VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting

• VMware Certified Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP6.5-DCV)
• VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V6.5]
• VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.7]
• Equivalent knowledge and administration experience with ESXi and vCenter Server
• Experience in working with a command-line interface is highly recommended, as is completion of VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V6.7].

• Use vSphere Client, the command-line interface, and logs to diagnose and resolve problems in the vSphere environment
• Introduce troubleshooting principles and procedures
• Use VMware vSphere® Command-Line Interface to diagnose and resolve problems in the vSphere environment
• Troubleshoot networking problems and recover from these problems
• Analyze storage failure scenarios and resolve the problems
• Troubleshoot vSphere cluster failure scenarios and analyze possible causes
• Diagnose common VMware vSphere® High Availability problems and provide solutions
• Troubleshoot problems related to virtual machine migration (VMware vSphere® vMotion®), and improve resource use (VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™)
• Troubleshoot VMware vCenter Server® problems
• Identify VMware ESXi™ host problems, analyze failure scenarios, and correct them
• Troubleshoot faulty virtual machines, including installation problems, snapshot problems, and connection problems

1) Course Introduction

• Introductions and course logistics
• Course objectives

2) Introduction to Troubleshooting

• Identify the effects of a system problem
• Define the scope of troubleshooting
• Use a structured approach
• Discuss the principles of troubleshooting
• Follow a logical troubleshooting procedure
• Examine examples of troubleshooting

3) Troubleshooting Tools

• Use command-line tools to identify and troubleshoot problems
• Use vSphere CLI
• Find and interpret important log files
• Use vRealize Log Insight for log aggregation, efficient log search, and problem analysis

4) Networking

• Identify the symptoms of network-related problems
• Analyze and resolve standard switch and distributed switch problems
• Analyze virtual machine connectivity problems and fix them
• Examine common management network connectivity problems and restore configurations
• Identify and prevent potential problems

5) Storage

• Troubleshoot storage (iSCSI, NFS, VMware vSphere® VMFS, VMware vSAN™, and VMware vSphere® Virtual Volumes™) connectivity problems
• Analyze storage-related logs
• Analyze hardware malfunction and software misconfiguration scenarios
• Identify multipathing-related problems, including permanent device loss (PDL) and all paths down (APD)
• Analyze possible causes, recover from faulty conditions, and restore storage visibility

6) vSphere Clusters

• Identify and recover from problems related to vSphere HA
• Analyze and troubleshoot various types of vSphere vMotion problems related to virtual machine migrations
• Discuss and recover from vSphere DRS problems to achieve proper function and balanced resource use
• Examine vSphere cluster failure scenarios and possible solutions

7) Virtual Machines

• Analyze and resolve common virtual machine snapshot problems
• Identify possible causes and resolve virtual machine power-on problems
• Troubleshoot virtual machine connection state problems
• Resolve problems seen during VMware Tools™ installations
• Examine failure scenarios and provide solutions

8) vCenter Server and ESXi

• Describe the vCenter Server and VMware Platform Services Controller™ architecture invSphere6.x
• Identify and resolve authentication problems
• Troubleshoot VMware Certificate Authority and certificate problems
• Analyze and fix problems with vCenter Server services
• Analyze and fix vCenter Server database problems
• Identify VMware vCenter Server® High Availability problems
• Examine ESXi host and vCenter Server failure scenarios and resolve the problems