Top 10 VMware interview questions and answers for Administrator level

 12. Which two traffic types can be configured for a dedicated VMKernel adapter?

 (Choose two)

Options are:  

  1. Discovery Traffic

  2. vMotion Traffic

  3. vSphere Replication Traffic

  4. vSphere Custom traffic


Ans is:


B. vSphere Replication Traffic

C. vMotion Traffic


Reason is: VMKernel  Adapters are specialized virtual adapters used for VMKernel

Services and also used by the vSphere host to communicate with the outside world.


  1. vMotion Traffic: vMotion is one of the most widely used VMKernel services in Datacenter operations. To perform vMotion, VMkernel adapter needs to be configured with vMotion service else vMotion check itself will fail.

  2. vSphere Replication Traffic: vSphere Replication is another widely used VMkernel service. To isolate the incoming replication traffic on target ESXI hosts, VMkernel adapter needs to be configured with vSphere replication service else management network will be used for replication traffic.

13. Where is a virtual SAN fault Domain configured?

 Options are:

  1. VMware virtual SAN cluster configuration

  2. VMware HA cluster configuration

  3. VMware DRS cluster configuration

  4. Datacenter advanced setting configuration

Ans is: 

A VMware virtual SAN cluster configuration

Reason is:  Fault Domain enables us to protect against rack or chassis failures without requiring 

Additional data copies. The implementation allows vSAN to save replica copies of virtual machine

Data in different domains. For ex. Different racks of compute.


14. During vCenter server upgrade, an ESXI 6.x host in a HA cluster fails. Which statement is true?

Options are:

  1. HA will fail the virtual machine over to an available host during vCenter server upgrade

  2. HA is unavailable during the vcenter server upgrade process.

  3. HA will fail the virtual machines over to an available host after the vcenter server upgrade process

  4. HA will successfully vMotion the virtual machine during the host failure.


Ans is:  C. HA will fail the virtual machines over to an available host after the vcenter server upgrade process.


vSphere HA will continue to restart protected VMs on available hosts in a cluster in the event of ESXi host failure. Any new ported on VM won’t be protected by HA until vCenter server is back online.

During vcenter upgrade process, HA admission control policies also can’t be changed or modified.


15. Which two statements are true regarding iSCSI adapters? (Choose two)




Options are:

  1. Software iSCSI HBA required VMkernel networking

  2. Independent HW iSCSI HBA offload processing from the ESXI host

  3. Dependent HW iSCSI HBA do not require vmkernel networking.

  4. Independent HW iSCSI HBA requires vmkernel networking.


           Ans is: 

  1. Software HA will fail the virtual machines over to an available host after the vcenter server upgrade process

  2. Independent HW iSCSI HBA offload processing from the ESXI host


Reason is: 

HBA : A host bus adapter (HBA) is an HW or software adapter that connects the host to storage devices.


iSCSI:  iSCSI stands for internet small computer systems interface. It is transport layer protocol enables host computer to send data to an eternal iSCSI- based storage array


16. Which features of VMware vSphere will automate the process of migrating VMs to fewer hosts during times of low workloads?


Options are: 

  1. FT

  2. EVC

  3. DPM

  4. HA

Ans is: C. DPM

Reason is:  DPM stands for Distributed power management. It provides additional power saving by dynamically consolidating workloads during periods of low resource utilization.

Virtual machines are migrated onto fewer hosts and then unneeded ESXI hosts are powered off.


17. An administrator is troubleshooting network communications between a vCenter server and an ESXi 6.5 host.

Which log shows the related events between these components?

Options are:

  1. /var/log/fdm.log

  2. /var/log/vpxa.log

  3. /var/log/hostd.log

  4. /var/log/auth.log

Ans is: B. /var/log/vpxa.log

Reason is: 

VPXD: vpxd is vcenter server service. If this service is stopped, then we will not be able to connect to VC.

VPXA: vpxa is the agent of VC which is installed on each ESXi host managed by VC.

HOSTD: hostd is another agent that runs on each ESXi host. It performs host specific operations like VM power on/off.


18. An administrator sees the following error in the log files:

Lost Access to volume ” Volume name **** due to connectivity issues” 

Which two events could be the source of the error message?

Choose two

Options are:

  1. vCenter server failure

  2. VXLAN failure

  3. Disk array failure

  4. ESXI failure

  5. Network failure

Ans is: 

Network failure (APD All path down)

Disk array failure   (PDL  Permanent device loss)


Reason is: APD (All paths down) situation occurs when all the paths to a device are down. Since there no indication whether device is permanent or temporary loss, ESXi keeps reattempting to establish connectivity. 


APD commonly occurs due to underlying storage/network connectivity issues and hosts still believe the device is available.

PDL (Permanent Device loss): situation occurs when the storage device is permanently inaccessible to ESXi host and ESXi host no longer attempts to re-establish connectivity issue.

In PDL state, iSCSI sense code logged by storage device to ESXi host used to recognize device inaccessibility. 


19. A vSphere administrator wants to reserve 0.5 Gbps for virtual machines traffic on each uplink of a distributed switch that has 10 uplinks.

What is the quota that should be reserved for the network resource pool?

Options are:

  1. 10 Gbps

  2. 5 Gbps

  3. 100 Gbps

  4. 0.5 Gbps


Ans is

B. 5 Gbps 


Reason is:

What is a network resource Pool?  A Network resource pool provides a reservation quota to virtual machines. The quota represents a portion of bandwidth that is reserved for virtual machine system traffic on the physical adapter connected to vDS.


You can set the bandwidth for the virtual machines from the quotas that are associated with the pool.


If the virtual machine system traffic has 0.5 Gbps bandwidth reserved on each 10 GbE uplink on a distributed switch which has 10 uplinks, then the total aggregated bandwidth available for VM reservation on this switch would be


0.5*10=5Gbps

Network resource pool can reserve a quota of 5 Gbps capacity.


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