Overview

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As organizations accelerate AI adoption, the need for agile, high-performance infrastructure is transforming the modern data center. This course empowers learners to explore Cisco Nexus switch management and control planes, Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF), and virtualization concepts such as hypervisors and Virtual Machine Managers. You’ll build a solid foundation in overlay network protocols including Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), enabling you to segment physical devices into multiple virtual devices that function independently. What sets this course apart is its focus on operational segmentation into functional planes, which supports features like Control Plane Policing (CoPP) and stateful error recovery to prevent operational disruptions. You will gain practical knowledge of virtualization technology that transforms hardware into software, allowing multiple operating systems to run as virtual machines on a single physical server. The course also covers the VMware product portfolio and its interaction within virtualized environments. Additionally, you’ll learn about network overlays that provide connectivity without imposing restrictions on underlying infrastructure, and the role of VMware vSwitches in data center virtual infrastructure design. This course prepares you to establish a stable, high-performance data center environment with easy management, supporting business needs for high availability and optimized application response times. By completing this course, you will be equipped to manage complex virtualization demands and contribute effectively to modern, scalable data center networks.

Syllabus

Describing Switch Virtualization

Cisco Nexus Series Switches support many virtualization options in which you can segment one physical device into several devices that function independently. This virtualization includes Layer 3 virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instances. Cisco Nexus Series Switches also provide operational segmentation into functional planes to segment the functions of the switch into functional layers. This segmentation enables features (such as Control Plane Policing [CoPP] and stateful error recovery) that prevent operational disruptions. All these functionalities allow you to establish a stable data center environment with high performance and easy management.

Describing Machine Virtualization

Virtualization technology transforms hardware into software. Virtualization allows you to run multiple operating systems as virtual machines on a single computer, and each copy of the operating system is installed in a virtual machine. In server virtualization, you install a layer of software between the server hardware and the operating system. In this course, you will learn about the concepts of virtualization and the differences between virtual machines and virtual servers. You will also become familiar with the VMware product portfolio and how these products interact.

Describing Network Virtualization

Businesses must provide high availability for applications while keeping operating expenses low. Applications must always be available, in all places, with optimal response times. Virtualization, multitenancy, and other advancements place increasing demands on the network. This connectivity must be provided without making changes to end systems or by compromising the stability of the overall network. Overlays are independent of the underlying infrastructure technologies and services. They typically do not impose restrictions on the underlying infrastructure, provided the overlays can transport IP packets. In the VMware environment, the network is virtualized. Most network components are virtualized, except for the network interface card (NIC), which resides in the host. Physical NICs usually act as uplink ports in the vSwitches that are created at the VMware hypervisor level. In this module, you will learn the basic concepts of network overlays in data center design and the VMware vSwitch, including its function in the data center virtual infrastructure design.