VMware vSAN: Fast Track [V7]

During this five-day, intensive course, you gain the knowledge, skills, and tools to plan and deploy a VMware vSAN™ cluster. You learn about managing and operating vSAN. This course focuses on building the required skills for common Day-2 vSAN administrator tasks such as vSAN node management, cluster maintenance, security operations, and advanced vSAN cluster operations.

You also focus on learning the tools and skills necessary to troubleshoot vSAN 7 implementations and gain practical experience with vSAN troubleshooting concepts through the completion of instructor-led activities and hands-on lab exercises.

This course is a combination of the following courses: VMware vSAN: Plan and Deploy, VMware vSAN: Management and Operations, and VMware vSAN: Troubleshooting.

Intended Audience

Storage and virtual infrastructure consultants, solution architects, and administrators who are responsible for production support and administration of VMware vSAN [v7]

Prerequisites

Completion of the following course is required:

• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage or equivalent knowledge

Objectives

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

• Describe vSAN concepts
• Detail the underlying vSAN architecture and components
• Explain the key features and use cases for vSAN
• Identify requirements and planning considerations for vSAN clusters
• Describe the different vSAN deployment options
• Explain how to configure vSAN fault domains
• Detail how to define and create a VM Storage policy
• Discuss the impact of vSAN storage policy changes
• Describe vSAN storage space efficiency
• Explain how vSAN encryption works
• Identify requirements to configure vSAN iSCSI target
• Detail HCI Mesh technology and architecture
• Detail vSAN file service architecture and configuration
• Explain the use cases of vSAN Direct
• Describe how to setup stretched and two-node vSAN clusters
• Explain the importance vSAN node hardware compatibility
• Describe the use of VMware vSphere® Lifecycle Manager™ to automate driver and firmware installations
• Detail vSAN resilience and data availability
• Discuss the vSAN cluster backup methodology
• Describe the vSAN maintenance mode and data evacuation options
• Define the steps to shut down a vSAN cluster for maintenance
• Explain how to use proactive tests to check the integrity of a vSAN cluster
• Use VMware Skyline Health™ for monitoring vSAN health
• Apply a structured approach to troubleshoot vSAN cluster configuration and operational problems

Course Outline

1 Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

2 Introduction to vSAN

• Describe vSAN architecture
• Describe the vSAN software components: CLOM, DOM, LSOM, CMMDS, and RDT
• Identify vSAN objects and components
• Describe the advantages of object-based storage
• Describe the difference between All-Flash and Hybrid vSAN architecture
• Explain the key features and use cases for vSAN
• Discuss the vSAN integration and compatibility with other VMware technologies

3 Planning a vSAN Cluster

• Identify requirements and planning considerations for vSAN clusters
• Apply vSAN cluster planning and deployment best practices
• Determine and plan for storage consumption by data growth and failure tolerance
• Design vSAN hosts for operational needs
• Identify vSAN networking features and requirements
• Describe ways of controlling traffic in a vSAN environment
• Recognize best practices for vSAN network configurations

4 Deploying a vSAN Cluster

• Recognize the importance of hardware compatibility
• Ensure the compatibility of driver and firmware versioning
• Use tools to automate driver validation and installation
• Apply host hardware settings for optimum performance
• Use vSphere Life Cycle Manager to perform upgrades
• Deploy and configure a vSAN Cluster using Cluster Quickstart wizard
• Manually configure a vSAN Cluster using vSphere Client
• Explain and configure vSAN fault domains
• Using vSphere HA with vSAN
• Understand vSAN Cluster maintenance capabilities
• Describe the difference between implicit and explicit fault domains
• Create explicit fault domains

5 vSAN Storage Policies

• Describe a vSAN Object
• Describe how objects are split into components
• Explain the purpose of witness components
• Explain how vSAN stores large objects
• View object and component placement on the vSAN Datastore
• Explain how storage policies work with vSAN
• Define and create a virtual machine storage policy
• Apply and modify virtual machine storage policies
• Change virtual machine storage policies dynamically
• Identify virtual machine storage policy compliance status

6 vSAN Resilience and Data Availability

• Describe and configure the Object Repair Timer advanced option
• Plan disk replacement in a vSAN cluster
• Plan maintenance tasks to avoid vSAN object failures
• Recognize the importance of managing snapshot utilization in a vSAN cluster

7 Configuring vSAN Storage Space Efficiency

• Discuss Deduplication and Compression techniques
• Understand Deduplication and Compression overhead
• Discuss Compression only mode
• Configure Erasure Coding
• Configure swap object Thin Provisioning 
• Discuss Reclaiming Storage Space with SCSI UNMAP
• Configure TRIM/UNMAP

8 vSAN Security Operations

• Identify differences between VM encryption and vSAN encryption
• Perform ongoing operations to maintain data security
• Describe the workflow of Data-in Transit encryption
• Identify the steps involved in replacing Key Management Server

9 Introduction to Advanced vSAN Configurations

• Identify requirements to configure vSAN iSCSI target
• Detail HCI Mesh technology and architecture
• Detail vSAN File Service architecture and configuration
• Explain the use cases of vSAN Direct

10 vSAN Stretched and Two Node Clusters

• Describe the architecture and uses case for stretched clusters
• Detail the deployment and replacement of a vSAN Witness node
• Describe the architecture and uses case for two-node clusters
• Explain the benefits of vSphere HA and vSphere Site Recovery Manager in a vSAN stretched cluster
• Explain storage policies for vSAN stretched cluster

11 vSAN Cluster Maintenance

• Perform typical vSAN maintenance operations
• Describe vSAN maintenance modes and data evacuation options
• Assess the impact on cluster objects of entering maintenance mode
• Determine the specific data actions required after exiting maintenance mode
• Define the steps to shut down and reboot hosts and vSAN clusters
• Use best practices for boot devices
• Replace vSAN Nodes

12 vSAN Cluster Monitoring

• Describe how the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) enables VMware to improve products and services
• Use vSphere Skyline Health for monitoring vSAN Cluster Health
• Manage alerts, alarms, and notifications related to vSAN in vSphere Client
• Create and configure custom alarms to trigger vSAN health issues
• Use IO Insight metrics for monitoring vSAN performance
• Analyse vsantop performance metrics
• Use vSAN Proactive Test to detect and diagnose cluster issues

13 vSAN Troubleshooting Methodology 

• Use a structured approach to solve configuration and operational problems
• Apply troubleshooting methodology to logically diagnose faults and optimize troubleshooting efficiency

14 vSAN Troubleshooting Tools 

• Use Skyline Health for vSAN to identify and correct issues in VMware vSAN
• Discuss the ways to run various command-line tools
• Discuss the ways to access VMware vSphere ESXi Shell
• Use commands to view, configure, and manage your VMware vSphere environment
• Discuss the esxcli vsan namespace commands
• Use log files to help vSAN troubleshooting