Virtualization with VMware ESX and VirtualCenter
SMB to Enterprise
Overview
This class is a 5-day (optional 4-day) intense introduction to virtualization using
VMware’s immensely popular Virtual Infrastructure™ suite including VMware
ESX™ 3.5 and VirtualCenter™ 2.5. Assuming no prior virtualization experience,
this class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to more advanced topics.
Up to 40% of class time is devoted to labs so concepts and skills are reinforced.
Initial labs focus on installation and configuration of stand-alone ESX servers.
As the class progresses, shared storage, networking and centralized
management are introduced. The class then continues on to more advanced
topics including resource balancing, high availability, back up and recovery,
troubleshooting and more. Disaster recovery, rapid deployment, hot migration
and workload consolidation are also covered.
This class is unique in its approach; which is to identify common IT pain points
and then clearly explain and demonstrate how virtualization delivers immediate, tangible benefits (e.g.: reduced capital and operational costs, greater consistency, responsiveness, reduced administration, server consolidation, etc.). 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, mechanics
and best practices of virtualization. Attendees will be able to design,
implement, deploy, configure, monitor, manage, troubleshoot and secure
virtual infrastructure.
Objectives
At the end of the course, attendees will be able to:
· Explain the many significant benefits of virtualization
· Install ESX Server according to best practices
· Configure and manage local storage
· Create virtual and virtual to physical LAN segments
· Understand and use shared SAN storage including Fibre SAN, iSCSI SAN
· Define and use NAS datastores
· Install, configure and administer VMware VirtualCenter including the
Database Server, License Server, VirtualCenter and the VI Client
· Create virtual machines and install operating systems and applications
into them
· Rapidly deploy virtual machines from golden-master images using templates
· Create clones - one-time copies of virtual machine
· Perform cold and hot migrations virtual machines
· Configure, manage, monitor and secure users and groups
· Understand the benefits and trade offs of network, SAN, VMware Consolidated
Back Up and third party back up solutions
· Create and manage load balanced clusters
· Understand, create and manage high availability clusters to protect against VM
service loss caused by ESX server failures
· Monitor and tune both ESX and virtual machine performance
· Understand how VMware and third party products, including operating systems,
are impacted by virtualization
· Troubleshoot common problems
Who Should Attend?
This class is suitable for:
- 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
- VMware customers and prospects who want to learn how to extract the
maximum benefit from their investment in Virtual Infrastructure
- Managers who need an unbiased understanding of virtualization before
committing their organization to a virtual infrastructure deployment.
Prerequisites
Attendees should have user, operator or administrator experience on common
operating systems such as Microsoft Windows®, Linux™, UNIX™ or other
platforms. 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, etc.
No Linux command line skills are assumed or required.
Course Outline
Chapter 1 - Virtualization Infrastructure
· Virtualization explained
· How VMware virtualization compares to traditional PC deployments
· Common pain points of physical deployments
· How virtualization effectively addresses issues and brings new
Chapter 2 - Stand Alone ESX Server Installation
· Selecting, validating and preparing your server
· Sizing Service Console and VMkernel resources
· Storage controllers, disks and partitions
· Software installation and licensing
· Installation recommendations and best practices
· First look at the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client
Chapter 3 - Virtual and Physical Networking
· Virtual Machine, IP Storage and management concepts
· Virtual Switches, Ports and Port Groups
· Sizing Virtual Switches
Chapter 4 - NAS Shared Storage
? Benefits Shared Storage offer to Virtual Infrastructure
? Shared Storage options
? NFS Overview
? Configuring ESX to use NFS Shares
? 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
· VM best practices for monitoring and scalability
· Accessing VMs and servers remotely via the Web
· Understanding what should and should not be virtualized
Chapter 6 - VirtualCenter
· VirtualCenter architectural and feature overview
· VirtualCenter components
· License Server and Licensing Options
· VirtualCenter Inventory and views
· Host and Server based licensing models
Chapter 7 - VirtualCenter Inventory
· VirtualCenter's four views into Virtual Infrastructure
· Role of the datacenter
· Using folders to impart political, geographic or technical boundaries
· Importing ESX hosts into VirtualCenter management
· Troubleshooting VirtualCenter
Chapter 8 - VM Rapid Deployment using Templates, Clones
· 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
· Performance considerations
Chapter 9 - ESX VirtualCenter Permission Model
· VMware Security model
· Configuring local users and groups
· Managing local permissions
· VirtualCenter security model
· Local, Domain and Active Directory users and groups
· How permissions are applied
Chapter 10 - Advanced Virtual to Physical Networking
· Up-linking Virtual and Physical Network segments using NICs
· NIC teaming for redundancy and Performance
· Connecting to vLANs
· Enhanced Network Security
· Virtual routers and firewalls
Chapter 11 - Using Fibre and iSCSI Shared Storage
· Fibre SAN overview
· Identifying and using Fibre Host Bus Adapters
· Scanning and Rescanning Fibre SANs
· Partitioning and formatting Fibre SAN Storage
· Multi-pathing in a Fibre SAN environment
· Performance and redundancy considerations and best practices
· iSCSI overview
· Virtual and physical iSCSI adapters
· Creating virtual iSCSI adapters
· Connecting to iSCSI storage
· Scanning and rescanning iSCSI SANS
· Performance and redundancy considerations and best practices
Chapter 12 - VMware File System (VMFS)
· VMFS Overview
· Unique file system properties of VMFS
· Managing shared Volumes
· Creating new VMFS partitions
· Managing VMFS capacity with LUN spanning
· Multi-pathing with Fibre and iSCSI SANs
· VMFS performance considerations
Chapter 13 - Resource Management
· Sizing VMs
· How ESX delivers resources to VMs
· Shares, Reservations and Limits
· CPU resource scheduling
· Memory resource scheduling
· Disk I/O bandwidth management
· Network bandwidth management
· Best practices
Chapter 14 - Virtual Machine Cold and Hot Migration
? Moving Virtual Machines
? Cold Migrations to new ESX hosts, datastores
? Hot Migrations with VMotion
? VMotion requirements
? VMotion dependencies
? How VMotion works – detailed explanation
? Troubleshooting VMotion
Chapter 15 - Resource Management with Resource Pools, DRS
· Delegated resource management with Resource Pools
· Resource balanced clusters with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
· DRS Cluster configuration and tuning
· Isolation response and per-VM policy overrides
Chapter 16 - High Availability Clusters
· Application level clusters such as MSCS
· VM cluster strategies using MSCS
· Using VMs as cluster peers with MSCS
· VMware High Availability clusters
Chapter 17 - Back Up and Recovery
· Pro’s and Con’s of traditional back up strategies
· VMware Consolidated Backup
· Third party back up solutions
· Back up strategies and alternatives
· Backing up the ESX Service Console
Chapter 18 - Consolidation with VMware Converter Enterprise
· VMware Converter overview
· Converting physical machines, virtual machines and OS Images
· Cold migrations of physical machines to virtual machines
· Hot migrations of physical machines to virtual machines
Chapter 19 - VMware Capacity Planner
· VMware Capacity Planner overview
· Finding and monitoring physical workloads
· Reviewing physical server performance data
· Using Capacity Planner recommendations to plan your migration
Chapter 20 - Planning VI Deployments
· Designing a Virtual Infrastructure deployment for scalability and
performance
· Server, Network, Storage and management considerations
· What should (and should not be virtualized)
· Build up vs. build out decisions
· Strategies for adopting Virtualization
Day 5 (Optional)
This class can be delivered with the option to shorten to 4 days of training. The remaining chapters would be removed from the course material in the even of a 4 day opportunity.
Chapter 21 – Effective Resource Monitoring
? VMkernel CPU and memory resource management mechanisms
? Identifying and resolving resource contention
? Monitoring VM and ESX host performance
? Configuring and customizing resource based alarms
? Performance and capacity planning strategies
Chapter 22 – VMware Update Manager
? Theory of operation
? Install, configure and activate Update Manager
? Using Update Manager to patch ESX and VMs
Chapter 23 – ESX Advanced Security and Reporting
? ESX Service Console security overview
? Pluggable Authentication Modules, TCP Wrappers
? Customizing the Service Console Firewall
? Activity logs and log management
Chapter 24 – Add Value with Third Party Tools
? Explore the virtualization ecosystem
? VM back up, recovery and replication tools
? Reporting tools for configuration backup and compliance purposes
For More Information
This class can be customized to meet your unique training and delivery needs,
including:
? On-site delivery at your facility
? Custom timetables including 3-day rapid delivery boot-camps
? Content and Lab customization to meet your unique training needs
? Distance training
? Mentoring, implementation planning and assistance