VMware is the leader in Virtualization and Cloud Computing technologies and also providing solutions in the

field of network and desktop virtualization. VMware has changed the tech world from physical to software
based virtual world.

Due to implementation of virtual environment to consolidate the available hardware, the demands of subject
matter experts are increasing day by day in the market. To manage and maintain organization’s business, an
experience workforce is required, and to choose the top talent from the market for growing an organization’s
business, professionals are selected via many technical interviews and HR processes.

Along with the HR processes, technical interviews are also conducted to assess the abilities of a professional in
the field of virtualization for continues business process. Here are 80 interview questions on data center
virtualization technology fresher and up to 3 years of hands-on experience that may be asked to assess the
candidate’s technical and hands-on expertise.

These interview questions are categorized into following technical areas:

 Hypervisor
 Fault Tolerance (FT)
 Virtual Networking
 vCenter Server
 Virtual Storage (Datastore)
 What’s New in vSphere 6.0
 Content Libraries
 vSAN
 vApp and
 Miscellaneous

Hypervisor
1. What is VMKernel and why it is important?

VMkernel is a virtualization interface between a Virtual Machine and the ESXi host which stores VMs. It is
responsible to allocate all available resources of ESXi host to VMs such as memory, CPU, storage etc. It’s also
control special services such as vMotion, Fault tolerance, NFS, traffic management and iSCSI. To access these
services, VMkernel port can be configured on ESXi server using a standard or distributed vSwitch. Without
VMkernel, hosted VMs cannot communicate with ESXi server.

2. What is hypervisor and its types?

Hypervisor is a virtualization layer that enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware
host. Each operating system or VM is allocated physical resources such as memory, CPU, storage etc by the
host. There are two types of hypervisors

 Hosted hypervisor (works as application i-e VMware Workstation)

 Bare-metal (is virtualization software i-e VMvisor, hyper-V which is installed directly onto the hardware
and controls all physical resources).

3. What is Virtualization?
The process of creating virtual versions of physical components i-e Servers, Storage Devices, Network Devices
on a physical host is called virtualization. Virtualization lets you run multiple virtual machines on a single
physical machine which is called ESXi host.

4. What are different types of virtualization?

There are 5 basic types of virtualization

 Server virtualization: consolidates the physical server and multiple OS can be run on a single server.
 Network Virtualization: Provides complete reproduction of physical network into a software defined
network.
 Storage Virtualization: Provides an abstraction layer for physical storage resources to manage and
optimize in virtual deployment.
 Application Virtualization: increased mobility of applications and allows migration of VMs from host
on another with minimal downtime.
 Desktop Virtualization: virtualize desktop to reduce cost and increase service

Fault Tolerance (FT)

5. What is VMware FT?

FT stands for Fault Tolerance very prominent component of VMware vSphere. It provides continuous
availability for VMs when an ESXi host fails. It supports up to 4 vCPUs and 64 GB memory. FT is very
bandwidth intensive and 10GB NIC is recommended to configure it. It creates complete copy of an entire VM
such as storage, compute, and memory.

6. How many vCPUs can be used for a VM in FT?

In vSphere 6.0, there can be up to 4 vCPUs and 64 GB RAM can be used.

7. What is the name of the technology used by VMware FT?

vLockstep technology is used by VMware FT

8. What is Fault Tolerant Logging?

The communication between two ESXi host is called FT logging when FT is configured between them. The
pre-requisition of configuring FT is to configure VMKernel port.

9. Will the FT work if vCenter Server goes down?

vCenter server is only required to enable Fault Tolerance on a VM. Once it is configured, vCenter is not
required to be in online for FT to work. FT failover between primary and secondary will occur even if
the vCenter is down.
10. What is main difference between VMware HA and FT?

Main difference between VMware HA and FT is: HA is enabled per cluster and VMware FT is enabled per
VM. In HA, VMs will be re-started and powered-on on another host in case of host failure, while in FT there is
no downtime, because second copy will be activated in case of host failure.

Virtual Networking
 11. What is virtual networking?

A network of VMs running on a physical server that are connected logically with each other is called virtual
networking.

12. What is vSS?

vSS stands for Virtual Standard Switch is responsible for communication of VMs hosted on a single physical
host. it works like a physical switch automatically detects a VM which want to communicate with other VM on
a same physical server.

13. What is vDS?

vDS stands for Virtual Distributed Switch acts as a single switch in whole virtual environment and is
responsible to provide central provisioning, administration, and monitoring of virtual network.

14. How many maximum standard ports per host available?

4096 ports per host are available either in standard switch or distributed switch.

15. What are main benefits of distributed switch (vDS)?

vDS can provide:

 Central administration for a data center

 Central provision, and
 Monitoring

16. What is VMKernal adapter and why it used?

VMKernel adapter provides network connectivity to the ESXi host to handle network traffic for vMotion, IP
Storage, NAS, Fault Tolerance, and vSAN. For each type of traffic such as vMotion, vSAN etc. separate
VMKernal adapter should be created and configured.

17. What are main use of port groups in data center virtualization?

You can segregate the network traffic by using port groups such as vMotion, FT, management traffic etc.

18. What are three port groups are configured in ESXi networking?

 Virtual Machine Port Group – Used for Virtual Machine Network

 Service Console Port Group – Used for Service Console Communications
 VMKernel Port Group – Used for VMotion, iSCSI, NFS Communications

19. What is VLAN and why use in virtual networking?

A logical configuration on the switch port to segment the IP Traffic where each segment cannot communicate
with other segment without proper rules mentioned is called VLAN and every VLAN has a proper number
called VLAN ID.

20. What is VLAN Tagging?

The practice of inserting VLAN ID into a packet header to identify which VLAN packet belongs to is called
VLAN tagging.

21. What are three network security policies/modes on vSwitch?

 Promiscuous mode
 MAC address change
 Forged transmits

22. What is promiscuous mode on vSwitch?

The default mode is Reject. If Accept is selected, VM will receive all traffic port group via vSwitch.

23. What is MAC address changes network policy?

The default mode of this policy is Reject. If the Accept is selected, host will accept requests to change the
effective MAC address.

24. What is Forged transmits network policy?

The default mode is Reject. If Accept is selected, host will not compare the source and effective MAC address
transmitted from a VM.

vCenter Server
25. What are main components of vCenter Server architecture?

There are three main components of vCenter Server architecture.

 vSphere Client and Web Client: a user interface.

 vCenter Server database: SQL server or embedded PostgreSQL to store inventory, security roles,
resource pools etc.
 SSO: a security domain in virtual environment

26. What is PSC and its components?

PSC stands for Platform Services Controller first introduced in version 6 of VMware vSphere which handles
infrastructure security functions. It has three main components.

 Single Sign-On (SSO)

 VMware Certificate Authority (CA)
 Licensing service

27. What are two main deploying methods of PSC

You can install PSC in two ways:

 Embedded
 centralized

28. What are different types of vCenter Server deployment?

It has two deployment types

 Embedded deployment
 External deployment

29. What is vRealize Operation (vROP)

vROP provides the operation dashboards for performance analytics, capacity optimization and monitoring the
virtual environment.

30. What is the basic security step to secure vCenter Server and users?

Authenticate vCenter Server with Active Directory. By using this we can assign specific roles to users and can
also manage virtual environment in an efficient way.

Virtual Storage (Datastore)

31. What is datastore?

Datastore is a storage location where virtual machine files are stored and accessed. Datastore is based on a file
system which is called VMFS, NFS.

32. What is the .vmx file?

It is the configuration file of a VM

33. What information .nvram file stores?

It stores BIOS related information of a VM.

34. What .vmdk file does and used?

Vmdk is a VM disk file and stores data of a VM. It can be up to 62 TB in size in vSphere 6.0 version.

35. How many disk types are in VMware?

There are three disk types in vSphere.

1. Thick Provisioned Lazy Zeroes: every virtual disk is created by default in this disk format. Physical
space is allocated to a VM when virtual disk is created. It can’t be converted to thin disk.
2. Thick Provision Eager Zeroes: this disk type is used in VMware Fault Tolerance. All required disk space
is allocated to a VM at time of creation. It takes more time to create a virtual disk compare to other disk
formats.
3. Thin provision: It provides on-demand allocation of disk space to a VM. When data size grows, the size
of disk will grow. Storage capacity utilization can be up to 100% with thin provisioning.
4. What is Storage vMotion?

It is similar to traditional vMotion, in Storage vMotion, virtual disk of a VM is moved from datastore to
another. During Storage vMotion, virtual disk types think provisioning disk can be transformed to thin
provisioned disk.
What’s New in vSphere 6.0
36. What is VM Hardware version for vSphere 6.0?

Version 11

37. What VM hardware version for vSphere 6.5?

Version 13

38. In which version of vSphere PSC was introduce?

Platform Services Controller (PSC) is introduced in vSphere 6.0. vSphere 6.0 is also known as Virtual hardware
version 11.

39. How many maximum hosts can manage a vCenter Server in vSphere 6.0?

In vSphere 6.0, a single vCenter Server can manage up to 1000 hosts either in Windows or in vCenter
Appliance (vCSA).

40. How many hosts can be managed by a cluster in vSphere 6.0?

A single cluster can manage maximum 64 hosts

41. How maximum VMs can be managed by a single cluster?

A single cluster can manage maximum of 8000 VMs.

42. What is VVol?

Virtual Volume a new VM disk management concept introduced in vSphere 6.0 that enables array-based
operations at the virtual disk level. VVol is automatically created when virtual disk is created in virtual
environment for a VM.

43. How many licensing options for vSphere 6.0?

There are three licensing options for vSphere 6.0:

 Standard Edition: Contains 1 vCenter Server Standard license, up to 2 vCPUs for Fault Tolerance,
vMotion, Storage vMotion, HA, VVols etc.
 Enterprise Edition: Same as Standard Edition additionally APIs for Array Integration and Multipathing,
DRS, and DPM.
 Enterprise Plus: Includes all features of Standard and Enterprise Editions with additionally Fault
Tolerance upto 4 vCPUs and 64GB of RAM. It also includes Distributed vSwitch and the most
expensive licensing option of vSphere 6.0.

44. How much Maximum RAM can support vSphere 6.0?

It supports upto 12TB of RAM.

Content Libraries
45. What is Content Library?

Content Library is the central location point between two different geo-graphical locations with vCenter Servers
where you can store VM templates, ISO images, scripts etc. and share them between geo-graphical locations

46. What are main benefits of content libraries?

We create VM templates and can share on another geo-graphical location of a company without creating again
on other locations. It has many benefits such as sharing and consistency, storage efficiency, and secure
subscription.

47. How many types Content Libraries have?

It has three types:

1. Local: library of local control.

2. Published: local library which contents (VM templates, ISO images etc) for subscription.
3. Subscribed: A library which syncs with the published library
4. What are requirements and limitations of Content Libraries?

A content library has following requirements and limitations

 Single storage which can size upto 64TB

 Maximum 256 items per library
 Sync occurs once every 24 hours

49. What is VMFS?

VMFS is a file system for a VM in VMware vSphere. VMFS is a datastore that responsible for storing virtual
machine files. VMFS can also store large files which size can up to 64TB in vSphere 6.0

VSAN
50. What is vSAN?

Virtual SAN is a software defined storage first introduced in vSphere 5.5 and is fully integrated with vSphere. It
aggregates locally attached storage of ESXi hosts which are part of cluster and creates distributed shared
solution.

51. What is cold migration?

To move a powered-off VM from one host to another is called cold migration.

52. What is Storage vMotion?

To move a powered-on VM from one datastore to another is called Storage vMotion.

53. What are different configuration options for VSAN?

There are two configuration options for vSAN:

 Hybrid: Uses both flash-based and magnetic disks for storage. Flash are used for cashing, while
magnetic disks are used for capacity or storage.
 All-Flash: Uses flash for both caching and for storage

54. Are there VSAN ready nodes are available in the market?

Yes, vSAN-ready such as VxRail 4.0 and 4.5 are available in the market. VxRail is the combination of min 3
servers which are part of a cluster and can scale up to 64 servers.

55. How minimum servers/hosts are required to configure vSAN?

To configure a vSAN, you should have minimum 3 ESXi hosts/servers in the form of a vSAN cluster. If one of
servers fails, vSAN cluster will fail.

56. How many maximum ESXi hosts are allowed for vSAN?

64 hosts are max allowed to configure a vSAN cluster.

57. How many disk groups and max magnetic disks are allowed in single disk group?

Maximum 5 disk groups are allowed on an ESXi host which is a part of vSAN cluster and maximum of 7
magnetic and 1 SSD per disk group is allowed.

58. How many type of storages can we use in our virtual environment?

 Direct Attached Storage

 Fiber Channel (FC)
 iSCSI
 Network Attached Storage (NAS)

59. What is NFS?

Network File System (NFS) is file sharing protocol that ESXi hosts use to communicate with a NAS device.
NAS is a specialized storage device that connects to a network and can provide file access services to ESXi
hosts.

60. What is Raw Device Mapping (RDM)?

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) is a file stored in a VMFS volume that acts as a proxy for a raw physical device.
RDM enables you to store virtual machine data directly on a LUN. RDM is recommended when a VM must
interact with a real disk on the SAN.

61. What is iSCSI storage?

An iSCSI SAN consists of an iSCSI storage system, which contains one or more storage processors. TCP/IP
protocol is used to communicate between host and storage array. iSCSI initiator is configured with the ESXi
host. iSCSI initiator can be a hardware based either dependent or independent and software based known as
iSCSI software initiator.
 62. What is the format of iSCSI addressing?

It uses TCP/IP to configure.

63. What are iSCSI naming conventions?

iSCSI names are formatted in two different ways:

 the iSCSI qualified name (IQN)

 extended unique identifier (EUI)

vApp
64. What is vApp?

vApp is a container or group where more than one VMs can be package and manage multi-tiered applications
for specific requirements for example, Web server, database server, and application server can be configured as
a vApp and can be defined their power-on and power-off sequence.

65. What settings can be configured for vApp?

We can configure several settings for vApp such as CPU and memory allocation, and IP allocation policy etc.

Miscellaneous
66. What is VMware DRS?

DRS stands for Distributed Resource Scheduler; that automatically balances available resources among various
hosts by using cluster or resource pools. With the help of HA, DRS can move VMs from one host to another to
balance the available resources among VMs.

67. What is share, limit, and reservation?

Share: A value that specifies the relative priority or importance of a VM access to given resource.

Limit: Consumption of a CPU cycle or host physical memory that cannot cross the defined value (limit).

Reservation: This value defines in the form of CPU or memory and must be available for a VM to start.

68. What are alarms why we use them?

An alarm is a notification which appears when an event occurs. Many default alarms exist for many inventory
objects. Alarms can be created and modified using vSphere Web Client;

69. What are the hot pluggable devices which can be added while VM is running?

We can add HDDs and NIC while VM is running.

70. What is a Template?

Whan a VM is converted into a format which can be used to create a VM with pre-defined settings is called a
template. An installed VM can be converted into a template but it cannot be powered-on.

71. What is Snapshot?

To create a copy of a VM with the time stamp as a restore point is called a snapshot. Snapshots are taken when
an upgrade or software installation is required. For better performance, a snapshot should be removed after
particular task is performed.

72. How to convert a physical machine into a VM?

Three steps are required to convert a physical machine to a 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

73. What is vMotion and what is the main purpose to use it in virtual environment?

It is very prominent feature of VMware vSphere used to live migrate running VMs from one ESXi host to
another without any downtime. Datastores and ESXi hosts both can be used while vMotion.

74. What is difference between clone and template?

A clone is a copy of a virtual machine. By cloning a VM, it will save time if multiple VMs with same
configurations are required to configure. While a template is a master copy of an image created from a VM
which can be later used to create many clones. After converting a VM to a template, it can’t be powered-on or
edited.

75. What monitoring method is used in vSphere HA?

 Network Hearbeat
 Datastore Heartbeat

76. How master host is elected in vSphere HA?

When HA is enabled in a cluster, all hosts take part in selection process to be selected as a master host. A host
which has highest number of datastores mounted, will be selected as a master host. All other hosts will remain
slave hosts.

77. What is the purpose of VMware Tools?

It is a suite of utilities which are used to enhance performance of a VM in the form of graphics, mouse/keyboard
movement, network card and other peripheral devices.

78. What is VMware DPM?

Stands for Distributed Power Management is a feature of VMware DRS is used to monitor required resources in
a cluster. When the resources are decreases due to low usage, VMware DPM consolidates workloads and shut
down the hosts which are not being used, and when resources are increased it automatically power on the un-
used hosts.
 79. What is ESXi Shell?

It is a command-line interface is used to run repair and diagnostics of ESXi hosts. It can be accessed via DCUI,
vCenter Server enable/disable, and via SSH.

80. How to run ESXTOP on ESXi host?

To run ESXTOP on an ESXi host, we’ll need two pre-requisites:

 Install vSphere Client on a host where you want to configure

 Enable SSH from DCUI by using “Troubleshooting Options” link

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post. Thanks for reading! Be social and share it to social media if you feel
worth sharing it.

Question: Is Jungle Book Movie helped you to recollect your Sunday childhood memories? (Indian kids loved
it in the year 1993)

Hint: Interviewer wants to check your memory power

Answer:

Wait wait … this is suppose to be VMware question but Interviewer asked you Jungle Book question

Let’s switch to Original VMware question

Question: As part of Data Center Network devices upgrade/change – someone changed vCenter IP Address.
How do you tackle this Scenario as a VMware Administrator? What is the Technical plan that you will follow
for this Change Record? (ITIL Process)

Answer:

Hint: Interviewer looking at your Technical direction/plan along with ITIL Chanage management procedures

We may think that changing IP Address is easy job like going to vCenter VM Console (most of the cases)
[OR] Remote console for Physical servers and modify the Network Adapter Settings. But what happens to your
ESXi servers, NSX VM’s and Update Manager?? will they communicate to your vCenter server with new IP
directly without any modification? Here is the detailed Technical Plan to answer this question.

 Create backups of the vCenter Server & underlying SQL database for Backup Plan
  Set DRS to manual mode to avoid anything moving around

 Identify the ESXi host running the vCenter VM and connected directly to the host with the vSphere
Client – Do not forget your vCenter going to disconnect and you can’t manage it anymore via vSphere
client

 Close any sessions you have open to the vCenter Server (Web Client, vSphere Client sessions

 Open a console window to the vCenter Server by way of the ESXi host.

 Stop all VMware related services

 Change the IPv4 address and IPv4 gateway as per new Networking configuration

 Put DRS back to fully automated (optional based on your setup)

 Uninstall Update Manager software from the VM (Some times it’s installed other than vCenter)

 Install Update Manager and point it new vCenter Server IP Address

NOTE: There is easy method to update vCenter IP Address at Update Manager via command line (we
will discuss it in future posts)

 Update the vCenter Managed IP Address with below procedure

 NSX requires your attention as vCenter re-registration is complex procedure – leave this for Network
Specialists to provide technical plan

 Disconnect host from vCenter to flush out the database entry

 Reconnect to the ESXi host to use new vCenter IP Address for communication and agents Installation

Finally I tried to bring most of the related items for vCenter IP Address change from my Experience and
knowledge but do not treat this as final Technical Plan. You need to refer your Infrastructure for better planning
Change Records (CR’s) as per ITIL Procedure.

I hope this post is helpful. Thanks for Reading. Be Social and Share it in Social media, if you feel worth sharing
it.
VMware Interview Question No.3
by govmlab | Aug 12, 2016 | Virtual_Networking | 0 comments

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Rate this (20 Votes)

Brief explanation of Above mentioned Scenario-1:

 There are 5 VMs running on vSphere Standard Switch of ESXi Host.

  Each VM is having single vNIC mapped to one of the vPort of vSS. These vNICs are E1000 type vNICs.
 There are 5 Uplink assigned to vSS.
 Out of 5 Uplinks, 3 Uplinks are Active Adapters and 2 are Standby Adapters. All these Uplinks are 1000mbps
card.
 Teaming policy selected by vSphere Admin is “Port ID Based Teaming Policy.”

In case if vPorts mentioned in Diagram are not visible properly then please find vport details below:

 VM1 -> vPort -> 183330

 VM2 -> vPort -> 183631
 VM3 -> vPort -> 183692
 VM4 -> vPort -> 183699
 VM5 -> vPort -> 1836101
Brief explanation of Above mentioned Scenario-2:

 There are 5 VMs running on vSphere Standard Switch of ESXi Host.

 Each VM is having single vNIC mapped to one of the vPort of vSS. These vNICs are E1000 type vNICs.
 There are 5 Uplink assigned to vSS.
 All the 5 Uplinks are Active Adapters. All these Uplinks are 1000mbps card.
 Teaming policy selected by vSphere Admin is “Port ID Based Teaming Policy.”

In case if vPorts mentioned in Diagram are not visible properly then please find vport details below:

 VM1 -> vPort -> 183330

 VM2 -> vPort -> 183635
 VM3 -> vPort -> 183690
 VM4 -> vPort -> 1836115
 VM5 -> vPort -> 183720

The question here is

Will there be any impact in VM performance in both of the scenarios? Which scenario will perform better & why?

Answer :
VMs running on Scenario-1 will perform better than VMs running on Scenario-2.

Explanation of this Answer:

To understand the answer of this question, we need to first understand what is Port ID based teaming
Policy and How it works?

“Route Based on Originating Virtual PortID” is one of the VMware NIC-Teaming mechanism used for
bandwidth Aggregation and Network Redundancy in case of Uplink Failure.

Every VM and VMkernel port on a vSwitch is connected to a Virtual Port. Whenever vSwitch receives any
network traffic from either of these entity, it assigns Virtual port to one of the uplinks in NIC Team and forward
the traffic on Wire.

In PortID based Algorithm, Assigning vPORT to Uplink Port is done based on the Hash of PortID and Active
Adapters available in the NIC-team. VMkernel doesn’t consider Standby Adapters while calculating HASH
because no network traffic is sent on standby adapter if all the active adapters in team are alive.

Formula of calculating HASH is = Modulus (vPORT / No of Active Adapters)

– Value of Modulus refers to Uplink port in a team which would be mapped to that specific vPORT
Traffic.
So Let’s Understand Scenario-1

As explained above, We have 3 Active Adapters and 2 Standby Adapters in a Team. Hash Calculation will
only be considering 3 Adapters. Standby Adapters will be not included in Hash calculation.

VM1 -> vPort -> 183330

 183330 mod 3 = 0 which means traffic will be sent to vmnic0

VM2 -> vPort -> 183631

 183631 mod 3 = 1 which means traffic will be sent to vmnic1

VM3 -> vPort -> 183692

 183631 mod 3 = 2 which means traffic will be sent to vmnic2

VM4 ->vPort -> 183699

 183699 mod 3 = 0 which means traffic will be sent to vmnic0

VM5 -> vPort -> 1836101

 1836101 mod 3 =2 which means traffic will be sent to vmnic2

CONCLUSION:

All the VM traffic is distributed across all the Active Uplinks available in Team so Total bandwidth
available for VM Traffic is 3GB

Now Let’s Understand Scenario-2

As explained above, We have 5 Active Adapters in a team so all the 5 Uplinks will be considered during
HASH Calculation.
VM1 -> vPort ->18330

 183330 mod 5 = 0 which means traffic will sent to vmnic0

VM2 -> vPort -> 183635

 183635 mod 5 = 0 which means traffic will sent to vmnic0

VM3 -> vPort -> 183690

 183690 mod 5 = 0 which means traffic will sent to vmnic0

VM4 ->vPort -> 1836115

 1836115 mod 5 = 0 which means traffic will sent to vmnic0

VM5 -> vPort -> 183720

 1836115 mod 5 = 0 which means traffic will sent to vmnic0

CONCLUSION:

Even if we have 5 Uplinks in Team, VM traffic is forwarded to Only vmnic0. Other 4 uplinks in team are
still sitting idle and VM is only able to consume 1G Bandwidth even though Total bandwidth of 5GB is
available in Team.

As most of you said, Scenario-2 is better but I think now you would have got clarity on why scenario-1 would
perform better in this case.

VMware Interview Question No.2

by govmlab | Jun 18, 2016 | Virtual Machines, VMwareInterviewQ&A | 0 comments

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Rate this (12 Votes)

Brief explanation of Above mentioned Scenario:

There are 3 ESXi Host having different CPU configuration as mentioned in above diagram.

There is CPU intensive VM running on host executing CPU workload which triggers 4 Independent
Processes with IPC (inter process communication) disabled.

VM configuration is already mentioned in above Diagram.

The question here is

Out of these 3 Scenarios, in which Scenarios VM will perform better and gives Best performance & most importantly WHY?

1. VM running on Host3 will perform better because VM vCPU Topology is exact identical to Physical CPU
Topology.
2. VM running on Host2 will perform better due to more no of cores assigned to single Sockets at VM level.
3. VM running on Host-1 will perform better due to more no of physical cores assigned to single socket at Host
level.
 4. None of the above.

Answer : None of the Above

Explanation of it:

Let’s analyze each Option:

Option1:VM running on Host3 will perform better because VM vCPU topology is exact identical to
Physical CPU Topology

Answer: This answer is incorrect

Explanation:

vCPU allocation at VM level has nothing to do with Physical CPU Topology of ESXi Host.
Virtual Socket & Virtual Core at VM level gets translate into no of vCPUs which gets schedules on
Physcial Cores by VMkernel CPU scheduler.Having Identical Toplogy doesn’t increase VM
performance.

Option2: VM running on Host2 will perform better due to more no of core assigned to single socket at
VM
level

Answer: This Answer is also Incorrect

Explanation:

Assigning more no of cores to single socket at VM level doesn’t make any difference in VM
performance due to abstraction layer. It only make sense when Guest OS have socket limitations.

Option3: VM running on Host1 will perform better due to more no of physical cores assigned to single
Socket at Host level

Answer: This Answer is also Incorrect

Explanation:

Since all the processes are independent to each other so sharing memory between process
doesn’t make sense in this scenario. That’s the reason, having more no of cores associated with single
socket at Host level doesn’t improvise VM performance in this specific scenario.

Option4: None of the Above

Answer: This Answer is correct.

Explanation:

All the 4 Processes triggered from CPU intensive application are independent of each
Other which means no memory sharing between processes. So NUMA optimization or concept of
Memory
locality doesn’t get apply in this specific scenario.

From VMkernel perspective, there are four independent process which requires Core for execution. If
VMkernel could find 4 dedicated cores then it will schedule each process on its dedicated core
irrespective of no of socket*no of core combination at VM and Host level.

In Conclusion, In all the three scenarios, VM will perform equally.

VMware Interview Question No.1

by govmlab | May 26, 2016 | Virtual_Networking, VMwareInterviewQ&A | 0 comments

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Brief explanation of Above mentioned Scenario:

There are three VMs connected to vSwitch.

VM1 Mac Adress is AA
VM2 Mac Address is BB
VM3 Mac Address is CC

vmnic0 is uplink connected to Physical Switch Port ( Let’s say 0/1).

This Uplink Mac Address is XX.

The question here is

How Physical Switch will be processing VMs Packets coming from vSwitch and goes on Wire.

1. Physical Switch will be masking all VMs MAC address with Uplink Mac Address(XX) ( similar to NAT
implementation)
 2. Virtual Switch will be masking all outgoing VMs MAC address with Uplink Mac Address
3. Physical Switch Will be learning VMs MAC address and updating MAC table with only VMs MAC address.
4. Physical Switch will having both VM MAC address and Uplink Mac Address in its MAC table

ANSWER:

3) Physical Switch Will be learning VMs MAC address and updating MAC table with only VMs MAC
address.

EXPLANATION:

In Physical Networking, Ethernet Frames coming from Host will be encapsulated with MAC address of
NIC Cards installed on Physical Host. When Switch receives frame on its switch port to which NIC card
was connected, then it updates its MAC table with Source NIC MAC address along with Port details
from which this frame was received.

In Virtual Networking, There is no significance of Physical NIC Cards (Uplinks) MAC address installed
on ESXi Host.
Reason Being, VMkernel configure every Uplink port connected to vSwitch in Promiscous Mode. Once
Uplink is configured in Promiscous Mode then its becomes like a PASS-THROUGH Device which
forwards all the frames coming from virtual machine to Physical Switch port directly without any
modification.

Since, Virtual Machines Frames are not masked by Uplink Port MAC address due to its PASS-
THROUGH Behavior, Physical Switch receives frame as its directly talking to Virtual Machines.
That’s the reason, Physical Switch Learns VM Mac address and Mapped it to respective Port in its MAC
table.

Issue

While performing vMotion, the operation fails at 14% with the below error :

A general system error occurred: Migrtion to host failed with erro Connection closed by remote host, possibly due to timeout
(0xbad003f).

Migrate virtual machine:A general system error occurred: Migration to host failed with error Connection closed by remote
host, possibly due to timeout (0xbad003f).

vMotion migration [-1062729272:1406020861428172] (19-71629048648008) failed to receive...

Scenarios

Scenario 1: Your management network and vmotion network are in the same subnet using the same physical NIC.

Consider the case, where the management network and vmotion network are in the same subnet and you have assigned a VLAN
id to the vMotion network, the operation fails at 14%.

My first point will be to avoid using same IP subnet for both management and vmotion networks. Because if you use the same
subnet, all the vmotion traffic will be forwarded to the physical NIC connected to the management network. This is because, by
default all traffic from vmkernel portgroups from the same subnet will be forwarded to the first NIC configured in the ESXi for
that IP subnet. Obviously this will be the management network.

And if you still stick to the plan of using same subnet, please make sure that you have not assigned any VLAN id to the vMotion
portgroup.

What happens when we assign a VLAN to the vMotion portgroup ? vMotion vmknic will try to communicate with the default
gateway and since the default gateway is not tagged with the VLAN id you choose for vMotion, the operation fails.

Scenario 2: Your management network and vmotion network are in the same subnet using different physical NIC (may be
using different vswitches as well).

The comments in the above scenario applies to this scenario also. It doesn't matter if you have created a new vSwitch or a new
portgroup or a dedicated physical NIC for the vmotion network, if your management network is in the same subnet, do not
assign a VLAN id to the portgroup.

Scenario 3: Your management network and vmotion network in different subnet.

In this case you need to check the physical switch configuration.

2. How to extend a logical volume in Windows 2003 hosted in VMware ?

Scenario

You have a single vmdk file of 200 GB and it has two logical volumes C & D with 100 GB each. Suppose you need to add
another 100 GB to the D drive making it 200 GB. What would you do ?

The steps are simple and straight forward.

 Change the VMDK size using vSphere client to 300 GB (Exisiting 200 GB + required space).

 Log in to the VM and ensure that the added disk space is available to the VM as 'Unallocated' space
 Execute the below commands in command prompt
o diskpart
o list volume
o select volume
o extend
3. CentOS Network interface is not detecting after VMware clone ?

Symptom:

Eth0 interface will not be present for a Centos VM after cloning. Only the loopback networking interface will be available. If
you try to turn up the interface manually (using the command ifup eth0 or ifup-eth0), you will receive the below error.

Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialisation

Root Cause:

When you clone a Centos VM from a template, a new NIC card will be created for the cloned VM. In other terms, a new MAC
address will be generated for the NIC of the cloned machine. This change happens only in VMware perspective and no
modification is made in Centos. Therefore the kernel will be still searching for the NIC with old MAC address and hence fails.

Resolution:

1. Update the exisiting ethernet configuration file to reflect the new MAC address.

Check the new MAC address using vSphere client and modify the ifcfg-eth0 interface configuration using the command:

vi /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth0

Replace HWADDR with the new MAC address

2. Remove the kernel's networking interface rules file

rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

3. Reboot the VM

4.SQL servers hosted in VMs are facing performance degradation. How to confirm whether it is a SQL related
issue or VMware related issue ?