TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

Category Archives: VCAP


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 6

Objective 6 is what I believe is the core basis of the DCA exam as being able to effectively troubleshoot anything in your environment means you know all the varying methods to do things and how things are tied together and that is real administration. For this section I’ve been doing loads and loads of lab time from just building my lab and coming across certain problems or failures along the way which I’ve been trying to fix via the vMA, the command line and even the DCUI and purposely breaking things/causing problems just so I can practice fixing them . I think the best way of really learning these skills is putting in a solid amount of time in your lab as I believe the reason I failed my VCAP4-DCA the first time was down to not enough lab hours. When you’re under the time and nerve constraints that are part of the VCAP-DCA you make mistakes you wouldn’t normally do. I have also re-watched the Trainsignal VMware vSphere Troubleshooting Training videos as David does a brilliant job covering it all.

There aren’t many differences between the VCAP4-DCA Objective 6 and the VCAP5-DCA Objective six but the differences between the two (thanks to Ed Grigson’s breakdown) are:

  • Use esxcli system syslog to configure centralized logging on ESXi hosts

This is different as with the vMA 5 the syslog feature has been deprecated due to the new VMware Syslog Collector now being available. The steps to do it now via esxcli are covered perfectly on pg10&11 in this VMware PDF. http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-command-line-management-for-service-console-users.pdf

  • Install and configure VMware Syslog Collector and ESXi Dump Collector

This is really simple and is something you can learn to do very quickly in your lab. I tested this part during the building of my Auto Deploy testing. All the steps for the syslog collector are detailed here: http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/2011/07/setting-up-the-esxi-syslog-collector.html and the steps for the dump collector are here: http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/2011/07/setting-up-the-esxi-50-dump-collector.html

  • Configure and administer Port Mirroring

A new distributed vSwitch feature. Eric Sloof has done a brilliant video detailing how to do it here: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1825-Video-How-to-setup-a-vSphere-5-Port-Mirror.html . Pretty simple to set up

  • Utilize Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) and ESXi Shell to troubleshoot, configure, and monitor ESXi networking

This is pretty straight forward I think as you need to know what kinds of things related to networking connectivity you can do via the DCUI (like restoring a standard switch) and how you can use the ESXi shell to change configurations/fix problems. I think this is all about lab playing and learning

  • Use esxcli to troubleshoot multipathing and PSA-related issues

The main difference here is now it is just esxcli so it’s all about being able to do things via esxcli. This part in particular was covered in objective 1.3

  • Use esxcli to troubleshoot VMkernel storage module configurations

Yet again this is down to your knowledge of how to troubleshoot the storage modules via esxcli. How to do this via esxcli is covered in the VMware documentation library here: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vcli.getstart.doc_50/cli_about.html

  • Use esxcli to troubleshoot iSCSI related issues

Another one where you will need to practice and learn how to do it via esxcli. All the commands and some great examples are all listed in the VMware documentation library here: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.vcli.examples.doc_50/cli_manage_iscsi_storage.7.5.html

  • Utilize Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) and ESXi Shell to troubleshoot, configure, and monitor an environment

This is down to playing around in your lab with it and knowing what kinds of troubleshooting you can do via the DCUI and the ESXi shell. This is VCP5 stuff so you should know this already

I’ve spent 70% of my lab time on this section as while building and trying out things in my lab I end up breaking things or things don’t work the first time and so I’ve been able to just mess around with all the tools and get it working again. As i said at the beginning, i think spending a large amount of time learning and trying out everything in this section is extremely important for the DCA exam.

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 5.2

Deploy and Manage Complex Update Manager Environments

This is another quick one and for most of it, I just did the Update Manager PowerCLI part as the rest is almost exactly the same as the VCAP4 objective. I think this is all about playing around in your lab again, breaking things, upgrading hosts, patching hosts and using the PowerCLI commands.

Knowledge

  • Identify firewall access rules for Update Manager

Skills and Abilities

  • Install and configure Update Manager Download Service
  • Configure a shared repository
  • Configure smart rebooting
  • Manually download updates to a repository
  • Perform orchestrated vSphere upgrades
  • Create and modify baseline groups
  • Troubleshoot Update Manager problem areas and issues
  • Generate database reports using MS Excel or MS SQL
  • Upgrade vApps using Update Manager
  • Utilize Update Manager PowerCLI to export baselines for testing <- Covered perfectly here: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-update-manager-powercli-50-inst-admg.pdf
  • Utilize the Update Manager Utility to reconfigure VUM settings

Now on to my favourite objective and the one I think is the number one thing the DCA is based on, Troubleshooting.

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 5.1

Objective 5.1 – Implement and Maintain Host Profiles

*NOTE: If this is the first time you have hit these objectives, I am only covering the new things in vSphere 5 and the VCAP5-DCA blueprint over and above what was already covered so well by Sean Cookston’s,Ed Grigson’s and Kendrick Coleman’s Blueprint Breaksdowns for the VCAP4.

 

Host profiles are extremely important in vSphere 5 environments and are a requirement for Auto Deploy. This is another objective I think you need to practice in your lab and do all the things listed below. If you don’t know about Host Profiles in vSphere 5 (which you should from your VCP5 studies) then there is a really good KB pdf by VMware that covers it all here. The guys from the vBrownbags have covered the whole of Objective 5 very recently here and Damian gives a great overview of it and some top tips.

Skills and Abilities

Loads of lab practice necessary for this objective which burnt a fair amount of my time. A fair amount of it is the same but due to it now being linked to Auto Deploy I wanted to really get my head around it all and how the answer files tie in.

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 4.2

Deploy and Test VMware FT

 

This is exactly the same as the VCAP4 Objective so this is all about reviewing and practice in the lab. I watched the Super High Availability with VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) topic in the the Trainsignal VMware vSphere 5 Training course, went through the stuff Ed listed .I have also watched the FT lesson from the Trainsignal VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Vol 2 as my refresher and enabled it, broke it and played around with it in my lab A very simple one once you have played around with it

Knowledge

  • Identify VMware FT hardware requirements
  • Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements

Skills and Abilities

  • Modify VM and ESXi host settings to allow for FT compatibility
  • Use VMware best practices to prepare a vSphere environment for FT
  • Configure FT logging
  • Prepare the infrastructure for FT compliance
  • Test FT failover, secondary restart, and application fault tolerance in a FT Virtual Machine

A very quick and easy one and seeing as Section 4.3 – Configure a vSphere environment to support MSCS Clustering and Section 4.4 – Deploy and maintain vCenter Heartbeat aren’t part of the VCAP5 blueprint so it means that’s Objective 4 completed Smile

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 4.1

Implement and Maintain Complex VMware HA Solutions

There isn’t much that is different for this over what was in the VCAP4-DCA Blueprint objective. I’ve been watching the HA videos from the Trainsignal VMware vSphere 5 Training course and the vSphere 5 Clustering Tech Deepdive book by Frank Denneman and Duncan Epping. Due to HA and DRS being revamped for vSphere 5 I think the book covers it all perfectly and more. Duncan also did a blog posting covering HA here: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/vmware-high-availability-deepdiv/ (it’s a serious deepdive)

Knowledge

  • Identify the three admission control policies for HA
  • Identify heartbeat options and dependencies

Skills and Abilities

  • Calculate host failure requirements
  • Configure customized isolation response settings
  • Configure HA redundancy

Management Network – Simply down to setting two management connections/vmkernel ports

Datastore Heartbeat – this is new to vSphere 5 and is therefore something new to this objective. I’ve learnt it via the clustering tech deepdive book and from this blog posting by Duncan http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/07/26/ha-architecture-series-datastore-heartbeating-35/ It is also covered in the trainsignal videos and is something you should know from your VCP5 studies

Network partitions – This is also new and is covered in the book and the deepdive posting. I also learnt how to fix it should a host alert that it is network partitioned as I think this could be a task and so I learnt this kb article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2012649 it is also covered here

  • Configure HA related alarms and monitor an HA cluster
  • Create a custom slot size configuration
  • Understand interactions between DRS and HA
  • Analyze vSphere environment to determine appropriate HA admission control policy
  • Analyze performance metrics to calculate host failure requirements
  • Analyze Virtual Machine workload to determine optimum slot size
  • Analyze HA cluster capacity to determine optimum cluster size

Due to objective 3 having DRS as objective 3.3 and this objective being about HA it has worked in well that I have been re-reading the vSphere 5 Clustering Tech Deepdive book as it covers both of these 100%. All that you need to do now is practice doing it all in your lab

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA : Objective 3

For Objective 3 I’ve been re-watching the Trainsignal vSphere Performance Monitoring Training videos. I’ve been watching these in the evening via my iPad as with the online training capability of watching it, it means I can watch them this way which i feel is much easier. I’ve also gone through all the links in Sean Cookston’s,Ed Grigson’s and Kendrick Coleman’s Blueprint Breaksdowns for the VCAP4 for Objective 3.

The differences between the blueprints for Objective 3 for the VCAP4-DCA and VCAP5-DCA aren’t much but the parts that are different are:

  • Configure advanced cluster attributes
  • Tune Virtual Machine memory configurations
  • Tune Virtual Machine networking configurations
  • Tune Virtual Machine CPU configurations
  • Tune Virtual Machine storage configurations
  • Understand the DRS / storage DRS migration algorithms, the Load Imbalance Metrics, and their impact on migration recommendations
  • Create and administer ESXi host and Datastore Clusters
  • Administer DRS / Storage DRS

For me, I’m going to cover these via the Trainsignal VMware vSphere 5 Training course, the Trainsignal vSphere Performance Monitoring Training videos I mentioned at the beginning and the vSphere 5 Clustering Tech Deepdive book by Frank Denneman and Duncan Epping.

There is also a fair portion of lab time that needs to be done on all the parts mentioned in Objective 3, which I’ll be doing closer to the exam so it’s all fresh in my mind Smile

I hope everyone got the dates they wanted for the Beta, I thankfully did and now know what i’m aiming for.

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 2.4

This objective was quite straight forward. I spent a bit of time on it due to watching videos that also cover other networking aspects in troubleshooting and performance.

Knowledge

  • Describe the relationship between vDS and the vSS

This is VCP5 stuff so if you don’t know this you probably shouldn’t be doing the exam. For a refresher I used this VMworld Networking Deep Dive video http://www.vmworld.com/docs/DOC-3813

Also used the networking lessons from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal.

David also did a great overview in the Using the vSphere Distributed Virtual Switch lesson from the http://www.trainsignal.com/VMware-vSphere-4-Training.aspx course from Trainsignal

Skills and Abilities

  • Understand the use of command line tools to configure appropriate vDS settings on an ESXi host

As I covered in the previous objectives these are covered here http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vcli.ref.doc_50%2Fvcli-right.html

This is 100% about lab practice of using the commands and how to do things and fix things when you make a mistake.

  • Determine use cases for and apply Port Binding settings

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022312 Perfect overview of each setting and what they do.

Also covered in the VMware vSphere 5 Training course’s networking sections.

Also there is a great posting that has just been posted about deciding on if you should use static or ephemeral. http://vmguy.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/1814

  • Configure Live Port Moving

Very simply an advanced setting for a port group on a distributed switch. “Live Port Moving: Transfer stand-alone port groups to distributed port groups, assigning settings associated with distributed port group to the stand-alone group” – as detailed in http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/vmware-networking-configuring-vnetwork-2

  • Given a set of network requirements, identify the appropriate distributed switch technology to use

This is all about knowing what each feature does and how it will meet certain requirements. I think knowing all about the distributed switch and its settings will suffice. Also loads of lab practice with it

Used the vSphere Distributed Virtual Switch (dvswitch) lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal

  • Configure and administer vSphere Network I/O Control

I’ve used the Network IO Control Lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal for this as it covers it perfectly

  • Use command line tools to troubleshoot and identify configuration items from an existing vDS

Covered in the first bullet point and the troubleshooting steps are covered perfectly in section 6.

Now onto objective 3, Performance

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 2.3

This is another objective which is exactly the same as the VCAP4-DCA one .

Knowledge

  • Identify VMware NIC Teaming policies
  • Identify common network protocols

Skills and Abilities

  • Understand the NIC Teaming failover types and related physical network settings

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004088 A perfect overview video detailing NIC teaming creations in a vSwitch

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf page 8 details the varying options for NIC teaming

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-networking-guide.pdf page 48 covers teaming and the next section on Failover settings

NIC Teaming is covered in the vSphere Virtual Networking lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal

  • Determine and apply Failover settings

Covered above on pg 48 of the Networking guide mentioned above.

Failover settings are covered in the vSphere Virtual Networking lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal

  • Configure explicit failover to conform with VMware best practices

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-networking-guide.pdf pg 77

  • Configure port groups to properly isolate network traffic

Nothing new here and the correct way to isolate them is detailed in the best practices above

Another straight forward objective if you have already done the VCAP4-DCA. Just a refresher on all the practices and terms and options is required in my opinion

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 2.2

 

This one is exactly the same as the VCAP4-DCA objective so it is all about reviewing it all and making sure you understand what each part does and how to do it. Personally i think this is another one you just need to practice doing in your lab and watch the videos to refresh your understanding.

Configure and Maintain VLANs, PVLANs and VLAN Settings

Knowledge

  • Identify types of VLANs and PVLANs

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010691

Using the vSphere Distributed Virtual Switch (dvswitch) lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal

Skills and Abilities

  • Determine use cases for and configure VLAN Trunking

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004252 VLAN trunking example and reasons of why you would do/use it

  • Determine use cases for and configure PVLANs

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010691This gives a great overview of PVLANS and what each setting would be used for.

  • Use command line tools to troubleshoot and identify VLAN configurations

Covered in Objective 2.1 and will be covered better in Objective 6

 

Chris Wahl has done a brilliant overview of Private VLANS in his blog posting Understanding vSphere Private VLANs For Fun and Profit and also did a brilliant breakdown of the whole objective in the vBrownbag he did which i would highly recommend

Gregg


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VCAP5-DCA: Objective 2.1

This objective has barely changed from the VCAP4-DCA objective. LLDP is new to vSphere 5 as is NetFlow configurations. For this one I’ve spent time practicing in my lab and will be one I’ll also be covering when i rebuild my lab and do the troubleshooting objective (Objective 6)

Knowledge

· Identify common virtual switch configurations

Skills and Abilities

  • Configure SNMP

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008065 vicfg-snmp method via ESXCli

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1688-VCAP-DCA-Prep-Video-Configure-SNMP-for-ESXESXi.html A video by Eric Sloof of how to do it via the vMA which I feel is a much easier method. Just remember to to the –E to enable it which Eric doesn’t show in his video

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.vcli.ref.doc_50/vicfg-snmp.html?resultof=%22%76%69%63%66%67%2d%73%6e%6d%70%22%20

  • Determine use cases for and applying VMware DirectPath I/O

Covered in objective 1.1

  • Migrate a vSS network to a Hybrid or Full vDS solution

This is all about lab practice firstly

Used the vSphere Distributed Virtual Switch (dvswitch) lesson from the VMware vSphere 5 Training course from Trainsignal

  • Configure vSS and vDS settings using command line tools

This is another that can only be learnt in your lab

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vcli.ref.doc_50%2Fvcli-right.html – all the commands you should know for both standard and distributed virtual switching

  • Analyze command line output to identify vSS and vDS configuration details

This is another where lab practice is the best way of learning it.

The above link in the previous bullet point covers all the things you should know how to do. Personally I’m using it to build, change and troubleshoot my networking in the lab as I have experience in the GUI methods already

  • Configure NetFlow

http://blogs.vmware.com/networking/2011/08/vsphere-5-new-networking-features-netflow.html

  • Determine appropriate discovery protocol

CDP

LLDP

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc_50%2FGUID-A1B145E9-6454-45C0-8E7E-71E04A3BC9FF.html this covers both and what each provides

CDP overview in the vSphere Network Troubleshooting How-To lesson in trainsignals http://www.trainsignal.com/VMware-vSphere-Troubleshooting-Training.aspx

Jason Boche has done two posting covering each of the discovery protocols

http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2011/11/17/link-layer-discovery-protocol-lldp/

http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2011/05/15/cisco-discovery-protocol-cdp-tag-team/

As I’ve said for Objectives 1.1 and 1.2, the above links are ones I’ve been using in my preparations for the beta exam, for some of the sections I’ve not put any links in as Sean Cookston’s,Ed Grigson’s and Kendrick Coleman’s Blueprint Breaksdowns for the VCAP4 covered them perfectly. This is more about covering the new things i need to learn after having done the VCAP4-DCA exam (twice to be exact)

Gregg