VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] (VSICM8)

This five-day course features intensive hands-on training that focuses on installing, configuring, and managing VMware vSphere 8, which includes VMware ESXi™ 8 and VMware vCenter® 8. This course prepares you to administer a vSphere infrastructure for an organization of any size.

This course is the foundation for most VMware technologies in the software-defined data center.

Product Alignment:

• VMware ESXi 8.0.
• VMware vCenter 8.0.

Individuals involved in the implementation, maintenance and administration of a vSphere environment.

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

• Install and configure ESXi hosts.
• Deploy and configure vCenter.
• Use the vSphere Client to create the vCenter inventory and assign roles to vCenter users.
• Create virtual networks using vSphere standard switches and distributed switches.
• Create and configure datastores using storage technologies supported by vSphere.
• Use the vSphere® Client™ to create virtual machines, templates, clones, and snapshots.
• Create content libraries for managing templates and deploying virtual machines.
• Manage virtual machine resource allocation.
• Migrate virtual machines with VMware vSphere® vMotion® and VMware vSphere® Storage vMotion®.
• Create and configure a vSphere cluster that is enabled with VMware vSphere® High Availability (HA) and VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™.
• Manage the life cycle of vSphere to keep vCenter, ESXi hosts, and virtual machines up to date.

Recommended as preparation for the following exams:

• VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization 2023.

Attendees should meet the following pre-requisite

• System administration experience on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems.

VSICM8 | Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics.
• Course objectives.

VSICM8 | vSphere and Virtualization Overview

• Explain basic virtualization concepts.
• Describe how vSphere fits in the software-defined data center and the cloud infrastructure.
• Recognize the user interfaces for accessing vSphere.
• Explain how vSphere interacts with CPUs, memory, networks, storage, and GPUs.

VSICM8 | Installing and Configuring ESXi

• Install an ESXi host.
• Recognize ESXi user account best practices.
• Configure the ESXi host settings using the DCUI and VMware Host Client.

VSICM8 | Deploying and Configuring vCenter

• Recognize ESXi hosts communication with vCenter.
• Deploy vCenter Server Appliance.
• Configure vCenter settings.
• Use the vSphere Client to add and manage license keys.
• Create and organize vCenter inventory objects.
• Recognize the rules for applying vCenter permissions.
• View vCenter logs and events.

VSICM8 | Configuring vSphere Networking

• Configure and view standard switch configurations.
• Configure and view distributed switch configurations.
• Recognize the difference between standard switches and distributed switches.
• Explain how to set networking policies on standard and distributed switches.

VSICM8 | Configuring vSphere Storage

• Recognize vSphere storage technologies.
• Identify types of vSphere datastores.
• Describe Fibre Channel components and addressing.
• Describe iSCSI components and addressing.
• Configure iSCSI storage on ESXi.
• Create and manage VMFS datastores.
• Configure and manage NFS datastores.

VSICM8 | Deploying Virtual Machines

• Create and provision VMs.
• Explain the importance of VMware Tools.
• Identify the files that make up a VM.
• Recognize the components of a VM.
• Navigate the vSphere Client and examine VM settings and options.
• Modify VMs by dynamically increasing resources.
• Create VM templates and deploy VMs from them.
• Clone VMs.
• Create customization specifications for guest operating systems.
• Create local, published, and subscribed content libraries.
• Deploy VMs from content libraries.
• Manage multiple versions of VM templates in content libraries.

VSICM8 | Managing Virtual Machines

• Recognize the types of VM migrations that you can perform within a vCenter instance and across vCenter instances.
• Migrate VMs using vSphere vMotion.
• Describe the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility in migrations.
• Migrate VMs using vSphere Storage vMotion.
• Take a snapshot of a VM.
• Manage, consolidate, and delete snapshots.
• Describe CPU and memory concepts in relation to a virtualized environment.
• Describe how VMs compete for resources.
• Define CPU and memory shares, reservations, and limits.

VSICM8 | Deploying and Configuring vSphere Clusters

• Create a vSphere cluster enabled for vSphere DRS and vSphere HA.
• View information about a vSphere cluster.
• Explain how vSphere DRS determines VM placement on hosts in the cluster.
• Recognize use cases for vSphere DRS settings.
• Monitor a vSphere DRS cluster.
• Describe how vSphere HA responds to various types of failures.
• Identify options for configuring network redundancy in a vSphere HA cluster.
• Recognize vSphere HA design considerations.
• Recognize the use cases for various vSphere HA settings.
• Configure a vSphere HA cluster.
• Recognize when to use vSphere Fault Tolerance.

VSICM8 | Managing the vSphere Lifecycle

• Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager in a vSphere cluster.
• Describe features of the vCenter Update Planner.
• Run vCenter upgrade prechecks and interoperability reports.
• Recognize features of VMware vSphere® Lifecycle Manager™.
• Distinguish between managing hosts using baselines and managing hosts using images.
• Describe how to update hosts using baselines.
• Describe ESXi images.
• Validate ESXi host compliance against a cluster image and update ESXi hosts.
• Update ESXi hosts using vSphere Lifecycle Manager.
• Describe vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatic recommendations.
• Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade VMware Tools and VM hardware.