Virtualization Certified Professional (VEP)
Course number: CGIVCP40
Overview:
Learn how to successfully adopt virtualization techniques into your business and pass the Virtualization Essentials Professional exam.
In this course, you will address the business perspective, technical organization, operation, and governance of virtualization. You will cover concepts that will help you successfully complete the associated exam to become a Virtualization Essentials Professional (VEP). This course complements the Cloud Essentials course, which can be completed before or after you’ve taken this course. The course materials are accredited by the Cloud Credential Council and registered with the Project Management Institute for PDU eligibility. The web-based certification exam will be offered on the last day of class.
What You’ll Learn
- Common terms and definitions of virtualization
- Business benefits and business considerations of virtualization
- Approaches to server virtualization, its relevance to the modern data center, available platforms, and important features
- Implications of virtualization on storage, networks, and applications
- Issues, challenges, and opportunities
- Implications of virtualization on the modern workplace and the challenges and opportunities for managing this
- Impact and changes of virtualization on IT service management
- Steps that lead to the successful adoption of virtualization techniques and the implications for an organization.
- Compliance, risk, and regulatory consequences of virtualization and its financial and strategic impact
Prerequisites
It is strongly recommended you first possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do the following:
- Explain the significant benefits of virtualization
- Install ESXi Server following best practices
- Configure and manage local storage
- Create virtual and virtual-to-physical LAN segments
- Use shared SAN storage, including Fibre SAN and iSCSI SAN
- Define and use file share (NAS) datastores
- Install, configure, and update the platform service controller and vCenter Server Appliance
- Configure and use hotplug hardware, including hot-add vCPUs and memory
- Add and grow virtual disks, including system disks and secondary volumes
Target Audience
- IT management, support staff, and consultants
- Business managers and analysts
- Small and midsized business owners
- Specialists (IT, security, infrastructure, services, systems, and test)
- Business process owners
- IT developers
- Service providers
- System integrators
- Architects
Exam
Number of Items: 80
Passing Score: 56 out of 80 (70%)
Duration: 120 minutes (Note: Published exam times include the 5 minutes you are allotted for reading and signing the Candidate Agreement and the 5 minutes you are allotted for the Pearson VUE testing system tutorial.)
Exam Options: In person at Pearson VUE test centers
Course Content
Domain 1.0 Virtualization and vSphere 6.5 with ESXi and vCenter
Objective 1.1 Identify basic virtualization concepts and terms.
- Common virtualization uses
- Rackspace economy
- Power/cost reduction
- Lower datacenter overhead/management
- Rapid deployment/imaging
- Common virtualization terms
- CPU/vCPU
- RAM/vRAM
- Disk/vDisk
- Network
- VM
- Hosts/clients
- Virtual/physical
- Overcommit
- IT problems and virtualization solutions
- Imaging individual machines
- Mass software installation
- Production and test environment mismatches
- Short lifespan of physical servers
Objective 1.2 Identify the features and uses of vSphere 6.5.
- CPU and memory management
- Memory overcommit
- Memory sharing
- Availability management
- HA clusters
- FT VMs
- vMotion
- Load balancing
- DRS clusters
- Storage management
- Storage vMotion
- Storage profiles
- Backup and protection
- VMware data protection
- vSphere replication
- vSphere endpoint
Objective 1.3 Install ESXi.
- Installation process
- EULA
- Target disks
- Root passwords
- Local storage partitioning and formatting
- Enterprise class storage controllers
- Post-installation
- ESXi DCUI
- NIC selection
- Static IP
- Host/domain names
- Management network configuration
- IPv4/IPv6 configuration
- ESXi DCUI
- Host logs
- Config files
- vSphere Client support
- Inventory
- Roles
- System logs
- ESXi Host Client
- User management
- Active Directory joining
- Time configuration
- DNS and router settings
- Physical server properties
- Physical network adapters
- Health status
- ESXi firewall
- ESXi system logs
- Resource sizing
Domain 2.0 Networking and Storage
Objective 2.1 Identify common virtual network hardware components and concepts.
- Virtual switches
- Internal only/isolated
- Uplinked
- Teamed
- vSwitch properties
- Virtual side
- Physical side
- vSwitch rules
- Frame forwarding
- Multi-homed networking
- Virtual NICs
- Emulated
- Fully virtualized
Objective 2.2 Work with virtual switches.
- vSphere standard virtual switches
- vSphere distributed virtual switches
- Frame forwarding
- vSwitch connection types
- VMkernel ports
- VM port groups
- vSwitch rules
- VMkernel NICs
- pNIC teams
- Cisco Discovery Protocol
Objective 2.3 Work with shared storage.
- Networking categories
- Physical
- Virtual-to-physical
- VM-to-VM
- VMkernel networking
- NAS
- SMB
- NFS protocol
- Server side vs. client side
- Pros and cons of NFS shares
- FQDN/IP
- Linux NFS shares
- /dir
- IP
- Rw
- Sych
- No_root squash
- Defining
- Drive types
- Capacity
- Provisioning
- Mounting/unmounting
- Troubleshooting
- VMware support
- Correct addressing
- Services enabled
- Firewall configuration
- Connectivity
- NFS best practices
- Jumbo frames
- Read-only mounting
- SAN
- Storage capacity consolidation
- Redundant pathways
- Shadowing
- Snapshotting
- Fibre SANs
- Fibre switched fabric topology
- WWNs
- Zoning
- Masking
- Zoning options
- Port zoning
- WWN zoning
- Hard and soft zoning
- Runtime hardware paths
- iSCSI
- Non-redundant storage networks
- Redundant Layer 2 networks
- Stacked storage networks
- Routed storage networks
- iSCSI qualified names
- Hardware/software initiators
- IQN
- CHAP
- 1-way
- 2-way
- LUN
- LUN discovery options
- Static
- Send targets
- Thin LUN provisioning
- Deduplication
- Hardware addresses
- LUN discovery options
- Storage performance and management
- Fast Ethernet networking
- Isolated LAN segments
- pNIC bonding
- Replication and backups
- Disaster recovery
Objective 2.4 Work with VMware’s Cluster File System.
- VMFS
- Creation
- Growth
- Spanning
- VMFS auto discovery
- The Add Storage wizard
- Device selection
- VMFS versions
- Partition configuration
- Datastore settings
- Storage paths
- Healthy
- Failed
- Preferred
- Active
- Standby
- PSP
- Round Robin
- Fixed
- Most Recently Used
- Capacity management
Domain 3.0 VM Creation and Management
Objective 3.1 Identify common virtual machine hardware components.
- VM hardware
- Virtual keyboard
- Keyboard/mouse controllers
- Floppy controllers
- IDE controllers
- SATA controllers
- PCI video controllers
- CPUs
- Virtual Ethernet NICs
- USB devices
- Base VMs
Objective 3.2 Create and configure virtual machines.
- The New virtual machine wizard
- vCPU sockets and cores
- RAM
- Disk
- SCSI
- SATA
- Removable media devices
- VMX files
- Guest OS installation
- ISO images vs. physical media
- Supported OSs
- Windows versions
- Linux distributions
- Other supported OSs
- Mac OSX 6+
- Solaris 10 and 11
- FreeBSD Unix
- SCO OpenServer 5, UnixWare 7
- Virtual hardware upgrades
Objective 3.3 Install VMware tools.
- Device manager
- Guest OS driver enhancements
- Additional drivers
- Heartbeat
- File system synchronization
- Guest OS busy/idle indicator
- Memory management
- USB passthrough to physical devices
- VM snapshots
- Snapshot Manager
- Commit
- Revert
- Fork
Objective 3.4 Import and configure vCenter Server.
- vCenter Server
- vCenter for Windows
- Windows vServer Installer App
- vCenter for databases
- Microsoft
- Oracle
- vPostgres
- Database storage requirements
- vCenter for Windows
- Performance data
- vCenter Server Appliance
- PSC
- VAMI
- vCenter Task Scheduler
- VMware Remote Console
- SSO Service
- VMCA
- VMCA default
- VMCE enterprise
- Custom
- vSphere Web Client
- HTML5 version
- ESXi target host selection
- Password selection
- Deployment size
- Storage requirements
- Target datastores
- Time synchronization
Objective 3.5 Create an inventory hierarchy.
- Datacenters
- Datacenter folders
Objective 3.6 Install and operate the VMware Remote Console Application.
- VM property editing
- Power management
- BIOS interaction
- Phoenix BIOS
Objective 3.7 Deploy multiple VMs simultaneously.
- Image creation
- Templates
- Properties
- Guest OS customization
- Host/cluster/resource pool assignment
- Virtual disk formats
- Thick provisioned
- Lazy zeroed
- Eager zeroed
- Thin provisioned
- Thick provisioned
- Templates
- Deploying from templates
- Deploy Template wizard
- Cloning
Objective 3.8 Work with and manage virtual appliances.
- Pre-built VMs
- Types (based on need)
- Security
- Firewall
- Antivirus/anti-spam
- IDS/IPS
- Unified threat management
- Applications
- Mail servers
- Web servers
- OSs
- Security
- Virtual appliance pros and cons
- vCPU considerations
- Hotplugging
- vCPU hotplugging
- Memory hotplugging
- Virtual disk
- 2D/3D video support
- Importation
- OVF
- OVA
Objective 3.9 Define permission models.
- Roles
- Existing roles
- Administrator
- VM User
- VM Power User
- Network Administrator
- Custom roles
- Role assignment
- Existing roles
- Privileges
- Permissions
- Item-level
- vCenter base permissions
- Default ESXi permissions
- Permission best practices
- Groups
- ESX Admins group
Objective 3.10 Monitor virtual infrastructure with vCenter alarms.
- Alarms
- Parameters
- Actions
- Definition and customization
- Active and object alarms
- Alarm best practices
- Alarm targets
Objective 3.11 Perform migration tasks.
- VM migration
- Cold
- Hot
- vMotion migration
- vMotion migration requirements
- Long Distance migration
- Storage
- Storage vMotion
- Validation and warnings
- Host compatibility
- AMD CPU Identification Utility
- Intel CPU Identification Utility
Domain 4.0 Resource Management
Objective 4.1 Allocate resource pools.
- Resource pools vs. individual VMs
- Auto-update
- Resource allocation
- Resource use monitoring
- Resource delegation
- Fair
- Predictable
- Resource tuneables
- Limits
- Reservations
- Shares
- Resource pool settings
- Share settings
- High
- Normal
- Low
- Hard limits
- Total ESXi host MHz
- Total ESXi host MBs
- Expandable reservations
- Share settings
- Dynamic memory management
Objective 4.2 Work with DRS clusters.
- DRS clusters
- Cluster maximums
- Predictive DRS
- Network-aware DRS
- DRS functions
- ESXi host placement
- ESXi host dynamic balancing
- DRS operation modes
- Manal
- Partially automated
- Fully automated
- Migration threshold
- DRS profiles
- VM distribution
- Memory metric for load balancing
- CPU overcommit
- Affinity/anti-affinity rules
- Overrides
- EVC
- AMD Opteron pCPUs
- Intel Xeon pCPUs
- EVC requirements
- EVC validation/validation failures
- Server generation considerations
- DRS resource management
- Server capacity management
Domain 5.0 Monitoring and Maintenance
Objective 5.1 Monitor virtual infrastructure with vCenter alarms.
- Alarms
- Triggers
- VM triggers
- ESXi host triggers
- Datastore triggers
- vCenter triggers
- Default definitions
- Triggers
- Actions
- Custom alarms
- Alarm status
- Green
- Yellow
- Red
- Mail server properties
- SNMP receiver properties
Objective 5.2 Work with VMware Update Manager.
- VUM
- VUM Size Estimator
- VUM configuration
- VUM vSphere Client plug-in
- Network connectivity/ports
- Settings
- Maintenance Mode
- Cluster
- Baseline types
- Host patch
- Fixed
- Dynamic
- Host extension
- Host upgrade
- VA upgrade
- Host patch
- Baseline attachment
- Patch application
- Compliance scanning
- VUM tasks
- Software patch definition downloading
- Patch update downloading
- Update scanning
- VUM and HA admission control
- Host remediation options
- Cluster remediation options
Objective 5.3 Analyze and tune performance.
- Common performance issues
- Scalability
- Efficient resource utilization
- CPU scheduling and prioritization
- Sockets
- Cores
- Hyper-threaded logical processors
- Running vs. idle VMs
- Sequential and concurrent tasks
- Safe pCPU overcommit
- RAM allocation management
- VM memory overcommit
- TPS
- Security issues
- Inter-VM TPS
- Memory ballooning
- Memory compression
- VMkernel swapping
- CPU and memory best practices
- Storage I/O controls
- ESXi and SSDs
- Performance charts and advanced performance charts
- Performance analysis tools
- Windows Resource Monitor
- Task Manager
- Turbonomic
- Foglight
- vCenter Operations Manager
Domain 6.0 Replication and High Availability
Objective 6.1 Enable and configure
- HA clusters
- HA requirements
- ESXi host failure
- HA host failure alarms
- ESXi management network isolation
- Isolation response policy settings
- NIC teaming vSwitch0
- Second management port
- Isolation response policy settings
- Network/datastore heartbeats
- PDL
- APD
- Datastore APD
- HA enablement and configuration
- Failures and responses
- Restart priorities
- Host failure and VM restart
- HA restart
- VM dependency restart condition
- Resources allocated
- Powered on
- Guest heartbeats detected
- App heartbeats detected
- Restart condition timers
- Additional delay
- VM dependency restart condition timeout
- Host isolation response
- Epic VM failure
- Datastore permanent device loss
- VM monitoring sensitivity
- Proactive HA
- Admission control
- Percent
- Slot
- Failover
- Per-VM override
- Maintenance Mode
Objective 6.2 Prepare for vSphere replication.
- Replication targets
- Local
- Remote
- Target datastores
- VM synchronization
- VM replication policies
- RPO
- Hot replication policy
- Recovery snapshots
- Replicated VMs
- VR Appliance
- Console
- Web login
- VM replication configuration
- Replicated disk properties
- Quiesces
- RPO
- Point in time instances
- Site-to-site replication
- Replication time zones
- Replication servers
Objective 6.3 Replicate and recover VMs.
- Replication
- Replication status
- Replication monitoring
- Outgoing replications
- Incoming replications
- Manual replication
- Power off and recovery
- Recovery options
- With recent changes
- With available data
- Recovered VM connection and testing
- Recovery options
Live Online