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VMware Interview Questions
VMware is a virtualization and cloud computing software which provides different applications and software for virtualization. VMware provider based in Palo Alto, Calif. Founded in 1998, VMware is a subsidiary of Dell Technologies. EMC Corporation originally acquired VMware in 2004; EMC was later acquired by Dell Technologies in 2016. VMware bases its virtualization technologies on its bare-metal hypervisor ESX/ESXi in x86 architecture.
 
With VMware server virtualization, a hypervisor is installed on the physical server to allow for multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on the same physical server. Each VM can run its own operating system (OS), which means multiple OSes can run on one physical server. All the VMs on the same physical server share resources, such as networking and RAM. 
 
We can categorize VMware products into two levels, desktop applications and Server applications.
There are five types of visualizations available, they are :

Desktop Virtualization : Often called OS virtualization or VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), desktop virtualization is the process that enables you to run or deploy multiple virtual desktop OS on a physical server. The user may access his or her virtual desktop from anywhere since it is stored on a remote server. In this way, the need for individual CPUs is eliminated. Its example includes VMware Horizon View, Citrix Xen Desktop, etc.

Server Virtualization : It is a type of virtualization where many virtual machines (VMs) run on one physical server. Since you do not have to buy new servers or expand your server room, you save floor space and money. Server virtualization is offered by a few well-known providers, such as vSphere, XenServer, Hyper-V, and RedHat.
 
Application Virtualization : The process involves virtualizing and hosting applications on a server so that end users can have access to them on their devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The app can be accessed via any Internet-connected device, so you don't have to log in to a desktop at your office to use it. Its example includes VMware ThinApp, Citric XenApp, etc.
 
Storage Virtualization : Using storage virtualization, multiple network storage devices can be combined into a single storage device/array by pooling their physical storage. It provides an easy way to manage storage and ensure consistent performance. Its example includes vSAN.

Network Virtualization : It refers to the process of combining all the physical network components into one virtual network. A virtual network can be composed of NICs, switches, VLANs, network storage devices, virtual network containers, and network media. This type of virtualization has the primary function of eliminating physical network device dependencies. One of its examples includes VMware NSX.
VM or Virtual machines allow us to operate multiple operating systems simultaneously from the same piece of hardware. Without virtualization, operating multiple systems like Windows and Linux would require two separate physical units. So it reduces the requirement to invest in additional units by splitting up a physical server into multiple servers.
A hypervisor is a program used to enable multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host. Each operating system consists of a host's processor, memory, and other resources. The hypervisor has to control the resources and host processor, allocating what is required for each operating system in turn and making sure that the guest operating system cannot disrupt each other.

* Space efficiency
* Energy usage
* Server maintenance requirements.

Types of Hypervisor :
 
* Type-1 Hypervisor (also known as Bare Metal or Native Hypervisor)
* Type-2 Hypervisor (also known as Hosted Hypervisor)
A list of benefits of using VMware :
 
* VMware is mainly used for running multiple operating systems and applications on a single computer system.

* You can get two computer systems' benefits by installing two different operating systems on a single computer. In this way, you can save more than 50% of the total cost spend on IT.

* By using VMware, you can simplify IT management and speed up the deployment of new applications.

* It consolidates hardware to get vastly higher productivity from fewer servers.
VMware provides us with :
 
* VMware ESX Server,
* VMware ESXi Server, and
* VMware Server.
* VMWARE MIRAGE,
* VMWARE PIVOTAL CONTAINER SERVICE,
* VMWARE PHOTON PLATFORM,
* VMWARE THINAPP,
* VMWARE VCLOUD NFV,
* VMWARE VCLOUD NFV OPENSTACK,
* VMWARE VCLOUD SUITE,
* VMWARE VREALIZE.
VMware's VMkernel is a high-performance operating system that runs directly on the ESXi host. VMkernel generally acts as an interface between VMs and the physical hardware of the system and is referred to as microkernel by VMware since it runs on bare metal, directly on VMware ESX hosts. In addition to providing hardware abstraction and operating system (OS) services, VMKernel allocates memory and schedules CPUs. In addition, it handles services such as vMotion, Fault Tolerance, NFS, and iSCSI. In order for VMs to communicate with ESXi, the VMKernel is vital. 
VMkernel networking enables vSphere to interact with the outside world. It consists of four core elements :   
 
* Virtual SAN
* Fault Tolerance
* Science storage
* VMotion
ESXi (Elastic Sky X Integrated): ESXi (formerly ESX) is a virtualization platform developed by VMware for deploying and managing virtual machines. With ESXi, you get a very secure OS architecture that includes and integrates essential OS components like the Kernel. For efficiency, reliability, and performance, it's the leading choice. ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and reduce costs by directly accessing and controlling underlying resources. It is a hypervisor that makes use of bare-metal virtualization technology.
Desktop virtualization is a technology that simulates a workstation load to access a desktop from a connected device remotely or locally. This separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device used to access it.
 
Desktop virtualization works in many ways, but the basic two types of desktop virtualization are based on whether the operating system instance is local or remote.
 
Local Desktop Virtualization : It denotes the operating system runs on a client device where all processing and workloads occur on local hardware. This type of desktop virtualization works when users don’t need a continuous network connection and can meet application computing requirements with local system resources. Although this requires processing to be done locally, you cannot use local desktop virtualization to share VMs or resources across a network to thin clients or mobile devices.

Remote Desktop Virtualization :  Remote desktop virtualization is a commonly used virtualization that operates in a client/server computing environment. It allows users to run operating systems from a server while all user interactions occur on a client device. The result is that IT departments have more centralized control over applications and desktops and can maximize the investment of organization in IT hardware through remote access to shared computing resources.
The major components of VMware infrastructure are :
 
* VMware ESX Server
* VirtualCenter Server
* VMware Infrastructure Client (VI Client)
* VMware Infrastructure Web Access (VI Web Access) 
* VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)
* VMware Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP)
* VMware VMotion and VMware Storage VMotion
* VMware High Availability (HA)
* VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
* VMware Consolidated Backup (Consolidated Backup) 
* VMware Infrastructure SDK
VMotion could also be a key enabling technology for creating the dynamic, automated, and self-optimizing data centre.
 
We used VMware VMotion because it enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to a special with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity.
The Virtual Machine Memory state is copied over the Vmotion Network from the source Host to the Target Host. users still access the virtual machine and potentially update pages in memory. A list of modified pages in memory is kept during a memory Bitmap on the source Host.
vSwitch is the software-based virtual networking switch used to connect virtual machines to the ESXi host & it also provides the connectivity between the virtual machines on that virtual switch. vSphere Standard Switch is referred to as vSwitch. Each ESXi host requires its own vSwitch.
16 .
What is Port-group?
VM port groups are how we will create logical rules round the virtual ports that are made available to VMs. It’s common to make a port group for every VLAN and network subnet that you simply want to present to your VMs.
NFS (Network File System) : ESXi hosts use this file-sharing protocol to share files with NAS devices. Storage devices such as NAS connect to networks and enable ESXi hosts to access files. 

VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) : In VMware vSphere, it is a block-level file system that stores virtual machine files. In vSphere 6.0, it can also store large files up to 64TB in size. 
18 .
Explain the .vmdk file.
Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) is an open file format by VMware which is used to store the content of virtual hard disks. In vSphere 5.5 and later versions, it can be up to 62 TB in size. Earlier, VMware products used the extension .dsk to store content or data or virtual disk files.
DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), as the name suggests, provides a way to schedule and balance resources across a vSphere environment. Through the use of clusters and resource pools, virtual environments are able to automatically balance available resources across hosts. DRS uses VMware HA (High Availability) to move VMs from one host to another to ensure that resources are evenly distributed among them.
Generally, iSCSI SANs consist of an iSCSI storage system, which houses one or more storage processors. Communication between the host and array occurs over TCP/IP protocol, and ESXi hosts are configured with an iSCSI initiator. Such an initiator is either hardware- or software-based. The hardware-based initiators can be dependent or independent; the software-based ones are called iSCSI software initiators. 
21 .
What is the meaning of VVol?
vSphere 6.0 introduces the concept of Virtual Volume, also known as VVol, for managing virtual disks. Whenever a virtual disk is created in a virtual environment, VVol is automatically created. At the virtual disk level, it enables array-based operations.
Cold Migration : This is the process of migrating a powered-off VM, including its configuration and data, from a single host to another. One can migrate VMs manually or set up a scheduled task to perform cold migration.  

Hot Migration : This is the process of migrating a powered-on VM from a single host to another. It is also known as live migration because there is no need to shut down the VM.
Type-1 Hypervisor : It acts as a lightweight OS and runs directly on the host system. A base server OS is not required, and direct hardware access is available. Its example includes VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, etc. 

Type-2 Hypervisor : It cannot run directly on the underlying host system, but can run as an application layer on a host system, similar to other computer programs. Its example includes VMware player or parallel desktop, VMware Server, etc.

Advantages of using Type-1 over Type-2 Hypervisor :
 
It is more secure to use type-1 hypervisors since they do not rely on the underlying OS, unlike type-2 hypervisors. The type 2 server also loses some efficiency, performance, and speed due to this dependency. So, if you're under attack, a type-1 hypervisor will give you better protection than a type-2 hypervisor.
VMware vSphere API may be a set of interfaces for managing vSphere. You can use the API to try to do most of the items the vSphere Client can do. The API is defined as SOAP Web Services with WSDL. The vSphere SDK could also be a group of libraries that support vSphere API, also as tools and samples that assist your development efforts. The vSphere SDK is additionally referred to as VI SDK, vCenter SDK, ESX SDK, etc. In most discussions, the vSphere API and vSphere SDK are used interchangeably.
25 .
What's the default port employed by iSCSI during a VMware vSphere environment?
In a VMware vSphere environment, iSCSI uses TCP ports 860 and 3260 with higher-level names wont to address the objects within the protocol.
In VMware, multipathing may be a process that permits you to employ quiet one physical path that transfers data between the host and an auxiliary storage device. Within the time of a failure of any element within the SAN network, like a switch, adapter, or cable, ESXi can switch to a different physical path which doesn’t use the failed component.
Features VMware vSphere MS Hyper-V
Terminology To Virtual Machines Distributed/Standard Switch Virtual Switch
  DRS - Distributed Resource Scheduler PRO - Performance & Resource Optimization
  Separated Power Management Dynamic Optimization & Core Parking
  Vmware tools also Integration component also
  Service console model Parent partition model
Storage The raw device in mapping Pass-Through in mapping
  Extend/Volume Grow Expand Volume/Disk
  Storage in vMotion Quick Storage Migration
Resource Management Fault Tolerance, Yes Fault Tolerance, No
  Application HA, Yes Application HA, Yes(Failover Clustering)
  Resource pools, Yes Resource Pools, Yes(Host Groups)
VM Scalability USB Support, Yes USB Support, No
  Supports comprehensive guest OS Less Guest Support
  Serial ports are 32 ports These are only connected to Named pipes
VMware ESX and ESXi are both bare-metal hypervisor architectures that install directly on the server hardware. Although neither hypervisor architecture relies on an OS for resource management, the vSphere ESX architecture relied on a Linux operating system, called the Console OS (COS) or service console, to perform two management functions: executing scripts and installing third-party agents for hardware monitoring, backup or systems management.
 
In the vSphere ESXi architecture, the service console has been removed. The smaller code base of vSphere ESXi represents a smaller “attack surface” and less code to patch, improving reliability and security.
VMware VMotion enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime.
 
VMotion lets you :
 
* Automatically optimize and allocate entire pools of resources for maximum hardware utilization and
* Perform hardware maintenance without any scheduled downtime.
* Proactively migrate virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers.

Below are the pre-requisites for configuring vMotion :
 
* Each host must be correctly licensed for vMotion
* Each host must meet shared storage requirements
* vMotion migrates the VM from one host to another which is only possible with both the host are sharing common storage or to any storage accessible by both the source and target hosts.
* A shared storage can be on a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) or can be implemented using iSCSI SAN and NAS.
* If you use vMotion to migrate virtual machines with raw device mapping (RDM) files, make sure to maintain consistent LUN IDs for RDMs across all participating hosts.
* Each host must meet the networking requirements
* Configure a VMkernel port on each host.
* Dedicate at least one GigE adapter for vMotion.
* Use at least one 10 GigE adapters if you migrate workloads that have many memory operations.
* Use jumbo frames for best vMotion performance. 
* Ensure that jumbo frames are enabled on all network devices that are on the vMotion path including physical NICs, physical switches, and virtual switches.
Clone :  A Copy of a virtual machine
 
* Can't restore the cloned Virtual Machine.
* Clone of a Virtual Machine also be created while the Virtual Machine is switched on
* Cloning can be done in two ways namely Full Clone and Linked Clone.
* A full-type clone is an independent copy of a virtual machine that shares nothing with the parent virtual machine after the cloning operation. The ongoing operation of a full clone is entirely separate from the parent virtual machine.
* A linked clone is a copy of a virtual machine that shares virtual disks with the parent virtual machine in an ongoing manner. This conserves disk space and allows multiple virtual machines to use the same software installation.
* longing for a virtual machine can save time if you are deploying many similar virtual machines. You can create, configure, and install software on a single virtual machine, and then clone it multiple times, rather than creating and configuring each virtual machine individually.

Template : A master copy or a baseline image of a virtual machine that shall be used to create many clones.
 
* Templates cannot be powered on or edited, and are more difficult to alter than an ordinary virtual machine.
* You can convert the template back to Virtual Machine in order to update the base template with the latest released patches and updates and to install or upgrade any software and again convert it back to the template to be used for future deployment of Virtual Machines with the latest patches.
* Convert virtual Machine to template can't be performed, when Virtual machine is powered on.  Only Clone to Template can be performed when the Virtual Machine is powered on.
* A template offers a more secure way of preserving a virtual machine configuration that you want to deploy many times.
* While you are cloning a virtual machine or deploying a virtual machine by a template, the resulting cloned virtual machine will be independent of the original template or virtual machine.
31 .
What is FT logging traffic?
FT logging is one of the options in VMKernel port setting which is more or less the same as enabling vmotion option in the vmkernel port.
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 downtime. In the case of a host failure, the 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.
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 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 hosted. It helps to protect against memory error

Enhancements to CPU C-states : A power process (C-state) is used to provide additional power savings.
34 .
How many vCPUs can be used for a VM in FT in VMware vSphere 7.0?
In VMware vSphere 7.0, there can be up to 8 vCPUs with the VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus license.
35 .
What is vDS?
vDS stands for Virtual Distributed Switch acts as a single switch in a whole virtual environment and is responsible for providing central provisioning, administration, and monitoring of the virtual network.
A logical configuration on the switch port to segment the IP Traffic where each segment cannot communicate with other segments without proper rules is called VLAN. Every VLAN has a proper number called VLAN ID.
37 .
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.
The security policy of a virtual switch includes a MAC address change option. This option affects the traffic that a virtual machine receives.
 
When the Mac address changes option is set to Accept, ESXi accepts requests to change the effective MAC address to a different address than the initial MAC address.
 
When the Mac address changes option is set to Reject, ESXi does not honor requests to change the effective MAC address to a different address than the initial MAC address. This setting protects the host against MAC impersonation.
Snapshot of the VM is taken at the present point of time and consists of files, software, and settings, while backups can be performed or scheduled at any time and consist of only data.
 
The exact difference between VMware snapshot and backup can be easily seen in the following table :

VMware snap shot Backup
It is a picture of the VM at the present point of time. Backup may have differences based on when it is initiated
It has to be restored at the same location It can be restored at same as well as different location
It take very less time to copy and restore Backup and Restoration usually depends on the size of the data but generally it takes longer time then snap shot.
Snapshots don’t take much space Backup takes space based on size of the data
It allows much frequent protection then backup because it can be taken every minutes or hour They need to be scheduled once in a day and need to be process during off hours
VMware Data Storage is a logical container that hides the virtual machine’s physical storage specifications and provides a single model for storing virtual machine files, log files, virtual disks, and ISO images.
 
Data storage can contain different types of storage, local storage, iSCSI, NAS (Network Access storage), SAN.
 
Types of Datastores :
 
VMFS : VMFS is a block-level file system used to store virtual machines and snapshots.

NFS : NFS (Network File System) is built into ESXi hosts and uses the NFS-over-TCP/IP protocol to manage NFS NAS (Network Access Storage) volumes. ESXi hosts can mount NFS volumes and then use them for their storage needs.

vSAN : A virtual storage network is a logical representation of a network consisting of physical storage areas. It is a software-defined storage product used in conjunction with the VMware ESXi hypervisor.

vVol : The vVols datastore is a repository for vCenter Server and vSphere Client.
A LUN is a logical storage partition in a storage system. Data storage is in the form of a hard disk partition or LUN. A datastore is manageable storage for storing VM files like log files, configuration files, virtual data, etc.
 
You can create multiple data warehouses on a single LUN as a normal partition, and you can also link multiple LUNs to form one large datastore creation.
SANs (Storage Networks) are mainly used to store data offering high performance and low latency. By storing data in a centralized SAN, security, data protection, and disaster recovery tools can be implemented reliably.
 
Traditional SAN (storage network) allocates storage space to different systems, while vSAN automatically converts local storage resources into a single storage pool. VMWare vSAN is a software-defined storage product used in conjunction with the VMware ESXi hypervisor. It provides and manages policy-based storage regardless of the underlying hardware.
 
VMWare vSAN reduces the cost and complexity of SAN solutions by providing the ability to deploy policies and rules for storage management. It prevents unauthorized access to data at rest through encryption and also supports deduplication.
43 .
What is the Forged transmits network policy?
The Forged transmits option affects traffic that is transmitted from a virtual machine.
 
When the Forged transmits option is set to Accept, ESXi does not compare source and effective MAC addresses.
vCenter Server provides a centralized platform for management, operation, resource provisioning, and performance evaluation of virtual machines and hosts.
 
When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, vCenter Server, the vCenter Server components, and the authentication services are deployed on the same system.
 
The following components are included in the vCenter Server appliance deployments :
 
* The authentication services contain vCenter Single Sign-On, License service, Lookup Service, and VMware Certificate Authority.

* The vCenter Server group of services contains vCenter Server, vSphere Client, vSphere Auto Deploy, and vSphere ESXi Dump Collector. The vCenter Server appliance also contains the VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Extension service and the VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager.
VMware Workstation is software that allows users to run multiple operating systems on the same host computer. Virtual machines are capable of running one instance of any operating system such as Microsoft, Linux, etc. 
 
Here are three reasons why VMware workstation is useful :  
 
* Allows the user to run more than one operating system on the same computer.
* It saves the current OS configuration as virtual machines.
* You can work across different OSs without switching.
VMware measures IOPs by these two formulas :
 
A. IOPS = 1/(Avg. Latency + Avg. Seek)(ms) (per Disk )
 
B. Total IOPS = IOPS * Total number of Disks.
ALUA stands for Asymmetric Logical Unit Access. ALUA may be a specific sort of memory device which is capable of servicing I/O to a given LUN on two different storage processors but in an uneven manner. Using ALUA, I/O to a given LUN are often sent to available ports on any of the SPs within the storage array.
Full sort of NUMA is Non-uniform access . it’s a memory design utilized in multiprocessing, where the access time depends on the memory location relative to the processor. The biggest disadvantage is that the access of cpu is usually the fastest, when the cpu can access its local memory.
There are thanks to enable NUMA in VMware which is :
 
* Configure one virtual machine to use hyper-threading with NUMA, add NUMA and VCPU.

* Click on the VM option then select Edit Settings.

* Now configure all virtual machines to use hyper-threading with NUMA. Add numa then configure PreferHT=1 for per-host advanced configuration file.
To enabled VAAI steps are following,
 
* In the vSphere Client inventory panel, click the host.
* Click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings under Software.
* Check that these options are set to 1 (enabled).
51 .
What is vRealize Operation (vROP)
vROP provides the operation dashboards for performance analytics, capacity optimization, and monitoring the virtual environment.
There are three disk types in vSphere.
 
Thick Provisioned Lazy Zeroes : every virtual disk is created by default in this disk format. Physical space is allocated to a VM when a virtual disk is created. It can’t be converted to a thin disk.

Thick Provision Eager Zeroes : this disk type is used in VMware Fault Tolerance. All required disk space is allocated to a VM at the time of creation. It takes more time to create a virtual disk compare to other disk formats.

Thin provision : It provides an on-demand allocation of disk space to a VM. When data size grows, the size of a disk will grow. Storage capacity utilization can be up to 100% with thin provisioning.
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 Standard and Enterprise Editions features with additional Fault Tolerance up to 4 vCPUs and 64GB of RAM. It also includes Distributed vSwitch and the most expensive licensing option of vSphere 6.0.
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
vApp is a container or group where more than one VM 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.
vSphere vCenter
vSphere is a complete infrastructure for virtualization vCenter is a centralized and extensible platform
It is complete infrastructure for virtualization It is a centralized and extensible platform
It allows IT team to build reliable and resilient infrastructure It allows IT team to automate and deliver a virtual infrastructure
The initial release of vSphere was April 21, 2009 The initial release of vCenter was December 5, 2003