Vmware Interview Questions & Assessments:

Q What are the different types of Partitions in ESX server?

Answer: / -root
Swap
/var
/Var/core
/opt
/home
/tmp

Q What are the three port groups present in ESX server networking
A 1. Virtual Machine Port Group – Used for Virtual Machine Network
2. Service Console Port Group – Used for Service Console Communications
3. VMKernel Port Group – Used for VMotion, iSCSI, NFS Communications

Q What is the use of a Port Group?
A The port group segregates the type of communication.

Q What are the type of communications which requires an IP address for sure ?
A Service Console and VMKernel (VMotion and iSCSI), these communications does not happen without an ip address (Whether it is a single or dedicated)

Q . In the ESX Server licensing features VMotion License is showing as Not used, why?
A Even though the license box is selected, it shows as “License Not Used” until, you enable the VMotion option for specific vSwitch

Q What are the core services of VC(V Center) ?
A VM provisioning , Task Scheduling and Event Logging

Q Does cloning from template happens between two datacenters ?
A Yes.. it can, if the template in one datacenter, we can deploy the vm from that template in another datacenter without any problem.

Q . What are the situations which triggers vMotion automatically?
A * Resource Contention between virtual machines (DRS)
    * Distributed power management

Q. What is VMWare consolidated backup ?
Answer: It is a backup framework, that supports 3rd party utilities to take backups of ESX servers and Virtual Machines. Its not a backup service.

Q What are the moduleds that are noy pre-installed must be added to Vcenter ?

Answer: Following modules that are not pre-installed must be added to Vcenter:

1> Vmware vCenter Converter

2> Vmware vCenter Guided Consolidation

3> Vmware vCenter Update Manager

Q Whattasks can be selected from the home page of an ESX Server ?

A The graphics shows the following tasks can be selected from the home page:
1> Download VMware vCenter
2> Browse Datastores in this Host's inventory
3> Browse Objects Managed by this Host

Q How are new LUNs discovered by an ESX Host?

A A rescan operation is required every time a new LUN is added

Q What makes iSCSI and FC diffrent ?
Answer: 1> A ddressing Scheme: iSCSI relies on IP and FC not

2> Type of transfer of data: In FC, the data transferred as blocks, in iSCSI the data transferred as files.

3> Cabling : FC uses Fibre cable and iSCSI uses RJ45.

Q What is the format for iSCSI addressing ?
Answer: IP Address

Q How we can list pNICs & status using command line ?
Answer: ifconfig –a

Q What is the Maximum Host Failure allowed in a cluster
Answer: 4

Q How does HA know to restart a VM from a dropped Host
Answer: storage lock will be removed from the metadata

Q .How many iSCSI targets will ESX support
Answer: 8 for 3.01, (64 for 3.5)

Q How Many Fiber Channel targets
Answer: (256) (128 on Install)

Q What is Vmotion
Answer: ability to move running vm from one host to another

Q Does HA use vmotion?
Answer: the answer is no – vm stops and restarts on ESX other host

Q What is the maximum number of paths allowed in ESX 4.x for an iSCSI LUN?

Answer: 8

Q What is the maximum number of paths allowed in ESX 4.x for an NFS?

A: 8

Q Which steps is required for iSCSI software multipathing, must be performed using the esxcli interface?

Answer: Connecting the iSCSI software initiator to the VMkernel ports

Q Which CHAP Authentication mechanisms is available when using Software iSCSI, but not Hardware iSCSI?

Answer: Per-Subnet CHAP & Mutual CHAP

Q Which components must be modified in order to enable Jumbo Frame support for the Software iSCSI Initiator ?

Answer: The VMkernel port & The virtual switch

Q Using Hardware iSCSI Initiators with ESX/ESXi hosts allows which tasks to be offloaded from the Vmkernel ?

Answer: 1> Encapsulation of I/O requests into iSCSI Protocol Data Units (PDUs)

                2> Encapsulation of iSCSI PDUs into TCP/IP packets

Q An ESX Host gains exclusive access to Virtual Machines created on NFS datastores using:

Answer: A special .lck-XXX lock file

Q What is the default port used by iSCSI in a VMware vSphere environment?

A 3260

Q What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to fix it ?
Answer: 1> If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN’s, then the snapshot failed. If it is mapped as virtual then we can take a snapshot of it.

2> If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN’s as physical, you need to remove it to take a snapshot.

Q What is the maximum configurable number of NFS datastores that can be mounted to an ESX/ESXi 4 Host?

A 64

Q How many service console ports can be created in ESX ?

A 16

Q What is the maximum number of suported paths allowed in ESX/ESxi ?

A: 1024

Q Maximum number of LUNs that can be attached to a host (ESXi 5.0)

Answer: 256

Q Maximum number of vCPUs that can be assigned to a VM (ESXi 5.0)

Answer: 32

Q What is the maximum number of hosts per HA cluster?

Answer: Maximum number of hosts in the HA cluster is 32

Q What is maximum number of primary HA hosts in vSphere 4.1?

A Maximum number of primary HA host is 5. VMware HA cluster chooses the first 5 hosts that joins the cluster as primary nodes and all others hosts are automatically selected as secondary nodes

Q What is the maximum number of cores that can be used with Standard licensing?

Answer: 6

Q Additional licensing is required once the number of cores per CPU reaches

Answer: 8 or more cores

Q In vSphere, a bound physical NIC can be configured to transmit and receive Jumbo Frames. What is the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) for Jumbo Frames in vSphere?

Answer: 9000

Q What features can be used in combination with Network Attached Storage ?

Answer: 1> VMware HA

2> Virtual Machine Snapshots

3> Storage Vmotion

Q Which vSphere Editions include VMware Data Recovery ?

A VMware Data Recovery is available in Essentials Plus for Retail, Advanced, Enterprise & Enterprise Plus

Q Before you upgrade an ESXi host?

Answer: 1> Back up the host configuration before you begin a host upgrade: save the ESXi configuration using vicf g-cfgbackp s from the vCLI.

2> Verify current hardware is supported per the vSphere Systems Compatibility Guide.

3> Compare the md5sum of the downloaded file to the value on the VMware download website.

4> Run the VMware CPU Identification Utility

Q On ESX/ESXi hosts, VMware HA needs and automatically opens the following firewall ports.
Answer: Incoming port: TCP/UDP 8042-8045
Outgoing port: TCP/UDP 2050-2250

Q When you delete a VMFS datastore, it is destroyed and disappears from:

Answer: All hosts with connectivity to the datastore

Q The Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) is used with iSCSI on an ESX Server to provide :

Answer: Initiator authentication

Q Valid software iSCSI initiator in ESX 3 ?

Answer: vmhba32

Q Which two discovery options does the vSphere Client offer when setting up the iSCSI initiator?

Answer: Static & Dynamic

Q What is the default number of ports configured with the Virtual Switch?

Answer: When the time of Virtual switch created, Vswitch is created with 56 ports by default. We can extend the no of ports by editing the vswitch properties

Q Which functions cannot be performed remotely and must be performed from the ESXi Direct Console ?

Answer: 1> Restart Management Agent

2> Test the Management Network

3> Restore a Standard Switch

Q An administrator is unable to connect a vSphere client to an Esxi host. Which of the following options can be selected from Direct Console to restore connectivity without distrupting running virtual Machnies ?

A> Restore the Standard switch

B> Restart the Management Network

C> Restart Management Agent

D> Delete the Management Network

Ans: Restart Management Agent

Q What are the security options available for ESX vswitch?

Answer: Promiscuous Mode – Reject
MAC Address changes – Accept
Forged Transmits – Accept