Are you ready for virtualization? You should be. Some analysts suggest that by t he end of 2011, over half of every IT workload will be running inside a virtual machine. VMware's vSphere 5 is an enterprise-ready virtualization solution. Superstar vSp here trainer Greg Shields will introduce you to VMware and vSphere, preparing yo u for the VMware Certified Professional 5, or VCP5, exam. You won't just have wh at it takes to take the exam, you'll learn career-critical virtualization skills in this Nugget series. Series 1: VMware Virtualization VCP vSphere 5 1 Introduction to VMware, vSphere, and the VCP5 With this first nugget, Greg will familiarize you with his teaching style and th e products to be discussed. Get to know VMware, its vSphere platform, and the to pics of greatest importance in this kick-off nugget. 00:35:48 2 Identify vSphere Architecture and Solutions Any virtual environment is comprised of a lot of moving parts. vSphere 5 is no d ifferent. With ESXi hypervisors, vCenter Server and Client management tools, and everything in-between, this nugget prepares you for understanding how the entir e solution fits together. 00:19:29 3 Install and Configure vCenter Server With all the preparatory work out of the way, our first job is getting vSpheres m anagement studio installed and ready for ESXi hosts. That studio, the vCenter Se rver, is the central location for configuring and controlling almost every facet of your vSphere environment. Youll get it installed and configured in this nugge t. 00:26:26 4 Install and Configure VMware ESXi With vCenter ready for action, next up is preparing the hypervisors themselves f or running virtual machines. We wont be ready for creating our first virtual mach ines for a few more nuggets, but at this point we'll run through the installatio n and initial configuration of ESXi. Youll see how this almost appliance-like hyp ervisor gets installed, how its networking is prepared, and how it gets connecte d into vCenter. 00:25:38 5 Configure vNetwork Standard Switches & vSS Policies If youre new to virtualization, an ESXi server will be unlike almost any other se rver youve worked with before. Able to support trunked network connections just a s easily as those at your networks access layer, youll need to know how to correct ly work with ESXis vNetwork Standard Switches. That knowledge, along with a full explanation of all its configuration options, are in this nugget. 00:26:00 6 Configure Shared Storage for vSphere Storage is the next configuration before we can create virtual machines. And in the vSphere virtual world, that storage is shared storage. Unlike the direct att ached disks that are connected to a servers hardware chassis, shared storage mean s SAN storage. Youll be configuring exactly that shared storage for later use by your virtual machines in this nugget. 00:22:59 7 Create and Configure VMFS Datastores Configuring the connection to storage is but the first step in the process. Maki ng that storage production-worthy requires redundancy and multiple paths. With t he connection ready, you also require extra work in creating VMFS datastores. Th ose datastores are the file system in which your virtual machines will operate. Youll also get an introduction to some of vSpheres newest technologies like User-d efined Storage Capabilities and Storage I/O Control. 00:21:11 8 Create and Deploy Virtual Machines & vApps Only after ESXis operating system, its vSwitches, and its shared storage are conf igured can you begin creating and working with virtual machines. In this nugget youll get that opportunity. Youll also learn about how virtual machines can be agg regated together into vApps for easier management, as well as how to P2V convert a physical (or other hypervisors virtual) machine into a VM thats ready for vSphe re. 00:30:12 9 Administer and Migrate Virtual Machines and vApps You created and deployed virtual machines in the last nugget; in this one youll b e administering their more advanced settings. Those include VM options, resource controls, virtual disk provisioning formats, and your very first experiences wi th VMwares much-lauded vMotion capabilities. 00:34:27 10 Configure VMware Clusters and Resource Pools vMotion is an exciting new tool for keeping virtual machines highly available. B ut vMotion by itself is only one part of the solution. Wrapping around vMotion a re a series of monitors and an availability model that keeps VMs best distribute d across available hosts. It also returns them back to service quickly after a f ailure. VMware HA and DRS all source from VMware Clusters. Constraining VM resou rces is accomplished with Resource Pools. Youll learn about both in this deep-div e nugget. 00:44:09 11 Manage Virtual Machine Clones and Templates A virtual machine thats powered off is nothing more than a file on disk. Even one thats powered on, with the right tools, can be copied and pasted just like a file. That ease of replicating VMs feeds directly into this nugget on managing VM clo nes and templates. Youll learn the best practices and the step-by-step to cloning your virtual machines and starting their lives via golden image templates. 00:18:42 12 Backup and Restore Virtual Machines Every IT workload requires backups, even if you hope to never have to resort to restores. Yet virtualization has a tendency to complicate backups even as it mak es them better for restorations. Youll learn the science behind virtualizations mu ltiple backup perspectives, and then dig into VMwares Data Recovery Appliance to see how VMs can be backed up and restored in vSphere. 00:22:08 13 Update and Profile ESXi Hosts Everything that makes up an ESXi host is contained within its files. That file-b ased nature to ESXis operating system makes it easy to do configuration control i f you have an automated solution to gather all the settings that make sense. The tool to do so is vCenter Servers Host Profiles. Watch this nugget and youll quick ly be profiling host configurations, comparing those profiles to other hosts, an d ensuring that your entire environment is perfectly baselined to your exacting specifications. 00:26:20 14 Configure vNetwork Distributed Switches & vDS Policies vNetwork Standard Switches might work great when youve got just a few hosts, but they suffer from the fact that each host requires individual configuration. For larger environments, or those that want assured vSwitch configuration similarity , the answer is vNetwork Distributed Switches. These special switches operate at the datacenter layer, and provide a policy-based approach for ensuring every ES Xi hosts networking is correct. 00:22:39 15 Secure vCenter Server and ESXi The only thing with vSphere thats more important than backups is security. Youve g ot to make sure your servers are patched and backed up for sure, but youve also g ot to ensure that they have the right security settings. Also important is deliv ering precise permissions to your fellow IT professionals (and even those specia l individuals outside IT who need access). Youll learn all this in this nuggets se curity-focused conversation. 00:16:56 16 Plan and Implement VMware Fault Tolerance What do you do when a vSphere Clusters HA just isnt enough? What do you do when ev en a second of downtime is too long? Thats when VMware Fault Tolerance becomes yo ur best friend. By creating two virtual machines that operate in lock step with each other, FT ensures that any host failure wont impact a protected VM. FT-prote cted VMs immediately come online with incredible speed. 00:17:12 17 Configure the vSphere Storage Appliance Dont have a SAN and dont want to buy one? Still want all the high availability fea tures of vSphere? The vSphere Storage Appliance provides one option that might b e of use. While it arrives with an array of limitations, this first-generation a ppliance can indeed create a highly-available vSphere environment without needin g shared storage. 00:21:03 18 Perform Basic vSphere Troubleshooting Even the best run vSphere environment occasionally experiences problems, and whe n those problems occur, its your job to track them down. Thats why this entire nug get is dedicated to troubleshooting ESXi. While the actual mapping between behav iors and resolutions is perhaps best left for the vSphere documentation, this nu gget will show you the tools you have at your disposal for tracking down big pro blems. 00:17:22 19 Monitor vCenter and Administer Alarms Yellow and red lights are never a good thing when theyre seen in a solutions manag ement console. But sometimes those lights arent well tuned. Other times you might just prefer to turn them off. Youll learn how to tune vCenters alarm structure in this nugget. With the information you learn here, youll know that every warning light has meaning. 00:28:13 20 Plan and Perform vCenter Server and ESXi Upgrades The upgrade process in vSphere 5 gets easier than ever with new and improved tec hnologies like vCenter Update Manager and Auto Deploy. But even with these tools at your disposal, you still need the right set of steps to get your upgrade com pleted successfully. Youll get exposed to the tools and learn the proper steps in this final nugget. 00:14:49