the Netherlands

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Hands-on Labs…

but where afraid to ask.

Doug Baer & Dave RollinsVMware Hands-on Labs

21-March 2019

Who We Are

Doug Baer▪ Staff Technical Architect

▪ VMware

▪ Hands-on Labs

Dave Rollins▪ Staff Content Architect

▪ VMware

▪ Hands-on Labs

Agenda

▪ What are the Hands-on Labs?

▪ Architecture / Infrastructure

▪ Deployment Overview

▪ Challenge Labs / Advanced Content

Life of a Systems Administrator…..

What Are the Hands-on Labs?

VMware Hands-on Labs: A view from the drivers seat

Self Serve

Time extension –

Up to 9 hours

• The quickest and easiest way to evaluate VMware products

• Over 90 New Hands-on Labs covering every VMware Product

• Live environment, with no license or HW/SW needed

• Manual included for guidance

• FREE TRAINING!

Automated Startup

Status checks

Live Running

Environment

Integrated Lab Manual

Life of a Systems Administrator…..

Life of a Systems Administrator…..A New Way of Evaluating VMware Products….Quickly evaluate all VMware products - Private Cloud, Hybrid, and SaaS products

Before After

Life of a Systems Administrator…..

Architecture / Infrastructure

HOL Architecture

▪ Multiple Clouds▪ Redundancy

▪ Built on VMware products

▪ Each lab environmentcomposed of dedicatedVMs per user

Content Replication

HOL Development Environment

Lab Content Lab Captains / Content Creators

HOSTING CLOUDS

docs.hol.vmware.com

web.hol.vmware.com

hol.vmware.com

HOL Websites

www.ScreenSteps.com

Lab Manual Development

Content Management EnginePublic Cloud(s)Private Cloud(s) Experimental

Anatomy of an HOL Cloud

▪ Cloud : # Virtual Datacenters (VDC)

▪ VDC : vCenter : DRS/HA Cluster

▪ DRS/HA Cluster : # ESXi Hosts

6 VDC/cloud

11 host/VDC

EXAMPLE: Host and Cloud Details

▪ vSphere 6.5

▪ Dell PowerEdge R630

▪ 2 x 18 core 2.1 GHz Intel CPU

▪ 512 GB RAM

▪ 8 TB SSD Storage (2 DG)▪ 2x 750 GB (cache)

▪ 8x 900 GB (capacity)

▪ Per-VDC Totals (11 hosts)▪ 22 CPUs

▪ 5.5 TB RAM

▪ 75 TB VSAN datastore

▪ Per-Cloud Totals (6 VDCs)▪ 132 CPU (2376 cores)

▪ 33 TB RAM

▪ 450 TB VSAN

Mini Datacenters

▪ Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, NTP, routing, Certificate Authority

▪ IP storage (iSCSI, NFS, vSAN)

▪ Exported, compressed format, Single Site Base vPod is 26 GB

▪ Average lab size is: ▪ 10 VMs, 25 CPUs

▪ 73 GB RAM

▪ 700 GB disk

▪ LabStartup check (PowerCLI)▪ Automation within each lab helps ensure it is

“Ready” when a user is assigned

Life of a Systems Administrator…..

Development Overview

Development Timeline - 2018

Average of 300 hours of development effort per lab owner

“Volunteer Army”

Life of a Systems Administrator…..

Challenge Labs / Advanced Content

Life of a Systems Administrator…..Challenge Labs / Advanced ContentIn addition to our Getting Started Content:

• Challenge Labs

• Global Support Services top calls

• Knowledge Base articles

• Advanced Content

• Product Integration

• Day 2 Operations (Scaling, Updating, Maintenance)

Or go off script!

• Certification practice

• Verify a task in a test environment

• Document a procedure

Life of a Systems Administrator…..Hands-on Labs Resources

Hands-on Labs Online Portal – http://labs.hol.vmware.com

Hands-on Labs Blog – http://blogs.vmware.com/hol

Documents Site – http://docs.hol.vmware.com