During this four-day course, you will gain the knowledge, skills, and tools to plan and deploy a VMware vSANTM cluster. You will 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, troubleshooting and advanced vSAN cluster operations. You will learn these skills through the completion of instructor-led activities and hands-on lab exercises.

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
• Explain the importance vSAN node hardware compatibility
• 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
• Detail vSAN resilience and data availability
• Describe vSAN storage space efficiency
• Explain how vSAN encryption works
• Detail VMware HCI Mesh™ technology and architecture
• Detail vSAN File Service architecture and configuration
• Describe how to setup a stretched and a two-node vSAN cluster
• Describe 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
• Use VMware Skyline Health to investigate and help determine failure conditions
• Discuss vSAN troubleshooting best practices
• Describe vSAN Express Storage Architecture™ concepts

Module 1: Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
•  Course objectives

Module 2: Introduction to vSAN

• Describe vSAN architecture
• Identify vSAN objects and components
• Describe the advantages of object-based storage
• Describe the difference between All-Flash and Hybrid vSAN architecture

Module 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

Module 4: Deploying a vSAN Cluster

• Understand how to create a vSAN cluster
• Deploy and configure a vSAN Cluster using the Cluster QuickStart wizard
• Manually configure a vSAN Cluster using Vmware vSphere® ClientTM
• Deploy a vSAN cluster using the Easy Install method to build a single-node vSAN cluster
• Validate a successful deployment of vSAN
• Explore how to reserve capacity for future vSAN Operations

Module 5: vSAN Storage Policies

• Describe a vSAN object
• Describe how objects are made up of components
• Explain the purpose of witness components
• Explain how to create a custom-sized object to act as a library for user files
• View object and component placement on the vSAN datastore
• Explain how storage policies work with vSAN
• Define and create a virtual machine storage policy
• Explain and configure vSAN fault domains
• Describe the difference between implicit and explicit fault domains
• Create explicit fault domains

Module 6: vSAN Resilience and Data Availability

• Identify virtual machine storage policy compliance status
• Analyze vSAN’s response to various types of outages
• Explore how vSAN protects data during outage Scenarios

Module 7: Managing vSAN Storage Space Efficiency

• Discuss deduplication and compression techniques
• Understand deduplication and compression overhead
• Discuss compression only mode
• Configure erasure coding
• Discuss reclaiming storage space with SCSI UNMAP
• Configure TRIM/UNMAP
• Explore vSAN’s capacity monitoring

Module 8: vSAN Security Operations

• Discuss how vSAN Data-in-Transit encryption can protect data in flight
• Discuss how vSAN Data-at-Rest encryption can protect data while stored on vSAN
• Explore how to configure Data-in-Transit and Data-at-Rest encryption
• Review how vSAN encrypts data before it is stored on disk
• Explore how vSAN can store keys locally with the use of the Trusted Platform Module
• Detail the integration of the Key Management Service with vCenter Server
• Detail the deployment and integration of the vSphere Native Key Provider
• Review the steps to rotating encryption keys

Module 9: vSAN Stretched and Two Node Clusters

• Describe the architecture and uses case for stretched clusters
• Understand how the witness supports a vSAN stretched cluster and a two-node cluster
• Explain storage policies for vSAN stretched cluster
• Review outage scenarios and how vSAN protects data
• Describe the architecture and uses case for two-node clusters
• Explore how a shared witness can support multiple two-node clusters and reduce the total cost of ownership

Module 10: vSAN HCI Mesh

• Understand the purpose of vSAN HCI Mesh
• Detail vSAN HCI Mesh technology and architecture
• Perform mount and unmount of a remote datastore

Module 11: vSAN File Service and iSCSI Target Service

• Understand the purpose of vSAN File Services
• Detail vSAN File Services architecture
• Configure vSAN File Shares
• Describe vSAN iSCSI Target Service

Module 12: 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
• Explore how vSAN supports scaling up and scaling out of resources
• Detail how to upgrade a vSAN cluster using the vSphere Lifecycle Manager

Module 13: vSAN Cluster Monitoring

• Use VMware Skyline Health for monitoring vSAN cluster health
• Describe how the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) enables VMware to improve products and services
• Manage alerts, alarms, and notifications related to vSAN in VMware vSphere® ClientTM
• Explore monitoring and forecasting tools build in the vCenter Server
• Use vSAN proactive tests to detect and diagnose cluster issues

Module 14: vSAN Troubleshooting

• Use a structured approach to solve configuration and operational problems
• Apply troubleshooting methodology to logically diagnose faults and optimize troubleshooting efficiency
• Use VMware Skyline Health to investigate and help determine failure conditions
• Explain which log files are useful for vSAN troubleshooting

Module 15: vSAN Express Storage Architecture

• Understand the purpose of vSAN Express Storage Architecture
• Describe the vSAN Express Storage Architecture Components
• Identify Storage Policy differences
• Understand compression and encryption operation differences
• Detail how vSAN implements snapshots with the Express Storage Architecture

Storage and virtual infrastructure consultants, solution architects, and administrators who are responsible for production support and administration of VMware vSAN 8 Update 1.

Equivalent knowledge or completion of the following course is required:

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