What you’ll learn in this course
The Designing Cisco Data Center Infrastructure (DCID) v6.2 course helps you prepare for the Cisco CCNP® Data Center certification and for professional-level data center roles. In this course, you will master design and deployment options focused on Cisco® data center infrastructure, including networking, virtualization, storage networking, compute, and management tools. You can expect theoretical content as well as design-oriented case studies in the form of activities.
IT professionals with Cisco CCNP Data Center training and certification are uniquely qualified for professional-level or higher roles in enterprise-class data center environments. Cisco CCNP training and certification equips you with skills in a broad range of technologies and industry best practices to help you succeed in these in-demand roles.
Course duration
- Instructor-led training: 5 days in the classroom with design-oriented case studies
- Virtual instructor-led training: 5 days of web-based classes with hands-on lab practice
- E-learning: Equivalent of 5 days of instruction with design-oriented case studies, videos, and challenges
How you’ll benefit
This course will help you:
- Make design choices for optimal data center infrastructure performance, virtualization, security, and automation
- Master the practical and theoretical knowledge necessary to design a scalable, reliable, and intelligent data center based on Cisco technologies
- Prepare for the Cisco CCNP Data Center certification through a combination of lessons and design practice
- Qualify for professional-level job roles in the high-demand area of enterprise-class data center environments
- Develop well-rounded career growth
Who should enroll
IT professionals with five to eight years of experience in these roles:
- Data center administrator
- Data center engineer
- Network administrator
- Network engineer
- System administrator
- Systems engineer
- Network designer
- Consulting systems engineer
- Technical solutions architect
- Cisco integrator or partner
Technology areas
- Data center
Objectives
After taking this course, you should be able to:
- Describe the Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding options and protocols used in a data center
- Describe the rack design options, traffic patterns, and data center switching layer access, aggregation, and core
- Describe the Cisco Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV) technology that is used to interconnect data centers
- Design a solution that uses Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) for traffic forwarding
- Describe the hardware redundancy options and virtualize the network, compute, and storage
- Discuss virtual networking in the data center
- Describe solutions using Fabric Extenders (FEX) and compare Cisco Adapter FEX with VM-FEX
- Describe the Cisco Nexus® 1000V solution to extend the hypervisor functionality
- Describe security threats and solutions in the data center
- Describe advanced data center security technologies and best practices
- Describe virtual appliances that are deployed in a data center network
- Describe device management and orchestration in the data center
- Design a data center storage network
- Describe the storage options for compute and the different RAID levels from a High Availability (HA) and performance perspective
- Describe Fibre Channel concepts, architecture, topologies, and industry terms
- Describe how Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks converge
- Describe security options in the storage network
- Describe management and automation options for the storage networking infrastructure
- Describe Cisco UCS® servers and use cases for various Cisco UCS platforms (B-Series and C-Series)
- Explain the connectivity options in the fabric interconnects for southbound and northbound connections. Describe port personalities and oversubscription models. Distinguish between the End-Host Virtualizer (EHV) and switching mode, and between the N-Port Virtualization (NPV) and Fibre Channel switching mode. Describe split brain and partition in time issues with the fabric interconnects for HA
- Describe the hyperconvergence solution and how it integrates systems based on different storage vendors. Compare storage vendors and evaluate the advantages for each stacked solution
- Describe design and management options for Cisco UCS. Design the management solution in HA mode and describe integration with the Cisco UCS domain
- Describe the systemwide parameters to set up a Cisco UCS domain, including monitoring, Quality of Service (QoS), and organizations to build up a management hierarchy in the Cisco UCS domain
- Describe Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and integration with directory servers to control access rights on Cisco UCS Manager
- Describe the pools that may be used in service profiles or service profile templates in Cisco UCS Manager. Describe the design of and best practices for naming conventions
- Describe the different policies you may set in the service profile to achieve and fulfill customer or application requirements
- Describe the Ethernet and Fibre Channel interface policies and additional network technologies
- Describe how to use templates to work more efficiently in Cisco UCS Manager
Prerequisites
Before taking this course, you should be able to:
- Describe data center networking concepts
- Describe data center storage concepts
- Describe data center virtualization
- Describe the Cisco Unified Computing System™
- Describe data center automation and orchestration focusing on Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI™) and Cisco UCS Director
- Identify products in the Cisco Nexus and MDS families
- Describe network fundamentals and build simple LANs, including switching and routing
To fully benefit from this course, you should have completed the following courses or obtained the equivalent level of knowledge:
- Introducing Cisco Data Center Networking (DCICN)
- Introducing Cisco Data Center Technologies (DCICT)
- Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (CCNAX), or Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices, Part 1 (ICND1), and Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices, Part 2 (ICND2)