Reinvent Yourself

Understanding Cisco Data Center Foundations v1.1

In this self-paced course, Understanding Cisco Data Center Foundations (DCFNDU) v1.1, students will gain the foundational knowledge and skills needed to configure Cisco data center technologies including: networking, virtualization, storage area networking (SAN), and unified computing.

Students will be introduced to Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI), automation, and cloud computing. You will get hands-on experience with configuring features on Cisco Nexus Operating System (Cisco NX-OS) and Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS).

The course qualifies for 30 Cisco Continuing Education credits (CE) towards recertification. 

This course will help students:

• Prepare for entry-level job roles in the high-demand area of data center environments
• Prepare for courses that support the Cisco Certified Network Professional Data Center certification exams
• Gain knowledge and hands-on skills through Cisco’s unique combination of lessons and hands-on practice using enterprise-grade Cisco learning technologies, data center equipment, and software

Upon completing this course, the learner will be able to meet these overall objectives:   

• Describe the foundations of data center networking
• Describe Cisco Nexus products and explain the basic Cisco NX-OS functionalities and tools
• Describe Layer 3 first-hop redundancy
• Describe Cisco Fabric Extender (FEX) connectivity
• Describe Ethernet port channels and virtual port channel (VPCs)
• Introduce switch virtualization, machine virtualization, and network virtualization
• Compare storage connectivity options in the data center
• Describe Fibre Channel communication between the initiator server and the target storage
• Describe Fibre Channel zone types and their uses
• Describe N-Port Virtualization (NPV) and N-Port Identifier Virtualization (NPIV)
• Describe data center Ethernet enhancements that provide a lossless fabric
• Describe Fibre Channel over Ethernet FCoE
• Describe data center server connectivity
• Describe Cisco UCS Manager
• Describe the purpose and advantages of APIs
• Describe Cisco ACI
• Describe the basic concepts of cloud computing

This new Cisco self-paced course is designed to be as effective as classroom training. Course content is presented in easily-consumable segments via both Instructor Video and text. Interactivity is enabled through Discovery Labs, content review questions, and graded Challenge labs and tests. This makes the learning experience hands-on, increasing course effectiveness, and provides students direct feedback on how well they have mastered the material. And gamification features are built in, including earning badges and a leaderboard, to encourage better performance.