VMware vSphere: Manage for Performance

Course overview

This 3-day hands-on training explores the management of performance in a VMware® vSphere™ environment. It provides the knowledge and skills necessary to make fundamental design decisions that enhance performance and to meet performance goals in an already-deployed vSphere installation. The course is based on ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter Server 4.0. This course is 50 percent lecture and 50 percent hands-on lab.

Prerequisites

This is an advanced course. Required prerequisites include the completion of one of the following:

  • Completion of VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage
  • Completion of VMware vSphere: Fast Track
  • Completion of VMware vSphere: What’s New
  • Equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server
  • Experience with working at the command line is highly recommended

Course objectives

At the end of the course, you should be able to:

  • Explain the performance impact of using different monitor modes
  • Use vSphere tools to monitor the performance of ESX/ESXi hosts
  • Diagnose performance problems relating to CPU, memory, network, and storage on an ESX/ESXi host
  • Discuss how to achieve an optimal virtual machine configuration
  • Discuss guidelines for monitoring application performance

Course outline

Module 1: Course Introduction

Module 2: Performance in a Virtualized Environment

  • Discuss the vSphere performance troubleshooting methodology
  • Discuss software and hardware virtualization techniques and their impact on performance
  • Monitor performance using vCenter Server performance charts and the ESX/ESXi resxtop command

Module 3: CPU Performance

  • Discuss the CPU scheduler and other features that have an impact on CPU performance
  • Monitor key CPU performance metrics
  • Troubleshoot common CPU performance problems

Module 4: Memory Performance

  • Discuss memory reclamation techniques and memory overcommitment
  • Monitor key memory performance metrics
  • Troubleshoot common memory performance problems

Module 5: Guidelines for DRS and Resource Controls

  • Discuss performance guidelines for DRS clusters, resource pools, and resource allocation settings

Module 6: Network Performance

  • Discuss the performance features of modern network adapters
  • Monitor key network performance metrics
  • Troubleshoot common network performance problems

Module 7: Storage Performance

  • Discuss how storage protocols, VMware vStorage VMFS configuration, load balancing, and queuing affect performance
  • Monitor key storage performance metrics
  • Troubleshoot common storage performance problems

Module 8: Virtual Machine Performance

  • Discuss guidelines for configuring a virtual machine for optimal performance

Module 9: Application Performance

  • Discuss tools and guidelines for application performance