VMWARE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS -NETWORKING

What is Service Console?

The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to manage the
VMKernel
What are the basic commands to troubleshoot connectivity between vSphere Client /vCenter to ESX
server?
VMWare Kernel is a Proprietary kernel of vmwareand is not based on any of the flavors of Linux operating
systems, .VMkernel requires an operating system to boot and manage the kernel. A service console is being
provided when VMWare kernel is booted. Only service console is based up on Red hat Linux OS not VMkernel.
What is the use of Service Console port ?
Service console port group required to manage the ESX server and it acts as the management network for the
ESX.Vcenter/Vsphere Client uses the service console IP's to communicate with the ESX server.
What is the use of VMKernel Port ?
Vmkernel port is used by ESX/ESXi for vmotion, ISCSI & NFS communications. ESXi uses Vmkernel as the
management network since it don't have service console built with it.
What is the use of Virtual Machine Port Group?
Virtual Machine port group is used by Virtual machine communication.
How Virtual Machine communicates to another servers in Network ?
All the Virtual Machines which are configured in VM Port Group are able to connect to the other machines on
the network. So this port group enables communication between vSwitch and Physical Switch by the use of
uplink (Physical NIC) associated with the port group.
What is the default number of ports configured with the Virtual Switch?
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.
What are the different types of Partitions in ESX server?
/ -root
Swap
/var
/Var/core
/opt
/home
/tmp
What are the security options available for ESX vswitch?
Promiscuous Mode - Reject
MAC Address changes - Accept
Forged Transmits - Accept

What is Promiscuous Mode ?

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. It can be useful when you are running virtual
machines with network sniffers to capture packet in that network.
What is MAC Address changes?
All the virtual machines nics are provide with the MAC address at the time of creation and it is stored in .VMX
file. If the packet doesn't match with the MAC address as same as in the .VMX file , it does not allow
incoming traffic to the VM by setting this option as reject.
If it is set as Accept,ESX accepts requests to change the effective MAC address to other than the MAC address
save din the .VMX file.
What is Forged Transmits ?
Which is same as the Mac Address changes setting but it worked for the outgoing traffic but the MAC address
changes setting is for incoming traffic.
What is a VLAN ?
A VLAN is the Virtual LAN which is used to broke down the Broadcast traffic into many logical groups.
Basically, one physical switch comprise of one broadcast domain. VLAN used to separate the one broadcast
domain into many small pieces to separate the networks within the broadcast domain.
What are the types of VLAN tagging in Vsphere?
There are 3 types of VLAN tagging available in Vsphere.
1.Virtual Switch Tagging (VST)
2.External Switch Tagging (EST)
3.Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT)
What are the Traffic Shaping policies available in the Vswitch?
Traffic shaping policies are disabled by default. There are 3 different traffic shaping policy setting
Average Bandwidth
Peak Bandwidth
Burst Size

Average Bandwidth is defined in KBPS

Peak bandwidth is defined in KBPS
Burst Size is defined in Kilobytes
What are the Load balancing policies available in vswitch?
Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID
Route based on source MAC hash
Route based on IP hash

Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID - Chooses an uplink based on the virtual port where
the traffic entered the virtual switch. The traffic will be always send with that same uplink until that particular
uplink is failed and failed over to another NIC.
Route based on source MAC hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source Ethernet MAC
address.The traffic will be always send with that same uplink until that particular uplink is failed and failed over
to another NIC.
Route based on IP hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source and destination IP addresses of each
packet.
What are the types for Network Failover Detection settings?
Link Status only
Beacon Probing
Link Status only - Relies solely on the link status provided by the network adapter. This detects failures, such as
cable pulls and physical switch power failures, but it cannot detect configuration errors, such as a physical
switch port being blocked by spanning tree or misconfigured to the wrong VLAN or cable pulls on the other
side of a physical switch.
Beacon Probing - Sends out and listens for beacon probes Ethernet broadcast frames sent by physical
adapters to detect upstream network connection failures on all physical Ethernet adapters in the team. In
addition to link status, to determine link failure. This detects many of the failures which are not detected by
Link Status.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ESX 3.5 AND ESX 4.0

Features

ESX 3.5

Linked Mode

No Linked Mode Support

Host Profiles

No Host Profiles

Centralized License
Performance chart
Events and Alarms
Fault tolerance

Require dedicated License server

Yes
Yes
Not Available
SVMotion available only with
CLI
Yes
192
170
32
256 GB

Storage VMotion
VMotion
Virtual CPUs per host
Virtual Machines per host
Logical processors per host
RAM per host
Maximum Service console
Memory
DRS
VMware Data Recovery
Enhanced VMotion
Compatibility (EVC)

ESX 4
Linked Mode Supportis introduced in
vSphere 4.0
Host Profiles is Introduced in vSphere
4.0
License can be managed within vCenter
server
Lot More enhancements
Lot More enhancements
Available from vSphere 4.0
SVMotion available in GUI
Yes
512
320
64
1 TB

800 MB
Yes
Backup using VCB (VMware
Consolidated backup)

800 MB
Yes
VMware Data Recovery and VCB
support

No EVC

VMware HA Admission
Control
High Availability Clustering
with Windows Server 2000,
2003, 2008

Yes but without options to reserve

failover capacity

EVC is introduced in vSphere 4.0

Admission Control is improved to
provide more flexible configuration
options to reserve failover capacity.

Not Available

Available in vSphere 4.0

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

Hosts per storage volume
Fiber Channel paths to LUN
NFS Datastores
Hardware iSCSI initiators per
host
Virtual Machine Hot Add
Support
Number of virtual CPUs per
virtual machine
Virtual Hardware version
RAM per virtual machine
virtual machine swap file Size
VMDirectPath for Virtual
Machines

Not Available
32
32
32

Available to support MSCS on win 2008

64
16
64

NO

Yes

4
4
64 GB
65532MB

8
7
255 GB
255GB

NO

Yes

Vmkernel
Service Console
Concurrent remote console
sessions

32 Bit
32 Bit

64 bit
64 bit

10

Virtual Disk Thin Provisioning

No Thin Provisioning

40
Thin Provisioning introduced in vSphere
4.0

Not available
Only Via VCLI using vmkfstools

High-performance storage adapters that

offer greater throughput and lower CPU
utilization for virtual machines
Available via GUI

No
Not Available

Yes
Yes

VMware Paravirtualized SCSI

(PVSCSI
Hot Extend for Virtual Disks
Hot plug support for virtual
devices
VMXNET Generation 3

Not Available
Not Available
Not Available

Available from vSphere with Enterprise

Plus License
Available with DVSwitch
Available with DVSwitch
We can use Cisco Nexus 1000v with
DVSwitch
Yes
10
248

vNetwork Distributed Switch

Private VLAN Support
Network Vmotion
3rd Party Distributed Switch
Support
IPv6 Support
NICs per VM
Standard vSwitches per host
Virtual NICs per standard
vSwitch
8 way SMP
Update Manager

1016
No Only 4 way
Yes

DPM

Experimental

4088
Yes
Yes
Fully supported with PMI and iLO
Remote Power On

License Types

VMware Infrastructure
Foundation VMware
Infrastructure Standard VMware
Infrastructure Enterprise

vSphere Essentials vSphere Essentials

Plus vSphere Standard vSphere
Advanced vSphere Enterprise vSphere
Enterprise Plus

Not Available
Yes
4
127

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VSPHERE 4.1 AND VSPHERE 5

Features

HA Agent
HA Host Approach

vSphere 4.1
ESX & ESXi
Yes VMA 4.1
AAM
Automatic Availability
Manager
Primary & Secondary

HA Failure Detection
HA Log File
DNS Dependent on DNS

Management N/W
/etc/opt/vmware/AAM
Yes

Hypervisor
VMA

Host UEFI boot support

Storage DRS
VM Affinity & Anti-Affinity
VMDK Affinity & AntiAffinity
Profile driven storage
VMFS version
VSphere Storage Appliance

Iscsi Port Binding

Storage I/O control for NFS
Storage Vmotion Snapshot
support
Swap to SSD
Network I/O control
ESXi firewall
vCenter Linux Support
vSphere Full Client
vSphere Web Client
VM Hardware Version
Virtual CPU per VM
Virtual Machine RAM
VM Swapfile size
Support for Client connected
USB

vSphere 5.0
Only ESXi
Yes VMA 5

NO
Not Available
Available

FDM
Fault Domain Manager
Master & Slave
Management N/W and Storage
communication
/etc/opt/vmware/FDM
NO
boot systems from hard drives, CD/DVD
drives, or USB media
Yes
Available

Not Available
Not Available
VMFS-3
Not Available

Available
Available
VMFS-5
Available

Can be only done via Cli

using ESXCLI
Fiber Channel
VM with Snapshot cannot be
migrated using Storage vMotion
NO
Yes
Not Available
Not Available
Yes
Yes
7
8 vCpu
255 GB
255 GB

Configure dependent
hardware iSCSI and software
iSCSI adapters along with the
network configurations and
port binding in a single dialog
box using the vSphere Client.
Fiber Channel & NFS
VM with Snapshot can be migrated
using Storage vMotion
Yes
Yes with enhancement
Yes
vCenter Virtual Appliance
Yes
yes with lot of improvements
8
32 vCpu
1 TB of vRAM
1 TB

Not Available

Yes

Non Hardware Accelerated

3D grpahics support
UEFI Virtual BIOS
VMware Tools Version
Mutlicore vCpu
MAC OS Guest Support
Smart card reader support for
VM
Auto Deploy
Image Builder
VM's per host
Max Logical Cpu per Host
RAM per Host
MAX RAM for Service Console
LUNS per Server

Metro Vmotion

Storage Vmotion

Virtual Distributed Switch

USB 3.0 Support
Host Per vCenter
Powered on virtual machines
per vCenter Server
Vmkernel
Service Console

Licensing

Not Available
Not Available
4.1
Not Available
Not Available

Yes
Yes
5
Yes configure at VM setting
Apple Mac OS X Server 10.6

Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
320
160
1 TB
800 MB
256

Yes
Yes
Yes
512
160
2 TB
Not Applicable (NO SC)
256

Round-trip latencies of up to
5 milliseconds.

Round-trip latencies of up to
10 milliseconds. This provides better
performance over
long latency networks

Moving VM Files using moving

to using dirty block tracking

Moving VM Files using I/O

mirroring with better enhancements

Yes
NO
1000

Yes with more enhancements

like deeper view into virtual machine
traffic through Netflow and enhances
monitoring and troubleshooting
capabilities through SPAN and LLDP
Yes
1000

10000
64-bit
64-bit

10000
64-bit
Not Applicable (NO SC)

vSphere Essentials
vSphere Essentials Plus
vSphere Standard
vSphere Advanced
vSphere Enterprise
vSphere Enterprise Plus

vSphere Essentials
vSphere Essentials Plus
vSphere Standard
vSphere Enterprise
vSphere Enterprise Plus

Difference between ESX and ESXi

Capability
Service Console
Troubleshooting performed
via

ESX
Present
Service Console

ESXi
Removed
ESXi Shell

Active Director
Authentication

Enabled

Enabled

Secure Syslog

Not Supported

Supported

Management Network

Service Console Interface

VMKernel Interface

Jumbo Frames

Supported

Supported

Hardware Montioring

3 rd Party agents installed in

Service console

Via CIM Providers

Boot from SAN

Supported in ESX

Supported in ESXi

Software patches and

updates

Needed as smilar to linux

operation system

Few pacthes because of small footprint and

more secure

vSphere web Access

Only experimental

Full managenet capability via vSPhere web

client

Locked Down Mode

Not present

Present . Lockdown mode prevents remote

users to login to the host

Scripted Installtion

Supported

Supported

vMA Support

Yes

Yes

Major Administration
command-line Command

esxcfg-

esxcli

Rapid deployment via Auto

Deploy

Not supported

Supported

Custom Image creation

Not supported

Supported

VMkernel Network Used for

vMotion,Fault
Tolarance,Stoarge
Connectivity

Management Network , vMotion, Fault

Tolarance, Stoarge Connectivity, ISCSI port
binding

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VMFS 3 AND VMFS 5

VMFS 5 is available as part of vSphere 5. VMFS 5 is introduced with lot of performance enhancements. Newly
installed ESXi 5 will be formatted with VMFS 5 version but if you have upgraded the ESX 4 or ESX 4.1 to
ESXi 5, then datastore version will be VMFS 3 only. You will able to upgrade the VMFS 3 to VMFS 5 via
vSphere client once ESXi upgrade is Complete. This posts tells you some major differences between VMFS 3
and VMFS 5

Capability
Maximum single Extend size
Partition Style
Available Block Size
Maximum size of RDM in
Virtual Compatibiltiy
Maximum size of RDM in
Phsical Compatibiltiy
Supported Hosts versions

VMFS 3
2 TB less 512 bytes
MBR (Master Boot Record) style
1 MB/2MB/4MB/8MB

VMFS 5
64 TB
GPT (GUID Partition Table)
only 1 MB

2 TB less 512 bytes

2 TB less 512 bytes

Spanned Volume size

2 TB less 512 bytes

ESX/ESX 3.X, 4.X & 5.x
64 TB (32 extends with max
size of extent is 2 TB)

Upgrade path
File Limit
Sub-Block size

VMFS 3 to VMFS 5
30,000
64 KB

64 TB
Only ESXi 5 is supported
64 TB (32 extends with
any size combination)
Latest Version. NO upgarde
available yet.
100,000
8 KB

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UPGRADED VMFS 5 AND NEWLY CREATED VMFS 5

This post explains you the major difference between VMFS 5 datastore upgrade from VMFS 3 and newly
created VMFS 5 datastore. VMFS 5 is available as part of vSphere 5. VMFS 5 is introduced with lot of
performance enhancements. Newly installed ESXi 5 will be formatted with VMFS 5 version but if you have
upgraded the ESX 4 or ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5, then datastore version will be VMFS 3 only. You will able to
upgrade the VMFS 3 to VMFS 5 via vSphere client once ESXi upgrade is Complete. Even though the upgraded
datastore will be with VMFS 5 version but there are many technical difference between upgraded VMFS 5 and
newly created VMFS 5. This posts tells you some major differences between upgraded VMFS 5 and newly
created VMFS 5.

Capabilities
Max datastore size
Maximum size of RDM in
Physical Compatibility

Block Size
Sub-block size
File limit
Partition Style
Partition Sector
Maximum size of RDM in
Virtual Compatibility
Max size of file

Upgraded VMFS 5
64 TB

Newly Created VMFS 5

64 TB

64 TB
Continuous to use the previous block
size
which may be 1MB/2MB/4MB/8 MB
64 KB sub-blocks
30,000
MBR (Master Boot Record) style
partition starting on sector 128

64 TB

only 1 MB block size

8 KB sub-blocks
100,000
GPT (GUID Partition Table)
partition starting on sector 2,048

2 TB less 512 bytes

2 TB less 512 bytes

2 TB less 512 bytes

2 TB less 512 bytes

What is the difference between Clone and Template?

Clone
Clone creates an exact copy of a running Virtual
Machine at the time of cloning process
Cloning a virtual machine creates a exact duplicate copy
of the virtual machine with the same configuration and
installed software without performing any additional
settings.
You can create a clone of existing installed and
Configured running virtual machine by right clicking
the VM and Clone.

Template
Template acts as a baseline image with the
predefined configuration as per organization
standards
Create a template to create a master image of a
virtual machine from which you can deploy multiple
virtual machines

Cloned Virtual Machine Can be powered on

You can create a template by converting a virtual

machine
to a template, cloning a virtual machine to a
template, or cloning another template
Templates are best suited for production
environments where you want the mass deployment
of virtual machines along with the installed OS and
basic software, configured policy as per the security
policy of your organization as a base Machine. Once
template is deployed, you can install software
depend on the role of the server like IIS,Database
Templates are best suited for Mass Deployment of
Virtual
Machines
You can convert the template back to virtual
machine to update the base template with the latest
released patches and updates and to install or
upgrade any software and again convert back to
template to be used for deployment of virtual
machines with latest patches.
Templates cannot be powered on

You cannot Clone a Virtual Machine if you have

connected directly to ESX/ESXi host using vSphere
Client

You cannot create a template of a Virtual Machine

if you have connected directly
to ESX/ESXi host using vSphere Client

VM clones are best suited in test and development

environments where you want to create, test and work
with exact copies of production servers without
disturbing production servers by creating clone of the
production virtual machine.
VM Clones are not suited for mass deployment of
Virtual Machines
We Cannot Convert back the Cloned Machine

You can customize the guest operating system of the

You can also Customize the guest operating system
clone to change the virtual machine name, network
while deploying from template
settings, and other properties. This prevents conflicts that
can occur if a virtual machine and a clone with identical
guest operating system settings are deployed

simultaneously.

Clone of a virtual machine can be created when the

virtual machine is powered on

Convert virtual Machine to template cannot be

performed, when Virtual machine is powered on.
Only Clone to Template can be performed when VM
is powered on

What is VMware HA?

As per VMware Definition,
VMware High Availability (HA) provides easy to use, cost effective high availability for applications running
in virtual machines. In the event of server failure, affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on
other production servers with spare capacity
What is AAM in HA?
AAM is the Legato automated availability management. Prior to vSphere 4.1, VMware's HA is actually re
engineered to work with VM's with the help of Legato's Automated Availability Manager (AAM) software.
VMware's vCenter agent (vpxa) interfaces with the VMware HA agent which acts as an intermediary to the
AAM software. From vSphere 5.0, it uses an agent called FDM (Fault Domain Manager).
What are pre-requites for HA to work?
1.Shared storage for the VMs running in HA cluster
2.Essentials plus, standard, Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus Licensing
3.Create VMHA enabled Cluster
4.Management network redundancy to avoid frequent isolation response in case of temporary network issues
(preferred not a requirement)
What is maximum number of primary HA hosts in vSphere 4.1?
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 secondar nodes.
How to see the list of Primary nodes in HA cluster?
View the log file named "aam_config_util_listnodes.log" under /var/log/vmware/aam using the below command
cat /var/log/vmware/aam/aam_config_util_listnodes.log

What is the command to restart /Start/Stop HA agent in the ESX host?

service vmware-aam restart

service vmware-aam stop
service vmware-aam start
Where to located HA related logs in case of troubleshooting?
/Var/log/vmware/aam
What the basic troubleshooting steps in case of HA agent install failed on hosts in HA cluster?
1. Check for some network issues
2. Check the DNS is configured properly
3. Check the vmware HA agent status in ESX host by using below commands service vmware-aam status
4. Check the networks are properly configured and named exactly as other hosts in the cluster. otherwise, you
will get the below errors while installing or reconfiguring HA agent.
5. Check HA related ports are open in firewall to allow for the communication
Incoming port: TCP/UDP 8042-8045
Outgoing port: TCP/UDP 2050-2250
6. First try to restart /stop/start the vmware HA agent on the affected host using the below commands. In
addition u can also try to restart vpxa and management agent in the Host.
service vmware-aam restart
service vmware-aam stop
service vmware-aam start
7. Right Click the affected host and click on "Reconfigure for VMWare HA" to re-install the HA agent that
particular host.
8. Remove the affected host from the cluster. Removing ESX host from the cluster will not be
allowed untill that host is put into maintenance mode.
9.Alternative solution for 3 step is, Goto cluster settings and uncheck the vmware HA in to turnoff the HA in
that cluster and re-enable the vmware HA to get the agent installed.
10. For further troubleshooting , review the HA logs under /Var/log/vmware/aam directory.
What is the maximum number of hosts per HA cluster?
Maximum number of hosts in the HA cluster is 32
What is Host Isolation?
VMware HA has a mechanism to detect a host is isolated from rest of hosts in the cluster. When the ESX host
loses its ability to exchange heartbeat via management network between the other hosts in the HA cluster, that
ESX host will be considered as a Isolated.
How Host Isolation is detected?
In HA cluster, ESX hosts uses heartbeats to communicate among other hosts in the cluster.By default, Heartbeat
will be sent every 1 second.
If a ESX host in the cluster didn't received heartbeat for for 13 seconds from any other hosts in the cluster, The
host considered it as isolated and host will ping the configured isolation address(default gateway by default). If
the ping fails, VMware HA will execute the Host isolation response
What are the different types isolation response available in HA?

Power off All the VMs are powered off , when the HA detects that the network isolation occurs
Shut down All VMs running on that host are shut down with the help of VMware Tools, when the HA detects
that the network isolation occurs.If the shutdown via VMWare tools not happened within 5 minutes, VM's
power off operation will be executed. This behavior can be changed with the help of HA advanced options.
Leave powered on The VM's state remain powered on or remain unchanged, when the HA detects that the
network isolation occurs.
How to add additional isolation address for redundancy?
By default, VMWare HA use to ping default gateway as the isolation address if it stops receiving heartbeat.We
can add an additional values in case if we are using redundant service console both belongs to different
subnet.Let's say we can add the default gateway of SC1 as first value and gateway of SC2 as the additional one
using the below value
1. Right Click your HA cluster
2. Goto to advanced options of HA
3. Add the line "das.isolationaddress1 = 192.168.0.1"
4. Add the line "das.isolationaddress2 = 192.168.1.1" as the additional isolation address
What is HA Admission control?
VCenter Server uses admission control to ensure that sufficient resources are available in a cluster to provide
failover protection and to ensure that virtual machine resource reservations are respected.
What are the 2 types of settings available for admission control?

Enable: Do not power on VMs that violate availability constraints

Disable: Power on VMs that violate availability constraints
What are the different types of Admission control policy available with VMware HA?
There are 3 different types of Admission control policy available.

Host failures cluster tolerates

Percentage of cluster resources reserved as fail over spare capacity
Specify a fail over host
How the Host Failures cluster tolerates admission control policy works?

Select the maximum number of host failures that you can afford for or to guarantee fail over. Prior vSphere 4.1,
Minimum is 1 and the maximum is 4.
In the Host Failures cluster tolerates admission control policy , we can define the specific number of hosts that
can fail in the cluster and also it ensures that the sufficient resources remain to fail over all the virtual machines
from that failed hosts to the other hosts in cluster. VMware High Availability(HA) uses a mechanism called
slots to calculate both the available and required resources in the cluster for a failing over virtual machines from
a failed host to other hosts in the cluster.
What is SLOT?
"A slot is a logical representation of the memory and CPU resources that satisfy the requirements for any
powered-on virtual machine in the cluster."
If you have configured reservations at VM level, It influence the HA slot calculation. Highest memory
reservation and highest CPU reservation of the VM in your cluster determines the slot size for the cluster.
How to Check the HA Slot information from vSphere Client?
Click on Cluster Summary Tab and Click on "Advanced Runtime Info" to see the the detailed HA
slots information.

What is use of Host Monitoring status in HA cluster?

Let's take an example, you are performing network maintenance activity on your switches which connects your
one of th ESX host in HA cluster.
what will happen if the switch connected to the ESX host in HA cluster is down?
It will not receive heartbeat and also ping to the isolation address also failed. so, host will think itself as isolated
and HA will initiate the reboot of virtual machines on the host to other hosts in the cluster. Why do you need
this unwanted situation while performing scheduled maintenance window.
To avoid the above situation when performing scheduled activity which may cause ESX host to isolate, remove
the check box in " Enable Host Monitoring" until you are done with the network maintenance activity.
How to Manually define the HA Slot size?
By default, HA slot size is determined by the Virtual machine Highest CPU and memory reservation. If no
reservation is specified at the VM level, default slot size of 256 MHZ for CPU and 0 MB + memory overhead
for RAM will be taken as slot size. We can control the HA slot size manually by using the following values.
There are 4 options we can configure at HA advanced options related to slot size
das.slotMemInMB - Maximum Bound value for HA memory slot size
das.slotCpuInMHz - Maximum Bound value for HA CPU slot Size
das.vmMemoryMinMB - Minimum Bound value for HA memory slot size
das.vmCpuMinMHz - Minimum Bound value for HA CPU slot size
How the "Percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover spare capacity" admission control policy
works?

In the Percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover spare capacity admission control policy, We can
define the specific percentage of total cluster resources are reserved for failover.In contrast to the "Host Failures
cluster tolerates admission control policy", It will not use slots. Instead This policy calculates the in the way
below
1.It calculates the Total resource requirement for all Powered-on Virtual Machines in the cluster and also
calculates the total resource available in host for virtual machines.
2.It calculates the current CPU and Memory Failover capacity for the capacity.
3.If the current CPU and Memory Failover capacity for the cluster < configured failover capacity (ex 25 %)
4.Admission control will not allow to power on the virtual machine which violates the availability constraints.
How the "Specify a failover host" admission control policy works?

In the Specify a failover host" admission control policy, We can define a specific host as a dedicated failover
host. Whenisolation response is detected, HA attempts to restart the virtual machines on the specified failover
host.In this Approach, dedicated failover hist will be sitting idle without actively involving or not participating
in DRS load balancing.DRS will not migrate or power on placement of virtual machines on the defined failover
host.
What is VM Monitoring status?
HA will usually monitors ESX hosts and reboot the virtual machine in the failed hosts in the other host in the
cluster in case of host isolation but i need the HA to monitors for Virtual machine failures also. here the feature
called VM monitoring status as part of HA settings.VM monitoring restarts the virtual machine if
the vmware tools heartbeat didn't received with the specified time using Monitoring sensitivity.

What is VMware Fault Tolerance?

VMware Fault Tolerance is a component of VMware vSphere and it provides continuous availability to
applications by preventing downtime and data loss of Virtual machines in the event of ESX server failures.
What is the name of the technology used by VMware FT?
VMware FT using a technology called vLockstep technology
How do i check my host for FT compatibility from vSphere client?
One way from vSphere client is to run the cluster complaince check from profile compliance tab of your
cluster. The below checks as specified below will be performed as part of the compliance check.
Validate that Fault Tolerancelogging NIC speed is at least 1000 Mbps.
Validate that power management is supported on the host
Validate that Fault Tolerance logging is enabled.
Validate that VMotion NIC speed is at least 1000 Mbps.
Validate that all the hosts in the cluster have the same build for Fault Tolerance

Validate that the host hardware supports Fault Tolerance.

Validate that VMotion is enabled.
Validate that at least one shared datastore exists

Another way is to check the summary tab of the ESX/ESXi host, "Host Configured for FT" yes or NO.

If " Host Configured for FT" is No. It will display the items required for that particular ESX for FT to work.

What is FT Logging Traffic?

FT logging is the one of option in VMkernel port setting which is similar to enable vmotion option in the
vmkernel port. when FT is enabled for the virtual machine, all the inputs (disk read.. wirte,etc..) of the primary
virtual machine are recorded and sent to the secondary VM over via FT logging enabled VMkernel port.
How to Enable FT Logging in VMkernel Port?
GO the ESX host -> Configuration-> Networking -> Properties of Virtual switch with the VMkernel portgroup
configured
Click on VMkernel Port -> click on Edit -> General tab -> select the Fault Tolerance Logging -> click on OK.

How do you configure or enable FT for the virtual machine ?

FT can be enabled only per virtual machine basis not at the cluster or ESX level.
Right-click the virtual Machine -> Fault Tolerance -> Turn on Fault Tolerance

How does the FT enabled virtual machine will be differentiated with non FT VM's in vSphere client?
FT Enabled Virtual machine will appear in Dark Blue colour as compared to non-protected virtual machines.

By default, Only Primary virtual machine will appear under the cluster and ESX host. To take a look at the
secondary VM , Go to Virtual Machines tab of the Cluster or Host.

How Does VMware Fault Tolerance Work?

When you enable Fault Tolerance for the virtual machine, a secondary virtual machine will be created to work
with the primary virtual machine in which you have enabled FT. The primary and secondary virtual machine
resides on a different ESX hosts in the cluster. Whatever the events or actions performed by the primary VM
will be transmitted via gigabit Ethernet network to be replayed by the secondary virtual machine using
VLockstep technology. Eventhough both the primary and secondary virtual machines appear as a single entity
and access a common disk, both running with the single IP address, MAc address but writes are only
performed by the primary virtual machine.The primary and secondary virtual machines sends heartbeat
between each other frequently with millisecond intervals to the check for the availability. If either of the virtual
machine loses the heartbeat, other virtual machine will take over the primary virtual machine role immediately.

What happens when you enabled Fault Tolerance for your virtual machine?
When you enable Fault Tolerance for the virtual machine, a secondary virtual machine (live shadow image of
the primary) will be created to work with the primary virtual machine in which you have enabled FT. The
primary and secondary virtual machine resides on a different ESX hosts in the cluster.
What will happen when the ESX host of primary VM failed?
When a failure is detected on the primary VM's ESX host, the secondary virtual machine which is running on
the another ESX server in the same cluster will takes the place of the first one with the least possible
interruption of service.
If vCenter is down, will the FT work?
vCenter server is only required to enable FT on the virtual machine.once it is configured, vCenter is not
required to be in online for FT to work. FT failover between primary and secondary will occure even if the
vCenter is down.
How does Vmware FT differs from VMware HA?
1.VMware HA is enabled per cluster basis but FT is enabled per VM basis.
2. In case of ESX host failure, virtual machines in the failed host are restarted and powered-on on the other
active hosts in HA cluster. So the restart duration of the virtual machine is the downtime for the virtual machine
in HA cluster. But in FT enabled virtual machine, there is no downtime. In case of host failure, secondary VM
will become primary and continuing the execution from the exact point where the primary VM is left off or
failed. It happens automatically without data loss, without downtime and with a little delay. Users will not see
any interruption.
How do you see the summary status of the FT enabled virtual machines in the ESX host from vsphere
client?
Click on Summary tab of the ESX host -> Fault tolerance information and VM counts will be displayed

1. VMWare Kernel is a Proprietary Kenral and is not based on any of the UNIX operating systems, it's a kernel
developed by VMWare Company.
2. The VMKernel can't boot it by itself, so that it takes the help of the 3rd party operating system. In VMWare
case the kernel is booted by RedHat Linux operating system which is known as service console.
3. The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to manage the
VMKernel
4. To restart webaccess service on vmware
service vmware-webaccess restart this will restart apache tomcat app

5. To restart ssh service on vmware

service sshd restart
6. To restart host agent(vmware-hostd) on vmware esx server
service mgmt-vmware restart
7. Path for the struts-config.xml
/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.17/webapps/ui/WEB-INF/ - See more at:
http://www.01world.in/p/vmware-admin-interview-questions.html#sthash.hRKU2TEE.dpuf
9. Virtual Network in Simple
Virtual Nic(s) on Virtual Machine(s) ----->
Physical Nic on the ESX Server (Virtual Switch - 56 Ports) ----->
Physical Switch Port Should be trunked with all the VLANS to which the VM's need access
All the ESX servers should be configured with Same number of Physical Nics (vSwitches) and Connectivity
also should be same, So that vMotion succeeds
All the Virtual Machines are connected to one vSwitch with Different VLANS, this means the Physical
Nic(vSwitch) needs to be trunked with the same VLANS on the Physical Switch Port
10 What are the three port groups present in ESX 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
11. What is the use of a Port Group?
The port group segregates the type of communication.
12. What are the type of communications which requires an IP address for sure ?
Service Console and VMKernel (VMotion and iSCSI), these communications does not happen without an ip
address (Whether it is a single or dedicated)
13. In the ESX Server 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
14. How the Virtual Machineort group communication works ?
All the vm's which are configured in VM Port Group are able to connect to the physical machines on the
network. So this port group enables communication between vSwitch and Physical Switch to connect vm's to
Physical Machine's
15. what is vlan ?
A vlan is logical configuration of group of segment
16. Does the vSwitches support VLAN Tagging? Why?
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 VLANtagging for vSwitches. So every vSwitch supports upto 1016 ports, and BTW they
can support 1016 VLANS if needed, but an ESX server doesnt support that many VMs. :)
17. 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
If the promiscuous mode set to Reject, the packets are sent to inteded port, so that the intended virtual
machine was able to see the communication.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. What are the core services of VC ?
VM provisioning , Task Scheduling and Event Logging
21. Can we do vMotion between two datacenters ? If possible how it will be?
Yes we can do vMotion between two datacenters, but the mandatory requirement is the VM should be powered
off.
22. What is VC agent? and what service it is corresponded to? What are the minimum req's for VC agent
installation ?
VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and ESX server.
The daemon associated with it is called vmware-hostd , and the service which corresponds to it is called as
mgmt-vmware, in the event of VC agent failure just restart the service by typing the following command at the
service console
" service mgmt-vmware restart "
VC agent installed on the ESX server when we add it to the VC, so at the time of installtion if you are getting an
error like " VC Agent service failed to install ", check the /Opt size whether it is sufficient or not.
23. How can you edit VI Client Settings and VC Server Settings ?
Click Edit Menu on VC and Select Client Settings to change VI settings
Click Administration Menu on VC and Select VC Management Server Configuration to Change VC Settings
24. 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
25. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running
In VI 3.5 we can add Hard Disk and NIC's while the machine running.
In vSphere 4.0 we can add Memory and Processor along with HDD and NIC's while the machine running

26. How to set the time delay for BIOS screen for a Virtual Machine?
Right Click on VM, select edit settings, choose options tab and select boot option, set the delay how much you
want.
27. 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.
23. What to do to customize the windows virtual machine clone,?
copy the sysprep files to Virtual center directory on the server, so that the wizard will take the advantage of it.
24. What to do to customize the linux/unix virtual machine clone,?
VC itself includes the customization tools, as these operating systems are available as open source.
25. 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.
26. What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to fix it ?
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.
If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's as physical, you need to remove it to take a snapshot.
27. What are the settings that are taken into to consideration when we initiate a snapshot ?
Virtual Machine Configuration (What hardware is attached to it)
State of the Virtual Machine Hard Disk file ( To revert back if needed)
State of the Virtual Machine Memory (if it is powered on)
28. 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
29. What is VMWare consolidated backup ?
It is a backup framework, that supports 3rd party utilities to take backups of ESX servers and Virtual Machines.
Its not a backup service.
30. To open the guided consolidation tool, what are the user requirements ?
The user must be member of administrator, The user should have "Logon as service" privileges - To give a user
these privileges ,open local sec policy, select Logon as service policy and add the user the user should have read
access to AD to send queries

1.What are the products included in VMware vSphere 5.5 Bundle ?

VMware ESXi
VMware vCenter Server

VMware vSphere Client and Web Client

vSphere Update Manager
VMware vCenter Orchestrator

2.What type of Hyper-visor VMware ESXi is ?

VMware ESXi is Bare-metal hypervisor. You can directly install on server hardware.
3.What is the role of VMware vCenter server?
vCenter provides a centralized management platform and framework for all ESXi hosts and their respective
VMs. vCenter server allows IT administrators to deploy, manage, monitor, automate, and secure a
virtual infrastructure in a centralized fashion. To help provide scalability , vCenter Server leverages a back-end
database (Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle are both supported, among others) that stores all the data about the
hosts and VMs.
4. Is it possible install vCenter server on Linux hosts ?
No.But Pre-build vCenter appliance is available in VMware portal which is Linux based.You can import the
appliance as virtual machine.
5.How to update the VMware ESXi hosts with latest patches ?
We can update the ESXi hosts using VMware Update Manager(VUM). We can use this VUM add-on package
on Windwos based vCenter server and Linux based vCenter server (vCenter appliance)

6.What is the use of VMware vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client ?
vCenter Server provides a centralized management framework to VMware ESXi hosts.To access vCenter server,
you need vSphere client or vSphere Web client service enabled.
7.What is the difference between vSphere Client and vSphere web client ?
vSphere Client is traditional utility which provides user interface to vCenter server. But from VMware vSphere
5 onwards,vSphere web client is a primary interface to manage vCenter server.For vSphere client, you need
install small utility .But vSphere Web client doent require any software. You can directly connect using
web browser.But still VUM is managed through vSphere Client .
8.What is the use of VMware vCenter Orchestrator ?

vCneter Orchestrator is used for automation on various vSphere products.

9.What are the features included in VMware vSphere 5.5 ?
vSphere High Availabitliy (HA)
vSphere Fault Tolerance
vSphere vMotion
vSphere Storage vMotion
vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
virtual SAN (VSAN)
Flash Read Cache
Storage I/O Control
Network I/O Control
vSphere Replication
10.What is the use of vSphere High Availability(HA)? Where it can be applied ?
VMware vSphere HA minimize the VMs unplanned downtime by restarting the VM guests on next available
server ESXi node inacase of failure on current ESXI node. VMware HA must be enabled to reduce the VM
unplanned downtime.

Difference between ESX and ESXi

ESX 4.1 is the last version availability of ESX server. After vSphere 5, only ESXi is available.

Capability
Service Console

ESX
Present

ESXi
Removed

Troubleshooting performed via

Service Console

ESXi Shell

Active Director Authentication

Enabled

Enabled

Secure Syslog

Not Supported

Supported

Management Network

Service Console Interface

VMKernel Interface

Jumbo Frames

Supported

Supported

Hardware Montioring

3 rd Party agents installed in

Service console

Via CIM Providers

Boot from SAN

Supported in ESX

Supported in ESXi

Software patches and updates

Needed as smilar to linux operation

system

Few pacthes because of small

footprint and more secure

vSphere web Access

Only experimental

Full managenet capability via

vSPhere web client

Locked Down Mode

Not present

Present . Lockdown mode prevents

remote users to login to the host

Scripted Installtion

Supported

Supported

vMA Support

Yes

Yes

Major Administration commandline Command

esxcfg-

esxcli

Rapid deployment via Auto

Deploy

Not supported

Supported

Custom Image creation

Not supported

Supported

VMkernel Network Used for

vMotion,Fault Tolarance,Stoarge
Connectivity

Management Network , vMotion,

Fault Tolarance, Stoarge

Connectivity, ISCSI port binding

1.What is vMotion?
Live migration of a virtual machine from one ESX server to another with Zero downtime . VMs disk files stay
where they are (on shared storage)
2. What are the use cases of vMotion ?
Balance the load on ESX servers (DRS
Save power by shutting down ESX using DPM
Perform patching and maintenance on ESX server (Update Manager or HW maintenance
3. What are Pre-requisites for the vMotion to Work?
ESX host must be licensed for VMotion
ESX servers must be configured with vMotion Enabled VMkernel Ports.
ESX servers must have compatible CPUs for the vMotion to work
ESX servers should have Shared storage (FB, iSCSI or NFS) and VMs should be stored on that

storage.

ESX servers should have exact similar network & network names
4. What are the Limitations of vMotion?
Virtual machines configured with the Raw Device Mapping(RDM) for clustering features using vMotion
VM cannot be connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive that is using an ISO or floppy image stored on a drive
that is local to the host server. The device should be disconnected before initiating the vMotion.
Virtual Machine cannot be migrated with VMotion unless the destination swapfile location is the same as the
source swapfile location. As a best practice, Place the virtual machine swap files with the virtual machine
configuration file.
irtual Machine affinity must not be set (aka, bound to physical CPUs).
5. Steps involved in VMWare vMotion ?
A request has been made that VM-1 should be migrated (or VMotioned) from ESX A to ESX B.
VM-1s memory is pre-copied from ESX A to ESX B while ongoing changes are written to a memory bitmap on
ESX A.
VM-1 is quiesced on ESX A and VM-1s memory bitmap is copied to ESX B.

VM-1 is started on ESX B and all access to VM-1 is now directed to the copy running on ESX B.
The rest of VM-1s memory is copied from ESX A all the while memory is being read and written from VM-1
on ESX A when applications attempt to access that memory on VM-1 on ESX B.
If the migration is successful, VM-1 is unregistered on ESX A.
1.What is SvMotion?
Migration of a virtual machine files and disks from one datastore to another with Zero downtime.

2. What are the use cases of SvMotion ?

Migrating from Old storage to new storage systems or migrating to different vendor storage without downtime
to VMs.
Performing Scheduled activity like storage upgrades on the source Lun.
Converting VM disk type from Thick to Thin and Thin to Thick.
Migrating the critical virtual machines to high performance storage arrays to improve performance of virtual
Machine.

3. What are Pre-requisites for the SvMotion to Work?

ESX host in which virtual machine is running should have access to source and destination storage.
ESX host should have configured with the license for svMotion

4. What are the Limitations of SvMotion?

Virtual machines with snapshots cannot be migrated using Storage vMotion.
Virtual machine with virtual compatibility RDM can be migrated with svMotion.If you convert the mapping
file, a new virtual disk is created and the contents of the mapped LUN are copied to this disk.
For Physical compatibility RDM, only mapping file can be relocated.
Virtual Machines cannot be migrated while the VMware tools installation tools is in progress.
Virtual Machine should be in powered off state if you want to migrate the VM simultaneously to different host
and storage.

5. Steps involved in VMWare SvMotion ?

svMotion copies all the files expect virtual machine disk and create the directory as same the Virtual Machine
name on the destination storage.
It uses Changed Block tracking to track the virtual machine disk. The change block tracking knows which
region disk includes data. This data will be stored in bitmap and reside either in memory or in a file.

Pre-copies Virtual machine disk and swap file will start from the source to destination datastore as the first
iteration. once it is completed, It only transfers the region which were modified or written after the first
iteration.
ESX performs fast suspend and resume of the virtual Machine. The final changed regions will be copied to the
destination before the virtual Machine is resumed on the destination datastore.
Virtual Machine will continue running on the destination datastore and source file and disk will be deleted.

Difference between h/w version

Feature

ESXi 5.1 and later ESXi 5.0 and later ESX/ESXi 4.x and
later

ESX/ESXi 3.5 and

later

Hardware version

Maximum memory (MB)

1035264

1035264

261120

65532

Maximum number of
logical processors

64

32

Maximum number of
cores (virtual CPUs) per
socket

64

32

Maximum SCSI
adapters

Maximum NICs

10

10

10

USB 3.0

Y (Supported only for

Passthrough from client
computers to virtual

Y (Supported only for

Passthrough from client
computers to virtual

machines on Linux
guests.)

machines on Linux
guests.)

Maximum video memory

(KB)

524288

131072

131072

131072

SVGA 3D hardware
acceleration

PCI Hot plug support

Serial ports

Parallel ports

Floppy devices

Guest OS support

91

91

78

45