vSphere 6 Foundations Exam
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This exam validates you have the fundamental skills necessary to understand and begin deploying VMware vSphere environments.
| Exam Topics | How to Prepare | Additional Resources |
+ Section 1: Install and configure vCenter Server and ESXI
+ Objective 1.1: Identify vSphere Architecture and Solutions for a given use case
Knowledge
- Explain available vSphere editions and features
- Explain the various data center solutions that interact with vSphere
- Explain ESXi and vCenter Server architectures
- Explain new solutions offered in the current version
- Determine appropriate vSphere edition based on customer requirements
+ Objective 1.2: Install and configure vCenter Server
Knowledge
- Deploy the vCenter Appliance (vCSA)
- Install vCenter Server onto a virtual machine
- Create an ODBC Connection to a vCenter Server
- Given a scenario, size the vCenter Database based on requirements
- Install additional vCenter Server Components
- Install and configure vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
- Install/Remove vSphere Client plug-ins
- Enable/Disable vSphere Client plug-ins
- License vCenter Server
- Determine availability requirements for a vCenter Server in a given vSphere implementation
+ Objective 1.3: Install and configure ESXi
Knowledge
- Given a scenario, validate if an ESXi configuration meets given requirements
- Perform a scripted installation of ESXi
- Perform an interactive installation of ESXi using media or PXE
- Configure NTP on an ESXi Host
- Configure DNS and routing on an ESXi Host
- Configure SSH and Shell access on an ESXi Host
- Configure logs to be sent to a syslog server
- License an ESXi host
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
- Direct Console User Interface (DCUI)
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Section 2: Configure vSphere Networking
+ Objective 2.1: Configure vSphere Standard Switches (vSS)
Knowledge
- Explain vSphere Standard Switch (vSS) capabilities
- Create/Delete a vSphere Standard Switch
- Add/Configure/Remove vmnics on a vSphere Standard Switch
- Configure vmkernel ports for network services
- Add/Edit/Remove port groups on a vSphere Standard Switch
- Determine use case for a vSphere Standard Switch
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 2.2: Configure vSphere Distributed Switches (vDS)
Knowledge
- Explain vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) capabilities
- Create/Delete a vSphere Distributed Switch
- Add/Remove ESXi Hosts from a vSphere Distributed Switch
- Add/Configure/Remove dvPort groups
- Add/Remove uplink adapters to dvUplink groups
- Configure vSphere Distributed Switch general and dvPort group settings
- Create/Configure/Remove virtual adapters
- Migrate virtual adapters to/from a vSphere Standard Switch
- Migrate virtual machines to/from a vSphere Distributed Switch
- Configure LACP on Uplink port groups
- Determine use case for a vSphere Distributed Switch
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 2.3: Configure vSS and vDS Features
Knowledge
- Explain common vSS and vDS policies
- Describe vDS Security Polices/Settings
- Configure dvPort group blocking policies
- Configure load balancing and failover policies
- Configure VLAN/PVLAN settings
- Configure traffic shaping policies
- Enable TCP Segmentation Offload support for a virtual machine
- Enable Jumbo Frames support on appropriate components
- Given a scenario, determine appropriate VLAN configuration for a vSphere implementation
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Section 3: Configure vSphere Storage
+ Objective 3.1: Connect Shared Storage Devices to vSphere
Knowledge
- Explain storage naming conventions
- Explain hardware/dependent hardware/software iSCSI initiator requirements
- Configure FC/iSCSI/FCoE storage devices
- Describe zoning and LUN masking practices
- Create an NFS share for use with vSphere
- Configure/Edit hardware/dependent hardware initiator
- Connect/Configure NFS 3.x and 4.1 NAS devices
- Enable/Disable software iSCSI initiator
- Configure/Edit software iSCSI initiator settings
- Configure iSCSI port binding
- Enable/Configure/Disable iSCSI CHAP
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 3.2: Configure Software Defined Storage
Knowledge
- Explain Virtual SAN (VSAN) Architecture
- Create/Delete VSAN Cluster
- Manage VSAN disk groups
- Monitor VSAN storage
- Add/Remove VSAN Nodes
- Explain benefits of NFS 4.1
- Determine use cases for Virtual SAN configurations
- Administering VMware Virtual SAN
- vSphere Storage Guide
- What's New: VMware Virtual SAN 6.0
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 3.3: Create and Configure VMFS and NFS Datastores
Knowledge
- Compare/Contrast supported NFS versions
- Configure NFS storage for VMDK formatting
- Configure storage multi-pathing
- Compare/Contract VMFS3 and VMFS5
- Configure Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS)
- Extend/Expand VMFS Datastores
- Place a VMFS Datastore in Maintenance Mode
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Section 4: Deploy and Administer Virtual Machines and vApps
+ Objective 4.1: Create and Deploy Virtual Machines
Knowledge
- Place virtual machines in selected ESXi Hosts/Clusters/Resource Pools
- Configure and deploy a Guest OS into a new virtual machine
- Configure/Modify virtual hardware:
- CPU
- RAM
- Disk
- vNIC
- Create/Convert thin/thick provisioned virtual disks
- Install/Upgrade VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware
- Configure PCI Pass-through and Direct I/O
- Configure virtual machine time synchronization
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 4.2: Create and Deploy vApps
Knowledge
- Create/Deploy/Clone a vApp
- Add objects to an existing vApp
- Edit vApp settings
- Configure IP pools
- Suspend/Resume a vApp
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 4.3: Manage Virtual Machine Clones and Templates
Knowledge
- Explain Cloning and Template options
- Clone an existing virtual machine
- Create a template from an existing virtual machine
- Deploy a virtual machine from a template
- Update existing virtual machine templates
- Deploy virtual appliances and/or vApps from an OVF template
- Import an OVF template
- Create a Local Library
- Create a Remote Library with/without external storage
- Publish/Subscribe/Share Content Library
- Deploy a virtual machine from a content library
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 4.4: Administer Virtual Machines and vApps
Knowledge
- Explain files used by virtual machines
- Explain common practices for securing virtual machines
- Hot Extend a virtual disk
- Configure virtual machine options
- Configure virtual machine power settings
- Configure virtual machine boot options
- Administer virtual machine snapshots
- Assign a Storage Policy to a virtual machine
- Verify Storage Policy compliance for virtual machines
- Adjust virtual machine resources
- Differentiate between stop/shutdown/reboot/restart of a virtual machine
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Section 5: Establish and Maintain Availability and Resource Management Features
+ Objective 5.1: Create and Configure VMware Clusters
Knowledge
- Determine how DRS and HA are applicable to an environment
- Create/Delete a DRS/HA Cluster
- Add/Remove ESXi Hosts from a DRS/HA Cluster
- Add/Remove virtual machines from a DRS/HA Cluster
- Configure Storage DRS
- Configure Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
- Monitor a DRS/HA Cluster
- Configure migration thresholds for DRS and virtual machines
- Configure automation levels for DRS and virtual machines
- Enable/Configure/Disable Host Power Management/Distributed Power Management
- Enable/Disable Host Monitoring
- Enable/Configure/Disable virtual machine and application monitoring
- vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
- vSphere Availability Guide
- vSphere Resource Management Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 5.2: Plan and Implement VMware Fault Tolerance
Knowledge
- Configure VMware Fault Tolerance networking
- Given a scenario, determine an appropriate VMware Fault Tolerance configuration
- Enable/Disable VMware Fault Tolerance on a virtual machine
- Test a Fault Tolerant configuration
- Determine use case for enabling VMware Fault Tolerance on a virtual machine
- vSphere Availability Guide
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 5.3: Create and Administer Resource Pools
Knowledge
- Explain vFlash architecture
- Explain use cases for Resource Pools
- Create/Remove a Resource Pool
- Configure Resource Pool attributes
- Add/Remove virtual machines from a Resource Pool
- Create/Delete vFlash Resource Pool
- Assign vFlash resources to VMDKs
- Determine Resource Pool requirements for a given vSphere implementation
- vSphere Resource Management Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- What’s New in VMware vSphere® Flash Read Cache®
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 5.4: Migrate Virtual Machines
Knowledge
- Explain Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC)
- Explain Long Distance vMotion
- Explain process for vMotion/Storage vMotion migrations
- Configure virtual machine swap file location
- Migrate a powered-off or suspended virtual machine
- Migrate virtual machines using vMotion/Storage vMotion
- vSphere Resource Management Guide
- vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 5.5: Backup and Restore Virtual Machines
Knowledge
- Explain VMware Data Protection sizing Guidelines
- Describe vSphere Replication architecture
- Install and Configure VMware Data Protection
- Create a backup job with VMware Data Protection
- Perform a live full/file-level restore with VMware Data Protection
- Create/Delete/Consolidate virtual machine snapshots
- Perform a failback operation using vSphere Replication
- Determine appropriate backup solution for a given vSphere implementation
- VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ 6.0
- vSphere Data Protection Administration Guide
- VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ Evaluation Guide
- What’s New in the VMware vSphere® 6.0 Platform
- VMware vSphere Replication Administration
- VDR Data Migration Tool
- VDP Configure Utility
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 5.6: Update ESXi and Virtual Machines
Knowledge
- Create/Edit/Remove a Host Profile from an ESXi host
- Attach/Apply a Host Profile to an ESXi host or cluster
- Perform compliance scanning and remediation of an ESXi host using Host Profiles
- Install and Configure vCenter Update Manager
- Configure patch download options
- Create/Edit/Delete an Update Manager baseline
- Attach an Update Manager baseline to an ESXi host or cluster
- Scan and remediate ESXi Hosts and virtual machines using Update Manager
- vSphere Host Profiles Guide
- Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager Guide
- vSphere Update Manager Utility
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
- Update Manager Web Client
+ Section 6: Perform Basic Troubleshooting
+ Objective 6.1: Perform Basic Troubleshooting of ESXi and vCenter Server
Knowledge
- Troubleshoot common installation issues
- Monitor status of ESXi management agents
- Determine ESXi host stability issues and gather diagnostics information
- Export diagnostic information
- Monitor status of the vCenter Server service
- Perform basic maintenance of a vCenter Server database
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 6.2: Perform Basic Troubleshooting of ESXi and vCenter Operations
Knowledge
- Verify network configuration
- Troubleshoot common storage issues
- Troubleshoot common virtual machine issues
- Given a scenario, verify a virtual machine is configured with the correct network resources
- Troubleshoot virtual switch and port group configuration issues
- Troubleshoot physical network adapter configuration issues
- Recognize and detect common knowledge base article solutions
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 6.3: Perform Basic Troubleshooting of Virtual Machine Operations
Knowledge
- Troubleshoot virtual machine resource contention issues
- Recognize and detect:
- Fault Tolerant network latency issues
- VMware Tools installation issues
- Virtual machines states
- Virtual machine constraints
- Guest OS installation issues
- Given a scenario, determine root cause of a storage issue based on troubleshooting information
- Explain common virtual machine boot disk errors
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 6.4: IIdentify and Troubleshoot Basic Misconfigurations
Knowledge
- Troubleshoot:
- Virtual switch and distributed switches port group configuration issues
- Physical network adapter configuration issues
- NFS networking configuration issues
- iSCSI software initiator configuration issues
- HA configuration and redundancy issues
- DRS Resource Distribution Graph
- vMotion/Storage vMotion migration issues
- Interpret vMotion Resource Maps
- Given a scenario, verify a virtual machine is configured with the correct network resources
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Section 7: Monitor a vSphere Implementation
+ Objective 7.1: Monitor ESXi, vCenter Server and Virtual Machines
Knowledge
- Explain:
- Common memory metrics
- Common CPU metrics
- Common network metrics
- Common storage metrics
- Configure SNMP for vCenter Server
- Configure SMTP settings for vCenter Server
- Create a log bundle
- Create/Edit/Delete a Scheduled Task
- Configure/View/Print/Export resource maps
- Start/Stop/Verify vCenter Server service status
- Start/Stop/Verify ESXi host agent status
- Configure vCenter Server timeout settings
- Identify vCenter Server connection object status
- Create an Advanced Chart
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 7.2: Create and Administer vCenter Server Alarms
Knowledge
- List vCenter Server default utilization alarms
- List vCenter Server default connectivity alarms
- List possible actions for utilization and connectivity alarms
- Create a vCenter Server utilization alarm
- Create a vCenter Server connectivity alarm
- Configure alarm triggers
- Configure alarm actions
- For a given alarm, identify the affected resource in a vSphere implementation
- vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
- vSphere Resource Management Guide
- vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Objective 7.3: Install, Configure, and Manage vCenter Operations Manager
Knowledge
- Differentiate Major/Minor vRealize Operations Manager badges
- Explain vRealize Operations Manager architecture
- Deploy and Configure vRealize Operations Manager appliance
- Upgrade vRealize Operations Manager
- Understand metrics used by Major/Minor vRealize Operations Manager badges
- Monitor vSphere environment
- For a given alarm, identify the affected resource in a vSphere implementation
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Getting Started Guide – vSphere UI
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Getting Started Guide – Custom UI
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Administration Guide (Custom UI)
- vCenter Operations Manager Evaluation Guide
- vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide
- vCenter Operations Manager Custom User Interface
- vSphere Client / vSphere Web Client
+ Exam Contributors
Mostafa Khalil
Garth Miller
Damian Wraa
Linus Bourque
Jonathan McDonald
Jeff Weiss
Vivian Li
Lizann Dunegan
Rob Philp
Joe Desmond
Andrew Ellwood
Arantxa Duque Barrachina
Carla Gavalakis
Garth Miller
Damian Wraa
Linus Bourque
Jonathan McDonald
Jeff Weiss
Vivian Li
Lizann Dunegan
Rob Philp
Joe Desmond
Andrew Ellwood
Arantxa Duque Barrachina
Carla Gavalakis
Recommended Training
vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.0]
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure and Manage plus Optimize and Scale Fast Track [V6.0]
VMware Certification Exam Prep: vSphere 6 Foundations Exam
Practice Exam
vSphere 6 Foundations Exam Practice Exam
Free Webcast
Top preparation tips before taking the vSphere foundations exam
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