This training course, for experienced VMware vSphere® personnel, teaches advanced skills for configuring and maintaining a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure. The course is based on VMware® ESXi™ 5.5 and VMware® vCenter Server™ 5.5.
This course prepares the student for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Datacenter Administration [V5] certification (VCAP5-DCA). Completion of this course also satisfies the prerequisite for taking the VMware® Certified Professional 5 exam.

• Experienced system administrators
• Systems engineers
• System integrators

Completion of one of the following courses:
• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.5]
• VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.5]
• VMware vSphere: Fast Track
Or equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server
Experience working at the command prompt is highly recommended.

Outline: 1 Course Introduction
• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives
2 VMware Management Resources
• Deploy and configure vSphere Management Assistant
• Configure ESXi technical support mode and SSH access
• Use the esxcli, vicfg, and vmware-cmd commands
• Review ESXi and vCenter Server log files
3 Performance in a Virtualized Environment
• Review the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology
• Explain software and hardware virtualization techniques and their effects on performance
• Use vSphere performance monitoring tools
4 Network Scalability
• Create, configure, and manage vSphere distributed switches
• Migrate virtual machines from standard switches to distributed switches
• Explain distributed switch features such as private VLANs, VMware vSphere® Network I/O Control, port mirroring, LACP, QoS tagging, and NetFlow
5 Network Optimization
• Explain the performance features of network adapters
• Explain the performance features of vSphere networking
• Monitor key network performance metrics
• Use vSphere Management Assistant to manage virtual network configurations
• Troubleshoot common network performance problems
6 Storage Scalability
• Explain vSphere storage APIs for array integration and storage awareness
• Configure and assign virtual machine storage policies
• Configure VMware vSphere® Storage DRS™ and VMware vSphere® Storage I/O Control
7 Storage Optimization
• Diagnose storage access problems
• Explain how storage protocols, VMware vSphere® VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance
• Configure vSphere® Flash Read Cache™
• Monitor key storage performance metrics
• Use vSphere Management Assistant to manage virtual storage
• Troubleshoot common storage performance problems
8 CPU Optimization
• Explain the CPU scheduler operation, NUMA support, and other features that affect CPU performance
• Monitor key CPU performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems
9 Memory Optimization
• Explain ballooning, memory compression, and host swapping techniques for memory reclamation when memory is overcommitted
• Monitor key memory performance metrics
• Troubleshoot common memory performance problems
10 Virtual Machine and Cluster Optimization
• Describe performance guidelines for virtual machines, resource allocation settings, VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™ clusters, resource pools, and VMware vSphere® High Availability admission control policies
• Troubleshoot virtual machine power-on failures
• Troubleshoot vSphere cluster problems
11 Host and Management Scalability
• Explain VMware vSphere® Distributed Power Management™
• Use Host Profiles to manage ESXi configuration compliance
• Use VMware vSphere® PowerCLI™ to perform vSphere administrative tasks
• Use Image Builder to create an ESXi installation image
• Use vSphere Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts

• Configure and manage ESXi networking and storage for a large and sophisticated enterprise
• Manage changes to the vSphere environment
• Optimize the performance of all vSphere components
• Troubleshoot operational faults and identify their root causes
• Use VMware vSphere® ESXi™ Shell and VMware vSphere® Management Assistant to manage vSphere
• Use VMware vSphere® Auto Deploy™ to provision ESXi hosts
Note: About one-third of the VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.5] course content is repeated in this course. The scalability topics in VMware vSphere: Fast Track are repeated in this course.