VMware vSphere Administration: ESXi & vCenter Server Mastery

Explore how virtualization uses type one and type two hypervisors to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical server, with hands-on ESXi installation and lab preparation.

Explore network adapter options in vcenter and esxi, including NICs, VLANs, IPv4/IPv6, DNS suffix, and management network settings, plus how to restart or test the management network and reset configurations.

Learn how to connect to an ESXi host using a web browser, access via hostname, and understand data stores, vmfs and NFS storage options for virtual machines.

Understand configuring NFS and Vmfs data stores, including quota behavior, add extend and expand options for LUNs, drive types, and basic ESXi Active Directory and DNS configuration.

Diagnose ESXi connectivity by confirming the network adapter and ping results, then join the host to the VM lab.com domain, configure maintenance mode, and set role-based permissions for users.

Create and assign custom roles in vCenter to grant VM-only access, map users, and manage permissions while configuring SSH, lockdown, and generate support bundle options.

Learn to disable or restrict esxi services such as ssh and the dc ui, then enable esxi shell when needed and manage esxi level users, roles, and domain authentication.

Explore ESXi manager options and the monitor tab to review performance, events, and logs for troubleshooting. Inspect storage adapters, data stores, and networking with port groups, vswitches, and kernel ports.

Create a virtual machine on an ESXi host by selecting OS family and version, choosing a data store, configuring CPU and memory, enabling thin provisioning, and booting from an ISO.

Install VMware tools on a Windows Server VM running on an ESXi host to enable smooth console and copy-paste. It includes ballooning driver and time sync with the host.

Discover how missing VMware tools hide VM details, while the performance dashboard shows CPU ready and memory usage and the VM hardware configuration.

Edit and remove hard disks in VMware vCenter and ESXi, including offline handling, delete options from the data store, and attaching existing disks.

Centralize the management of hundreds of ESXi hosts with a single vCenter server, accessing all hosts, VMs, and storage via appliance deployment or ISO and embedded platform service controller.

Deploy a vCenter server appliance with an embedded platform, configure name and root password, select a tiny deployment with NFS storage, and set static IP and FQDN via DNS.

Explore the vCenter appliance configuration consoles, including management and application consoles, and learn how to configure networking, backups, updates, time sync, and syslog for secure, reliable virtualization management.

Connect to an ESXi host using PuTTY over SSH, examine the host architecture, and explore VMFS data stores, volumes, and the vCenter directory, including UUID mappings and iSCSI identifiers.

Identify vmdk and flat vmdk linkage unseen in the web client, and explain the vmx and swap files, ram contention, and vm logs and locks in ESXi.

Learn where ESXi stores logs and how to read vmkernel.log for troubleshooting. Navigate and interpret hostd.log, boot.log, and auth.log to diagnose host, storage, and vCenter issues.

Explore vCenter server options, administration, and access control to manage data centers, alarms, and the cloud layer between ESXi hosts and virtual clouds.

Explore how to manage access in vCenter by using global vs per-object permissions, creating users, assigning roles like read only, and applying propagation to child objects.

Shows configuring vCenter permissions and roles, and how to hide getting started pages. Explains integrating vCenter with Active Directory as an authentication source by joining the domain and OU.

Learn how to monitor vCenter appliance status after reboot, plan downtime for domain joins, and configure Active Directory as an identity source to manage access and permissions.

Grant access to Active Directory users in vCenter by selecting domain users or groups, assign administrative privileges with propagation, and enable single sign-on via Windows session authentication.

Configure the default domain in vCenter single sign-on, log in with or without the vSphere.local suffix, and learn about licensing, ESXi host enrollment, data centers, clusters, and NSX plugins.

Learn to create a data center in vCenter, a logical container for ESXi hosts and virtual machines, and manage licenses and lockdown mode to secure access.

Explore how to connect to an ESXi host via direct web login, SSH, and the Direct Console Interface (DCI), and learn how strict lockdown restricts access to vCenter.

Learn how to configure normal versus strict lockdown on an ESXi host, manage access to the DC UI console, and use an exception user list to preserve essential app access.

Master how vCenter alarms monitor health across vCenter, ESXi hosts and VMs, and learn to configure, customize, and clone default alarms with email or SMTP alerts.

Explore VMware alarms in vCenter and ESXi, including host connection and power state, not responding, data store usage thresholds of 85-90% utilization, and custom virtual machine alarms to automate recovery.

Define and customize vCenter alarms to monitor virtual machines, set repeat notifications for production VMs, and automate actions like powering on or resetting VMs with appropriate retry intervals.

Explore vSphere high availability by configuring clustering with at least two ESXi hosts and shared storage, enabling automatic VM failover and minimizing downtime through HA.

Learn how to configure hdr failover in vmware with vSphere ha, create an application cluster, add esxi hosts, and share the datastore while selecting an admission control policy.

Add two ESXi hosts to a vCenter cluster, enable HA, verify VM protections, and ensure shared storage via NFS for failover testing.

Demonstrates testing vSphere HA by creating a Linux test VM on ESXi, forcing a host failure, and observing the HA failover and VM restart with related alarms and events.

Learn how master-slave configurations manage failover in a VMware cluster via 15-second heartbeats with vCenter. See how a master is elected, and how VMs are powered on hosts after failures.

Learn how vSphere ha selects a master and slave through data store counts and host IDs, runs elections, and reconfigures the cluster by moving data stores.