Summary & Schedule
VMware VSphere Troubleshooting Course Information
Course Length: 4 Days
Knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to do it is an essential aspect of an administrators job. For today’s infrastructure professionals working in a virtual environment having this ability is critical for success.
This 4 day course focuses the student on gaining the understanding necessary to successfully manage and troubleshoot VMware vSphere configuration problems (not performance issues) inside the VMware vSphere 5.0 virtual infrastructure environment. Participants will be immersed into live scenarios exposing students to real world VMware vSphere and VMware ESXi configuration issues they will encounter in the field, and learn how to hone their critical thinking skills under pressure to identify and quickly resolve issues that commonly plague infrastructure professionals.
Additionally, students will also gain exposure to third party tools that will simplify processes, allowing for easier monitoring of network infrastructures, and enable them to quickly mitigate problems that can arise. Each student will be provided their own server infrastructure to work on throughout the course, available 24/5.
Course Objectives
- Diagnose and solve problems on VMware ESX and ESXi by using
- VMware vSphere Client and service console commands
- VMware vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) appliance
- ESXi shell
- vCLI esxcfg- and vicfg- commands
- esxcli commands
- Configure centralized logging with syslog
- Diagnose and solve problems with Networking, Storage, and Virtual Machines
- Diagnose and solve problems with VMware products such as:
- VMware vCenter, VMware vSphere Client, VMotion™, Storage VMotion, HA, and DRS
Pre-requisites
The VMware vSphere Troubleshooting class is an intermediate class on troubleshooting VMware vSphere 5.0. Students are expected to already have basic knowledge and experience with VMware ESX/ESXi and vCenter that can be obtained from one or more of the following courses:
VMware vSphere Ultimate Bootcamp
VMware vSphere Install, Configure, Manage (ICM)
VMware vSphere Fundamentals of Administration
Students are expected to be able to perform the following tasks before coming to class:
- Install VMware ESX, ESXi, and vCenter.
- Create and modify a standard virtual switches
- Connect a VMware ESX/ESXi host to NAS and iSCSI storage
- Create and modify VMFS datastores
- Configure and use vMotion and Storage vMotion
- Configure a VMware DRS cluster with resource pools
- Configure a VMware High Availability cluster
- Create and Modify virtual machines
Intended Audience
System administrators, engineers, and help desk personnel who need the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform troubleshooting of their VMware vSphere® deployments.
Outline
Sample VMware vSphere Troubleshooting Course Outline
Module 1: Course Introduction and Methodology
Module 2: Tools for VMware Troubleshooting
- Topic 1: Overview of 3rd Party Tools
- Topic 2: ESX/ESXi Management
- Installation and use of the vMA
- VMware vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) commands and syntax
- ESXi technical support mode
- SSH access in ESX and ESXi
- Topic 3: Linux Command Review
Module 3: Troubleshooting Log Files
- ESX, ESXi, and vCenter Server Log Files
- Configure centralized Logging with syslog
Module 4: Network Troubleshooting
- Topic 1: Creating & Modify Virtual Networks
- Topic 2: Creating & Modify Virtual Networks using CLI
- Topic 3: Accessing Distributed Virtual Switches using CLI
Module 5: Management Troubleshooting
- Topic 1: Troubleshooting VMware vCenter Server and Database
- Topic 2: Troubleshooting the VMware vSphere Client
- Topic 3: Controlling Management Access
- Topic 4: ESX/ESXi Active Directory (AD) Integration
- Topic 5: Managing Firewalls
- Topic 6: SSH Access
- Topic 7: Linked Mode Groups of vCenters
Module 6: Storage Troubleshooting
- Topic 1: Storage Concepts
- Topic 2: iSCSI Storage
- Topic 3: Fibre Channel Storage
- Topic 4: VMFS Datastores
Module 7: vMotion Troubleshooting
- vMotion and Storage vMotion requirements and issues
Module 8: Infrastructure Troubleshooting
- DRS Cluster shares, pools, and limits
- Datasore Clusters and Storage DRS
- HA slot calculations, admission control, and host monitoring
- Common Virtual Machine problems