Like many I’m hoping to take the new advanced VMware certification VCAP-DCA later this year. This is my first post in my VCAP-DCA study notes series and covers section 8.3, Administer vSphere with the vMA. The notes are mainly intended as a revision list rather than a tutorial so you should have some knowledge of the topic before starting (there are links at the bottom to help you get started if not). Most of this content has been covered elsewhere previously so kudos to those who spent time discovering it – I’ve simply collected it all together for reference.
I’ve covered the topics on the VCAP-DCA blueprint and included some detail on the new vSphere 4.1 features as you never know when they’ll get included in the exam. The only exceptions are esxcli and vmkfstools which I’ll cover as part of section 1 (managing storage) and section 6 (troubleshooting).
Main uses
- syslog server (vilogger component)
- centralised scripting repository
- replacement for ESX service console (scripts and third party plugins)
- easier to port service console scripts rather than converting to PowerCLI
- scripts may need amending (new authentication methods etc)
- facilitates move to ESXi
Prerequisites, installation and updating
Prerequisites
- ESX host must support 64-bit VMs (Intel EM64T and vT technology)
- ESX 3.5U2 onwards, vCentre 4.0 onwards (2.5 NOT supported)
- 512MB, 1vCPU, 5GB+ disk space
Continue reading VCAP study notes – 8.3 vMA →