Course Overview

In this course, you will focus on deploying and managing a software-defined storage solution with VMware vSAN™ 6.6. You will learn how vSAN functions as an important component in the VMware software-defined data center. You will gain practical experience with vSAN concepts through the completion of hands-on lab exercises.

Course Objectives

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

• Describe the vSAN architecture
• Identify vSAN features and use cases
• Configure vSAN networking components
• Configure a vSAN cluster
• Deploy virtual machines on a vSAN datastore
• Configure virtual machine storage policies
• Perform ongoing vSAN management tasks
• Outline the tasks for upgrading to vSAN 6.6
• Configure vSAN encryption
• Control vSAN resynchronization tasks
• Create and manage nested fault domains
• Use the vSAN health service to monitor health and performance
• Configure a stretched cluster and observe failover scenarios
• Describe vSAN interoperability with VMware vSphere® features and other products
• Plan and design a vSAN cluster

Target Audience

• Storage and virtual infrastructure administrators who want to use software-defined storage with vSAN

Course Modules

1. Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives
• Describe the software-defined data center

2. Storage Fundamentals

• Define common storage technologies
• Identify characteristics of storage devices: magnetic and flash-based devices
• Identify and explain various types of storage architectures
• Identify SAN performance factors

3. Introduction to vSAN

• Describe the vSAN architecture and components
• Describe the differences between the vSAN hybrid and all-flash architectures
• Describe the space-efficiency features of vSAN

4. vSAN Configuration

• Identify physical network configuration requirements
• Configure vSAN networking
• Configure a vSAN cluster
• Test and validate the vSAN configuration and functionality

5. vSAN Policies and Virtual Machines

• Explain how storage policies work with vSAN
• Define and create a virtual machine storage policy
• Apply and modify virtual machine storage policies
• Discuss the vsanSparse snapshot format
• Explain the considerations for vsanSparse snapshots

6. Managing and Operating vSAN

• Manage hardware storage devices
• Manage hardware device failures
• Identify vCenter Server alarms for vSAN events
• Configure fault domains
• Upgrade to vSAN 6.6

7. Stretched Clusters and Two-Node Clusters

• Describe the architecture for stretched clusters and two-node clusters
• Create a stretched cluster using a two-node configuration
• Configure VMware vSphere® High Availability and VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™ for a stretched cluster
• Demonstrate stretched cluster failover scenarios

8. Monitoring and Troubleshooting vSAN

• Use vSphere Web Client to detect issues
• Use the vSAN health service to monitor health and performance
• Monitor vSAN with VMware vRealize® Operations Manager™
• Use ESXi commands to monitor the vSAN environment
• Monitor vSAN with Ruby vSphere Console

9. Interoperability with vSphere Features

• Identify vSphere features and VMware products that interoperate with vSAN
• Describe how vSAN interoperates with third-party products and solutions

10. Designing a vSAN Deployment

• Understand vSAN design considerations
• Plan and design vSAN clusters
• Identify the design and sizing tools for vSAN
• Describe vSAN use cases