Mega Course VMware vSphere 6.7 Optimize Upgrade Troubleshoot

34.5hrs of VMware vSphere 6.7 lectures, lab demos to learn ESXi / vCenter, for VCP / VCAP VMware Certification and more

What you'll learn
In this class you will learn how to install, configure, manage, upgrade, scale up, design, deploy, troubleshoot and use vSphere 6.7
Emphasis is placed on good design and implementation, best practices and use cases so you understand not only what you are doing but why you are doing it
Performance, scalability and service availability are recurring topics. This course includes many tips to improve server, VM, networking and storage performance, redundancy and how to deliver scalability
Troubleshooting tips, tricks and procedures are covered in every chapter. We show you how to work around problems, configure and repair systems from the command line and how to monitor hosts, VMs, networking and storage using esxtop and other tools
Command line tools are explained and demonstrated so you can still fix issues when Web interfaces aren't working
Design advice, tips and trade offs are included so you can build the best possible environment with the equipment you have.
Exactly how to perform ever task because we include Hands-on Lab Demo lectures in every chapter

Requirements
You should have prior experience with vSphere 4.x, 5.0, 5.5 or higher as an experienced user or junior administrator
You should have some familiaity with physical server hardware (CPUs, Memory, Networking and storage technologies)
You should understand TCP/IP networking and know how to use tools like ping, traceroute, nslookup, etc.
You should have basic knowledge of how to build and run virtual machines
You should have some experience managing ESXi hosts and vCenter using vSphere Client or Host Client
You should have an understanding of general IT security considerations
You should have familiarity with popular Guest operating systems like Windows or Linux (we use Windows 10 in this course)
Description
About this Course

This 34.5 hr course is the longest, most information packed and most complete VMware vSphere 6.7 course you will find on Udemy.

Do you already have basic VMware vSphere / virtualization knowledge and experience and want to take your skills to the next level? Maybe your goal is to skill up so you can pass VCP-DCV or VCAP certification exams, get that promotion or earn a senior position as a VMware vSphere 6.7 administrator?

If so, this 100% downloadable course is for you! Want to be sure? Every chapter in my course has at least one free preview lecture and a 30-day, no questions asked, money back guarantee.

I originally developed the content in this course for 5-day Instructor Led training classes - the kind of class that can cost $4,200+USD/seat at major training companies. But now, it is here on Udemy - so you can get the same high quality training for a lot less.

Don't settle for VMware video training that is just a few hours of recorded PowerPoint slides. In this mega-course, I include both lecture and hands-on lab demo videos. In the lecture material, I explain concepts, provide an overview of using vSphere 6.7 and include best practices and design and troubleshooting tips, etc. In the hands-on lab demos, I log into one of our live vSphere rental labs and show you exactly how to get the job done, step-by-step.

Please note that this course does not provide access to live labs but does include video demonstrations of how to complete tasks using vSphere 6.7.

What I Cover In This Course

In this course, I explain step-by-step how to upgrade or migrate from vCenter for Windows or vCenter Appliance to vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 and how to use VMware Update Manager to upgrade ESXi hosts and how to upgrade Virtual Machine virtual hardware and VMware Tools. I also cover advanced topics such as Fibre/iSCSI shared storage, Raw Device Maps, working with VMFS 6 Filesystems, Storage Profiles, Storage DRS Clusters, High Availability Clusters, Fault Tolerance and Distributed Virtual Switches.

I'll show you how to diagnose, isolate and fix common problems. We will use Host Client, Web Client, HTML 5 Client and command line tools to explore, configure, update, investigate and zero in on performance bottlenecks and trouble spots. Up to 45% of class time is devoted to labs so concepts, skills and best practices are developed and reinforced.

By the end of the class, attendees will have learned practical, actionable skills in vSphere design, implementation, upgrading, sizing, scaleability, performance optimization and troubleshooting.

Use This Course to Prepare for VMware Certification Exams

Many of my Udemy students use this course to help them prepare for vSphere certification. You can use this course to gain knowledge and skills that are tested for in VMware certifications including:

VMware Certified Associate (VCA)

VMware Certified Professional (VCP-DCV), and

VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP)

Detailed Chapter by Chapter Topics Covered in this Course

Chapter 0 - Course Overview

What this course will cover

The technical skills and background of ideal attendees

Training with a focus on vSphere Best Practices, Good Design, Diagnosis and Troubleshooting, Scaleability, VM Availability, Performance, Availability, Security and more

Chapter 1 - How to install and configure ESXi according to best practices

Selecting and preparing supported hardware for ESXi 6.7

Performing install and post install tasks

Using advanced settings to review and set password strength rules

Connecting ESXi to the management network via the DCUI including tips and best practices

Accessing ESXi through the DCUI, server console and via Secure Shell

Review and managing host access services from the command line (troubleshooting tip)

How to access the DCUI when the DCUI isn't running (troubleshooting tip)

Four different ways to review ESXi logs (web, Host Client, Command line and Console)

How to manage local users and permissions from the command line (troubleshooting tip)

Sizing ESXi hosts for pCPU, pMemory. and, how to enable Transparent Page Sharing to improve memory efficiency by up to 20%

How to use local Flash storage to accelerate ESXi host read I/Os and minimize the impact of host memory stress (performance tip)

How to use Lockdown Mode to secure your ESXi host

How to install VMware packages (called VIBs) using both Host Client and command line

Now to query and restart local host management agents from DCUI and from the command line (troubleshooting tip)

Where to find best practices for security your ESXi hosts

Chapter 2 - Introduction to ESXi Physical and Virtual Networking

Physical networking hardware supported by ESXi. Includes the latest, ultra fast network hardware

The three Virtual NIC options along with use cases to help you select the best vNIC for best performance

The three different TCP/IP stacks supported by ESXi (and why)

How to create and manage vSwitches, VMkernel NICs and Port Groups using Host Client

How to create and manage vSwitches, VMkernel NICs and Port Groups using command line (troubleshooting tip)

The basics of Physical NIC teaming

Great ESXi command line tools to test networking, verify peer connectivity and troubleshoot networking issues

Chapter 3 - Advanced ESXi Physical and Virtual Networking

Virtual / Physical networking design goals

The three vSwitch Security Policies (Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Changes, Forged Transmits) and when to use them

Network traffic bandwidth management with Traffic Shaping

How to improve network throughput with Jumbo Frames. Includes use cases, how to configure and how to test Jumbo Frame support

The five Physical NIC teaming policies:

Route by Originating Port

Route by MAC Hash

Route by IP Hash

Route by pNIC Load

Route by Active / Stand-by
Includes pros, cons and use cases for each policy

The three different ways to do vLAN tagging

Route by Originating Port

vSwitch Tagging

pSwitch Tagging

VM Tagging
When / how to use each one

VMkernel pNIC Offloading including TCP Segment Offloading and TCP Checksum offloading including benefits and how each works

Exclusive pNIC to VM ownership and use cases using DirectPath I/O and how to do it

Shared pNIC to VM ownership and use cases using Single Root I/O Virtualization and how to do it

How to monitor pNIC and VM network traffic using esxtop

How to query an ESXi host's active network connections on the command line

How to get detailed pNIC statistics including transmits, receives, errors, etc. on the command line

Network design tips and best practices

Chapter 4 - Connecting ESXi to NFS Shares

Supported and unsupported (but works) NFS server options (includes Windows as an NFS server)

The layout of an NFS network. Includes security concerns and compensating controls to address these issues

NFS network design to maximize service access and availability

How to publish NFS shares on Linux (works for Windows too) so that ESXi can use the shares

ESXi physical network and TCP/IP requirements for connecting to NFS shares

How to mount NFS shares using Host Client

How to query NFS servers for their share list from the command line (hint - you can't do this from Host Client)

How to mount NFS shares on the command line (troubleshooting tip)

Using advanced ESXi configuration parameters to increase the maximum number of supported, concurrent NFS shares

Connecting to ESXi to NFS shares from the command line (troubleshooting tip)

ESXi / NFS best practices, pros and cons

NFS v4.1 features, limitations, how to migrate from NFS v3 to 4.1 and how to avoid data corruption

Chapter 5 - Virtual Hardware and Virtual Machines

Introduction to the features and capabilities of Virtual Hardware v14

pCPUs and vCPUs including configuration options and limits

vCPU socket and core hard and practical maximums and guidelines

VMemory configuration, sizing and best practices

How to select and customize vNIC properties for different use cases

The three different virtual SCSI storage controllers and use cases and best practices for each one

How to select the best virtual SCSI storage controller for best VM storage performance

The purpose, features and capabilities of VMware Tools and why it needs to be in every VM

Windows VM configuration and performance tips

The files that need to be backed up to capture a powered off VM

How Snapshots work. Using the Snapshot Manager

Troubleshooting VM Snapshots

The Files that are added to a VM when it is snapshotted

Guest OS Security tips and best practices

Virtual Hardware upgrades and best practices

How to list and shut down VMs from the command line

How to get a VM's power status, power on, power off or reboot a VM from the command line

How to take ownership and give up ownership of a VM from the command line

How to change a running VM's console screen resolution from the command line (great troubleshooting tip)

VM security considerations for Windows VMs

How to streamline the virtual hardware layer and Guest OS for runtime efficiency

An introduction to the VMware Guest OS Optimization Tool

Chapter 6 - vSphere 6.7 Management with vCenter Server Appliance

How to use Javascript Object Notation (JSON) files for automated vCSA installs

vCenter for Windows. How to install it, upgrade to it, migrate from it to vCSA and why you want to migrate

vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) hardware requirements and how to adjust for your VM and ESXi host needs

Platform Services Controller (PSC) and why VMware is strongly encouraging Embedded PSC rather than External PSC

How to Upgrade old vCSA to vCSA 6.7

How to Migrate from vCenter for Windows to vCSA 6.7

An introduction to vSphere Web (flash / flex) Client and new HTML 5 Client

Perform vCSA post install / migrate tasks using the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI)

Why you should always upgrade vCSA before you upgrade ESXi hosts (and what to do about it if you accidentally upgrade ESXi first)

Why you should review and change vCSA's default root password management policy

How to add vCSA to Active Directory and how to use Active Directory accounts as vCenter administrator accounts

How Platform Services Controller Global Permissions and Solution Permissions work

Enable and secure ESXi hosts fia Lockdown Mode from vCenter

The VMware (Digital) Certificate Authority and its three modes (Default, Enterprise and Custom) and which to use

How to maintain high vCSA service availability through vCSA High Availability configurations

Two other vCSA high service availability options if you choose not to use vCSA High Availability

How to back up and restore vCenter Appliance configurations using vCSA's VAMI service

Best practices for securing ESXi and vCSA

Accessing vCSA as root from the command line

How to query, start and restart critical vCSA services from the command line (troubleshooting tip)

vCSA log files. Where they are and how to view them

Chapter 7 - Virtual Machines, Templates, Clones, Hotplug Hardware and Performance Analysis, Tips and Tricks

Rapid VM deployments with Clones and Templates

Template theory, benefits and best practices

Virtual disk formats explained - Thick Disk Lazy Zero, Thick Disk Eager Zero and Thin Disk

Which disk format is best. Performance vs. space efficiency and why Thin Disk is almost always the best format to choose

Cold cloning and hot cloning a VM

Windows Guest OS Customization using Sysprep and non-Windows Guest OS customization

Exporting VMs in Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) and Open Virtual Machine Archive (OVA) formats

Importing OVF / OVA format VMs

VM multi-vCPU core sizing and best practices and how to do it

VM memory sizing considerations and best practices

Hot-add (almost) any virtual hardware with Hot-plug. How to set it up and how to do it

Hot-plug vCPU and vRAM strategy, best practices and limitations

Hot adding virtual hardware including hot adding virtual disks with no VM down time

Hot adding additional vSCSI controllers to a VM. Why do it (hint - performance) and the best vSCSI controllers to use based on use cases

Using virtual NVMe controllers and flash backed storage for the ultimate in VM storage performance

Monitoring VM performance in real time with esxtop

Drilling down to VM pCPU core performance with esxtop

Common VM performance issues, how to identify them and how to fix them

Great Guest OS performance monitoring tools. What to use, what to believe and what not to believe when using these tools

Chapter 8 - Use VMware Update Manager to Upgrade ESXi hosts

Using command line tools to backup and restore an ESXi host’s configuration

Configure VMware Update Managers

Create ESXi host Patch Baselines

Importing a new ESXi install media image

Attaching a Host Upgrade patch baseline

Performing host compliance scans

Upgrading an ESXi host from ESXi 6.0 to ESXi 6.7

Chapter 9 – Connecting to Fibre & iSCSI Shared Storage

General SAN features and capabilities

Overview of Fibre Storage Networks

VMware APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)

Storage network design for performance and redundancy

Connecting to Fibre and iSCSI shared storage

iSCSI Hardware and Software Initiators

iSCSI Static and Send Targets LUN discovery

Troubleshooting storage issues

Use esxtop to review storage controller and datastores configuration and I/O activity

Chapter 10 – Direct VM to SAN Access with Raw Device Maps

Explain Physical and Virtual Raw Device Maps (RDMs)

Use cases for Raw Device Maps

How Raw Device Maps work with VM cold, VMotion and Storage VMotion migrations

Using RDMs to implement Virtual and Virtual/Physical Microsoft Fail Over Clusters

Chapter 11 – VMware File System (VMFS)

Unique file system properties of VMFS

Creating and managing shared Volumes

Managing VMFS capacity with LUN spanning and LUN expansion

Understand VMware multipath options

Benefits of using vendor multipath solutions

Understanding and selecting multipathing policies

VMFS performance, scalability and reliability considerations

Review storage queuing, I/O aborts and other storage issues

Diagnose and troubleshoot storage performance

VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache description and use cases

Troubleshooting VMFS issues

Use esxtop to review datastore I/O activity

Chapter 12 – Storage Profiles

SAN and user defined storage profiles

Using storage speed, replication to define storage capabilities

VMware APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA)

Creating VM storage profiles

VM/Storage compliance checks

Remediating incorrectly placed VM

Understanding Storage I/O Control

Enable priority storage queues with Storage I/O control

Chapter 13 – Storage Load Balancing with SDRS Clusters

Creating and using Storage Distributed Resource Scheduling clusters (SDRS)

Cluster properties for capacity and I/O load balancing

Best practices for building storage clusters

Chapter 14 – VMotion Migration, Cold Migration, Storage VMotion (coming soon)

Cold Migrations to new ESXi hosts, datastores

Hot Migrations with VMotion

VMotion requirements and dependencies

How VMotion works – detailed explanation

Troubleshooting VMotion

Storage VMotion for hot VM disk migrations

Chapter 15 – VMware High Availability Clusters (coming soon)

Minimize unplanned VM down time VMware High Availability clusters

VM requirements for HA Clusters

Storage fault recovery in High Availability clusters (All Paths Down, Permanent Device Loss)

Monitoring VM health in HA clusters

Admission Control policy settings for predictable pCPU/pRAM resource availability

Identifying and troubleshooting issues in VMware HA clusters

Chapter 16 – VMware Fault Tolerance (coming soon)

Eliminate VM unplanned down time with VMware Fault Tolerance

Role of the Primary and Secondary VM in a Fault Tolerance configuration

Explain how Fast Checkpointing keeps the Secondary VM vCPU, vRAM, vDisk up to date

Enabling VM Fault Tolerance

Initial VM synchronization

Testing Fault Tolerance

Chapter 17 – Distributed vSwitch Features and Scalability (coming soon)

Features and benefits of Distributed vSwitches

Role of the DVUplink port group

Adding ESXi hosts to dvSwitches

Creating dvSwitch port groups

Migrating physical NICs and VMkernel ports to dvSwitches

dvSwitch configuration backup and restore

Configuring custom VM MAC address generation policies

Testing dvSwitch network healt

Chapter 18 - Final Thoughts

How to tell if your workload is suitable for virtualization

The benefits of virtualizing Enterprise Application workloads

How to mitigate the risks of Virtual Machine theft

Great tips on where to look for additional, quality information on vSphere

How to (Legally) Get all of VMware's Enterprise Class Virtualization Software for Just $200/year

End of Course Wind Down

Chapter 19 - End of Class Lecture

A quick review of what we covered in this course

A quick introduction to the topics we'll cover in Part-2 of this course

Who this course is for:
Anyone who has prior experience using or administering VMware vSphere (from vSphere 3.x on up)
People who are very familiar with other virtualization platforms (like Hyper-V) and who want detailed vSphere knowledge
IT professionals who have experience with WIndows, Linux, desktop and server hardware, networking, etc.
Most importantly, you should not be entirely new to virtualization / vSphere as this is a fast paced, in depth course that may move to quickly for you
Anyone preparing for VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification exams
Anyone preparing for VMware Advanced Certified Professional (VCAP) certification exams
Anyone who wants to take their vSphere knowledge and skill to the next level to get that job or earn that promotion