Knowledge

• Identify hot keys and fields used with resxtop/esxtop
  
• Identify fields used with vscsiStats
  

Skills and Abilities

• Configure esxtop/resxtop custom profiles
  
• Determine use cases for and apply esxtop/resxtop Interactive, Batch and Replay modes
  
• Use vscsiStats to gather storage performance data
  
• Use esxtop/resxtop to collect performance data
  
• Given esxtop/resxtop output, identify relative performance data for capacity planning purposes
  

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Knowledge

• Explain DRS / storage DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules
  
• Identify required hardware components to support DPM
  
• Identify EVC requirements, baselines and components
  
• Understand the DRS / storage DRS migration algorithms, the Load Imbalance Metrics, and their impact on migration recommendations
  

Skills and Abilities

• Properly configure BIOS and management settings to support DPM
  
• Test DPM to verify proper configuration
  
• Configure appropriate DPM Threshold to meet business requirements
  
• Configure EVC using appropriate baseline
  
• Change the EVC mode on an existing DRS cluster
  
• Create DRS and DPM alarms
  
• Configure applicable power management settings for ESXi hosts
  
• Properly size virtual machines and clusters for optimal DRS efficiency
  
• Properly apply virtual machine automation levels based upon application requirements
  
• Create and administer ESXi host and Datastore Clusters
  
• Administer DRS / Storage DRS
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Knowledge

• Compare and contrast virtual and physical hardware resources
  
• Identify VMware memory management techniques
  
• Identify VMware CPU load balancing techniques
  
• Identify pre-requisites for Hot Add features
  

Skills and Abilities

• Tune Virtual Machine memory configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine networking configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine CPU configurations
  
• Tune Virtual Machine storage configurations
  
• Calculate available resources
  
• Properly size a Virtual Machine based on application workload
  
• Modify large memory page settings
  
• Understand appropriate use cases for CPU affinity
  
• Configure alternate virtual machine swap locations
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Knowledge

• Describe the relationship between vDS and the vSS

Skills and Abilities

• Understand the use of command line tools to configure appropriate vDS settings on an ESXi host
• Determine use cases for and apply Port Binding settings
• Configure Live Port Moving
• Given a set of network requirements, identify the appropriate distributed switch technology to use
• Configure and administer vSphere Network I/O Control
• Use command line tools to troubleshoot and identify configuration items from an existing vDS

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Knowledge

• Identify VMware NIC Teaming policies
  
• Identify common network protocols

Skills and Abilities

• Understand the NIC Teaming failover types and related physical network settings
  
• Determine and apply Failover settings
• Configure explicit failover to conform with VMware best practices
• Configure port groups to properly isolate network traffic

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Knowledge

• Identify types of VLANs and PVLANs
  

Skills and Abilities

• Determine use cases for and configure VLAN Trunking
  
• Determine use cases for and configure PVLANs
• Use command line tools to troubleshoot and identify VLAN configurations

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Knowledge

• Identify common virtual switch configurations
  

Skills and Abilities

• Configure SNMP
  
• Determine use cases for and applying VMware DirectPath I/O
• Migrate a vSS network to a Hybrid or Full vDS solution
• Configure vSS and vDS settings using command line tools
• Analyze command line output to identify vSS and vDS configuration details
• Configure NetFlow
• Determine appropriate discovery protocol
  • CDP
  • LLDP

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Knowledge

• Explain the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) layout
  

Skills and Abilities

• Install and Configure PSA plug-ins
  
• Understand different multipathing policy functionalities
• Perform command line configuration of multipathing options
• Change a multipath policy
• Configure Software iSCSI port binding

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Knowledge

• Identify storage provisioning methods
  
• Identify available storage monitoring tools, metrics and alarms

Skills and Abilities

• Apply space utilization data to manage storage resources
  
• Provision and manage storage resources according to Virtual Machine requirements
• Understand interactions between virtual storage provisioning and physical storage provisioning
• Apply VMware storage best practices
• Configure Datastore Alarms
• Analyze Datastore Alarms and errors to determine space availability
• Configure Datastore Clusters

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