Top 40 Scenario Based VMware Interview

Questions & Answers

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 hardware infrastructure, the

demands of subject matter experts are increasing day by day in the market. To manage and
maintain organizations business, an experience workforce is required, and to choose the top
talent from the market for growing an organizations business, professionals are selected via
many technical 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.

Following are 40 scenario based interview questions and answers for experience IT
administrators (up to 5 years experience) on data center virtualization technology that may be
asked to assess the candidates technical and hands-on expertise.

1. An administrator wants to connect ESXi host directly from vSphere Web Client.
Which ports are required for this purpose?

Normally vSphere Web Client is used to connect vCenter Server and VClient is used to connect
ESXi hosts. But vSphere Web Client can also be used to connect vCenter Server, but for this
purpose you will need 443 TCP, 902 TCP and UDP, and 903 TCP ports to be opened from
Security Profile.

2. Clock time of an ESXi 6.x host is not correct. What should an administrator do to
correct this issue?

To correct the time on ESXi host, modify the time for the host using the vSphere client and,
correct the NTP settings in the /etc/ntp.conf file.
 3. An administrator wants to shutdown the host using ESXi host. Which option would
be used in Direct Console User Interface to perform this task?

To shutdown the host for Direct Console User Interface (DCUI), administrator will press F12
Key.

4. An administrator can access ESXi host via vCenter Server using vSphere Web
Client but unable to access directly via VClient. What should he do to access ESXi
host directly?

If ESXi host connected to vSphere Web Client is being accessed and cant be accessed directly,
we should check that Lockdown is not enabled. If it enabled, we should be disabled. Because if
Lockdown is enabled, ESXi hosts can only be accessed via vCenter Server, you cannot directly
access any host.

5. An administrator wants to use the VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) as an

Intermediate Certificate Authority (CA). He already replaces the Root Certificate
and Machine Certificates (Intermediate CA)

What should he do next?

After replacing root certificate and machine certificate (intermediate CA), following two steps
are needed to perform.

1. Replace Solution User certificates (Intermediate CA)

2. Replace the VMware Directory Service certificate.

6. If Strict Lockdown Mode is enabled on an ESXi host, which action should an

administrator perform to allow ESXi Shell or SSH access for users with administrator
privileges?

Administrator will add the users to Exception Users and enable the service to allow ESXi Shell
or SSH access.

7. SSO is an important component of vCenter Server. Which SSO component issues

Security Assertion Markup Language tokens?

VMware Security Token Service component of SSO grants SAML tokens.

8. What valid Identity Source is used to configure vCenter Single Sign-On?

OpenLDAP is a valid Identity Source for configuring vCenter SSO.

9. What happens to the files contained on shared storage When a Content Library is
deleted?
When Content Library is deleted, all stored files in content library will be deleted.

10. What is the maximum number of vCPUs are required for a VM in vSphere 6.0?

Maximum 128 vCPUs can be allocated to a VM vSphere 6.0.

11. A windows domain user can be logged into vSphere using vSphere Web Client.
What are the requirements to be met for this feature to be available and functional?

An administrator can allow users to login to vSphere Web Client using Windows session
authentication. For this purpose, Install the vSphere Web Client Integration browser plug-in on
each computer from where a user will sign in. The users must be signed into Windows using
Active Directory user accounts. And, administrator must create a valid Identity Source in Single
Sign-On for the users domain.

12. An administrator wants to clone a virtual machine using the vSphere Client. Which
explains why the Clone option is missing?

To clone a VM can be perform from vCenter Server either you connected via vSphere Web
Client or VClient. If you are directly connected to an ESXi host, you cannot perform cloning of a
VM.

13. What will happen if the .nvram file is deleted accidently from a VM?

.nvram file is used to store the BIOS state of a VM. If it deleted for some reason, then, .nvram
file will be created again when the virtual machine is powered on.

14. An administrator wants to connect the vSphere 5.5 Client to ESXi 6.x host. What
will occur?

If administrator tries to connect the vSphere 5.5 Client to ESXi 6.x host, the operation will
prompt the administrator to run a script to upgrade the vSphere Client.

15. Which one of secondary Private VLANs (PVLANs) type can send packets to
Isolated PVLAN?

Promiscuous type of PVLAN can communicate and send packets to an Isolated PVLAN.

16. What sample roles are provided by default when vCenter is installed?

When vCenter is installed, Virtual machine user and Network Administrator roles are provided.

17. What will happen when all paths down (APD) event occurs for the software FCoE
storage?

If all paths down event occurs, Spanning Tree Protocol is enabled on the network ports.
 18. What methods are available for upgrade a host from ESXi 5.x to ESXi 6.x?

vSphere Update Manager (VUM), esxcli command line tool, and vSphere Auto Deploy can be
used to upgrade.

19. What administrator should do before upgrading virtual machine hardware?

Before upgrading a VM hardware, we should create a backup or snapshot of the VM, should
upgrade VMware Tools to the latest version, and verify that the VM is stored VMFS or NFS
datastore.

20. vCenter Server upgradation fails at the vCenter Single Sign-On installation. What
should do to complete the upgrade process?

Before upgrading vCenter Server, verify that the VMware Directory service can stop by
manually restarting it. If it stopped manually, then you can start upgradation process of vCenter
Server.

21. What prerequisites should be considered before upgrading the vCenter Server
Appliance?

In case of upgradation of vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) or after fresh installation, Client
Integration Plugin (CIP) will be installed in both cases.

22. After deploying a PSC, vCenter Server is not being installed and shows the
following error:

Could not contact Lookup Service. Please check VM_ssoreg.log.

If this error appears then verify that the clocks on the host machines running the PSC, vCenter
Server, and the vSphere Web Client are synchronized with each other. And also ensure that there
is no firewall blocking port 7444 between the PSC and vCenter Server.

23. An administrator installed Windows Server 2008 and want to install vCenter Server
on it but failed when installing on a Windows virtual machine?

vCenter Server installation requires 64bit Windows OS to install. If you try to install it on
Windows Server 2008, it would not be installed and installation will be failed. vCenter Server
will be installed in Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher Windows OS.

24. What is the minimum Virtual Hardware version required for vFlash Read Cache?

vFlash Read Cache was first in vSphere 5.5, and the minimum Virtual Hardware version for
vSphere 5.5 is version 10.
 25. ESXi host is added in vCenter Server but not responding in vSphere Web Client. If
this issue occurs due to firewall, which port should be opened?

If administrator sees no response of added ESXi 6.x host in vCenter Server, and the issue is
caused by network firewall blocking traffic. Then he should check that port 902 (UDP) is not
blocked by firewall. If it happens, enable the port from Security Profile by using vSphere Web
Client by selecting said ESXi host in vCenter Server.

26. If a VM is unexpectedly powered off. Which VM logs files should be considered to

troubleshoot the issue?

If it happens, administrator should check vmware.log and hostd.log log files to troubleshoot the
issue.

27. Why a VM appeared as orphaned VM?

If a VM appears in orphaned state, this could cause a VMware High Availability host failure has
occurred. And the virtual machine was unregistered directly on the ESXi host.

28. While upgrading an ESXi 5.5 host to ESXi 6.x, following error appears:
MEMORY_SIZE

What does this require to do?

It indicates insufficient memory on the ESXi host to complete the upgrade process of an ESXi
host from ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6.x.

29. To remove a host from a vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS), following error message
is observed:

The resource 10 is in use

Before removing vDS, it is ensured that VMkernel network adapters on the vDS are not in use. If
any of resource of vDS is being used, then above mentioned error message with resource ID will
appear.

30. An administrator wants to monitor network traffic and tries to capture network
traffic for a VM, but cannot see the expected traffic in the packet capture tool. What
should he do to resolve the problem?

If administrator needs to capture network traffic for a VM, he should Enable Promiscuous Mode
on the relevant port group. Then he can capture the network traffic by using any networking
traffic capturing tool.
 31. A vSAN Cluster is created with six nodes along with the fault domain, and three of
them moved into fault domain. One-member node of fault domain fails. What will
happen with the remaining two nodes exist in fault domain?

When a member node of fault domain fails, the remaining two fault domain members will be
treated as failed.

32. At which level a vSAN Fault Domain configured?

Fault domain is configured at vSAN Cluster level and nodes will be added in this domain. If any
member node fails due to any reason, remaining members of fault domain will also be
considered as fail.

33. It is observed that a VM storage activity on an ESXi 6.x host is negatively affecting a
VM storage activity on another host that is accessing the same VMFS Datastore.
Which action would mitigate the issue?

To control the storage activity of a VM to affecting another VMs storage activity, Storage IO
Control (SIOC) should be enabled. Storage I/O Control provides much needed control of storage
I/O and should be used to ensure that the performance of your critical VMs are not affected by
VMs from other hosts when there is contention for I/O resources.

34. While upgrading an ESXi host from 5.5to 6.0, administrator runs the following
command:

esxcli software vib list rebooting-image

What will be shown by this command?

This command will show all active VIBs (vSphere Installation Bundle). VIB is is a collection of
files like tarball or zip that packaged into a single archive to facilitate distribution.

35. To troubleshoot a CPU performance issues of a VM, which counters will be used to
demonstrate CPU contention?

To test the performance of an ESXi host in the form of memory, CPU, and network utilization,
ESXTOP tool is used. It is a very good tool available for VMware administrators to troubleshoot
the performance issues. For configuring ESXTOP, youll need vSphere Client and putty and
SSH session should be enabled. For CPU performance testing, %RDY, %MLMTD, and %CSTP
counters are used.

36. An administrator tries to run esxtop by enabling SSH and using putty to
troubleshoot CPU performance issues, but no output displayed. How to resolve this
issue?
To display output in ESXTOP, press f and place an asterisk next to each field that should be
displayed.

37. An administrator wants to monitor VMs on a host using vCenter Server and send
notifications when memory usage crosses 80%. What should an administrator do in
vCenter Server to accomplish this?

To monitor VMs memory usage that reaches 80%, vCenter Server alarm will be created that
will monitor VMs memory usage and set an action to email the notification.

38. An administrator created a DRS cluster and it became unbalanced. What are likely
causes to become unbalanced?

DRS cluster can become unbalance when Affinity rules are preventing VMs from being moved.
And a device is mounted to a VM is preventing vMotion from one host on another.

39. An IT administrator configured two vCenter Servers within a PSC, and needs to
grant a user privileges that can access all environments. What access level is
required to access all the environment?

To access multiple vCenter Servers within a PSC, it requires Global Permission to access all
environments.

40. An administrator created 10 ESXi 6.x hosts via Auto Deploy for a new Test/Dev
cluster and all hosts are configured to obtain their IP address via DHCP. Which
DCUI option should the administrator use to renew the DHCP lease for the hosts?

To renew the DHCP lease for the hosts, Reset Management Network of Direct Console User
Interface (DCUI) option is used.

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