This course presents the skills necessary to administer and manage a VxRail cluster. Key topics include management interfaces, managing cluster configurations, resource provisioning and expansion, monitoring, managing availability, and basic troubleshooting.

Hands-on labs, video demonstrations, and interactive simulations are included in the course to provide a step-by step walkthrough of the key procedures to manage the cluster.

Audience

This course is intended for customers, partners, and Dell employees who are responsible for administering and managing VxRail clusters.

Prerequisite Knowledge/Skills

This course assumes that the students are familiar with:

• VxRail system architecture and theory of operations
• IP networking and configurations
• VMware vCenter Server to configure virtual resources

The VxRail 7.0.XXX Concepts course and the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage course or equivalent knowledge are recommended.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Describe the VxRail system architecture and components.
• Manage a VxRail cluster using vCenter and the VxRail Manager Plugin for vCenter.
• Configure and provision resources on a VxRail cluster.
• Monitor system status, health, and performance.
• Maintain the system and troubleshoot basic system issues.

Course Outline

The content of this course is designed to support the course objectives.

Review VxRail Deployment Options

• Review VxRail Architecture and vCenter Deployment Options
• Review VxRail Network Deployment Options
• Locate Documentation and Resources for Administering VxRail

Manage the VxRail Cluster

• Identify the Interfaces Used to Manage VxRail
• Manage VxRail Using the VxRail Plugin for vCenter Server
• Lab: Manage VxRail Cluster with vSphere Client Using VxRail Plugin
• Review vSAN
• Lab: Explore the VxRail vSAN Cluster Configuration
• Monitor the Health and Performance of the VxRail vSAN Cluster
• Lab: Monitor Health, Capacity, and Performance of the VxRail vSAN Cluster
• Manage vSAN Services
• Lab: Manage vSAN Space Efficiency
• Manage and Use vSAN Storage Policies
• Lab: Manage and Use vSAN Storage Policies
• Manage vSAN HCI Mesh
• Demonstration: Manage vSAN HCI Mesh
• Manage the VxRail vSAN Cluster Availability
• Lab: FTT, FTM, and Fault Domain Interactions
• Lab: Place a Node into Maintenance Mode
• Lab: Restart VM Using vSphere High Availability
• Lab: Node Utilization and Failover

Perform Maintenance and Troubleshooting

• Explore SolVe Online and Generate VxRail Procedures
• Lab: Generate VxRail Procedures with SolVe Online
• VxRail Manager File-Based Backup and Restore
• Lab: VxRail Manager File-Based Backup
• Perform Cluster Expansion
• Interaction: Perform VxRail Cluster Expansion
• Upgrade VxRail Software
• Interaction: Perform VxRail Software Upgrade
• Perform Log Collection
• Lab: Perform Log Collection
• Troubleshoot VxRail Issues
• Interaction: Explore iDRAC and ESXi Shell

Perform Additional Administrative Tasks

• Manage VxRail Networking
• Lab: Create and Configure VDS for Production Traffic
• Manage a Stretched Cluster Deployment