VCP Exam questions 2016
Robert's inspiration database of questions for the exam 2016
Contents |
Rob's thinking
I will be very much inspired by these questions when writing the multiple choice portion of the exam.
Be aware (beware):
- The phrasing of the questions might change
- The selectable answers might change completely
- Some questions are forever (?) missing the image (exhibit)
- Q1 to Q1 are checked for missing image, the rest of the questions does not even have a hint that the picture is missing (:-(
HINT: Learn the area the questions is about;
not just string-matching of right answer to right question
i1 to i60 (interview Questions)
INTERVIEW 1 1 What is a hypervisor?
Hypervisor is the central component that runs on the main Windows machine that handles VMware instances. You can spin up new virtual machines from Hypervisor. There are 2 types of hypervisors type1 and type2.
Type1 is a native or bare-metal hypervisors. These hypervisors run directly on the hosts hardware to control the hardware and to manage guest operating systems.
Type2 is hosted hypervisors. These hypervisors run on a conventional operating system just as any other computer program do.
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2 Bad question --- deleted
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3. What should you do when installing a new anti-virus or security function on the host?
You place a host in maintenance mode when you need to service it, for example, to install more memory. A host enters or leaves maintenance mode only as the result of a user request.
Virtual machines that are running on a host entering maintenance mode need to be migrated to another host (either manually or automatically by DRS) or shut down. The host is in a state of Entering Maintenance Mode until all running virtual machines are powered down or migrated to different hosts. You cannot power on virtual machines or migrate virtual machines to a host entering maintenance mode.
When no more running virtual machines are on the host, the host’s icon changes to include under maintenance and the host’s Summary panel indicates the new state. While in maintenance mode, the host does not allow you to deploy or power on a virtual machine. Note
DRS does not recommend (or perform, in fully automated mode) any virtual machine migrations off of a host entering maintenance or standby mode if the vSphere HA failover level would be violated after the host enters the requested mode.
VMware vSphere 6.0 Documentation Center
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4. How do you know when to install more vSphere hosts?
VMware crews use several monitoring tools to monitor performance on the main VMware hosts. When CPU and memory resources are spiking and causing performance issues, it’s time to add more hosts to your network environment.
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5. How many VMs and hosts have you managed in the last three years? Answer this question honestly. This question is used to judge your experience. Not all employers are looking for someone with years of experience but rather a good personality and ability to learn the environment quickly.
--- 6. How much knowledge do you have with other cloud hosting services? List other services as google, amazon, azure(?) and maybe list some pro and cons
--- 7. What type of scripting have you heard about?
You can run the sample Perl scripts as is. You can also use the scripts as the starting point for writing your own Perl scripts to obtain CIM data from the server. If you accepted the defaults during vSphere SDK for Perl installation, the samples are in the following location on a Windows system: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI CLI\Perl\samples\WSMan When you run the samples, you must specify connection options. See vSphere SDK for Perl Common Options. For example, you can specify connection options on the command line as follows: perl <scriptname.pl> --server <servername> --username <username> --password <password> For example: perl firmwarerevisions.pl --server my.FQDN.esx35server.com --username root --password root_pass If --server is not specified, it defaults to localhost. If you are connecting to a remote host and do not specify a user name and password, you are prompted. The CIMOM service listens for requests on port 80.
Introduction to VMware vSphere PowerCLI
VMware vSphere PowerCLI contains modules and snap-ins of cmdlets based on Microsoft PowerShell for automating vSphere, vCloud Director, and vCloud Air administration. It provides C# and PowerShell interfaces to VMware vSphere, vCloud, and vCenter Site Recovery Manager APIs.
vCLI Package Contents
vCLI is not a command set but a package of several command sets. You usually install vCLI on an administration server and run scripts from there against other hosts or, for DCLI, against vCenter Server systems. Some vCLI commands can also be run locally on the ESXi host or the vCenter Server system. When you install the vCLI package, the following command sets become available. ■DCLI Commands. The DCLI commands are new in vSphere 6.0, and are available for managing vCenter services that are new in vSphere 6.0. These commands are available as part of vCLI, from the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance, and from the command-prompt of a vCenter Server Windows installation. ■Host Management Commands. Includes the following command sets. ■ESXCLI commands. The ESXCLI commands included in the vCLI package are equivalent to the ESXCLI commands available in the ESXi Shell. ■vicfg- commands. The vicfg- command set is similar to the deprecated esxcfg- command set in the ESXi Shell. ■Miscellaneous commands. A small set of commands for managing and monitoring ESXi hosts, including vmkfstools and resxtop. In many cases, equivalent but slightly different commands are available in the ESXi Shell
Orchestrator uses JavaScript to create building blocks from which you create actions, workflow elements, and policies that access the APIs of the technologies that you plug into Orchestrator.
Orchestrator uses the Mozilla Rhino 1.7R4 JavaScript engine as its scripting engine. The scripting engine provides variable type checking, name space management, automatic completion, and exception handling.
The Orchestrator workflow engine allows you to use basic JavaScript language features, such as if, loops, arrays, and strings. You can use objects in scripting that the Orchestrator API provides, or objects from any other API that you import into Orchestrator through a plug-in and that you map to JavaScript objects. For information about Rhino, see the Mozilla Rhino Web site.
--- 8. What type of monitoring tools do you use? Explain Operation Manager, vSphere events and monitoring tools in vSphere Web Client --- 9. What is VMware fault tolerance ?
The VMware vSphere is a monitoring system that helps keep VM clients and servers free from down time. It also helps avoid data loss. Zero downtime.
--- 10. What type of technology does VMware fault tolerance (FT) use?
When you enable Fault Tolerance (FT), VMware vLockstep captures inputs and events that occur on a Primary VM and sends them to the Secondary VM, which is running on another host.
https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.security.doc/GUID-F0A494B8-4BCF-472C-9A73-85F9CD02D8F9.html?resultof=%2522%2576%256c%256f%2563%256b%2573%2574%2565%2570%2522%2520 --- 11. System Requirements for ESXi 6.0?
Answer: You should always check the official "VMware hardware requirements" for general requirements and "VMware Compatibility Guide" for the specific server in question.
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
ESXi Hardware Requirements
Make sure the host meets the minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 6.0. Hardware and System Resources
To install or upgrade ESXi 6.0, your hardware and system resources must meet the following requirements: ■
Supported server platform . For a list of supported platforms, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
■
ESXi 6.0 requires a host machine with at least two CPU cores.
■
ESXi 6.0 supports 64-bit x86 processors released after September 2006. This includes a broad range of multi-core processors. For a complete list of supported processors, see the VMware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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ESXi 6.0 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.
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ESXi requires a minimum of 4GB of physical RAM. It is recommended to provide at least 8 GB of RAM to run virtual machines in typical production environments.
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To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on x64 CPUs.
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One or more Gigabit or faster Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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SCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.
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For Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not local. These disks will not be used as a scratch partition by default because they are seen as remote.
https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.install.doc%2FGUID-DEB8086A-306B-4239-BF76-E354679202FC.html --- 12. Your hardware is on the compatibility list and now you need to know what the minimum CPU and memory requirements of an ESXi host when building a 64bit OS that will take full advatage of ESXi features?
2 CPU Cores and 8 GB memory --- 13. Before you start installing software what must be enabled in the server BIOS in order to run ESXi?
The NX/XD bit needs to be anabled --- 14. You’ve done this a hundred times. What are 3 methods that can be used when doing an Interactive ESXi installation?
Answer: Boot from a CD/DVD, boot from a USB, and PXE boot from a deployment server on the network.
15. After so many ESXi builds you have figured out a faster way to do the install using a script. What’s the main difference between an interactive ESXi installation and a scripted installation?
Answer: The interactive install will require you to follow along and fill in the configuration information whereas, in a scripted install, the configuration information will be queried from an unattended text file (boot.cfg). Note: ESXi uses a Kickstart installer similar to Linux.
16. You can install ESXi in your sleep. What is the command to access the installer window on ESXi 6.0?
Answer: At boot time you might need to specify options to access the kickstart file. You can enter boot options by pressing Shift+O in the boot loader.
17. Darn, one of your servers is not loading. What’s the first thing to double-check when having a problem installing ESXi?
Answer: Make sure the hardware clock is set to UTC and the NX/XD bit is enabled in the BIOS.
18. You’ve typed this stuff in a million times. Name 5 of the 10 bits of information required when installing ESXi?
Answer: Keyboard Layout, VLAN ID, IP Address, Subnet Mask, Gateway, Pri DNS, Sec DNS, Host Name, Installation Location, Root Password.
19.
You decided not to run the vCenter appliance. What’s the minimum hardware requirements for a vCenter 5.x server?
Answer: It depends on whether other vSphere services such as single sign-on, inventory service, and the database will be running on the same hardware with vCenter.
20. You’re going to upgrade vCenter and the old vCenter is running on Windows Server 2003. What Windows Operating System is required for vCenter 6?
Answer: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit
21. You’re creating a list of ports you need the network admin to open on the firewall. What is port 902 used for on vCenter?
Answer: Port 902 is the default port vCenter uses to send data to hosts managed by vCenter.
Scroll down to "vCenter 6.0" "902" in https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1012382 and read "
The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902to the vCenter Server system.
This port must not be blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts. "
22. The old vCenter was running MS SQL Express but you are building 10 ESXi hosts. What’s the difference between using MS SQL Server Express and MS SQL Server for vCenter?
Answer: MS SQL Server Express is for vSphere installations with up to 5 ESXi hosts and 50 virtual servers.
23. Your new boss doesn’t like MS SQL and asked you to use Oracle. Does vCenter support Oracle 11g or 12C?
Answer: Yes, but the JDBC driver must be installed manually.
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php#db&2=998
The page https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc%2FGUID-2F1D0E79-52C4-4DC2-AF01-11564207FBE1.html says:
Each vCenter Server instance must have its own database. For environments with up to 20 hosts and 200 virtual machines, you can use the bundled PostgreSQL database that the vCenter Server installer can install and set up for you during the vCenter Server installation. A larger installation requires a supported external database for the size of the environment.
During vCenter Server installation or upgrade, you must select to install the embedded database or point the vCenter Server system to any existing supported database. vCenter Server supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. For information about supported database server versions, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.
Each vCenter Server instance must have its own database. For environments with up to 20 hosts and 200 virtual machines, you can use the bundled PostgreSQL database that the vCenter Server installer can install and set up for you during the vCenter Server installation. A larger installation requires a supported external database for the size of the environment.
During vCenter Server installation or upgrade, you must select to install the embedded database or point the vCenter Server system to any existing supported database. vCenter Server supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases.
24. You’ve learned over the years there’s more to vSphere than server hardware. What other 2 resources are just as important as servers and need to be properly planned out when designing and building a vSphere Cloud?
Answer: Storage and network resources are crucial for all vSphere Clouds.
25. VMware vSphere give you options. What are the 4 typical ways storage can be added to a vSphere?
Answer: Storage can be added via iSCSI, FC, NFS and local disk (including DAS).
26. When setting up a new datastore how many VMFS file systems should be created per LUN?
Answer: The best practice is to only create 1 VMFS file system per LUN.
27. What is the best plan for a storage failure that impacts multiple datastores?
Answer: Always have a backup of the VMs on a separate storage environment that can be used to restore the lost virtual servers.
28. Your host is a beast, dual socket with 8 core CPUs and 192 GB of memory. How many virtual servers can be added to a 1TB datastore?
Answer: It depends on the size of the VMs and the performance of the storage. Higher performing storage can be filled to capacity but space should be left for data growth and snapshots. A datastore should never be allowed to fill up 100%.
29. This is a tough VMware interview question created just for you. Name 4 things that happen on the VMkernel networking layer?
Answer: vMotion, IP storage (iSCSI/NFS), Fault Tolerance and Virtual SAN. Management.
30. What are 2 ways a vSphere admin can separate traffic from distinct environments (ex. Production and test) on the same hosts.
Answer: Either by creating separate vSwitches using dedicated NICs or if NICs are not available by creating separate port groups using different VLAN IDs on the same vSwitch.
31. True or false. A Distributed Virtual Switch is very much like a physical switch that detects which VMs are logically connects to each port and uses that information to forward network traffic. Hint: It is not used for monitoring and administration across a datacenter.
Answer: False. A Distributed Virtual Switch acts as a single switch across all hosts in a datacenter to provide centralized provisioning, administration, and monitoring of virtual networks.
32. Another True or false. NIC teams are “normally” put in active/active mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure.
Answer: False again. NIC teams are normally put in active/standby mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure. You can use active/active but this would not be standard and would require port channeling at the physical switch.
33. How many physical NICs are needed in an ESXi hosts for hosting 25 virtual servers on iSCSI storage split between 2 diverse environments (web/app).
Answer: The answer is purely subjective. It depends on how much separation is needed for performance and the level of redundancy built into the design for hardware failure. At minimum, maybe 2 (1 for (Production-) data and 1 for VMkernel) but more should be used.
3x. Another True or false. NIC teams are “normally” put in active/active mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure.
Answer: False again. NIC teams are normally put in active/standby mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure. You can use active/active but this would not be standard and would require port channeling at the physical switch.
34. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running
In vSphere 6.0 ???
34. What are the files that make a Virtual Machine ?
.vmx - Virtual Machine Configuration File
.nvram - Virtual Machine BIOS
.vmdk - Virtual Machine Disk file
.vswp - Virtual Machine Swap File
.vmsd - Virtual MAchine Snapshot Database
.vmsn - Virtual Machine Snapshot file
.vmss - Virtual Machine Suspended State file
.vmware.log - Current Log File
.vmware-#.log - Old Log file
35. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running
In vSphere 6.0 ???
36. What is a template?
We can convert a VM into Template, and it cannot be powered on once its changed to template. This is used to quick provisioning of VM's.
37. BAD
38. What to do to customize the linux/unix virtual machine clone,?
vCenter itself includes the customization tools, as these operating systems are available as open source.
39. Does cloning from template happens between two datacenters ?
Yes.. it can, if the template in one datacenter, we can deploy the vm from that template in another datacenter without any problem.
40. What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to fix it ?
Explain the diffent types of Raw Device Mapping (RDM) and the implications on snapshots...
41. BAD
42. What are the requirements for Converting a Physical machine to VM ?
- An agent needs to be installed on the Physical machine
- VI client needs to be installed with Converter Plug-in
- A server to import/export virtual machines
Formerly known as P2V (Physical to Virtual)
43. What is (VMware) Data Protection ?
Explain backup
44. BAD
45. How to setup the time delay for BIOS screen for a Virtual Machine (VM) ?
vCenter Server/VirtualCenter
To make these changes using the graphical interface:
- Connect to vCenter Server/VirtualCenter using the VMware Infrastructure/vSphere Client.
- Right-click on the virtual machine you want to edit in the Inventory view.
- Click Edit Settings > Options > Boot Options.
- Set the Power-on Boot Delay or select Force BIOS Setup.
46. BAD
47. BAD
48. What is the command to restart the SSH service in ESXi ?
service sshd restart
49. What is the command to restart the host agent (vmware hostd) on a ESXi server?
service mgmt-vmware restart
50. BAD
51. To start the scripted install the command is
esx ks=nfs:11.22.33.44:/data/KS.config ksdevice=eth0
location device name
52. What are the three port groups present in ESXi server networking?
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
53. What is the use of a Port Group?
The port group segregates the type of communication.
54. Är detta sant ??? In the ESXi licensing features VMotion License is showing as Not used, why?
Even though the license box is selected, it shows as "License Not Used" until, you enable the VMotion option for specific vSwitch
55. How does "the Virtual Machine Port group" communication works ?
- Explain PortGroup -> vSwitch -> Physical NIC communication
- Explain QoS parameters confgured per port-group, etc etc
56. a/ What is a VLAN ?
b/ Does the vSwitches support VLAN Tagging? Why?
a/ A VLAN is a logical configuration on the switch port to segment the IP Traffic. For this to happen, the port must be trunked with the correct VLAN ID.
b/ Yes, The vSwitches support VLAN Tagging, otherwise if the virtual machines in an esx host are connected to different VLANS, we need to install a separate physical nic (vSwitch) for every VLAN. That is the reason vmware included the VLAN tagging for vSwitches. So every vSwitch supports upto 1016 ports,
BTW a vSwitch can support 1016 VLANS if needed, but does an ESXi server support that many VM's ???
57. What is Promiscuous Mode on vSwitch ? What happens if it sets to Accept?
If the promiscuous mode set to Accept, all the communication is visible to all the virtual machines, in other words all the packets are sent to all the ports on vSwitch
58. What is MAC address Changes ? What happens if it is set to Accept ?
When we create a virtual machine the configuration wizard generates a MAC address for that machine, you can see it in the .vmx (VM Config) file. If it doesn't matches with the MAC address in the OS this setting does not allow incoming traffic to the VM. So by setting Reject Option both MAC addresses will be remains same, and the incoming traffic will be allowed to the VM.
Are there other uses of "Mac Address Change"
59. What is Forged Transmits ? What happens if it is set to Accept ?
When we create a virtual machine the configuration wizard generates a MAC address for that machine, you can see it in the .vmx (VM Config) file. If it doesn't matches with the MAC address in the OS this setting does not allow outgoing traffic from the VM. So by setting Reject Option both MAC addresses will be remains same, and the outgoing traffic will be allowed from the VM.
Are there other uses of "Forged Transmits" (Packet generators ??)
60. What are the core services of VC ?
VM provisioning , Task Scheduling and Event Logging
Q1 to Q10
QUESTION 1 An administrator is planning a vSphere infrastructure with the following specific networking requirements: The ability to shape inbound (RX) traffic Support for Private VLANs (PVLANs) Support for LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) What is the minimum vSphere Edition that will support these requirements? A. vSphere Essentials Plus B. vSphere Standard C. vSphere Enterprise D. vSphere Enterprise Plus
ASDASDASDASD
virtual storage
Note: This list of questions may also be used for screening vSphere Engineers or Architects. System Requirements for ESXi
Your company has a bunch of unused server hardware and you have been asked to build a vSphere environment. But before you start you want to make sure it is supported by the ESXi version you plan to install. Where would you find a list of hardware that is supported?
Answer: You would check the VMware Compatibility Guide http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/
Your hardware is on the compatibility list and now you need to know what the minimum CPU and memory requirement of an ESXi host when building a 64bit OS that will take full advantage of ESXi features ?
Answer: 2 CPU Cores and 8 GB memory (bare minimum)
Before you start installing software what must be enabled in the server BIOS in order to run ESXi?
Answer: The NX/XD bit needs to be enabled.
You also have an old pile of network adapters to choose from. Where would you find a list of network adapters (NIC) that are supported by the version of ESXi you are installing?
Answer: You would check the VMware Compatibility Guide (same link as above)
One of the servers you found wasn’t on the list and now you have a problem that is causing ESXi to purple screen so you call VMware for support. What would happen if they found out your hardware was not supported?
Answer: When hardware is not supported there are known issues that will happen and VMware cannot help to resolve problems due to unsupported hardware. Unpacking the ESXi hardware interview questions.
Why are these questions about server hardware important?
Since 2006 I have had the awful job of having to clean up behind admins that would build vCenter and ESX/ESXi on any hardware they found. I’m guilty of it myself!
This is not only a bad practice but it also leads to unplanned maintenance and costly outages that impact users and customers.
ESXi will run on just about any hardware but that doesn’t mean it should.
An experienced vSphere admin will know better than to waste time (and a costly license) trying to run a 64bit OS on a server that doesn’t support it. ESXi Installation Qs
You’ve done this a hundred times. What are 3 methods that can be used when doing an Interactive ESXi installation?
Answer: Boot from a CD/DVD, boot from a USB, and PXE boot from a deployment server on the network.
After so many ESXi builds you have figured out a faster way to do the install using a script. What’s the main difference between an interactive ESXi installation and a scripted installation?
Answer: The interactive install will require you to follow along and fill in the configuration information whereas, in a scripted install, the configuration information will be queried from an unattended text file (boot.cfg). Note: ESXi uses a Kickstart installer similar to Linux.
You can install ESXi in your sleep. What is the command to access the installer window on ESXi 5.5?
Answer: Shift+O will get you to the runweasel command prompt.
Darn, one of your servers is not loading. What’s the first thing to double-check when having a problem installing ESXi?
Answer: Make sure the hardware clock is set to UTC and the NX/XD bit is enabled in the BIOS.
You’ve typed this stuff in a million times. Name 5 of the 10 bits of information required when installing ESXi?
Answer: Keyboard Layout, VLAN ID, IP Address, Subnet Mask, Gateway, Pri DNS, Sec DNS, Host Name, Installation Location, Root Password. Now let’s unpack VMware interview questions about ESXi Installations.
ESXi is actually easy to install and setup; however, problems do arise when there are different admins or teams building out environments that share the same network, storage, and server resources. It is very important to have a standard build process so all hosts are built the same way every time.
Finding a good vSphere admin who can follow your standard, someone who can answer these basic questions, is a good start. System Requirements for vCenter
You decided not to run the vCenter appliance. What’s the minimum hardware requirements for a vCenter 5.x server?
Answer: It depends on whether other vSphere services such as single sign-on, inventory service, and the database will be running on the same hardware with vCenter.
You’re going to upgrade vCenter and the old vCenter is running on Windows Server 2003. What Windows Operating System is required for vCenter 5.x?
Answer: Windows 2008 SP2
You’re creating a list of ports you need the network admin to open on the firewall. What is port 902 used for on vCenter?
Answer: Port 902 is the default port vCenter uses to send data to hosts managed by vCenter.
The old vCenter was running MS SQL Express but you are building 10 ESXi hosts. What’s the difference between using MS SQL Server Express and MS SQL Server for vCenter?
Answer: MS SQL Server Express is for vSphere installations with up to 5 ESXi hosts and 50 virtual servers.
Your new boss doesn’t like MS SQL and asked you to use Oracle. Does vCenter support Oracle 11c or 12c?
Answer: Yes, but the JDBC driver must be installed manually. Let’s review vCenter Interview Questions.
vCenter is at the heart of vSphere and when it’s not properly setup there will be problems!
These problems may be as small as a frustrated admins who can’t access and support virtual servers from a central management console. Or as large as a full-blown outage and corruption of the vCenter database.
For example, if a vSphere clouds grows too fast the additional load on hardware and system resources can cause performance problems that in worst cases can require a complete rebuild of vCenter on bigger hardware. Fortunately, each ESXi host can be managed separately if central management via vCenter is lost.
An experience vSphere admin who can answer these questions will likely know this work-around. Managing vCenter Resources
Before we dive into the final 10 questions I want to stress how important finding a team player that will work closely with storage and network admins really is.
Tip! Pay close attention for any sign that the person you are interviewing does not think he/she owns your vSphere Cloud!
Storage is everything!
You’ve learned over the years there’s more to vSphere than server hardware. What other 2 resources are just as important as servers and need to be properly planned out when designing and building a vSphere Cloud?
Answer: Storage and network resources are crucial for all vSphere Clouds.
VMware vSphere give you options. What are the 4 typical ways storage can be added to a vSphere?
Answer: Storage can be added via iSCSI, FC, NFS and local disk (including DAS).
When setting up a new datastore how many VMFS file systems should be created per LUN?
Answer: The best practice is to only create 1 VMFS file system per LUN.
What is the best plan for a storage failure that impacts multiple datastores?
Answer: Always have a backup of the VMs on a separate storage environment that can be used to restore the lost virtual servers.
Your host is a beast, dual socket with 8 core CPUs and 192 GB of memory. How many virtual servers can be added to a 1TB datastore?
Answer: It depends on the size of the VMs and the performance of the storage. Higher performing storage can be filled to capacity but space should be left for data growth and snapshots. A datastore should never be allowed to fill up 100%. Unpacking these VMware Storage Qs.
Managing storage in a vSphere is an important job that can get a junior vSphere admins in big trouble!
Regardless of the protocol (iSCSI, NFS, FC) it requires a certain skill set which only comes with time and experience. Every new ESXi hosts which is added to vSphere requires someone to know how to balance the workloads across various storage tiers: local disk, SATA, SAS and SSD (depending on the needs of the environments and applications).
Far too many new VMware admins have learned the hard way that “Not all storage is the same” and very quickly a junior admin can cause an outage on a business critical database server simply by vMotioning a VM to a datastore that looks empty.
Networking is everything, too!
This is a tough VMware interview question created just for you. Name 4 things that happen on the VMkernel networking layer?
Answer: vMotion, IP storage (iSCSI/NFS), Fault Tolerance and Virtual SAN.
You have a VCP so this should be an easy interview question. What are 2 ways a vSphere admin can separate traffic from distinct environments (ex. Production and test) on the same hosts.
Answer: Either by creating separate vSwitches using dedicated NICs or if NICs are not available by creating separate port groups using different VLAN IDs on the same vSwitch.
True or false. A Distributed Virtual Switch is very much like a physical switch that detects which VMs are logically connects to each port and uses that information to forward network traffic. Hint: It is not used for monitoring and administration across a datacenter.
Answer: False. A Distributed Virtual Switch acts as a single switch across all hosts in a datacenter to provide centralized provisioning, administration, and monitoring of virtual networks.
Another True or false. NIC teams are “normally” put in active/active mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure.
Answer: False again. NIC teams are normally put in active/standby mode to allow fail-over in the event of a hardware failure. You can use active/active but this would not be standard and would require port channeling at the physical switch.
This is a trick question so think about it! How many physical NICs are needed in an ESXi hosts for hosting 25 virtual servers on iSCSI storage split between 2 diverse environments (web/app).
Answer: The answer is purely subjective. It depends on how much separation is needed for performance and the level of redundancy built into the design for hardware failure. At minimum, maybe 2 (1 for data and 1 for VMkernel) but more should be used.
EXAM VCP-DCV
QUESTION 1 An administrator is creating a new Content Library. It will subscribe to another remote Content Library without authentication enabled. What information from the published library will th ey need in order to complete the subscription? A. Subscription URL B. A security password from the publishing Content Library C. Publisher's Items.json file D. Username from the publishing Content Library QUESTION 2 An administrator is assigning a user the Content Library administrator role. The user will only be creating the library for a single vCenter Server. What is the lowest level of the permission heirarchy that this role can be granted to the user and still allow them to create a Content Library? A. Global B. Datacenter Folder C. Virtual Center D. Datacenter QUESTION 3 A user notifies an administrator that Content Libraries are not visible. What is a possible solution? A. Assign the user the read-only role at the global permission level. B. Assign the user the read-only role at the vCenter Server root level. C. Assign the user the read-only role at the vCenter Server data center level. D. Assign the user the read-only role at the vCenter Server cluster level. QUESTION 4 When a Content Library is deleted, what happens to the files contained on the backing storage? A. The files will be unchanged. B. The files will be deleted. C. The files will remain and be marked as orphaned. D. The containing folder will be marked as orphaned. QUESTION 5 Which three connection types are supported between a remote site and vCloud Air? '''(Choose three.)''' A. Secure Internet Connectivity B. Private Connect C. Direct Connect D. Internet Connectivity E. Secure VPN QUESTION 6 An administrator subscribes to the vCloud Air Disas ter Recovery service. Which replicated objects can be directly monitored and managed? A. Virtual machine Snapshots B. vApps C. Virtual machines D. ESXi Hosts QUESTION 7
Refer to the Exhibit. An administrator is adding an Active Directory over LDAP Identity Source for vCenter Single Sign-On, as indicated in the Exhibit. What is the correct value to configure for the Domain alias? A. The domain's NetBIOS name. B. The fully qualified domain name. C. vsphere.local D. A user defined label. QUESTION 8
Refer to the Exhibit. An administrator is changing the settings on a vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS). During this process, theESXi Management IP address is set to an address which can no longer communicate with the vCenter Server. What is the most likely outcome of this action? A. The host will disconnect from the vCenter Server and remain disconnected. B. The host will automatically detect the communication issue and revert the change. C. The host will stay connected with the change, but show an alert. D. The host will disconnect and migrate the vDS port group to a standard switch. QUESTION 9 Which secondary Private VLAN (PVLAN) type can communicate and send packets to an Isolated PVLAN? A. Community B. Isolated C. Promiscuous D. Primary QUESTION 10 Which three traffic types can be configured for dedicated VMkernel adapters? '''(Choose three.)''' A. Discovery traffic B. vMotion traffic C. vSphere Replication NFC traffic D. Provisioning traffic E. vSphere Custom traffic
