This video is about VMware Certification Track Explained
This is session I will explain you what is requirement of VMware Certification.
we will focus on VCP DCV certification.
VMware Certified Professional has 5

Data Center Virtualization (DCV) Track
Cloud Management and Automation (CMA) Track
Desktop and Mobility (DTM) Track
Network Virtualization (NV) Track
Digital Workspace (DW) Track

The most fundamental track is Data Center Virtualization (DCV)
VCAP – has two exams Design and Deployment.
VCDX this is not an exam you will need to present your design to a panel of VCDX and defend your design if they approve your design you will get the Certification of VCDX as a VMware Certified Design Expert.

Check out this session which will explain all about it.

What is a VMware Engineer? | VMware Certified Professional – VCP Certification Track Explained https://youtu.be/QO9r3HYT0Vg

All of these courses will satisfy the course requirement if you are looking to become VCP DCV 2020…

VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V6.7]
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.7]
VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V6.7]
VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale plus Troubleshooting Fast Track [v6.7]
VMware vSphere: Skills for Public Sector Administrators [V6.7]
VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting Workshop [V6.7]
VMware Advanced Skills for vSphere Professional Workshop [V6.7]
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7]
VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V7]
VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting [V7]
VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V7]
VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale plus Troubleshooting Fast Track [V7]

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/certification/vmware-certification-tracks-diagram.pdf

I have been asked this question time and time again on how to setup a lab for vSphere to start learning VMware.

In this post today I am going to walk you through how I have created an amazing lab just using simple commodity hardware, which is easy to find and cheap to run with the electricity bills. Especially if you are planning to run it 24/7 as I do.

Hardware – Dell Optiplex 7010

I have purposely used Dell Optiplex 7010 as it is easy and cheap to buy.

Configuring / Billing of Material (BOM)

CPU Intel i7

Memory – 32GB

2TB HDD

CD/DVD

So as you can see this is a simple Dell desktop which you can buy, I have bought this from eBay for £350, The most important thing to remember is the memory, so the more the merrier. In my case, I have messaged the eBay seller and found out the maximum memory that is supported for this desktop which is 32GB and I have got 8 GB X 4 Memory Modules.

Although this looks like a good option sadly, there is no more room for an upgrade of memory as this is the maximum the motherboard supports.

I bought this kit back in Feb 2019, it fit the requirement I had for my basic home lab with vSphere 6.7

Installing ESXi

Once you get the server ready, Install ESX 6.7 you will need to register on https://www.vmware.com and download the ESX 6.7 Update 3 ISO first.

1. register with my VMware portal httpss://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/registration
2. once register login with the credentials

• Once you log-in you will find the downloads

4. click on Trial and Free products.

you will then find vSphere for Download free Trial

You can also have a go at the VMware Hands-on Lab ( HOL) they are very good too.

so once we click on the download link we will get 60 days evaluation for vSpehre 6.7 or any VMware products for that matter. as you can see my Evaluation edition time is compleated

This should let you download your software if you have registered a new MyVMware account.

You can also check out the old products that y you can click on View My Evaluation

Then you will need to burn the ISO to CD or DVD disk to install the ESX hypervisor on the server.

Please follow the blog given below to complete the ESX installation process. although this was done for ESX 6.7 Update 2 the process is the same for Update 3 too.

https://agileops.co.uk/2019/05/02/installing-vsphere-6-7-update-2/

Finally, at the end of the installation, you will find your brand new Hypervisor ready for action. you might need to check if the VT is enabled in the Bios to start nested esx host if that’s what you are planning to do like I have done in my lab.

You can find the full process of Installing the ESX on my YouTube channel where I teach VMware to beginners VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 3: installing vSphere 6.7

Then you can start installing the vCetner Server, you can go back to the MyVMware website and download the ISO.

Sometimes you see the error message given below:

You either are not entitled or do not have permissions to download this product.
Check with your My VMware Super User, Procurement Contact or Administrator.

If you recently purchased this product through VMware Store or through a third-party, try downloading later.

just click on Trail Download and you should be able to download the ISO

httpss://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=ESXI670&productId=742&rPId=24857

You can follow my blog Installing VMware vCenter Server 6.7 Update 2

How does my lab look like, well that’s a good subject? please check the screenshot below:

I have the Physical dell Optiplex server which I have highlighted in red. as as you can see I am chewing almost all the memory on the server currently.

I have two VM running nested esx which are highlighted in the demo cluster running around 7 VM’s

I have the vCetner server and vROPS instance running directory on the dell server.

How can I forget I have used FreeNAS for shared storage which is provisioned using ISCSI software initiators. you will find a full process of how to provide shared storage on the YouTube chanal in two parts.

Part1:

Part2:

YouTube Videos

Hi All, I just decided to collect all the Sessions on one blog post so that it’s easy for you to go through. We have almost done 40 % of the content which I wanted to deliver. So if you have been following my blog and YouTube Channel well done.

I also would like to thank my subscribers I get motivated by seeing the numbers grow

Also, I would like to remind those who have not subscribed please do so. I publish 2 videos every week and be sure to hit the notification bell so you don’t miss on new content.

So let’s get started shall we, VMware have announced on 5th Feb 2019 that they are no longer going to have a re-certification requirement which was previously for 2 years. more info on this can be found on my previous post.

Certification Path

1. VMware Tutorial for Beginners

2. VMware Tutorial for Beginners what is Virtualization?

Hey All in this video I will take you through some basics of virtualization, starting from some introduction to types of hypervisors.

What is #Virtualization?

Overview #Type1 and# Type2 Type1 #Bare Metal Virtualization

installing the virtualization software VMM on a physical server ie. ESXi

Type 2 #Hosted Virtualization ( installing Virtualization emulator on the host OS like Windows 7, WIndows 10 eg. VMware player, VMware work station, Oracle virtual box.

Further, we can classify the virtualization in three important categories

3. VMware Tutorial for Beginners, what is cloud?

Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisor

Runs directly on the bare metal ( No host OS) Direct access to CPU and Memory resources

We get Better performance, Server consolidation

Servers are used more efficiently value for money Saves on carbon footprint electricity and AC cooling cost. and Easy to manage.

Different types of Service Model

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service

Examples Infrastructure as a Service Google cloud, Amazon Web Services, Azure, Rack Space.

Platform as a Service Google app engine, bring your data and application Software as a Service Email, Dropbox, Skype, Whatsapp, Google apps Microsoft Office 365.

4. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 3: installing vSphere 6.7

Session 3 How to connect ESXi to vCenter

1. Download the vSphere Hypervisor from www.vmware.com

2. For the purpose of Demo Install nested ESX ( on Virtual Machine) 3. Configure IPaddress and basic Networks

4. How to connect to the ESX server using a web-client How to add vSphere ESX server to a vCenter

5. VMware tutorial beginners Session 4 vCenter Server

6. VMware tutorial beginners Session 4 vCenter Server Installation

In this video we are going to go through the fundamentals of vCenter Server understand the concept of what is PSC its function. Then we are going to download and install the vCenter Server.

Once successfully deployed, we will connect to it and add a ESXi Host.

Agenda:

PSC ( Platform Services Controler) vCenter with embeded PSC vCetner with external PSC Session

Download vCenter from www.vmware.com Session 4 Learn how to install VMware vCenter Server 6.7 PSC (Platform Services controller) was introduced with vCenter 6.0

The Platform Services controller is responsible for the following infrastructure security functions vCenter Single Sign-On, licensing, Certificate management, etc.

Deployment Type Tiny (up to 10 hosts, 100 VMs) – 2 CPUs, 10 GB RAM. Small (up to 100 hosts, 1000 VMs) – 4 CPUs, 16 GB RAM. Medium (up to 400 hosts, 4000 VMs) – 8 CPUs, 24 GB RAM. Large (up to 1000 hosts, 10,000 VMs) – 16 CPUs, 32 GB RAM. X-Large (up to 2000 hosts, 35,000 VMs) – 24 CPUs, 48 GB RAM – new to v6.5. Installation options Install – for a new fresh installation Upgrade – (6.0 or 6.5 to 6.7) Migrate – (Windows) Restore – corrupt vCenter

7. VMware Tutorial for Beginners Session 5 Create a Virtual Machine

8. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 6: Deploying an OVF/OVA UCS Manager Platform Emulator

9. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 7: Introducing the HTML 5 Client

10. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 8 : What is a Template ?

11. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 9 : What is a Clone

12. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 10 Working with VMware Snapshots demo Linux password reset

13. VMware tutorial beginners Session 11 VMware Settings vCPU Memory and Disk

14. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 12 VMware Memory Management

15. VMware Tutorial Beginners  | Session 13 VMware Tools Installation

In this session, we are going to discuss VMware Tools. What is Vmware Tools (VMTools) Benefits of VMTools How to check if we are running the up to date version

How to Install VMTools

What is VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine.

You can use the Windows Easy Install Linux Easy Install feature to install

Upcoming Sessions:

I am planning to deliver another 16 sessions that will cover the following content

Advance features of Hot Add CPU and Hot plug Memory.

Datastore and Shared Storage

VMFS 5 and VMFS 6 ( No migration tool to upgrade)

Advance Troubleshooting Performance monitoring CPU, RAM, Network and disk, also look at Task, Alerts, Events.

Networking Standard vSwitch

Networking Distributed vSwitch

Traffic – Management Traffic, vMotion and Fault-Tolerant, VM-Traffic(production).

Migration using vMotion (Compute) and Storage vMotion (storage) (live demo)

Cluster Configuration, High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), EVC Mode (live demo)

VMware Security and Compliance.

VMware Update Manager -Maintenance Patching the ESX host.

VMDS –(VMware Download server for downloading patches via proxy for restricted environments with firewall)

Introduction to Advance troubleshooting using vROPs

Getting started with PowerCLI

Create My learn account

Resources VMware HOL

This will help beginners to understand the concept of VMware Technology and most importantly the terminology. Quite a few of the people who are interested are from different backgrounds and in entry-level, IT positions so they are keen to learn and ask me a question. As of today, I have got nearly 350 subscribers on my YouTube Channel. httpss://www.youtube.com/user/miquraishi