Throughout my journey in achieving my VCP 5 there have been several resources which I have utilized and wrote about when compiling my OMG VCP 5 Study Guide. I have been trying to include a review of them all and one that I have constantly mentioned has been TrainSignal's VMware vSphere 5 training and thought that it might be beneficial to my readers to let you know what I thought about it.
I've always been a fan of TrainSignal's training and have held their VMware vSphere Troubleshooting course in high regards in my review here. Well, the VMware vSphere 5 training is no different. This time David Davis (blog/twitter) teams up with Elias Khnaser (blog/twitter) to push out nearly 17 hours of all that is vSphere 5. The course takes you through a whopping 36 lessons which cover everything that is listed on the VCP 510 Exam Blueprint…and more. As you can see from the outline below you will be exposed to everything from the core installation of ESXi/vCenter, to management, configuration, administration and even things like how to understand licensing and how to make it all happen with an iPad.
VMware vSphere 5 Training – Course Outline
Lesson 1 – Getting Started with VMware vSphere 5 Training Course
Lesson 2 – Lab Setup
Lesson 3 – Course Scenario
Lesson 4 – Overview of VMware vSphere 5
Lesson 5 – Installing VMware ESXi 5
Lesson 6 – Installing vCenter 5
Lesson 7 – Installing vCenter 5 as a Linux Appliance (vCSA)
Lesson 8 – Using the vSphere 5 Web Client
Lesson 9 – What’s New in vSphere 5
Lesson 10 – Navigating vSphere Using the vSphere Client
Lesson 11 – vCenter 5 – Configuring Your New Virtual Infrastructure
Lesson 12 – Creating and Modifying Virtual Guest Machines
Lesson 13 – Installing and Configuring VMware Tools
Lesson 14 – Understanding and Using Tasks, Events, and Alarms
Lesson 15 – Virtual Storage 101 and Storage Terminology
Lesson 16 – vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA)
Lesson 17 – Creating a Free iSCSI SAN with OpenFiler
Lesson 18 – Administering VMware ESXi Server Security
Lesson 19 – vSphere Virtual Networking
Lesson 20 – Using the vSphere Distributed Virtual Switch (dvswitch)
Lesson 21 – Moving Virtual Machines with vMotion
Lesson 22 – Moving Virtual Storage with svMotion
Lesson 23 – Performance Optimization with Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
Lesson 24 – Implementing High Availability with VMware HA (VMHA)
Lesson 25 – Super High Availability with VMware Fault Tolerance (FT)
Lesson 26 – Upgrading from VMware vSphere 4 to vSphere 5
Lesson 27 – vSphere Command Line Interface (CLI) Options
Lesson 28 – vSphere Auto Deploy
Lesson 29 – Storage DRS
Lesson 30 – Policy-driven Storage
Lesson 31 – Understanding the New vSphere 5 vRAM Pooled Pricing
Lesson 32 – Network I/O Control (NIOC)
Lesson 33 – Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
Lesson 34 – ESXi Firewall
Lesson 35 – VMware Data Recovery (VDR) 2
Lesson 36 – Administering vSphere Using an iPad
I can't go through every lesson as this post would be a mile long, but I will highlight a few of my favorite subjects from the training.
Lesson 15 – Virtual Storage 101 – Honestly, anything and everything you need to know to get you started with storage and vSphere is in this lesson. Elias takes you through VMFS, vmdk's and all there is to know about setting up and configuring iSCSI, NFS, and Fibre Channel within vSphere 5.
Lesson 17 – Creating a free iSCSI SAN with Openfiler – In this lesson David takes you through everything you need to know to download, install, and configure OpenFiler on a VM to get yourself an iSCSI SAN. This is invaluable to those with limited budget for home labs.
All of the lessons dealing with new vSphere 5 features – There are a number of lessons focused around using some of the new features and enhancements in vSphere 5 such as the Web Client, vCenter Server Appliance, Storage DRS, vDR 2.0, AutoDeploy, etc… These are all invaluable for VCP studying as you may not have the resources to put them within your lab and are all included on the VCP 510 blueprint.
As with all TrainSignal courses you get the DVD's which contain all the videos in formats to watch on your PC or iPad and additionally you get online access to the course through their website, printable pdfs of the notes/outlines/slides. As many before me have stressed, the key to passing the VCP 5 is to practice and practice and lab and lab If any training at all can get close to the benefits of having a home lab this is it. You can watch tasks be performed right before your eyes. I'd certainly recommend this course to everyone, even if you aren't pursuing the VCP 5 or already have it, these videos can be beneficial to you as an administrator. And don't stop with just vSphere 5. There are a slew of new courses from Trainsignal such as vSphere Advanced Networking and VMware vCloud Director Essentials. Go ahead and check out all the VMware training that TrainSignal has available. You won't regret it 🙂
