tolerance and demonstrating zero VM unplanned downtime
  21. Patch Management with VMware Lifecycle Manager
    1. Configure and enable VMware Lifecycle Manager
    2. Establishing a patch baseline
    3. Verifying compliance and patching ESXi hosts
  22. Introduction to Distributed Virtual Switches
    1. Introduction to dvSwitch features and capabilities
    2. Create, configure a dvSwitch
    3. Migrating VMkernel NICs from standard to dvSwitches
    4. Bulk migrate VMs from standard to dvSwitches
    5. dvSwitch configuration backup and restore
  23. Managing Scalability and Performance
    1. VMkernel CPU and memory resource management mechanisms
    2. Tuning VM storage I/O performance
    3. Identifying and resolving resource contention
    4. Monitoring VM and ESXi host performance
    5. Performance and capacity planning strategies
  24. Final Thoughts
    1. Consolidation guidelines for VMs and Storage
    2. Determining which workloads to consolidate
    3. Other considerations
  25. Hands On Labs
    1. Install of ESXi 7.0 and perform post-install configurations
    2. Create, update Network Standard vSwitches. Use NIC Teams for performance and redundancy
    3. Configure and test Jumbo Frames to improve physical networking performance
    4. Define, connect to and browse NFS file shares
    5. Create a Virtual Machine and install a guest OS into the VM. Install VMware Tools into the VM. Add 3rd party tools and utilities to the VM
    6. Export a VM in Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) and then re-import it
    7. Install and configure the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA)
    8. Configure Single Sign On (SSO) identity sources including Active Directory
    9. Configure vCenter's inventory views to organize inventory objects
    10. Work with Clones and Templates. Convert a VM into a template. Rapidly deploy new VMs from template. Copy VMs using cloning.
    11. Use guest OS customization to easily change the identity of a VM. Create, update and deploy VMs using Guest OS Customization Specifications
    12. Work with virtual disks
      1. Hot add a secondary virtual disk
      2. Grow a non-system volume
      3. Grow a Windows system disk and partition with no downtime
    13. Create a new Content Library and upload a VM in OVF / OVA format to it
    14. Deploy a new Virtual Machine from a Template in a Content Library
    15. Connect an ISO file in a Content Library to a VM's CD / DVD reader
    16. Configure and test hotplug memory Create multi-core vCPUs
    17. Hotplug a new virtual CPU package into a running VM
    18. Work with vCenter permissions. Use and customize Roles
    19. iSCSI, Fibre Storage Area Networks. Scanning for and connecting to SAN shared storage
    20. Assign a SAN volume directly to a VM using Raw Device Maps
    21. VMware VMFS – VMware's cluster file system. How to create, tune and grow VMFS volumes
    22. vCenter alarms for monitoring key infrastructure objects. Send SNMP traps to a trap receiver on high VM resource consumption
    23. Create and resource tune Resource Pools. Test resource delegations
    24. Cold Migration VMs from one ESXi host and storage volume to another
    25. Hot VMotion the live running state of a VM from one ESXi host to another
    26. Hot Storage Migrate the live disk state of a running VM from one datastore to another
    27. Build and test an automated CPU and Memory resource load balancing DRS clusters
    28. Create and test an HA cluster. Watch the cluster place and restart VMs during server failures
    29. Configure ESXi hosts, networking and VMs for Fault Tolerance
    30. Prepare for an IT failure with vSphere Replication. Hot replicate and then restore a running VM
    31. Set up VMware Lifecycle Manager to patch/update ESXi hosts. Perform an ESXi host Patch Scan, review host non-compliance with attached patch baselines and then apply patches to update the ESXi host
    32. Configure a Distributed Virtual Switch
    33. Migrate VM and VMkernel networking from standard vSwitches to dvSwitches
    34. Performance analysis and benchmarking storage and networking

Required 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.

Useful Prerequisites

Familiarization with virtualization concepts and prior experience with vSphere or any other virtualization platform is helpful but not required.

License

Length: 5 days | $275.00 per copy

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What is Included?
  • Student Manual
  • Extra Trainer Files
  • PowerPoint Presentation