VMware vSphere: Advanced Fast Track (VAFT)

System administrators, systems engineers, consultants, or help desk personnel who need the knowledge, skills, and abilities to troubleshoot performance, configuration, or operational problems in vSphere deployments.

Completion of one of the following courses:

• VMware View™: Install, Configure, Manage (Version 5.0) (VIEW)
• VMware vSphere 5: Install, Configure, Manage (VICM)

Or equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server

At the end of the course, you will be able to do the following:

• Use vSphere tools to monitor the performance of VMware ESX™/ESXi hosts
• Diagnose performance problems relating to CPU, memory, network, and storage on an ESX/ESXi host
• Apply guidelines for monitoring application performance
• Use the VMware vSphere Client and command-line utilities to diagnose and rectify ESX/ESXi, VMware vMotion™, VMware Storage vMotion, VMware High Availability, VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler, and virtual machine power-on problems
• Use ESXi technical support mode to diagnose and rectify problems on ESXi
• Create and use a network packet capture utility to capture and display virtual switch network traffic

This fast-paced, extended-hour, lab-intensive course includes the content of the VMware vSphere: Manage for Performance (VMP) and VMware vSphere 4: Troubleshooting (VSTS) courses. This course provides the knowledge and skills necessary to make fundamental design decisions that enhance performance and meet performance goals in a deployed VMware vSphere™ installation. This course also provides the knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the vSphere virtual infrastructure. This course includes a prepaid voucher for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 4 – Datacenter Administrator examination.

Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

Performance in a Virtualized Environment

• Discuss the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology
• Discuss software and hardware virtualization techniques and their impact on performance
• Monitor performance using vCenter Server performance charts and the ESX/ESXi resxtop command

CPU Performance

• Discuss the CPU scheduler and other features that have an impact on CPU performance
• Monitor key CPU performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems

Memory Performance

• Discuss memory reclamation techniques and memory overcommitment
• Monitor key memory performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common memory performance problems

Guidelines for DRS and Resource Controls

• Discuss performance guidelines for DRS clusters, resource pools, and resource allocation settings

Network Performance

• Discuss the performance features of modern network adapters
• Monitor key network performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common network performance problems

Storage Performance

• Discuss how storage protocols, VMware vStorage VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance
• Monitor key storage performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common storage performance problems

Virtual Machine Performance

• Discuss guidelines for configuring a virtual machine for optimal performance

Application Performance

• Discuss tools and guidelines for application performance