Tuesday 31 March 2020

VMware vSphere with Kubernetes Deploy and Manage V7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere with Kubernetes: Deploy and Manage V7

During this 3-day course, you focus on deploying and managing VMware vSphere with Kubernetes.

You learn about how vSphere with Kubernetes can be used to orchestrate the delivery of Kubernetes clusters and containerised applications in a VMware vSphere environment.

The course covers the following objectives

  • Describe vSphere with Kubernetes and use cases in on-premises environments
  • Deploy vSphere with Kubernetes
  • Describe the VMware NSX networking requirements for vSphere with Kubernetes.
  • Create and manage vSphere with Kubernetes namespaces
  • Deploy and run container applications on vSphere with Kubernetes
  • Deploy and configure VMware Harbor
  • Describe the VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid service
  • Deploy a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid cluster
  • Deploy and run container applications on a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid cluster
  • Describe the vSphere with Kubernetes lifecycle
  • Use logs and CLI commands to monitor and troubleshoot vSphere with Kubernetes

For more information about the course, please watch Feidhlim O'Leary overview video.


Monday 30 March 2020

VMware vSphere Design V7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere: Design V7

This three-day training course equips you with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to design a VMware vSphere 7 virtual infrastructure.

You follow a proven approach to design a virtualisation solution that ensures availability, manageability, performance, recoverability, and security, and that uses VMware best practices.

This course discusses the benefits and risks of available design alternatives and provides information to support making sound design decisions.

Given a case study, you practice your design skills by working with peers on a design project.

The course covers the following objectives


  • Identify the business objectives for the vSphere environment
  • Identify business requirements, constraints, assumptions, and risks for all layers in the vSphere environment
  • Apply a framework to a design
  • Analyse design choices and best-practice recommendations
  • Create a design that ensures availability, manageability, performance, recoverability, and security
  • Design the core management infrastructure for an enterprise
  • Design the virtual data center for an enterprise
  • Design the compute infrastructure for an enterprise
  • Design the storage and networking infrastructures for an enterprise
  • Design virtual machines to run applications in a vSphere infrastructure
  • Design security, manageability, and recoverability features for an enterprise


For more information about the course, please watch Alistair Sutherland overview video.


Sunday 29 March 2020

VMware vSphere Fast Track V7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere: Fast Track V7

This five-day, intensive course takes you from introductory to advanced VMware vSphere 7 management skills. Building on the installation and configuration content from our best-selling course, you will also develop advanced skills needed to manage and maintain a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure.

Through a mix of lecture and hands-on labs, you will install, configure and manage vSphere 7. You will explore the features that build a foundation for a truly scalable infrastructure and discuss when and where these features have the greatest effect.

This course prepares you to administer a vSphere infrastructure for an organisation of any size using vSphere 7, which includes VMware ESXi 7 and VMware vCenter Server 7.

The course covers the following objectives

  • Describe the software-defined data center (SDDC)
  • Explain the vSphere components and their function in the infrastructure
  • Install and configure VMware ESXi hosts
  • Deploy and configure VMware vCenter Server Appliance
  • Use VMware vSphere Client to manage the vCenter Server inventory and the vCenter Server configuration
  • Manage, monitor, back up, and protect vCenter Server Appliance
  • Create virtual networks with vSphere standard switches
  • Describe the storage technologies supported by vSphere
  • Configure virtual storage using iSCSI and NFS storage
  • Create and manage VMware vSphere VMFS datastores
  • Use the vSphere Client to create virtual machines, templates, clones, and snapshots
  • Create a content library and deploy virtual machines from templates in the library
  • Manage virtual machine resource use and manage resource pools
  • Migrate virtual machines with VMware vSphere vMotion and VMware vSphere Storage vMotion
  • Create and manage a vSphere cluster that is enabled with VMware vSphere High Availability and VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
  • Create virtual networks with VMware vSphere Distributed Switch and enable distributed switch features
  • Discuss solutions for managing the vSphere life cycle
  • Use VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager to apply patches and perform upgrades to ESXi hosts and virtual machines
  • Use host profiles to manage ESXi configuration compliance
  • Describe how vSphere storage APIs help storage systems integrate with vSphere
  • Configure and use virtual machine storage policies
  • Discuss the purpose and capabilities of VMware vSphere with Kubernetes and how it fits into the VMware Tanzu portfolio

Saturday 28 March 2020

VMware vSphere Troubleshooting V7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting V7

This five-day, hands-on training course provides you with the advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the VMware vSphere 7.x environment. This workshop increases your skill and competence in using the command-line interface, VMware vSphere Client, log files, and other tools to analyse and solve problems.

The course covers the following objectives


  • Introduce troubleshooting principles and procedures
  • Practice Linux commands that aid in the troubleshooting process
  • Use command-line interfaces, log files, and the vSphere Client to diagnose and resolve problems in the vSphere environment
  • Explain the purpose of key vSphere log files
  • Identify networking problems based on reported symptoms, validate and troubleshoot the reported problem, identify the root cause and implement the appropriate resolution
  • Analyse storage failure scenarios using a logical troubleshooting methodology, identify the root cause, and apply the appropriate resolution to resolve the problem
  • Troubleshoot vSphere cluster failure scenarios and analyse possible causes
  • Diagnose common VMware vSphere High Availability problems and provide solutions
  • Identify and validate VMware ESXi host and VMware vCenter Server problems, analyse failure scenarios, and select the correct resolution
  • Troubleshoot virtual machine problems, including migration problems, snapshot problems, and connection problems
  • Troubleshoot performance problems with vSphere components




For more information about the course, please watch Chinmay Inamdar overview video.


Friday 27 March 2020

VMware vSphere Optimise and Scale V7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale V7

This five-day course teaches you advanced skills for configuring and maintaining a highly available and scalable virtual infrastructure. Through a mix of lecture and hands-on labs, you configure and optimize the VMware vSphere® 7 features that build a foundation for a truly scalable infrastructure, and you discuss when and where these features have the greatest effect.

Attend this course to deepen your understanding of vSphere and learn how its advanced features and controls can benefit your organization.

The course covers the following objectives.

  • Configure and manage vSphere networking and storage for a large and sophisticated enterprise
  • Use VMware vSphere Client to manage certificates
  • Use Identity Federation to configure VMware vCenter Server® to use Microsoft ADFS
  • Use VMware vSphere Trust Authority to secure the infrastructure for encrypted VMs
  • Use host profiles to manage VMware ESXi host compliance
  • Create and manage a content library for deploying virtual machines
  • Manage VM resource usage with resource pools
  • Monitor and analyze key performance indicators for compute, storage, and networking resources for ESXi hosts
  • Optimize the performance of ESXi and VMware vCenter Server
  • Discuss the purpose and capabilities of VMware vSphere® with Kubernetes and how it fits into the VMware Tanzu portfolio
For more information about the course, please watch Joathan Loux overview video.


Thursday 26 March 2020

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage v7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The next course is the

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage v7

This five-day course features intensive hands-on training that focuses on installing, configuring, and managing VMware vSphere 7.

This  includes VMware ESXi 7 and VMware vCenter Server 7.

This course prepares you to administer a vSphere infrastructure for an organisation of any size. This course is the foundation for most of the other VMware technologies in the software-defined data center.

The course covers the following objectives

•  Describe the software-defined data center (SDDC)
•  Explain the vSphere components and their function in the infrastructure
•  Install and configure VMware ESXi hosts
•  Deploy and configure VMware vCenter Server Appliance
•  Use VMware vSphere Client to manage the vCenter Server inventory and the vCenter Server
   configuration
•  Manage, monitor, back up, and protect vCenter Server Appliance
•  Create virtual networks with vSphere standard switches
•  Describe the storage technologies supported by vSphere
•  Configure virtual storage using iSCSI and NFS storage
•  Create and manage VMware vSphere VMFS datastores
•  Use the vSphere Client to create virtual machines, templates, clones, and snapshots
•  Create a content library and deploy virtual machines from templates in the library
•  Manage virtual machine resource use
•  Migrate virtual machines with VMware vSphere vMotion and VMware vSphere Storage vMotion
•  Create and manage a vSphere cluster that is enabled with VMware vSphere High Availability and
   VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
•  Discuss solutions for managing the vSphere life cycle
•  Use VMware vSphere Update Manager to apply patches and perform upgrades to ESXi hosts and
   virtual machines

For more information about the course, please watch Joe Cooper overview video.


Wednesday 25 March 2020

VMware vSphere What's New v6.7 to v7

In this little series of blogs we're going to introduce the new courses coming to enable people to learn and get to grips with the New version of vSphere that was announced March 2020

The first course is the

VMware vSphere: What's New v6.7 to v7

In this three-day, hands-on training course, you will learn the new features and enhancements in VMware vCenter Server 7 and VMware ESXi 7.

Real-world use-case deployment scenarios, hands-on lab exercises, and lectures teach you the skills that you need to effectively implement and configure VMware vSphere 7.

This course is recommended for delegates who want to deploy vSphere 7 in their existing vSphere environment.

Is is expected that you will either have attended previous version training on VMware vSphere, or you will have the necessary experience of install, designing, and maintaining the previous versions of  VMware vSphere

On this course you will cover

  • List and describe the importance of key features and enhancements in vSphere 6.7 update releases and vSphere 7
  • Determine the proper upgrade path for a vCenter Server instance and upgrade VMware vCenter Server Appliance to version 7
  • Migrate a Windows vCenter Server system to vCenter Server Appliance 7
  • Manage and update VM templates located in content libraries
  • Use Identity Federation to configure vCenter Server to use Microsoft ADFS
  • Use the VMware vSphere Client to manage certificates
  • Describe vCenter Server, VMware ESXi, storage, network, virtual machine, and security enhancements in vSphere 7
  • Use VMware vSphere Trust Authority to secure the infrastructure for encrypted VMs
  • Demonstrate the Quickstart feature of the ESXi cluster
  • Recognize improvements to VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
  • Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to manage vSphere deployments, updates, and configurations
  • Discuss the purpose and capabilities of VMware vSphere® with Kubernetes and how it fits into the VMware Tanzu portfolio


For an overview of what's covered on the course, watch Joe Coopers video.




Tuesday 24 March 2020

VMware vSphere 7 courses are on there way

As a VMware Certified Instructor (VCI), I am please to announce that VMware are releasing dates and information about their vSphere 7 course offerings.



Join them on April 7 for a sneak-peek into the NEW VMware vSphere 7 training.

Chat with the experts behind this (and other vSphere 7 courses) and learn more about how they will help you grow your skills and enable you to take advantage of all the new key capabilities of vSphere 7.

Learn more and register for a time that’s convenient for you:

For all live events visit the VMware Learning Zone for more information and to register for the events.

Stay safe 

Wednesday 11 March 2020

VMware vSphere 7 with Kubernetes

As a VMware Instructor and also VMware support professional I talk to a lot of people who are or will be moving towards Modern Applications, and also multi-cloud.

For a lot of these companies, they wish to retain and also develop their existing talent, their also want to build on the investment they have with their existing IT services, but also need to become more competitive in their IT models.

I am a sysops type of IT professional, I work with developers and we want different things, I want an efficient, easy to manage platform, my developer colleagues want a system that is highly flexible and also want the ability to create and deploy applications within their agile methodology.  

With Kubernetes, we have the ability to quickly create and deploy these modern run anywhere apps that will give us that competitive advantage that will drive our companies towards a long and successful future.

As always VMware have given us the resources to learn about not only how these services work, but also why these services may work to our advantage.

Thanks to VMware for producing this 10 page white paper, just click on the link to learn more