VCAP-DCD5

Section 1 – Create a vSphere Conceptual Design

Objective 1.1 – Gather and analyze business requirements Skills and Abilities 

Associate a stakeholder with the information that needs to be collected.
Utilize customer inventory and assessment data from a current environment to define a baseline state.
Analyze customer interview data to explicitly define customer objectives for a conceptual design.
Identify the need for and apply requirements tracking.
Given results of a requirements gathering survey, identify requirements for a conceptual design.
Categorize requirements by infrastructure qualities to prepare for logical design requirements.
Tools
VMware Virtualization Case Studies 
Five Steps to Determine When to Virtualize Your Servers
Functional vs. Non-Functional Requirements 
Conceptual, Logical, Physical: It is Simple 
Product Documentation


Objective 1.2 – Gather and analyze application requirements Skills and Abilities

Given a scenario, gather and analyze application requirements
Given a set of applications within a physical environment, determine the requirements for virtualization.
Gather information needed in order to identify application dependencies.
Given one or more application requirements, determine the impact of the requirements on the design.

Tools
VMware Cost-Per-Application Calculator
VMware Virtualizing Oracle Kit 
VMware Virtualizing Exchange Kit 
VMware Virtualizing SQL Kit 
VMware Virtualizing SAP Kit 
VMware Virtualizing Enterprise Java Kit 
Business and Financial Benefits of Virtualization: Customer Benchmarking Study
Product Documentation


Objective 1.3 – Determine Risks, Constraints, and Assumptions Skills and Abilities

Differentiate between the general concepts of a risk, a requirement, a constraint, and an assumption.
Given a statement, determine whether it is a risk, requirement, a constraint, or an assumption.
Analyze impact of VMware best practices to identified risks, constraints, and assumptions.

Tools
Developing Your Virtualization Strategy and Deployment Plan
Product Documentation




Section 2 – Create a vSphere Logical Design from an

Existing Conceptual Design

Objective 2.1 –Map Business Requirements to the Logical Design Knowledge 

Explain the common components of logical design.
List the detailed steps that go into the makeup of a common logical design.
Differentiate functional and non-functional requirements for the design.

Skills and Abilities
Build non-functional requirements into a specific logical design.
Translate given business requirements and the current state of a customer environment into a logical design.
Create a Service Catalog

Tools
Conceptual, Logical, Physical: It is Simple 
VMware vSphere Basics Guide 
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5 
Functional vs. Non-Functional Requirements
ITIL v3 Introduction and Overview 
Product Documentation


Objective 2.2 – Map Service Dependencies Knowledge 

• Identify basic service dependencies for infrastructure and application services. 

Skills and Abilities 

• Document service relationships and dependencies (Entity Relationship Diagrams)
• Identify interfaces to existing business processes and define new business processes
• Given a scenario, identify logical components that have dependencies on certain services.
• Include service dependencies in a vSphere 5 logical design.
• Analyze services to identify upstream and downstream service dependencies.
• Having navigated logical components and their interdependencies, make decisions based upon all
service relationships.

Tools
• Datacenter Operational Excellence Through Automated Application Discovery & Dependency Mapping 
• Product Documentation

Objective 2.3 – Build Availability Requirements into the Logical Design Knowledge
• Understand what logical availability services are provided by VMware solutions.
Identify and differentiate infrastructure qualities (Availability, Manageability, Performance,
Recoverability, Security)
• Describe the concept of redundancy and the risks associated with single points of failure. • Differentiate Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery concepts.

Skills and Abilities

• Determine availability component of service level agreements (SLAs) and service level management processes.
• Explain availability solutions for a logical design based on customer requirements.
Define an availability plan, including maintenance processes.
Prioritize each service in the Service Catalog according to availability requirements.
Balance availability requirements with other infrastructure qualities

Tools

Improving Business Continuity with VMware Virtualization Solution Brief
VMware High Availability Deployment Best Practices 
vSphere Availability Guide 
Product Documentation

Objective 2.4 – Build Manageability Requirements into the Logical Design Knowledge

Understand what management services are provided by VMware solutions.
Identify and differentiate infrastructure qualities (Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, Security)

Skills and Abilities
Build interfaces to existing operations practices into the logical design
Address identified operational readiness deficiencies
Define Event, Incident and Problem Management practices
Define Release Management practices
Determine Request Fulfillment processes
Design Service Asset and Configuration Management (CMDB) systems
Define Change Management processes
Based on customer requirements, identify required reporting assets and processes

Tools
Optimizing Your VMware Environment 
Four Keys to Managing Your VMware Environment
Operational Readiness Assessment 
Operational Readiness Assessment Tool 
Product Documentation


Objective 2.5 – Build Performance Requirements into the Logical Design Knowledge

Understand what logical performance services are provided by VMware solutions.
Identify and differentiate infrastructure qualities (Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, Security)
List the key performance indicators for resource utilization.

Skills and Abilities
Analyze current performance, identify and address gaps when building the logical design.
Using a conceptual design, create a logical design that meets performance requirements.
Identify performance-related functional requirements based on given non-functional requirements and service dependencies.
Define capacity management practices and create a capacity plan.
Incorporate scalability requirements into the logical design.
Determine performance component of SLAs and service level management processes.
Tools
Proven Practice: Implementing ITIL v3 Capacity Management in a VMware environment
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide 
Product Documentation

Objective 2.6 – Build Recoverability Requirements into the Logical Design Knowledge

Understand what recoverability services are provided by VMware solutions.
Identify and differentiate infrastructure qualities (Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, Security)
Differentiate Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery concepts.
Describe and differentiate between RTO and RPO
Skills and Abilities
Given specific RTO and RPO requirements, build these requirements into the logical design.
Given recoverability requirements, identify the services that will be impacted and provide a recovery plan for impacted services.
Given specific regulatory compliance requirements, build these requirements into the logical design.
Based on customer requirements, identify applicable site failure / site recovery use cases.
Determine recoverability component of SLAs and service level management processes.
Based on customer requirements, create a data retention policy.
Tools
VMware vCenterTM Site Recovery Manager Evaluation Guide 
A Practical Guide to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery with VMware Infrastructure
Mastering Disaster Recovery: Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Whitepaper 
Designing Backup Solutions for VMware vSphere 

Product Documentation


Objective 2.7 – Build Security Requirements into the Logical Design Knowledge 

Understand what security services are provided by VMware solutions.
Identify and differentiate infrastructure qualities (Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, Security).
Describe layered security considerations, including but not limited to Trust Zones.
Skills and Abilities
Identify required roles, create a role-based access model and map roles to services.
Create a security policy based on existing security requirements and IT governance practices.
Incorporate customer risk tolerance into the security policy.
Given security requirements, assess the services that will be impacted and create an access management plan.
Given a regulatory requirement example, determine the proper security solution that would comply with it.
Based upon a specified security requirement, analyze the current state for areas of compliance/non-compliance.
Explain how compliance requirements will impact the logical security design.

Tools
vSphere Security Guide 
Developing Your Virtualization Strategy and Deployment Plan 
Achieving Compliance in a Virtualized Environment 
Infrastructure Security: Getting to the Bottom of Compliance in the Cloud 
Securing the Cloud 
Product Documentation




Section 3 – Create a vSphere Physical Design from an 

Existing Logical Design Objective 

3.1 – Transition from a Logical Design to a vSphere 5 Physical Design Skills and Abilities 

Determine and explain design decisions and options selected from the logical design.
Build functional requirements into the physical design.
Given a logical design, create a physical design taking into account requirements, assumptions and constraints.

Given the operational structure of an organization, identify the appropriate management tools and roles for each staff member.

Tools
Conceptual, Logical, Physical: It is Simple 
vSphere Server and Host Management Guide 
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
Product Documentation
vSphere Client


Objective 3.2 – Create a vSphere 5 Physical Network Design from an Existing Logical Design Knowledge

Describe VLAN options, including Private VLANs, with respect to virtual and physical switches.
Describe switch-specific settings for ESXi-facing ports, including but not limited to:
o STP
o Jumbo Frames
o Load-balancing
o Trunking
Describe network redundancy considerations at each individual component level.
Cite virtual switch security policies and settings
Skills and Abilities
Based on the service catalog and given functional requirements, for each service:
o Determine the most appropriate networking technologies for the design.
o Implement the service based on the required infrastructure qualities (AMPRS).
Determine and explain the selected network teaming and failover solution.
Implement logical Trust Zones using network security/firewall technologies.
Based on service level requirements, determine appropriate network performance characteristics.
Given a current network configuration as well as technical requirements and constraints, determine the appropriate virtual switch solution:
o vSphere Standard Switch
o vSphere Distributed Switch
o Third-party solutions (ex. Nexus 1000V)
o Hybrid solutions
Based on an existing logical design, determine appropriate host networking resources.
Properly apply converged networking considering VMware best practices.

Tools
vSphere Server and Host Management Guide

vSphere Installation and Setup Guide 
vMotion Architecture, Performance and Best Practices in VMware vSphere 5 
VMware vSphereTM: Deployment Methods for the VMware® vNetwork Distributed Switch
vNetwork Distributed Switch: Migration and Configuration 
Guidelines for Implementing VMware vSphere with the Cisco Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch
VMware® Network I/O Control: Architecture, Performance and Best Practices 
Product Documentation
vSphere Client


Objective 3.3 – Create a vSphere 5 Physical Storage Design from an Existing Logical Design Knowledge 

Describe selection criteria for commonly used RAID types
Skills and Abilities 
Based on the service catalog and given functional requirements, for each service:
o Determine the most appropriate storage technologies for the design.
o Implement the service based on the required infrastructure qualities.
Create a physical storage design based on selected storage array capabilities, including but not limited to:
o Active/Active, Active/Passive
o ALUA, VAAI, VASA
o PSA (including PSPs and SATPs)
Identify proper combination of media and port criteria for given end-to-end performance requirements.
Specify the type of zoning that conforms to best practices and documentation.
Based on service level requirements utilize VMware technologies, including but not limited to:
o Storage I/O Control
o Storage Policies
o Storage vMotion
o Storage DRS
Determine use case for virtual storage appliances, including the vSphere Storage Appliance.
Given the functional requirements, size the storage for capacity, availability and performance, including:
o Virtual Storage (Datastores, RDMs, Virtual Disks)
o Physical Storage (LUNs, Storage Tiering)
Based on the logical design, select and incorporate an appropriate storage network into the physical design:
o iSCSI
o NFS
o FC
o FCoE

Tools

Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide 
iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide 
vSphere Installation and Setup Guide 
Performance Implications of Storage I/O Control–Enabled NFS Datastores in VMware vSphere® 5.0
Managing Performance Variance of Applications Using Storage I/O Control 
VMware Virtual Machine File System: Technical Overview and Best Practices 
Product Documentation
vSphere Client


Objective 3.4 – Determine Appropriate Compute Resources for a vSphere 5 Physical Design Knowledge 

Describe best practices with respect to CPU family choices.

Skills and Abilities 
Based on the service catalog and given functional requirements, for each service:
o Determine the most appropriate compute technologies for the design.
o Implement the service based on the required infrastructure qualities.
Explain the impact of a technical design on the choice of server density:
o Scale Up
o Scale Out
o Auto Deploy
Determine a consolidation ratio based upon capacity analysis data.
Calculate the number of nodes in an HA cluster based upon host failure count and resource guarantees.
Explain the implications of using reservations, limits, and shares on the physical design.
Specify the resource pool and vApp configuration based upon resource requirements.
Size compute resources:
o Memory
o CPU
o I/O devices
o Internal storage
Given a constraint to use existing hardware, determine suitability of the hardware for the design.

Tools
vSphere Server and Host Management Guide
vSphere Installation and Setup Guide 
vSphere Resource Management Guide 
Product Documentation
vSphere Client


Objective 3.5 – Determine Virtual Machine Configuration for a vSphere 5 Physical Design Knowledge 

Describe the applicability of using an RDM or a virtual disk for a given VM.

Skills and Abilities 

Based on the service catalog and given functional requirements, for each service:
o Determine the most appropriate virtual machine configuration for the design.
o Implement the service based on the required infrastructure qualities.
Based on an existing logical design, determine appropriate virtual disk type and placement.
Size VMs appropriately according to application requirements, incorporating VMware best practices.
Determine appropriate reservations, shares, and limits.
Based on an existing logical design, determine virtual hardware options.
Design a vApp catalog of appropriate VM offerings (e.g., templates, OVFs, vCO).
Describe implications of and apply appropriate use cases for vApps.
Decide on the suitability of using FT or 3rd party clustering products based on application requirements.
Determine and implement an anti-virus solution

Tools
vSphere Server and Host Management Guide 
Virtual Machine Administration Guide 
Best Practices for Performance Tuning of Latency-Sensitive Workloads in vSphere VMs
Virtualizing a Windows Active Directory Domain Infrastructure 
Guest Operating System Installation Guide 
Product Documentation
vSphere Client


Objective 3.6 – Determine Data Center Management Options for a vSphere 5 Physical Design 

Knowledge 
Differentiate and describe client access options.

Skills and Abilities 
Based on the service catalog and given functional requirements, for each service:

o Determine the most appropriate datacenter management options for the design.
o Implement the service based on the required infrastructure qualities.
Analyze cluster availability requirements for HA and FT.
Analyze cluster performance requirements for DRS and vMotion.
Analyze cluster storage performance requirements for SDRS and Storage vMotion.
Determine the appropriate vCenter Server design and sizing requirements:
o vCenter Server Linked Mode
o vCenter Server Virtual Appliance
o vCenter Server Heartbeat
Determine appropriate access control settings, create roles and assign users to roles.
Based on the logical design, identify and implement asset and configuration management technologies.
Determine appropriate host and virtual machine deployment options.
Based on the logical design, identify and implement release management technologies, such as Update Manager.
Based on the logical design identify and implement event, incident and problem management technologies.
Based on the logical design, identify and implement logging, monitoring and reporting technologies.

Tools

vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide 
vCenter Server and Host Management Guide 
VMware vCenter Update Manager 5.0 Performance and Best Practices
Product Documentation
vSphere Client




Section 4 – Implementation Planning

Objective 4.1 – Create an Execute a Validation Plan Knowledge 

Recall standard functional test areas for design and operational verification.
Differentiate between operational testing and design verification.
Skills and Abilities
From an existing template, choose the appropriate test areas.
Identify expected results
Demonstrate an ability to track results in an organized fashion
Compare actual and expected results and explain differences

• Apply validation plan metrics to demonstrate traceability to business objectives Tools
• vSphere Server and Host Management Guide • Validation Test Plan 
• Product Documentation
• vSphere Client


Objective 4.2 – Create an Implementation Plan Skills and Abilities

• Based on key phases of enterprise vSphere 5 implementations, map customer development needs to a standard implementation plan template.
• Evaluate customer implementation requirements and provide a customized implementation plan. • Incorporate customer objectives into a phased implementation schedule.
• Match customer skills and abilities to implementation resource requirements.
• Identify and correct implementation plan gaps.
Tools
• vSphere Server and Host Management Guide • Operational Test Requirement Cases 
• Product Documentation
• vSphere Client


Objective 4.3 – Create an Installation Guide Knowledge 

• Identify standard resources required to construct an installation guide. Skills and Abilities 
• Consider multiple product installation dependencies to create a validated configuration. • Recognize opportunities to utilize automated procedures to optimize installation. • Create installation documentation specific to the design.

Tools
• vSphere Server and Host Management Guide • Deployment Guide 

Product Documentation
vSphere Client

No comments:

Post a Comment