This powerful 5-day class is an intense introduction to virtualization using VMware's vSphere 5.5 including VMware ESX 5.5 and vCenter. Assuming no prior virtualization experience, this class starts with the basics and rapidly progresses to more advanced topics. More than 40 percent of class time is devoted to labs so concepts, skills and best practices are developed and reinforced.

Initial labs focus on installation and configuration of stand-alone ESXi servers. As the class progresses, shared storage, networking and centralized management are introduced. The class continues on to more advanced topics including resource balancing, high availability, back up and recovery, troubleshooting and more. Disaster recovery, rapid deployment, hot migration and workload consolidation are also covered.

This class is unique in its approach; which is to identify common IT pain points and then clearly explain and demonstrate how virtualization delivers clear, tangible benefits (e.g.: reduced costs, greater consistency, responsiveness, reduced administration, server consolidation, etc.). Each topic is presented from the perspective of delivering key business value; not just the technical or mechanical aspects of the software.

By the end of the class, attendees will have learned the benefits, skills, and best practices of virtualization. Attendees will be able to design, implement, deploy, configure, monitor, manage and troubleshoot VMware vSphere 5.5.

Attendees should have user, operator or administrator experience on common operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, UNIX, etc. Experience installing, configuring and managing operating systems, storage systems and or networks is useful but not required. We assume that all attendees have a basic familiarity with PC server hardware, disk partitioning, IP addressing, O/S installation, networking, etc.

System Architects, Security Specialists, Operators, Performance and Capacity Analysts, Backup Administrators, Business Continuity Specialists, Storage administrators and Managers.