•  Define the scope of troubleshooting
•  Use a structured approach to solve configuration and operational problems
•  Apply a troubleshooting methodology to logically diagnose faults and improve troubleshooting efficiency

•  Use command-line tools (such as ESXCLI) to identify and troubleshoot vSphere problems
•  Identify important vSphere log files and interpret the log file contents
•  Describe the benefits and capabilities of VMware Skyline
•  Explain how VMware Skyline works
•  Identify uses for Skyline Advisor

•  Explain performance features of network adapters
•  Explain the performance features of vSphere networking
•  Use esxtop to monitor key network performance metrics

•  Analyze and resolve standard switch and distributed switch problems
•  Analyze virtual machine connectivity problems and fix them
•  Examine common management network connectivity problems and restore configurations

•  Describe storage queue types and other factors that affect storage performance
•  Discuss vSphere support for NVMe and iSER technologies
•  Use esxtop to monitor key storage performance metrics

•  Troubleshoot and resolve storage (iSCSI, NFS, and VMware vSphere® VMFS) connectivity and configuration problems
•  Analyze and resolve common VM snapshot problems
•  Identify and resolve multipathing-related problems, including common causes of permanent device loss (PDL) and all paths down (APD) event problems

•  Explain the CPU scheduler operation and other features that affect CPU performance
•  Explain NUMA and vNUMA support
•  Use esxtop to monitor key CPU performance metrics

•  Explain ballooning, memory compression, transparent page sharing, and host-swapping techniques for
memory reclamation when memory is overcommitted
•  Use esxtop to monitor key memory performance metrics

•  Identify and recover from problems related to vSphere HA
•  Analyze and resolve VMware vSphere® vMotion® configuration and operational problems
•  Analyze and resolve common VMware vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler™ problems

•  Identify, analyze, and solve virtual machine snapshot problems
•  Troubleshoot virtual machine power-on problems
•  Identify possible causes and troubleshoot virtual machine connection-state problems
•  Diagnose and recover from VMware Tools™ installation failures

•  Describe the factors that influence vCenter Server performance
•  Use VMware vCenter® Server Appliance™ tools to monitor resource use

•  Analyze and fix problems with vCenter Server services
•  Diagnose and troubleshoot vCenter Server database problems
•  Examine ESXi host and vCenter Server failure scenarios and resolve the problems