First Technology Transfer

Standard and Advanced Technical Training, Consultancy and Mentoring

LPAT302 Advanced Administration of Virtualised and High Availability Systems - A Level 3 Advanced Specialisation

Duration: 5 Days

Background and Intended Audience

This course is based to a large extent on the syllabus of the LPIC 304 exam. It is focused on administration of virtualised and high availability systems. This is a relatively new certification syllabus, inspired, no doubt by the positively stellar developments in cloud computing, software defined networking and virtualisation technologies. This specialisation has to be learned experientially, following in the footsteps of those who have gone before, experimenting and trying out various approaches and designs. Cloud computing and the Internet of Things can be thought of as "The Wild West" of Internet Technology developments. Configuring and managing large cloud based operations is an area where those with the required skills and inventiveness can thrive. For those that are good (or about to become good once they have mastered the various technologies) the rewards are very great.

Prerequisites

Attendees are assumed to have considerable Linux system admin knowledge equivalent to that required for LPIC Level2 such as might have been acquired by completing LPAT201 and LPAT202 training or equivalent and several months practical experience involving Linux system administration. Attendees are also expected to have experience of admin tasks such as setting up user accounts, configuring tailored linux builds and setting up a wide variety of applications. Some knowledge of hypervisors and virtualisation will be helpful, though this is not essential as the course will cover this topic.l For those contemplating taking this course as a distance learning course the number of hours of work involved is from 150 to 250 hours, and, possibly, even longer, with much of the time being spent setting up and configuring virtulised network systems, clusters of computers and trying out the various scenarios and challenges provided.

Key topics covered

  • Virtualization
  • High Availability Cluster Management
  • High Availability Cluster Storage

Detailed Course Outline

  • Virtualization Concepts and Theory
    • Concepts, theory and terminology of Virtualization - As it applies to systems such as e.g. Xen, KVM and libvirt
    • Pros and Cons of Virtualization
    • Variations of Virtual Machine Monitors
    • Migration of Physical to Virtual Machines
    • Migration of Virtual Machines between Host systems
    • Cloud Computing
  • Xen
    • Installing, configuring, maintaining, migrating and troubleshooting Xen installations (Xen 4.x onwards)
    • Xen architecture, networking and storage
    • Xen configuration
    • Xen utilities
    • Troubleshooting Xen installations
    • XAPI
    • XenStore
    • Xen Boot Parameters
    • The xm utility
  • KVM
    • Installing, configuring, maintaining, migrating and troubleshooting KVM installations
    • KVM architecture, networking and storage
    • KVM configuration
    • KVM utilities
    • Troubleshooting KVM installations
    • OpenVZ and LXC
  • Libvirt and Related Tools
    • libvirt architecture, networking and storage
    • Practical use of libvirt and virsh and oVirt
  • Cloud Computing and Cloud Management Tools
    • Installation deployment and configuration of OpenStack and CloudStack
    • Installation deployment and configuration Eucalyptus and OpenNebula
  • HIGH AVAILABILITY CLUSTER MANAGEMENT
    • Concepts and architectures of the better known cluster architectures
    • Understanding recovery and cluster reorganization mechanisms
    • Design an appropriate cluster architecture for a given purpose
    • Application aspects of high availability
    • Operational considerations of high availability
    • Load Balanced Clusters
  • Installation, configuration, maintainenance and troubleshooting of LVS
    • LVS/IPVS
    • VRRP
    • Configuration of keepalived
    • Configuration of ldirectord
  • Installation, configuration, maintainenance and troubleshooting of HAProxy
    • Backend server network configuration
    • Architecture and principles underlying HAProxy
    • Setup and Configuration of HAProxy
  • Failover Clusters
    • Installation, configuration, maintenance and troubleshooting of a Pacemaker cluster
      • Pacemaker architecture and components (CIB, CRMd, PEngine, LRMd, DC, STONITHd)
      • Pacemaker cluster configuration
      • Resource classes (OCF, LSB, Systemd, Upstart, Service, STONITH, Nagios)
      • Resource rules and constraints (location, order, colocation)
      • Advanced resource features (templates, groups, clone resources, multi-state resources)
      • Pacemaker management using pcs
      • Pacemaker management using crmsh
      • Configuration and Management of corosync in conjunction with Pacemaker
      • Overview of other cluster engines - OpenAIS, Heartbeat, CMAN
  • High Availability in Enterprise Linux Distributions
    • Integration of High Availability technologies into Linux distributions
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-On
      • SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension
    • HIGH AVAILABILITY CLUSTER STORAGE
      • Installing, configuring, maintaining and troubleshooting DRBD devices
        • DRBD resources, states and replication modes
        • DRBD resources, networking, disks and devices
        • Configuration of DRBD automatic recovery and error handling
        • Management of DRBD using drbdadm
        • Use of drbdsetup and drbdmeta
        • Integration of DRBD with Pacemaker
        • cLVM
        • Integration of cLVM with Pacemaker
    • Clustered File Systems - GFS2 and OCFS2
      • Understanding the principles of cluster file systems
      • Creating, maintaining and troubleshooting GFS2 file systems in a cluster
      • Creating, maintaining and troubleshooting OCFS2 file systems in a cluster
      • Integration of GFS2 and OCFS2 with Pacemaker
      • O2CB cluster stack
      • Overview of other commonly used clustered file systems

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