By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

• Configure and manage vSphere networking and storage for a large and sophisticated enterprise
• Use VMware vSphere® Client™, VMware vSphere® Web Client, and VMware vSphere® ESXi™ Shell to manage vSphere
• Create a content library for deploying virtual machines
• Use VMware vSphere® Auto Deploy™ and host profiles to provision VMware ESXi™ hosts and manage ESXi host compliance
• Monitor and analyze key performance indicators for compute, storage, and networking resources for ESXi hosts
• Optimize the performance of ESXi and VMware vCenter Server®
• Harden the vSphere environment against security threats
• Encrypt virtual machines for additional security

1. Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives
• Identify additional resources for after this course
• Identify other VMware Education offerings

2. Network Scalability

• Configure and manage vSphere distributed switches
• Describe how VMware vSphere® Network I/O Control enhances performance
• Explain distributed switch features such as port mirroring, LACP, QoS tagging, and NetFlow

3. Storage Scalability

• Explain why VMware vSphere® VMFS is a high-performance, scalable file system
• Explain VMware vSphere® Storage APIs - Array Integration, VMware vSphere® API for Storage Awareness™, and vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering
• Configure and assign virtual machine storage policies
• Create vSAN storage policies
• Configure VMware vSphere® Storage DRS™ and VMware vSphere® Storage I/O Control

4. Host and Management Scalability

• Define and use content libraries
• Describe and use host profiles
• Describe and use VMware vSphere® ESXi™ Image Builder CLI and vSphere Auto Deploy

5. CPU Optimization

• Explain the CPU scheduler operation and other features that affect CPU performance
• Explain NUMA and vNUMA support
• Use esxtop to monitor key CPU performance metrics

6. Memory Optimization

• Explain ballooning, memory compression, and host-swapping techniques for memory reclamation when memory is overcommitted
• Use esxtop to monitor key memory performance metrics

7. Storage Optimization

• Describe storage queue types and other factors that affect storage performance
• Use esxtop to monitor key storage performance metrics

8. Network Optimization

• Explain the performance features of network adapters
• Explain the performance features of vSphere networking
• Use esxtop to monitor key network performance metrics

9. vCenter Server Performance Optimization

• Describe the factors that influence vCenter Server performance
• Use VMware vCenter® Server Appliance™ tools to monitor resource usage

10. vSphere Security

• Configure ESXi host access and authorization
• Secure ESXi, vCenter Server, and virtual machines
• Use VMware Certificate Authority to configure vSphere certificate management
• Configure vSphere to encrypt virtual machines, core dumps and VMware vSphere® vMotion® migrations

Experienced system administrators, system engineers, and system integrators

You must complete one of the following prerequisites:

• Understanding of concepts presented in the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.7] course
• Equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server

Experience with working at the command line is highly recommended.