VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization

Overview

This section gives the information about VMware Certified Professional certification. It is highly recognized certification dealing specifically with virtualization technologies. The VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP6-DCV) certification is tailored towards IT System Administrators who are looking to deploy and maintain VMware vSphere and its associated products (ESXi, vCenter, VDP, VMware Converter, etc) in their environment.

Introduction to vSphere

This section introduces to the VMware vSphere suite. It explains difference between Type 1, Type 2 hypervisors and the pros and cons of each. It discusses the multiple editions of vSphere.

Installing the vSphere Hypervisor

This demonstrates installing and configuring the VMware ESXi hypervisor. It discusses the hardware requirements, installation methods and installation procedures. It also shows post-installation considerations for the vSphere hypervisor like configuring DNS and configuring NTP.

Installing VMware vCenter

This section demonstrate installing and configuring vCenter to manage ESXi host machines. It talks about the system requirements to run vCenter, vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) and Platform Services Controller.

Deploying Hosts with Auto Deploy

This section explores automating host configuration deployment through Auto Deploy. It explains the prerequisites for the host and for vCenter. It shows setting up the vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) Depot. It also demonstrate how to deploy, configure and export the image.

Host Profiles

This section demonstrate configurations and settings control through host profiles in vCenter. It discusses various settings that can be configured and the benefits of using host profiles. It explains the creation and application of a host profile to an ESXi host.

Upgrading to vSphere 6

This section explains the process of upgrading older versions of vSphere to vSphere version 6. It discusses the VMware’s 4 phases process to perform a complete upgrade. It demonstrate Phase 1 upgrading the vCenter server.

Role-Based Access Control

This section demonstrate how to setup and configure role-based access control. It discusses the roles that can be delegated inside of vCenter. It explains permission propagation to help the viewer understand what the results would be when permissions are set at different levels.

Single Sign-On

This section demonstrates how to implement a single sign-on inside of vCenter. It discusses components like the VMware Certificate Authority (vMCA), the Platform Services Controller (PSC) and the role they play inside of a single sign-on infrastructure

Hardening vShpere

This section demonstrate how to reduce the attack surface of vSphere by using a security practice called hardening. It shows how to harden ESXi hosts by disabling services, firewall configuration and host profiles.It also discusses how to harden vCenter Servers by using the VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA).

Configuring vSwitches

This section demonstrate the types of vSwitches that can be set up and used in vSphere. It shows VM-base vSwitches that are used for VM communications as well as VMkernel vSwitches that are used for host communications and management.

Configuring Distributed vSwitches

This section describes Distributed Virtual Switches and discusses how dvSwitches can overcome the limitations found in traditional vSwitches. It demonstrates deploying and managing dvSwitches inside of vCenter 6.

LACP and NI/OC

This section discusses some of the advanced functionality available in VMware vSwitches. It demonstrates how to use the Link Aggregation and Control Protocol (LACP) to bundle ports for increased performance and redundancy. It also demonstrates Network I/O Control (NIOC) and how it can help prevent bandwidth starvation.

Understanding vSphere Storage

This section provides an overview of how VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter manage storage. It introduces to the concept of a VMware Datastore and discusses some of the different types of storage available for use inside of a vSphere deployment.

Working with Datastores

This section demonstrate how to configure and implement datastores in vSphere. It explains direct-attached storage, iSCSI, FCoE and fibre channel. It shows how to create NFS based datastores and their implementation. It also covers how to create vCenter server storage filters and their usage.

Storage IO Control

This section demonstrate storage I/O control or SIOC. It talks about concepts like Dynamic Queue Depth Throttling, Network I/O Control, the requirements and configurations.

Virtual SAN

This section covers vSANs in vSphere. It discusses the recommendations when using virtual SANs including license, drive and host considerations.It also covers managing disks, fault domains, storage policies, the VSAN observer and virtual volumes or VVOLs.

Storage Multi-Pathing

This section demonstrate setting up and implementing storage multi-pathing. It talks about Path Selection Plug-ins (PSP) including path selection policy and path claiming. It mention technologies like Storage Array Top Plug-ins (SATPs), Most Recently Used (MRUs), Round Robin and Fixed path.

Creating Virtual Machines

This section demonstrate how to create and configure virtual machines inside of vSphere. It explains the various settings that can be configured when creating and managing virtual machines. It also discuss additional options such as Remote Console, power management, boot options and Fibre Channel NPIVs.

vApps Clones and Templates

This section introduces creating and deploying vApps inside of vCenter. It also discusses creating and managing virtual machine clones and templates.

Using VMware Converter

This section explores the VMware Converter. It discusses the source operating systems that are supported from Windows to Linux. It also shows different types of conversions that can be performed such as physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) as well as deploying to vCenter.

Resource Pools

This section demonstrate how to efficiently manage & compute resources by implementing multi-level resource pooling. It discusses the hierarchical resource pools by nesting resource pools. It also takes a look at using tiered resource pooling with vFlash.

Snapshots

This section discusses virtual machine snapshots. It talks about the benefits of snapshots in vSphere. It discusses disadvantages of snapshots, pro’s and con’s of using snaphots in virtualised environment. It also covers creating, deleting, restoring and consolidating snapshots.

VMware Data Protection

This section discusses how to keep the vSphere environment up and running through VMWare Data Protection (VDP). It shows various topics like sizing, image-level and guest-level backups.

vSphere Replication

This section explores vSphere Replication appliance. It explains the need for replication in a production environment. It demonstrate how to import the Replication appliance into vSphere and configure it for use. It discusses how to register the appliance into vCenter and shows the steps for replicating a VM and recovering a replica.

Troubleshooting

This section covers common networking and storage troubleshooting tools found built into the vSphere vCenter. It explains foundational concepts and knowledge of how to use these tools while working with vmware. It shows the GUI location of these tools and explores the CLI tools available that a VMWare professional should be familiar with in troubleshooting.

Clustering and HA

This section discusses the concept of clustering and high availability. It talks about the options such as high availability, fault tolerance and vMotion. It demonstrate how to create a cluster and migrating guested into the cluster.

Fault Tolerance and DRS

This section dives into the world of fault tolerance. It covers Distributed Resources Schedule and setting up resources scheduling. It also explains how to influence DRS and a concept known as affinity.

Multi-site Content Libraries

This section explores content libraries with in vSphere. It discusses local libraries, subscribed libraries, subscriptions, publishing, permissions and more.