Top Vmware Questions

1) Mention what is VMware and what are their benefits?

VMware provides different applications and software for virtualization.  VMware products are categorized in two levels, desktop applications, and Server applications.  It is useful for

• Running multiple operating systems and applications on a single computer
• Consolidate hardware to get vastly higher productivity form fewer servers
• Save more than 50% of total cost spend on IT
• It simplifies IT management and speed up the deployment of new applications

2) Mention what are the different types of virtualization available?

Different types of virtualization available are

• Application virtualization
• Presentation virtualization
• Network virtualization
• Storage virtualization

3) Mention what are the different types of server software does VMware provides?

VMware provides three different types of server software

• VMware ESX Server
• VMware ESXi Server
• VMware Server

4) Explain what is hypervisor?

Hypervisor is a program that enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host.  Each operating system has the host’s processor, memory and other resources all to itself.  Hypervisor controls the resources and host processor, allocating what is required for each operating system in turn and make sure that the guest operating system cannot disrupt each other.

5) Explain what is VMware DRS?

VMware DRS stands for Distributed Resource Scheduler; it dynamically balances resources across various host under cluster or resource pool.  It enables users to determine the rules and policies which decide how virtual machines deploy resources, and these resources should be prioritized to multiple virtual machines.

6) Explain VMware Fault Tolerance?

VMware fault tolerance is an important component of VMware vSphere, and it offers continuous accessibility to applications by preventing data loss and down time of virtual machines in the event of ESX server failure.

7) Mention what is FT logging traffic?

FT logging is one of the options in VMKernel port setting which is more or less same as enabling vmotion option in the vmkernel port.

8) Mention what are the different components used in VMware infrastructure?

Different components used in VMware infrastructure includes

• It consists of the lowest layer which acts as an ESX server host
• It also uses the virtual center server which keep tracks of all the VM associated images and manage it from one point
• VMWare infrastructure client, it enables the client to communicate with user’s applications that are running on VMware
• Web-browser is used to access the virtual machines
• License server is used to prepare a server which provides licensing to the applications
• Database servers are availed to maintain a database

9) Explain what is vCloud Suite?

vCloud Suite combines with multiple VMware components to give a complete set of cloud infrastructure capabilities in a single package, including virtualization, software-defined datacenter services, disaster recovery, application management, etc.

10) Mention what are the storage and availability in vCloud Suite?

The storage and availability in vCloud Suite includes

• Storage DRS: It place and load balance virtual machines based on storage capacity and I/O latency
• Storage vMotion: It employs proactive, non-disruptive storage migration to reduce virtual machine storage I/O bottlenecks and free up valuable storage capacity
• Application HA: It gains high availability that is bound to specific applications
• Data Protection: Based on EMC avamar, it deploys a back-up and recovery tool

11) Explain what is Host Isolation in VMware HA (High Availability)?

In VMware HA, it has a mechanism to detect a host isolated from the rest of hosts in the cluster.  In simple words, it uses a heart-beat to communicate other host in the cluster. When the ESX host loses its ability to connect with other hosts in a cluster through heart-beat, then ESX host will be considered as a Host Isolation.

12) Mention what is the difference between VMware HA and Vmware FT?

• VMware FT is enabled per VM basis while VMware is enabled per cluster
• In the case of ESX host failure, virtual machines are the failed host and are re-started and powered-on the other active hosts in HA cluster. But FT enabled virtual machines; there is no down time. In the case of host failure, secondary VM will be activated, and it becomes primary and continue to run from the exact point where the primary VM is failed or left off.

13) Explain the new features available in vSphere 5?

In the latest version of vSphere 5.5 it includes

• ESXi Hypervisor enhancement
• Virtual Machine Enhancement
• VMware vCenter Server Enhancement
• vSphere storage Enhancement
• vSphere Networking Enhancements

14) What are the new features included in ESXi Hypervisor enhancement?

In ESXi Hypervisor enhancement includes

• Hot-pluggable PCIe SSD Devices: It supports SSDs (Solid State Disks) devices, and with a new enhancement, SSD device can be removed or added while a vSphere host is running.
• Support for Reliable Memory Technology: vSphere ESXi hypervisor can take an advantage of new hardware; vendor enabled Reliable Memory Technology, through which a region of memory is reported from the hardware to vSphere ESXi hypervisor. It is used to enhance the placement of VMKernel and other components like initial thread and hostd. It helps to protect against memory error
• Enhancements to CPU C-states: A power process (C-state) is used to provide additional power savings

15) Mention what is the difference between template and clone in VMware?

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Clone	Template
Clone is a copy of the virtual machine You cannot convert back the cloned Virtual Machine A clone of a virtual machine can be made when the virtual machine is powered on A full clone is independent from parent virtual machines and does not share anything with virtual machines.	A template is a master copy of a virtual machine; it can be used to make many clones Template can be converted back to the virtual machine to update the base template Template cannot be edited or powered on, and are more difficult to change than ordinary virtual machine When you clone a virtual machine from the template, the resulting cloned virtual machine is free of the original virtual machine
A linked clone shares virtual disks with the parent virtual machine. It enables multiple virtual machines to use the same software installation	—————
—————	When virtual machine is powered on, it cannot convert virtual machine to template, but can convert clone to template