VMware vSphere: Advanced Administration [8.0] Training

This five-day expert-level course equips participants with skills ranging from routine VMware vSphere® 8 administration tasks to complex operations and troubleshooting. Using scenario-based labs (not simple step-by-step guides), students face real-world challenges similar to those in enterprise environments.

Scenarios are based on VMBeans, a fictitious company, allowing learners to build and scale virtual infrastructures while solving operational problems.

The course fully aligns with the VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Data Center Virtualization Deploy (VCAP-DCV Deploy) exam objectives.

Product Alignment

• VMware ESXi 8.0

• VMware vCenter 8.0

• VMware vSphere

• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage

• VMware vSphere: Operate, Scale, and Secure

• Working knowledge of VMware vSAN

• System administration experience on Windows or Linux

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Configure vCenter and ESXi

• Create and manage HA, DRS, and vSAN-enabled clusters

• Configure vSphere networking and storage

• Perform lifecycle operations on vSphere components

• Troubleshoot infrastructure and connectivity issues

• Back up and restore vCenter configurations

• Implement vSphere security best practices

1. Course Introduction

• Objectives and scenario-based methodology

2. Creating and Configuring Management Clusters

• Build management workload clusters

• Networking with standard switches

• Configure iSCSI, VMFS, and NFS datastores

• ESXi account best practices

• Maintain consistency with configuration profiles

3. Creating and Configuring Production Clusters

• Deploy vSAN-enabled clusters

• Advanced HA configuration

• vCenter identity provider and ADFS roles

• Enhanced vMotion Compatibility and cross-vCenter migration

• Content Libraries for template sharing

• Resource Pools, scalable shares, and DRS rules

4. Troubleshooting and Backups

• Troubleshoot ESXi networking, storage, and cluster issues

• Solve PowerCLI errors

• Generate vCenter and ESXi log bundles

• Backup vCenter configurations

5. Lifecycle Management

• Troubleshoot upgrade-blocking issues

• vCenter, ESXi, VMware Tools, and VM hardware upgrades

• vSphere Lifecycle Manager for patching and updates

6. Security

• Configure a Key Management Server (KMS)

• Encrypt VMs with vSphere VM encryption

• Secure migrations with encrypted vMotion

• Apply ESXi CPU scheduler options

• Implement ESXi security hardening guidelines

• Replace vCenter certificates with CA-signed ones