VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] Course Overview

Target Audience for VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8]

1. The VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] course is designed for IT professionals seeking expertise in virtualization and vSphere infrastructure management.

2. Target job roles and audience for the course include:

• Systems administrators and engineers responsible for managing vSphere environments
• IT professionals working with ESXi hosts and vCenter Server appliances
• Network engineers looking to understand vSphere networking configurations
• Storage administrators tasked with managing vSphere storage technologies
• Virtualization specialists focusing on deploying and managing virtual machines
• Data center professionals aiming to optimize resource allocations in virtual environments
• Technical support staff involved in maintaining and troubleshooting vSphere setups
• IT managers overseeing virtual infrastructure
• Cloud administrators working with vSphere as part of cloud infrastructure
• IT professionals seeking VMware certification in vSphere management

Learning Objectives - What you will Learn in this VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8]?

Introduction to the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] Course Outcomes:

This course offers comprehensive training on VMware's vSphere [V8], covering installation, configuration, and management of the vSphere infrastructure. It equips students with the skills necessary for efficient virtualization management in a cloud environment.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes:

• Understand the fundamentals of virtualization and how vSphere integrates within the software-defined data center and cloud infrastructure.
• Install and configure ESXi hosts and manage host settings effectively, adhering to best practices for security and administration.
• Deploy and configure the vCenter Server Appliance, manage vCenter settings, and organize inventory objects, with an understanding of permission application and system logging.
• Configure vSphere standard and distributed switches, set networking policies, and understand the differences and applications of each switch type.
• Identify and configure vSphere storage technologies, including VMFS and NFS datastores, and understand iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage components.
• Create, manage, and optimize virtual machines (VMs), deploy VMs from templates and content libraries, and use customization specifications for guest operating systems.
• Perform different types of VM migrations, understand the role of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility, and manage VM snapshots and resource allocations.
• Deploy and manage vSphere clusters enabled for DRS and HA, understand cluster monitoring, and configure clusters to ensure high availability and fault tolerance.
• Manage the vSphere lifecycle, including enabling vSphere Lifecycle Manager, updating hosts and software, and ensuring compliance with cluster images.
• Operate vSphere Update Planner, run prechecks, and update VMware Tools and VM hardware using vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatic recommendations.

These objectives ensure that upon completion of the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V8] course, students will be well-equipped to manage a vSphere infrastructure for organizations of any size.

Configuration Management Best Practices

Network Infrastructure Optimization

Professional network configuration requires adherence to enterprise standards:

• Network Isolation: Isolate from one another the networks for host management, vSphere vMotion, vSphere FT, and so on, to improve security and performance

• vMotion Separation: Keep the vSphere vMotion connection on a separate network

• MTU Configuration: Configure the same MTU on all VMkernel network adapters in a vSphere Distributed Switch

Security Hardening

Essential security configurations include:

• Password Management: DO set strong passwords for all your vSphere and Infrastructure host and device accounts (Such as: root, SSO administrator, etc.)

• Account Lifecycle: DO NOT let root or SSO administrator passwords expire/age out

• Backup Strategy: DO configure vCenter VCSA backups using the VAMI backup utility

Storage Performance Optimization

Critical storage configuration practices:

• SCSI Adapter Selection: The best performing and most efficient virtual SCSI adapter is the VMware Paravirtual SCSI Adapter. This adapter has the best CPU efficiency at high workloads and provides the highest queue depths for a virtual machine

• Storage API Integration: The VMware API for Array Integration (VAAI) primitives offer a way to offload and accelerate certain operations in a VMware environment

Virtual Hardware Version 20

This version of virtual hardware allows you to use the latest features of the newest vSphere version, including: Support of the latest guest operating systems, including Windows 11

Enhanced Resource Management

DRS Improvements: Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) in VMware vSphere 8.0 can better understand the memory workloads of VMs (using persistent memory) to make migration decisions. As a result, VM placement and migration don't affect performance

vNUMA Visualization: In version 8, you can manage vNUMA configuration in the GUI of vSphere Client instead of VM advanced settings or command line interface (CLI). The visualization of vNUMA makes the configuration process more convenient

Configuration Profiles

vSphere 8.0 launches vSphere Configuration Profiles in tech preview. This capability allows you to manage ESXi cluster configurations by specifying a desired host configuration at the cluster level, automates the scanning of ESXi hosts for compliance to the specified Desired Configuration and remediates any host that is not compliant

Troubleshooting Common Installation and Configuration Issues

Installation Problems and Solutions

DNS and System Name Issues: Issue: The supplied System Name is not valid. Solution: If the supplied system name is an FQDN, make sure the DNS forward lookup results in at least one valid IP address in the system. If the supplied system name is an IP address, then it should be one of the valid IP addresses in the system.

Common Installation Errors: The common reasons for VMware vCenter installation errors are incorrect DNS settings, NTP configuration, SSL and certificate errors, issues when connecting to a database, firewall settings, and insufficient hardware resources .

Resolution Strategies

Time Synchronization Issues: Try the following actions to resolve the issue: Check NTP settings for VCSA, on the ESXi host where the VCSA is deployed and on your machine from which you run the installer. You may need to specify a local NTP server

DNS Configuration: Check that DNS records for your vCenter exist and are resolved before entering FQDN in the appropriate vCenter installation screen

Hardware Compatibility: Test your setup on non-production machines. Attempting to install VMware ESXi vSphere 8 in a lab will reveal if unsupported drivers or firmware cause problems. A NIC that doesn't appear or a controller that drops under load can derail a production rollout

Performance and Management Issue

VMware Tools Problems: The VMware error you're most likely to encounter is caused by vSphere VMware Tools either being outdated or not being installed. VMware Tools provides a suite of utilities designed to help you improve VM management and boost VM guest operating system performance.

Snapshot Management: VM snapshots are a very useful VMware vSphere feature because they can preserve a VM's virtual memory and virtual disk prior to a significant event occurring, such as a configuration modification or application upgrade. Though snapshots are useful, they can create issues if not properly maintained.