Title Details

Brian Atkinson is a Senior Systems Engineer with 16 years of experience in the IT field. Since 2006, he has focused on virtualization, storage, and virtualization evangelism. Brian holds the VCP 3, VCP 4 and VCP 5 certifications and has also been awarded the vExpert designation from VMware in 2009, 2010, and 2011. He is a VMware Technology Network (VMTN) Moderator and active contributor. Brian is also a guest blogger at the VMTN. You can reach him on Twitter: @vmroyale.

Assessment Test lvii

Chapter 1 What’s New in vSphere 5.5 1 vSphere ESXi Hypervisor Enhancements 3

Hot-Pluggable PCIe SSD Devices 3

Support for Reliable Memory Technology 3

Enhancements to CPU C-States 4

Virtual Machine Enhancements 4

VM Compatibility with VMware ESXi 5.5 4

Expanded vGPU Support 5

Graphic Acceleration for Linux Guests 5

vCenter Server Enhancements 5

vCenter Single Sign-On 5

vCenter Server Appliance 5

vSphere Web Client 6

vSphere App HA 6

HA Compatibility with DRS VM-VM Affinity Rules 6

vSphere Big Data Extensions 6

Storage Enhancements 6

Support for 62TB VMDK 7

MSCS Updates 7

16Gb E2E Support 7

PDL AutoRemove 7

vSphere Replication Interoperability 7

vSphere Replication Multi-Point-in-Time (MPIT) Snapshot Retention 7

VAAI UNMAP Improvements 8

VMFS Heap Improvements 8

vSphere Flash Read Cache 8

Networking Enhancements 9

Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) Enhancements 9

Traffic Filtering 10

Quality of Service Tagging 10

SR-IOV Enhancements 10

Enhanced Host-Level Packet Capture 10

40Gb NIC Support 10

VMware Data Protection (VDP) Enhancements 10

vCenter Operations Manager 11

Summary 11

Chapter 2 Planning, Installing, Configuring, and Upgrading VMware ESXi and vCenter Server 13

Introducing VMware ESXi 15

Identifying ESXi Host Requirements 15

Performing an Interactive Installation of ESXi 16

Configuring NTP on an ESXi Host 25

Configuring DNS and Routing on an ESXi Host 26

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling Hyperthreading 30

Selecting a CPU Power Management Policy 31

Enabling, Sizing, and Disabling Memory Compression Cache 33

Licensing an ESXi Host 35

Introducing vCenter Server 37

Identifying Available vCenter Server Editions 37

Identifying vCenter Server and vCenter Server Database Requirements 38

Identifying Single Sign-On Requirements 40

Creating a Database Connection to the vCenter Server Database 41

Sizing the vCenter Server Database 44

Installing vCenter Server into a Virtual Machine 46

Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance 52

Installing and Configuring the vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client 57

Describing Single Sign-On Architecture 59

Differentiating Single-Sign-On Deployment Scenarios 61

Configuring and Administering Single Sign-On 62

Managing Single Sign-On Users and Groups 65

Installing Additional vCenter Server Components 73

Installing and Removing vSphere Client Plug-Ins 78

Enabling and Disabling vSphere Client Plug-Ins 78

Licensing vCenter Server 80

Determining Availability Requirements for a vCenter Server in a Given vSphere Implementation 83

Planning and Performing Upgrades of vCenter Server and VMware ESXi 84

Identifying Steps Required to Upgrade a vSphere Implementation 85

Identifying Upgrade Requirements for ESXi Hosts 87

Determining Whether an In-Place Upgrade Is Appropriate in a Given Upgrade Scenario 88

Summary 90

Exam Essentials 90

Review Questions 91

Chapter 3 Securing vCenter Server and ESXi and Identifying vSphere Architecture and Solutions 95

Securing vCenter Server and ESXi 97

Configuring and Administering the ESXi Firewall 97

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling Services in the ESXi Firewall 103

Enabling Lockdown Mode 106

Adding an ESXi Host to a Directory Service 109

Viewing, Sorting, and Exporting User and Group Lists 113

Identifying Common vCenter Server Privileges and Roles 114

Describing How Permissions Are Applied and Inherited in vCenter Server 116

Adding, Modifying, and Removing Permissions for Users and Groups on vCenter Server Inventory Objects 118

Creating, Cloning, and Editing vCenter Server Roles 123

Determining the Appropriate Set of Privileges for Common Tasks in vCenter Server 126

Identifying vSphere Architecture and Solutions 127

Explaining ESXi and vCenter Server Architectures 127

Identifying Available vSphere Editions and Features 130

Determining Appropriate vSphere Edition Based on Customer Requirements 130

Identifying the Various Datacenter Solutions That Interact with vSphere (Horizon, SRM, Etc.) 132

Summary 133

Exam Essentials 133

Review Questions 134

Chapter 4 Planning and Configuring vSphere Networking 139

Configuring vNetwork Standard Switches 141

Identifying vNetwork Standard Switch Capabilities 141

Creating and Deleting a vNetwork Standard Switch 145

Adding, Configuring, and Removing vmnics on a vNetwork Standard Switch 149

Configuring VMkernel Ports for Network Services 153

Adding, Editing, and Removing Port Groups on a vNetwork Standard Switch 157

Determining the Use Case for a vNetwork Standard Switch 163

Configuring vNetwork Distributed Switches 164

Identifying vNetwork Distributed Switch Capabilities 164

Creating and Deleting a vNetwork Distributed Switch 167

Adding and Removing ESXi Hosts to/from a vNetwork Distributed Switch 170

Adding and Removing Uplink Adapters to/from dvUplink Groups 176

Adding, Configuring, and Removing dvPort Groups 179

Creating, Configuring, and Removing Virtual Adapters 184

Migrating Virtual Adapters to and from a vNetwork Standard Switch 188

Migrating Virtual Machines to and from a vNetwork Distributed Switch 192

Upgrading a vNetwork Distributed Switch 195

Determining the Use Case for a vNetwork Distributed Switch 198

Configuring vSS and vDS Policies 198

Identifying Common vSwitch and dvSwitch Policies 199

Configuring Load Balancing and Failover Policies 199

Configuring Network Security Policies 203

Configuring Traffic Shaping Policies 205

Configuring VLAN Settings 209

Determining Appropriate VLAN Configuration for a vSphere Implementation 210

Configuring dvPort Group Blocking Policies 211

Enabling Jumbo Frames Support on Appropriate Components 212

Summary 217

Exam Essentials 218

Review Questions 220

Chapter 5 Planning and Configuring vSphere Storage 225

Configuring Shared Storage for vSphere 227

Identifying Storage Adapters and Devices 227

Identifying Storage Naming Conventions 228

Scanning and Rescanning Storage 230

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling vCenter Server Storage Filters 233

Describing Zoning and LUN Masking Practices 235

Identifying Hardware/Dependent Hardware /Software iSCSI Initiator Requirements 236

Determining Use Case for Hardware /Dependent Hardware/Software iSCSI Initiator 237

Configuring and Editing Hardware /Dependent-Hardware Initiators 237

Enabling and Disabling a Software iSCSI Initiator 242

Configuring and Editing Software iSCSI Initiator Settings 245

Configuring iSCSI Port Binding 245

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling iSCSI CHAP 247

Configuring FC/iSCSI LUNs as ESXi Boot Devices 252

Comparing and Contrasting Array Thin Provisioning and Virtual Disk Thin Provisioning 254

Determining Use Case for and Configuring Array Thin Provisioning 255

Creating and Configuring VMFS and NFS Datastores 256

Identifying VMFS-5 Capabilities 256

Creating, Renaming, Unmounting, and Deleting a VMFS Datastore 258

Identifying VMFS Datastore Properties 264

Extending and Expanding VMFS Datastores 266

Upgrading a VMFS-3 Datastore to VMFS-5 269

Placing a VMFS Datastore in Maintenance Mode 271

Determining the Appropriate Path Selection Policy for a Given VMFS Datastore 271

Selecting the Preferred Path for a VMFS Datastore 272

Disabling a Path to a VMFS Datastore 274

Creating an NFS Share for Use with vSphere 275

Identifying NFS Datastore Properties 277

Mounting and Unmounting an NFS Datastore 277

Determining the Use Case for Multiple VMFS /NFS Datastores 279

Summary 280

Exam Essentials 281

Review Questions 282

Chapter 6 Creating and Deploying Virtual Machines and vApps 287

Creating and Deploying Virtual Machines 289

Identifying Capabilities of Virtual Machine Hardware Versions 289

Configuring and Deploying a Guest OS into a New Virtual Machine 291

Placing Virtual Machines in Selected ESXi Hosts /Clusters/Resource Pools 295

Identifying Methods to Access and Use a Virtual Machine Console 296

Installing, Upgrading, and Updating VMware Tools 298

Identifying VMware Tools Device Drivers 302

Upgrading Virtual Machine Hardware 304

Configuring Virtual Machine Time Synchronization 307

Identifying Virtual Machine Storage Resources 309

Configuring and Modifying the Disk Controller for Virtual Disks 311

Configuring the Appropriate Virtual Disk Type for a Virtual Machine 316

Creating and Converting Thin/Thick Provisioned Virtual Disks 320

Configuring Disk Shares 323

Determining Appropriate Datastore Locations for Virtual Machines Based on Application Workloads 324

Configuring and Modifying Virtual CPU and Memory Resources According to OS and Application Requirements 325

Configuring and Modifying Virtual NIC Adapters and Connecting Virtual Machines to Appropriate Network Resources 326

Converting a Physical Machine Using VMware Converter 330

Importing a Supported Virtual Machine Source Using VMware Converter 335

Modifying Virtual Hardware Settings Using VMware Converter 339

Creating and Deploying vApps 345

Determining When a Tiered Application Should Be Deployed as a vApp 345

Creating a vApp 346

Adding Objects to an Existing vApp 348

Identifying and Editing vApp Settings 350

Configuring IP Pools 352

Suspending and Resuming a vApp 357

Cloning and Exporting a vApp 358

Summary 361

Exam Essentials 362

Review Questions 364

Chapter 7 Managing and Administering Virtual Machines and vApps 369

Managing Virtual Machine Clones and Templates 371

Identifying Cloning and Template Options 371

Cloning an Existing Virtual Machine 372

Creating a Template from an Existing Virtual Machine 375

Deploying a Virtual Machine from a Template 377

Updating Existing Virtual Machine Templates 379

Deploying Virtual Appliances and vApps from an OVF Template 380

Importing and Exporting an OVF Template 381

Determining the Appropriate Deployment Methodology for a Given Virtual Machine Application 382

Identifying Content Types 383

Creating a Local/Remote Content Library with /without external storage (VMs, ISOs, Scripts, vApps) 384

Publishing/Subscribing/Sharing a Content Library 386

Administering Virtual Machines and vApps 388

Identifying Files Used by Virtual Machines 388

Identifying Locations for Virtual Machine Configuration Files and Virtual Disks 390

Configuring Virtual Machine Options 392

Configuring Virtual Machine Power Settings 395

Configuring Virtual Machine Boot Options 398

Configuring Virtual Machine Troubleshooting Options 399

Identifying Common Practices for Securing Virtual Machines 400

Determining When an Advanced Virtual Machine Parameter Is Required 402

Hot-Extending a Virtual Disk 403

Enabling TCP Segmentation Offload Support for a Virtual Machine 405

Adjusting Virtual Machine Resources (Shares, Limits, and Reservations) Based on Virtual Machine Workloads 407

Configuring USB passthrough from an ESXi Host 409

Configuring Serial port redirection 412

Summary 414

Exam Essentials 414

Review Questions 416

Chapter 8 Establishing Service Levels with Clusters, Fault Tolerance, and Resource Pools 421

Creating and Configuring VMware Clusters 423

Determining the Appropriate Failover Methodology and Required Resources for an HA Implementation 424

DRS Virtual Machine Entitlement 424

Creating and Deleting a DRS/HA Cluster 425

Adding and Removing ESXi Hosts to /from a DRS/HA Cluster 427

Adding and Removing Virtual Machines to /from a DRS/HA Cluster 430

Enabling and Disabling Host Monitoring 432

Configuring Admission Control for HA and Virtual Machines 434

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling Virtual Machine and Application Monitoring 442

Configuring Automation Levels for DRS and Virtual Machines 445

Configuring Migration Thresholds for DRS and Virtual Machines 448

Creating VM-Host and VM-VM Affinity Rules 450

Configuring Enhanced vMotion Compatibility 457

Monitoring a DRS/HA Cluster 460

Configuring Storage DRS 464

Enabling BIOS P/C States 467

Enabling, Configuring, and Disabling Host Power Management and Distributed Power Management 468

Determining Appropriate Power Threshold for a Given Implementation 473

Planning and Implementing VMware Fault Tolerance 474

Determining Use Cases for Enabling VMware Fault Tolerance on a Virtual Machine 475

VMware Fault Tolerance Requirements 476

Configuring VMware Fault Tolerance Networking 477

Enabling and Disabling VMware Fault Tolerance on a Virtual Machine 479

Testing an FT Configuration 482

Creating and Administering Resource Pools 483

The Resource Pool Hierarchy 483

The Expandable Reservation Parameter 484

Creating and Removing a Resource Pool 488

Configuring Resource Pool Attributes 490

Adding and Removing Virtual Machines to /from a Resource Pool 491

Determining Resource Pool Requirements for a Given vSphere Implementation 492

Evaluating Appropriate Shares, Reservations, and Limits for a Resource Pool Based on Virtual Machine Workloads 493

Describing vSphere Flash Read Cache Architecture 497

Adding/Removing vFlash Read Cache Resource Capacity 499

Assigning vFlash Read Cache Resources to VMDKs 501

Summary 504

Exam Essentials 505

Review Questions 506

Chapter 9 Maintaining Service Levels 511

Migrating Virtual Machines 514

Migrating a Powered-Off or Suspended Virtual Machine 514

ESXi Host and Virtual Machine Requirements for vMotion and Storage vMotion 518

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility CPU Requirements 519

Snapshot Requirements for vMotion /Storage vMotion Migration 519

Configuring a Virtual Machine Swap File Location 520

Migrating Virtual Machines Using vMotion /Storage vMotion 525

Using Storage vMotion Techniques 528

Backing Up and Restoring Virtual Machines 531

Identifying Snapshot Requirements 531

Creating, Deleting, and Consolidating Virtual Machine Snapshots 533

Differentiating Between VDP and VDPA 541

Explaining VMware Data Protection Sizing Guidelines 542

Identifying VMware Data Protection Requirements 543

Installing and Configuring VMware Data Protection 545

Creating a Backup Job With VMware Data Protection 551

Managing and Monitoring VDP Capacity 554

Performing a Test/Live Full/File-Level Restore with VMware Data Protection 556

Performing a VDR Data Migration 562

Describing vSphere Replication Architecture 562

Installing/Configuring/Upgrading vSphere Replication 563

Configuring Replication for Single/Multiple VMs 565

Recovering a VM Using vSphere Replication 568

Performing a Failback Operation Using vSphere Replication 571

Determining the Appropriate Backup Solution for a Given vSphere Implementation 571

Patching and Updating ESXi and Virtual Machines 573

Patching Requirements for ESXi Hosts and Virtual Machine Hardware/Tools 573

Creating, Editing, and Removing a Host Profile from an ESXi Host 575

Attaching and Applying a Host Profile to an ESXi Host or Cluster 578

Performing Compliance Scanning and Remediating an ESXi Host Using Host Profiles 580

Applying Permissions to ESXi Hosts Using Host Profiles 582

Importing/Exporting a Host Profile 584

Installing and Configuring VMware vSphere Update Manager 586

Configuring Patch Download Options 594

Creating, Editing, and Deleting an Update Manager Baseline 597

Attaching an Update Manager Baseline to an ESXi Host or Cluster 603

Scanning and Remediating ESXi Hosts and Virtual Machine Hardware /Tools Using Update Manager 606

Staging ESXi Host Updates 615

Upgrading an ESXi Host Using vSphere Update Manager 616

Summary 621

Exam Essentials 622

Review Questions 624

Chapter 10 Performing Basic Troubleshooting 629

Performing Basic Troubleshooting for ESXi Hosts 631

Troubleshooting Common Installation Issues 631

Monitoring ESXi System Health 632

General ESXi Host Troubleshooting Guidelines 634

Exporting Diagnostic Information 636

Performing Basic vSphere Network Troubleshooting 638

Verifying Network Configuration 638

Troubleshooting Physical Network Adapter Configuration Issues 640

Troubleshooting Virtual Switch and Port Group Configuration Issues 643

Verifying a Given Virtual Machine Is Configured with the Correct Network Resources 645

Identifying the Root Cause of a Network Issue Based on Troubleshooting Information 646

Performing Basic vSphere Storage Troubleshooting 646

Verifying Storage Configuration 646

Troubleshooting Storage Contention Issues 648

Troubleshooting Storage Overcommitment Issues 652

Troubleshooting iSCSI Software Initiator Configuration Issues 653

Troubleshooting Storage Reports and Storage Maps 654

Identifying the Root Cause of a Storage Issue Based on Troubleshooting Information 655

Performing Basic Troubleshooting for HA /DRS Clusters and vMotion/Storage vMotion 656

HA/DRS and vMotion Requirements 656

Verifying vMotion/Storage vMotion Configuration 657

Verifying HA Network Configuration 657

Verifying HA/DRS Cluster Configuration 658

Troubleshooting HA Capacity Issues 660

Troubleshooting HA Redundancy Issues 661

Troubleshooting DRS Load Imbalance Issues 662

Interpreting the DRS Resource Distribution Graph and Target/Current Host Load Standard Deviation 665

Troubleshooting vMotion/Storage vMotion Migration Issues 667

Interpret vMotion Resource Maps 668

Identifying the Root Cause of a DRS/HA Cluster or Migration Issue Based on Troubleshooting Information 669

Summary 669

Exam Essentials 670

Review Questions 672

Chapter 11 Monitoring a vSphere Implementation and Managing vCenter Server Alarms 677

Monitoring ESXi, vCenter Server, and Virtual Machines 680

How Tasks and Events Are Viewed in vCenter Server 680

Creating, Editing, and Deleting Scheduled Tasks 683

Configuring SNMP for vCenter Server 687

Configuring User Directory and SMTP Settings for vCenter Server 689

Configuring vCenter Server Timeout Settings 690

Configuring vCenter Server Logging Options 691

Creating a Log Bundle 692

Starting, Stopping, and Verifying vCenter Server Service Status 693

Starting, Stopping, and Verifying ESXi Host Agent Status 695

Monitoring and Administering vCenter Server Connections 698

Configuring, Viewing, Printing, and Exporting Resource Maps 699

Common Memory Metrics 703

Common CPU Metrics 705

Common Network Metrics 706

Common Storage Metrics 707

Critical Performance Metrics 708

Comparing and Contrasting Overview and Advanced Charts 709

Creating an Advanced Chart 712

Determining Host Performance Using resxtop and Guest Perfmon 715

Given Performance Data, Identifying the Affected vSphere Resource 719

Installing, Configuring, and Administering vCenter Operations Manager 721

Explaining vCenter Operations Manager Architecture 721

Deploying and Configuring vCenter Operations Manager Appliance 723

Upgrading vCenter Operations Manager 728

Differentiating Major/Minor vCenter Operations Manager Badges 731

Understanding Metrics Used by Major /Minor vCenter Operations Manager Badges 732

Monitoring a vSphere Environment 733

For a Given Alarm, Identify the Affected Resource In a vSphere Implementation 737

Creating and Administering vCenter Server Alarms 738

Listing vCenter Default Utilization Alarms 739

Listing vCenter Default Connectivity Alarms 739

Listing Possible Actions for Utilization and Connectivity Alarms 739

Creating a vCenter Utilization Alarm 741

Creating a vCenter Connectivity Alarm 745

Configuring Alarm Triggers 747

Configuring Alarm Actions 748

For a Given Alarm, Identifying the Affected Resource in a vSphere Implementation 749

Summary 750

Exam Essentials 751

Review Questions 753

Appendix A Answers to Review Questions 757

Chapter 2: Planning, Installing, Configuring, and Upgrading VMware ESXi and vCenter Server 758

Chapter 3: Securing vCenter Server and ESXi and Identifying vSphere Architecture and Solutions 759

Chapter 4: Planning and Configuring vSphere Networking 760

Chapter 5: Planning and Configuring vSphere Storage 762

Chapter 6: Creating and Deploying Virtual Machines and vApps 763

Chapter 7: Managing and Administering Virtual Machines and vApps 764

Chapter 8: Establishing Service Levels with Clusters, Fault Tolerance, and Resource Pools 766

Chapter 9: Maintaining Service Levels 767

Chapter 10: Performing Basic Troubleshooting 768

Chapter 11: Monitoring a vSphere Implementation and Managing vCenter Server Alarms 770

Appendix B About the Additional Study Tools 773

Additional Study Tools 774

Sybex Test Engine 774

Electronic Flashcards 774

PDF of Glossary of Terms 774

Adobe Reader 774

System Requirements 775

Using the Study Tools 775

Troubleshooting 775

Customer Care 776

Index 777