RECENT MNC & 100% EXPECTED QUESTION AND ANSWERS TO CRACK JOB

HARDWARE RELATED QUESTIONS

1. Remote Boards:

Its a component of server to access remotely first time to install and Configure OS and also access the
server when we unable to reach server in network, which mean we can easily manage servers in day
to day operations with the help of remote boards also which will help us to investigate the critical
Logs and Events.

Ex: HP--ILO, DELL--IDRAC, IBM--IMM, CISCO--KVM, CIMC and UCS Manager.

2. OA(On Board Administrator):

OA is a Component of HP C7000 Enclosure and centralized display unit to manage entire enclosure
blades health status remotely (or) to manage all the blades and also we can manage the idle shell
information with help of OA.

3. VC(Virtual Connector):

With the help of VC we will configure Network and HBA ports by using FLEX-10 adapter.
FLEX-10 is a component between Switch and Enclosure patch panel.

4. Mezzanine Card:

It is a component of the Blade and is used to connect External Storage Device(SAN)

5. RAID(Redundancy Array of Inexpensive Disk):

RAID 1: Recommended for OS Installation – Min/Max 2 hard disks (N-1 Formula)

RAID 5: Recommended for Data Drives (or) we can for OS as well – Minimum 3 HDD and Max of 32
disks(N-1 Formula , Single parity).

RAID 6: Data Drive purpose and For Double Parity – Min 4 and Max of 32 HDD (N-2 Formula, Double
parity).

RAID 51: Its a type of nested RAID level that provides RAID 1-based mirroring on each RAID 5 array. It
is similar to RAID 1, where each element is a disk with native redundancy capabilities. It requires a
minimum of six disks to operate. RAID 51 is also known as RAID 5+1.
6. How to configure ILO?

We can configure ILO in three ways:

1. With Help of Data center Administrator by pressing (F8) functional key while booting first time
(or) BIOS F8 key.
2. From DriveC:\Windows\ Program Data\HP on configure Utility.[Only for HP Server]
3. With help of Shell Script.

7. How to upgrade Drivers and Firmwares?

Basically its one of my day to day task. We will use Proliant Service Pack(PSP) integrated ISO image to
upgrade HP Hardware drivers and firmware's till upto dated otherwise we can use Update Manager
Baseline Technique to upgrade Drivers of NIC and HBA.

For ILO will upgrade firmware in ILO Administration Section Firmware upgradation option.

8. Have you worked on UCS? What is the service profile and FI.

i) Have you worked on UCS?

Yes I have worked on CISCO UCS 2.2 and having hands-on experience on Cisco Blades.

ii) Service Profile?

Its component of UCS and logical system configuration of Blade; which is mediator between OS and
Empty Blade.

We will configure service profile (MAC+WWN+OS) and will associate on empty blade before installing
OS.

iii) FI (Fabric Interconnector):

In a single chassis or enclosure technology Network Core Switch is a Centralized device to connect
Enclosure and SAN.

But in CISCO UCS mechanism FI is the centralized device to connect Chassis, Core Switch, and Fabric
Extender and SAN box.

9. What Hardware Models you have worked / experienced in the current organization?

Ans: I have hands on experience in HP and Cisco - Rack and Blade servers. Basic Knowledge in Rest.

HP RACK MODEL : HP Proliant DL 380p Gen8, HP Proliant DL380 G9, DL 580 G9.
 HP BLADE MODEL : BL460CG9, BL460CG6

CISCO UCS RACK : CISCO UCS C3260, CISCO UCS 3160

CISCO UCS BLADE:UCSB-B200-M3, UCSB-B440 -M2, ENCLOSURE CISCO UCS- 5108

IBM RACK MODEL: System x3850 X5 -[7143,7144,], IBM X3850.

DELL RACK MODEL : PowerEdge R510, PowerEdge2950,

DELL BLADE MODEL: PowerEdge M610, PowerEdge M620.

VMWARE KEY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. What is Virtualization and What is VM & VM Files?

➢ Virtualization is a Technology, which can transform Hardware into Software with help
of Hypervisor (ESXi).

➢ Virtual Machine is a computer which looks like a Physical Machine but it is software
Generated Machine. It contains set of discrete files like

(a) Virtual Machine Configuration file --- vmname.vmx.

(b) Virtual Machine Disk file --- vmname.vmdk.
(c) Virtual Machine Bios File --- vmname.nvram.
(d) Virtual Machine Log file --- vmname.log.
(e) Virtual Machine Swap file --- vmname.vswp.
(f) Virtual Machine Snapshot List --- vmname.vmsd.
(g) Virtual Machine Snapshot Main File --- delta.vmdk
(h) Virtual Machine Snapshot Data --- Vmname.vmsn
(i) Virtual Machine Extend Config --- Vmname.Vmxf
(j) Virtual Machine Template --- Vmname.Vmtx.
(k) Virtual Machine Actual Hard disk File --- Vmname.Flat.vmdk.
2. Backend Process of features (Snapshot,Clone,Template,FT,HA,DRS) ?

ANSWER:

Snapshot:- Pre- Reserved state of the virtual machine . Recommended during Minor changes of VM.

Snapshot to Snapshot communication will happen by Metadata Links and once you taken the
snapshot the base VM is in Read Mode and Snapshot is in Write mode because of that changes will
saved only on Snapshot disk (Delta.vmdk). Once committed / Reverted snapshot then Base VM will be
Read & Write access.

Clone:- Duplicate copy of VM. Recommended during Major changes of VM.

We need to run the sysprep file after done the clone before power on the clone virtual machine
because Same DID and SID will create so we should run Sysprep file to create new ID’s

Criticality: If we are not running the sysprep file we will experience duplicate ip and system name in
network which is big impact to production down

Template:- Master Copy of Virtual Machine with help of template will deploy N number of VM’s.
Regarding golden template basically I will use golden template mechanism to my daily build vm’s.
Golden template means customized virtual machine with all system and business requirements(Guest
OS , local firewall turned off ,enable Hot Add feature, Page file Configuration, set the CPU and
Memory limitations, install antivirus, install monitoring software, set the ip address via dhcp and vm
resources should be standard manner etc)

FT:-

Fault Tolerance for VM 100% availability and 0% downtime. FT will work on vLockStep
Technology.

When we enable FT the FT VM will create secondary VM in another ESXi Host and both have
replication in continue manner.

HA:- High Availability Cluster / Failover Over Cluster. FDM Technique is the backend of HA.

DRS:- Load Balancing Cluster, will Maintain Memory and CPU Loads across cluster. (No Backend
Process)

(3) How to register and un-register the VM? (OR) How to fix the Orphan VM’s?

ANSWER:
➢ Remove the VM from Inventory is called un-registration
➢ Go to the VM Datastore (Browse Datastore) then select the VM Folder and Right Click the
.VMX file and click on Add Inventory its called VM Registration.
(4) What is snapshot and file extension and how you will take snapshot?

ANSWER:

➢ Snapshot is one of the vcenter feature and pre-reserved state of the Virtual Machine. We will
take Snapshot for minor change of VM. Ex: Patching,Vmtools upgradation,VM
Reconfigure,Reboot.
➢ Snapshot Manager can manage All Snapshots for the specific Virtual Machine.

Process of Create Snapshot:-

Right Click VM→Click on Take Snapshot→Provide snapshot name and provide

description→OK

Commit Snapshot / Delete Snapshot:-

Right Click VM→Click on Snapshot Manager→Select Top Snapshot→Click on Delete / Delete

All

➢ When we need to revert back the same state of VM without any changes in VM it is
very useful.
➢ Snapshot is used for UPDATES & CLONE Is used for UPGRADATION.

➢ Revert Snapshot:-After performed the above said operations if the changes are not successful
then we need to remove all installed patches/ application changes and need to revert back the
Virtual machine to previous state is called Revert / Goto.

Right Click VM--> Select Revert (or) Go to Snapshot Manager--> Select Snapshot and Click on
GOTO

(5) What is Clone and how you will take clone?

ANSWER:

➢ It is one of the VC feature.

➢ Clone is a duplicate copy of virtual machine.
➢ It is used in Testing & Development Environment.
 ➢ Basically we will take Clone for Major changes like OS Upgradation, Application Upgradation&
Stage Environments for temporary purpose.
➢ Right Click the VM and select Clone→Provide VM Name→Choose Datastore→Finish. (Here we
will uncheck the NIC)
➢ Once done the Clone then power On the VM and login with local administrator account then
change Guest host name and IP Addres then connect the NIC and handed over to the customer.

(6) What is Template and How to deploy Virtual Machine from Template.?

ANSWER:

➢ It is one of the virtual center feature.

➢ Template is Master copy of the Virtual Machine.
➢ With help of Template we can deploy N number of Virtual Machines.
➢ We will create multiple templates for organization based on App and DB.

(7). What is RDM & Types?

ANSWER:

RAW DEVICE MAPPING (RDM).

1. A Raw Device Mapping is a file stored in a VMFS volume.

2. Raw Device Mapping allows you to store virtual machine data directly on a LUN.
3. The Mapping file is stored on a VMware vSphere VMFS data store .
4. The RDM file Name is “VMname.rdm.vmdk”.

Benefit of RDM:

When we need more hard disk size like more than 600 GB for the business requirement such as
Exchange, Database, Domain Controllers and File Servers then we can proceed on RDM disk instead of
VMDK; which will help to improve I/O operations performance and also one of the best
recommendations for production confirmed by VMware.

Types of Raw Device Mapping:

1. Virtual compatibility mode:-

This will mapped to VMFS volumes and VMKernel will send Read and Write to VM so full
virtualization features will work like Vmotion,Snapshot,clone,etc...
 2. Physical compatibility mode:-

In this mode VMKernal passes all commands to Physical SCSI so there is no VMFS reference
then no Vmware features can support in this mode.

Physical mode also allows virtual-to-physical clustering for cost-effective high availability

Limitations of physical compatibility mode :

1.VMware snapshots are not allowed

2.VCB (VMware consolidated backup) support is not possible, because VCB requires VMware
snapshots

3.Cloning of VMs that use physical mode RDMs is not possible

4.Converting VMs into templates that use physical mode RDMs is not possible

5.Migration of VMs with physical mode RDMs if the migration involves copying the disk is not
possible.

6.NoVMotion with physical mode RDMs

RDM:-(Raw Device Mapping)

SAN-->LUN 1--> DIRECT ASSIGN TO VM-->RDM.

HOW TO ADD RDM DISK TO VM:-

1. Right click the VM

2. Go to Edit Settings.
3. Select Hardware Tab
4. Click on Add
5. Select Hard Disk-->Click on Next
6. Here Select option Raw Device Mapping instead of New Disk
7. Click on Next and Select new Provisioned LUN (Please refer LUN ID).
8. Click on Next and Click on Finish.
(8) . N/W Adapter and SCSI controllers?

Answer:

Network Adaptors are E1000—100 MBPS,VMXNET2—1GB, VMXNET3—10 GB Speeds.

SCSI Controllers:

(a) BUS Parallel

(b) LSI Logic Parallel
(c) LSI Logic SAS
(d) Vmware Paravirtual.

(9) . How to create Data stores

What are storage policies, Mulipathing VMware

(10). How many port groups we can create and explain each?

Answer:

Management network port group: Used for ESXi communication from one network to another.

VMKernel port group: Responsible for VMotion and IP based storage (Outside communication).

VM port group: Responsible for communication of VM's within ESXi.

(11) . What is NIC Teaming?

Answer:

Combination of multiple of physical network uplinks is called NIC teaming . NIC Teaming will help
us to Network Load balancing and High speed packet traffic.

(12). Network security policies?

(a) Promiscuous Mode:- [REJECT]

When we send a packet in network, I don’t want to broadcast and Listening my packet by
other user in network expect my destination in prospective of security .Hence Reject is the
recommendation of Promiscuous Mode.

(b) MAC Address Changes:- [ACCEPT]

 By this security, when we transfer VM in network the MAC address of the Source Guest OS
has the intended effect and destination frames will receivedthe new MAC address

(C) Forged Transmits:- [ACCEPT]

In this scenario, multiple virtual machines are participating in the NLB cluster and all have the
same MAC address. Other cases resolve around the concept of utilizing a common MAC
address to own a cluster resource when one or more nodes fail. Realistically, you won’t
encounter all that many use cases that require Forged Transmits.

(13) What are the networking Bandwidth options available in VMware?

Ans:

Traffic Shaping policy contains peak bandwidth, average bandwidth & burst size.

(14) . What is Masking and Zoning

Answer:

Logical Unit Number Masking or LUN masking is an authorization process that makes a Logical
Unit Number available to some hosts and unavailable to other hosts. LUN masking is mainly
implemented at the host bus adapter (HBA) level.

Zoning and masking terms are often confused by those who just started working with SAN.
But it takes 5 minutes googling to understand that the main difference is that zoning is
configured on a SAN switch on a port basis (or WWN) and masking is a storage feature with
LUN compose with multiple WWN Numbers with help of Storage Group.

(15) Communication b/w VI Client and ESX ?

Answer: TCP and UDP Ports required to access. 80 & 443.

(16) Communication b/w VC client and ESXi?

Answer: TCP and UDP Ports required to access. 80 & 443 AND 902,903.

(17) What is Beacon Probing in vNetworking and how it will work?

Answer:
Beacon probing is a network failover detection mechanism that sends out and listens for
beacon probes on all NICs in the team and uses this information along with link status to
determine link failure. ESX/ESXi sends beacon packets every 10 seconds.

(18) What is Vmotion& Svmotion and also conditions?

ANSWER:

VMOTION

➢ It is one of the VC feature.

➢ Moving running Virtual Machines from one ESX Host to another ESX Host without down time is
called VMotion.
➢ VMotion works by Changes in Memory BitMap.

WHY WE SHOULD GO FOR VMOTION

1. HOST MAINTENANCE PURPOSE:

➢ While Updating ESX / ESXi Host Updates.

➢ While increasing Service Console Memory up to 800 MB in ESX 3.5
➢ While adding any Hardware like: Memory, CPU, DISK and NIC.

In the above all conditions ESX Host Reboot is required, so we have to Place ESX / ESXi Host into
Maintenance Mode.
2. CONTINUOUS VM OPERATIONS:

Insufficient resources in our VM’s in that Scenario for VM continuous operations purpose better to
move VM’s from one ESX / ESXi Host to another ESX / ESXi Host.

3. BETTER HARDWARE UTILIZATION:

Insufficient resources in our ESX Host in that Scenario better to move VM’s from One Host to
another Host.
 SVMOTION

MOVING RUNNING VIRTUAL MACHINE DISK FILES FROM ONE SHARED STORAGE (Datastore) TO
ANOTHER SHARED STORAGE (Datastore) IS CALLED SVMOTION.

WHILE MOVING VM’s FROM ONE HOST TO ANOTHER HOST& DATASTORE -DATASTORE WE HAVE
TO MEET SOME CONDITIONS.

(1) CPU COMPATIBILTY (CPU should be same family either INTEL (or) AMD).
(2) STORAGE SHOULD BE COMMON (or) SHARED STORAGE.
(3) RESOURCES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IN DESTINATION HOST.
(4) PHYSICAL N/W SHOULD BE SAME NETWORK.
(5) CREATE VMKERNEL PORT GROUP IN BOTH SOURCE & DESTINATION HOST’s.
(6) NO ACCESS OF MOUNTABLE DEVICES EX: CD, FLOPPY.
(7) NO PERMISSION TO VMX FILE.

(19) HA & DRS Cluster?

HIGH AVAILABILITY , FAILURE OVER CLUSTER.

WHEN HOST IS ISOLATED ON NETWORK HA WILL RESTART VM IN ANOTHER HOST.

HA MONITORING, HA ADMINISSION CONTROL--ENABLE,HA ADMISSION CONTROL POLICY --1.

VM RESTART PRIORITY --HIGH AND MEDIUM AND LOW.

DRS [DISTRIBUTED RESOURCE SCHEDULER / LOAD BALANCING CLUSTER]

DRS AUTOMATED FULLY AND RULES

IN ENTIRE VM TECHNOLOGY WE CAN CONTROL VMOTION BY DRS RULES.

AFFINITY--TOGETHER

ANTI AFFINITY --SEPARATE

STAY ON HOST--FOR BIG VIRTUAL MACHINES WITH SHOULD AND MUST POLICY

ALL RULES IS REQUIRED BASED ON APPLICATION DEPENDENCY.

(20) . What are DRS Rules?

(1) Affinity [Together] (2) Anti-Affinity [Separate] (3) Run on Host [For VC VM Holding].

(21) What is EVC? [Enhanced vMotion Compatibility]

EVC will overcome cpu condition during vmotion,will enable in HA.

(22) . What is VMFS?

Answer:

➢ Its a VMWare file system it has two versions VMFS 3 and VMFS 5.
➢ ESXi 5.1 VMFS version is 5.58 and ESXi5.5 VMFS version is 5.60
➢ A VMFS data store is used to hold templates, ISO images and the files that make up a VM
➢ The size of a VMFS can be dynamically extended
➢ If the master extent is lost, it could cause data loss on the entire VMFS
➢ Datastoreupgradation is one of the key area during environmental upgradation. We can
upgrade VMFS by choosing datastore section.

(23) . LUN is not visibling at ESXi Level then how you can fix?

Answer:

Resolution:

These steps assist you in identifying a LUN connectivity issue:

1. Verify that the LUN is presented to the ESXi/ESX host. You may need to contact your array
vendor for assistance.

a. Verify that the LUN is in the same storage group as all the ESXi/ESX hosts (if applicable
to the array).
b. Verify that the LUN is configured correctly for use with the ESXi/ESX host.

Note: Consult the appropriate SAN configuration guide for your array (listed in the
Additional Information section).

c. Verify that the LUN is not set to read-only on the array.

(24) What is WWN Number?

Answer:

World wide number reference of HBA. It's a unique number for HBA card, which will be the primary
reference for storage team during new LUN Provisioning.
(25) . What are the pre requirement to upgrade the ESXi with help of update manager?

Answer:

Methods of Upgrading the ESXi Host:-

➢ vSphere Update Manager

➢ Upgrade or migrate interactively using an ESXi installer ISO image on CD/DVD or USB flash
drive
➢ Scripted upgrade
➢ vSphere Auto Deploy
➢ esxcli (Command-line interface)

PRIOR REQUIREMENTS:-

1. Best practice is need to upgrade the vCenter first

2. Ensure that your current ESX/ESXi version is supported for migration or upgrade.

Example: (1) ESX 3.5 can be upgrade only for ESXi 4.1 not for ESXi 5.0

(2) ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5.0,5.1& 5.5

3. Ensure that your system hardware complies with above ESXi requirements.

4. Ensure that sufficient disk space is available on the host for the upgrade minimum requires
50MB of free space on your VMFS datastore.
5. If a SAN is connected to the host, detach the fibre before continuing with the upgrade . Do not
disable HBA cards in the BIOS.
6. Strongly recommendation is back up your host before performing an upgrade like host profile
backup and take the configuration backup by logging into the host putty.

Important: After upgrading or migrating your host to ESXi 5.x, you cannot roll back to the
earlier version.

7. Depending on the upgrade method , you may have to migrate or power off all virtual machines
on the host.

Process of Environmental Upgradation with Help update Manager

1: vCenter Server upgradation from vSphere 5.1 To vSphere 5.5 U2D

2: Upgrade Cisco Blade Firmware and drivers up to date on all 15 physical boxes.
 3: Upgrade the ESXi host from ESXi 5.1.0 to ESXi 5.5.0 U2D with Help of Baseline.

4: Upgrade VMFS datastores from VMFS 5.58 to VMFS 5.60

5: Upgrade VMware Tools. (Technology Recommendation)

6. Upgrade VM hardware version.

I would recommend that the Action Items 5 & 6 can be performed separately because of we
have to talk with the business to get server downtime during VM tools and VM
hardware upgradation phase and also we should consider the good back out plan before
proceeding on these tasks to avoid critical business impact.

(26). Providing the access to customer on separate VM

Answer:

Will Goto the specific VM Permissions Tab then will click on Add permission then select user then
define specific role of permission.

(27). What is Linked clone

A linked clone is a copy of a virtual machine (VM) that shares virtual disks with its parent VM. The
term is most often associated with VMware.

(28) vAPP& virtual appliance V.V.IMP

Answer:

A virtual appliance can be deployed as a VM or a subset of a virtual machine running on virtualization

technology, such as VMware Workstation. Deploying an application as a virtual appliance can
eliminate problems with installation and configuration, such as software or driver compatibility issues.

Definition 2:
A VMware vApp is a collection of pre-configured virtual machines (VMs) that combine applications
with the operating systems that they require.
vAPP will help us in configuration of OVF Templates, which are free defined.

(29) What will be the impact on environment if Vcenter is offline?

Answer:

VMOTION won’t work because vmotion mechanism will work on DRS and DRS is vcenter feature.

When vCenter is down vMotion, SvMotion& DRS won’t work. HA & FT will work.
(30) .What are different types of licenses in Vmware?

1. Standard 2. Enterprise 3. Enterprise Plus

(31) What is host profile purpose of Host profile?

Want to take ESXi Configuration Backup will take host profile. Right on ESXi and select Host profile.

(32). what are the Root Logs we have in VMware?

➢ Vmkwarning
➢ Vmkernal logs (H/w & Storage)
➢ Vmksummary
➢ Vpxa Logs
➢ Hostd Logs
➢ FDM Logs
➢ Message Logs

(33) What is HOSTD?

➢ HOSTD is ESXi agent and its main communication condent to the Host.
➢ If ESXi is not behaving normal in VC then we have to run the Agent with help of SSH
➢ In ESX 3.5 we can use #service mgmt-vmware start
➢ In ESXi 5.0/5.1 & 5.5 we can use #/etc/init.d/hostd restart

(34) What is VPXA and VPXD?

➢ VPXA is a vCenter agent and also it will act as interface between ESXi and vCenter.
➢ Whenever you restart HOSTD then have to restart VPXA as recommendation.
➢ To restart VPXA in ESX 3.5 will use #service vmware-vpxa start/restart.
➢ To restart VPXA in ESXi 5.0/5.1 & 5.5 then will use #/etc/init.d/vpxa restart.
➢ VPXD is vCenter server service to login into the vCenter with help of vSphere Client.

(35) Types of Memory Metrics in Virtual Machine

Example: 4 GB Memory Configured for VM.

(I) Active Memory:-

Active Guest Memory is the amount of memory that it has been actively used by the virtual
machine.
 (II) Ballooned Memory:-

The Balloon memory is the amount of guest physical memory that is currently reclaimed
through the balloon driver (vmmemctl). This is carried out by one of the Memory
management technique of ESX server named Memory Ballooning.

(III) Unaccessed Memory:-

Unaccessed memory is the current amount of memory not being accessed by the Virtual
machine (free memory for the guest)

(IV) Shared Memory:-

Shared Guest Memory is the amount of memory which is shared through the TPS
(Transparent Page sharing) one of the memory management Technique of ESX server.This
value also includes the memory shared with other Virtual Machines and shared within the
Virtual Machine.

(V) Private Memory:-

Private memory is the amount of memory that is physically backed by the Host. Private
memory is calculated using the below formula

Private memory = VM Allocated Memory –Unaccessed Memory – Shared Memory

Private Memory = 4 GB – 84.00 MB – 2.01 GB

(VI) Swapped Memory:-

Swapped Memory is the amount of guest Physical memory swapped out to the Virtual
Machine’s swap device by the ESX kernel (VMkernel). This value refers to the VMkernel
swapping not the Guest operating system swapping activity.

(36) What are Memory Management Techniques?

ESXi uses several innovative techniques to reclaim virtual machine memory, which are:

➢ Transparent page sharing (TPS):—Reclaims memory by removing redundant pages with

identical content;
➢ Ballooning:—Reclaims memory by artificially increasing the memory pressure inside the guest;
 ➢ Hypervisor swapping:—Reclaims memory by having ESXi directly swap out the virtual
machine’s memory;
➢ Memory compression:—Reclaims memory by compressing the pages that need to be swapped
out.

(37) What's the difference between a thick and eager zeroed thick?

fully allocating and zeroing out all the data inside the disk array at the time the disk is
provisioned.

require a short pause as its data expands to zero out data on the array. This isn't the case in
an eager zeroed disk, where the space on the array has already been provisioned and the data
zeroed out.

The difference in performance between a thick disk and an Eager Zeroed thick disk is very
small, but some applications, such as Microsoft Cluster Services and VMware Fault Tolerance,
still require eager zeroed thick provisioned disks.

(38) Pre-Requisites of FT?

Answer:
1. Virtual machines must be stored in virtual RDM or virtual machine disk (VMDK) files that
are thick provisioned. If a virtual machine is stored in a VMDK file that is thin provisioned
and an attempt is made to enable Fault Tolerance, a message appears indicating that the
VMDK file must be converted. To perform the conversion, you must power off the virtual
machine.
2. Virtual machine files must be stored on shared storage.
3. VM with a single vCPU are compatible with Fault Tolerance. if its in ESXi 6.0 then FT is
4CPU.

(39) Difference between TOP and ESXTOP Commands

➢ VMware ESXTOP Command is used for Storage Monitoring

➢ ESXTOP show the Service Console Performance (or) ESXi HOST performance.
➢ Monitors overall storage performance per HBA
➢ Monitors storage performance per LUN
➢ Monitors storage performance per VM

Top command is used to shows how many users are logged in to Virtual Centre
 (40) What are default roles in vCenter? V.V.V.IMP

Ans:

➢ No Access
➢ Read Only
➢ Administrator
➢ Virtual Machine Power User
➢ Virtual Machine User
➢ Resource Pool Administrator
➢ VMware Consolidated Backup User
➢ Data store Consumer
➢ Network Consumer

(41) Resource Pool?

Ans:

➢ A Pool of Resources reserved for a Virtual Machine

➢ We can Add Resource Pools in Host Level & Clustered Level
➢ In Host Level we can add up to 512 Resource pools & in Clustered level 128.
➢ While creation of a Resource Pool, it provides different options like Reservation, Share,
Limited, Unlimited and Extent Options.

(42) VNUMA mode?----V.V.IMP

VNUMA is enabled by default on all virtual machines that have 8 or more vCPUs configured, as
generally this will improve performance on these bigger VMs. Once the Hot-Add feature is
enabled on a VM, vNUMA is automatically disabled.
➢ VNuma basically will help improve virtual machine Memory and CPU performance.

(43) H/W tab and update manager tab are not visibling in V center?

Need to enable Hardware Plug-in and Enable update manager plug-in. otherwise need to restart
CMI service in services.msc.
 (44) What is the major difference between ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.5 Cluster?

Features vSphere 4.1 vSphere 5.0

AAM
Automatic Availability FDM
HA Agent Manager Fault Domain Manager
HA Host Approach Primary & Secondary Master & Slave
Management N/W and Storage
HA Failure Detection Management N/W communication
HA Log File /etc/opt/vmware/AAM /etc/opt/vmware/FDM
Storage DRS Not Available Yes
VM Affinity & Anti-Affinity Available Available
VMDK Affinity & Anti-Affinity Not Available Available
Profile driven storage Not Available Available
VSphere Storage Appliance Not Available Available
VM with Snapshot cannot be
Storage Vmotion Snapshot migrated using Storage VM with Snapshot can be migrated
support vMotion using Storage vMotion
Swap to SSD NO Yes

Moving VM Files using moving Moving VM Files using I/O

Storage Vmotion to using dirty block tracking mirroring with better enhancements

(45)
ffff . ESX & ESXi Difference?

Capability ESX ESXi

Service Console Present 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
3 rd Party agents installed in
Hardware Montioring Service console Via CIM Providers
Boot from SAN Supported in ESX Supported in ESXi

Needed as smilar to linux Few pacthes because of small

Software patches and updates operation system footprint and more secure
 Full managenet capability via vSPhere
vSphere web Access Only experimental web client

Present . Lockdown mode prevents

Locked Down Mode Not present remote users to login to the host
Scripted Installtion Supported Supported
vMA Support Yes Yes
Major Administration
command-line Command esxcfg- esxcli

(46) Maximum N/W cards and CPU’s in 5.5 VM?

Answer:

Max Network Cards are :10 & CPU is 64

47.What is difference between Standard and Distributed switches?

Answer:

Standard switch is responsible for the individual ESXi hosts and we need to configure standard switch
for each ESXi host.

Distributed switch is responsible for Centralized communication to enhance IO performance between

ESXi hosts.

Features Standard Switch Distributed Switch

Provides centralized management

and
monitoring of the network
Standard switch needs to configuration
managed at each individual of all the ESXi hosts that are
Management host level associated with the dvswitch.

Distributed switch is only available

Standard Switch is available for all for
Licensing Licensing Edition enterprise edition of licensing

Standard switch can be created Distributed switch can be created

Creation & and and configured
configuration configured at ESX/ESXi host level at the vCenter server level

VLAN segmentation Yes Yes

Yes, can utilize multiple uplink to

Yes, can utilize multiple uplink to form
NIC teaming form NIC teaming NIC teaming

Outbound Traffic Can be achieved using standard Can be achieved using distributed
Shaping switch switch

Inbound Traffic Not available as part of standard

Shaping switches Only possible at distributed switch

Not available as part of standard

VM port blocking switches Only possible at distributed switch

PVLAN can be created as part of

dvswitch. 3 types of
PVLAN(Promiscuous,
Private VLAN Not available Community and Isolated)

Can be achieved using distributed

Network vMotion Not available switch

Port Mirroring Not available Yes

(48) What is difference between Standard and Distributed switches? (Short Description)

Answer:Standard switch is responsible for the individual ESXi hosts and we need to configure
standard switch for each ESXi host.

Distributed switch is responsible for Centralized communication to enhance IO performance between

ESXi hosts.

We will configure DV Switches at vCenter Level.

REALTIME SCENARIOS AND TROUBLE SHOOTINGS

1. Host Level
2. VM level
 3. VC level
4. DS level
5. Network level

ESXi Host Level

Scenario1:- V.V.IMP

ESXi Host is not responding on network and disconnected from vCenter?

Unresponsive host and multiple Disconnected virtual machines (KB-1019082)?

CAUSES:

1) Due to Physical connectivity loss

2) Due to running ENIC & FNIC with older firmware& Drivers.
3) Due to Hostd non responsive state
4) Due to VPXA non responsive
5) Due to High Bandwidth during VM Scheduled backups and Network Switch backups.
6) Due to High Swap rate and High CPU utilization.

RESOLUTION:-

➢ Verify the current state of the ESX/ESXi host hardware and power

➢ Determine if the ESX host responds to ping responses

➢ Verify that you can connect to the VMware ESX/ESXi host using vSphere Client

➢ ESX host has been rebooted

➢ Restart Management Agents .#/etc/init.d/hostd restart---(ESXi Hypervisor)

➢ Restart Management Agent #service mgmt-vmware restart (ESX Hypervisor)

➢ Restart vCenter Agent. #/etc/init.d/vpxa restart---- (ESXi Hypervisor)

➢ Restart vCenter Agent. #service -vmware vpxa restart (ESX Hypervisor)

➢ To Restart all Agents #./sbin/services.sh (or) #services -sh restart

➢ Need to upgrade the Bandwidth speed by customer.

➢ Need to increase Memory and CPU by keeping Host into Maintenance Mode.
Scenario 2:-V.V.IMP

ESXi/ESX hosts enter a Not Responding state after connecting to vCenter Server (1002719)

A firewall prevents port 902 UDP heartbeats from the ESXi/ESX host from reaching the vCenter
Server.

This issue occurs when the ESXi/ESX host firewall or another firewall between the ESXi/ESX host
and vCenter Server is configured to filter the UDP packets.

Note: ESXi automatically opens its firewall when the vCenter Server agent is installed.

To resolve this issue:

For an ESX firewall:

1. Run this command to temporarily disable the ESX firewall and determine if it is blocking the
2. port 902 UDP heartbeat packets:

# service firewall stop

3. Start the firewall with #service firewall start.

Scenario 3:-V.V.IMP

I am unable to access ESXi by Putty , what could be the reason?

Ans: Your SSH service and SSH Port is not enabled/ opened.

Scenario 4:-V.V.V.IMP

I am unable to keep my ESXi 4.1 Host in Maintenance Mode ?

Ans:

a) Your ESXi Host Virtual Machines might have Snapshots / RDM’s (or) Both.
b) So you have to commit / Revert VM snapshot before Host Maintenance Mode.
 c) You need to power of the RDM virtual machine before Keep ESXi in Maintenance Mode
otherwise Remove the RDM Disk from the VM and initiate Host Maintenance Mode after that
add the same RDM to your virtual machine after migration.
d) If any virtual machine VMDK is locked by ESXi Host you can’t keep ESXi Host into Maintenance
Mode; so we have reboot the Host after migrated rest VM’s to fix this issue.

Scenario 5:-V.V.IMP

My ESXi Host resources (Memory & CPU) showing 0% at vCenter, what is this behavior and how you
will fix this.

Ans: By Restarting Hostd Agent service and By Restarting vCenter Agent service we can fix.

Restart Management Agents . #/etc/init.d/hostd restart

Restart vCenter Agent. #/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

Scenario 6:-V.V.IMP

I am unable to keep my ESXi 5.1 Host in Maintenance Mode, what could be the problem?

a) Virtual Machine have Physical RDM.(SCSI Format)

b) The VM is locked by ESXi Host. Need to kill the VM Process.

#esxcli vm process list

#esxcli vm process kill --type=soft/hard/suspect --world-id=<world no>

Scenario 7:-VERY IMPORTANT.

Your Master Node has been down, what will happen?

1. The master node VM's can rebooted

2. Your Master Host failed communication to your HA Agent so there is possibility of your cluster
communications, which means all your Slaves are out of your HA & DRS. (HA will failed all ESXi Slaves)

3. You need to reboot Faulty Master to select a new Master by Election.

Scenario 8:-V.V.IMP

Suppose my ESXi host hardware tab is not displaying the hardware status then what is service need
to restart?

➢ CIM service on the ESXi host should be restarted / Enable Plugin

 Virtual Machine Level

Scenario1:-V.V.IMP

I am unable to Migrate VM to another ESX / ESXi Host and unable to increase drive C: & D: space
and all VM Options are inactive state

Ans:-

➢ You might have the snapshot in your virtual machine .Hence we unable to perform vmotion
which is applicable until ESXi 4.1 so upto ESXi 4.1 the snapshot virtual machine can't migrate
and also physical RDM is one of the reason.
➢ If you have snapshot to your virtual machine you can't able to increase C: & D: space in all
hypervisors.

Scenario 2:-V.V.V.IMP

VM performance is degraded what are the cause and how you can remediate.

I)

a. Resources Crunch
➢ Resource should be unlimited in production VM Should not enable ballooning.

b. Data store No space

➢ In production, always choose thick provision.

c. VM Tool outdated
➢ VM tools help to provide the best performance for mouse, memory,time
synchronization, graceful shutdown & restart

d. Lower virtual machine hardware version

➢ Upgrade the VM hardware versions

e. VM network adapter lower version like E1000 (100 Mbps)

➢ Updating VM tools will give latest version and also we can add new vnic as
vmxnet2 (or) vmxnet3.

f. Older Hypervisor and drivers

➢ Use update manager and perform environment upgrade.

Symptoms of Heartbeat failure:-
 ➢ VM out of HA
➢ VM can't migrate any where
➢ VM out of VMware feature and DRS not supporting

Why & How (Reasons)

➢ Vmdk locked
➢ base CPU & memory controlled by ballooning
➢ Heavy network traffic due to read & write.
➢ Due to ESXi NIC and HBA drivers & Firmwares.

Solutions:

✓ Need to find the particular VM residing and reconfigure in particular host

✓ Reconfigure HA in particular host
✓ if not recovered, do the manual Vmotion
✓ Restart the HOST D agent, by login putty.
CMD: # /etc/init.d/hostd restart (ver 5.0)
# service MGMT-Vmware Restart (up to ver 4.1)
✓ Finally restart the VM , will fix most of the problem

II) VM level: Guest OS performance:

Perform upgrade OS and installing patches.This will be taking care by Windows team.

Scenario2:- V.V.V.V.V IMP

VM unable to do the vmotion from one host to another host/ VM vMotion failed?

1. VM Should meet vmotion 5 conditions.

2. VM should not contain any snapshot if ESXi is 3.5,4.0 & 4.1. If you have snapshot then we need to
commit/Delete (or) Revert Snapshot to finish vmotion. Incase your ESXi is 5.0,5.1,& 6.0 then snapshot
vm vmotion can be possible .
3. VM Should not contain any physical RDM, since physical RDM is SCSI file system. Virtual RDM Can
able to do the vmotion without downtime because of virtual RDM is VMFS file system.

4. Few cases vMotion will be failed at 27% by HA Cluster Configured so we need to disable the HA
Cluster until vMotion activity.

5. If VMDK is Locked we can't able to do the vmotion, so we need to kill the VM process to perform
vmotion. #kill -i (Ex: #kill -9)

6. If vSwitches network port group Lable names are differ in destination ESXi host then we can't able
to do the vmotion.

7. If the destination ESXi Host Virtual Machine port group does not contain respective port group
VLAN ID configuration then vmotion will be failed.

8. If vCenter is down then vmotion won't work.

9. We need to enable the vMotion & Management Traffic on vSwitches of Host.

10. vMotion is failing at 14% (or) vMotion getting an error as vmkernel network need to check

11. Virtual Machine contains sparse disk.

Scenario3:- V.V.IMP

What happen if VMotion stops in between 10% and how to fix it?

CAUSE: This issue may also occur due to a duplicate IP address on your network

RESOLUTION :To reset the Migrate.Enabled setting:

1. Connect vSphere or VMware Infrastructure Client to your vCenter Server.

2. Click on the ESX host.
3. Click the Configuration tab.
4. Click Advanced Settings under Software.
5. Select Migrate and change Migrate.Enabled to 0.
6. Click OK and close.
7. Click on Advanced Settings.
8. Select Migrate and change Migrate.Enabled to 1.
9. Click OK and then Close.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, try increasing the timeout for migration network
operations after Step 4 and then continue with the remaining steps. Also, ensure to repeat these
steps on the destination host.
To increase the timeout for migration network operations:

1. Click the Configuration tab.

2. Click Advanced Settings under Software > Migrate.
3. Change Migrate.NetTimeout to 60 seconds. The default is 20 seconds.
4. Click OK and then Close.

Scenario 4:How we will convert Thin to Thick provisioning of VMDK.

Scenario 5:How to fix vm inventory name differs in datastores.

Scenario 6:How to split the vmdk of virtual machine to different datastores .

Answer:

The above 3 scenarios can able to fix by SVmotion& Advance option.

Right click on VM--> Select Migrate-->Choose-->Change Datastore-->Click on Advanced--> Select

different datastore--> Change Provisioning Thick to Thin.

MIGRATION TYPES

SCENARIO: 1

When you perform the migration within the cluster from one ESXI to another ESXI we don’t need to
power on the VM since V-Motion conditions are satisfied/validation are succeeded.

Step1: Right click on VM→ click on migrate →select change data store→ choose data store having
free space → click on finish.

Step2: Right click on VM→ click on migrate→ change host→select host→finish (This is called Hot
Migration).

NOTE: If we want to perform both V-Motion and SV-Motion then we need to shut down the VM.

SCENARIO: 2

Migrate the VM from one cluster to another cluster:

In this scenario we need Jump LUN, Common LUN or Shared LUN between two clusters.

Step1:

We will request the storage team for Jump/Shared/Common LUN between two clusters.
Step2:

Perform the storage migration from Cluster1 DS1 to Cluster2 DS2 Common LUN.

Step 3:

Post Hot Migration we need to shut down the guest (Safe Shutdown).

Step4:

Go to VM→edit settings→ make a note of network VLAN ID and VMDK path.

Step5:

Right click on VM→select remove from Inventory, This is called VM UN-Registration.

Step6:

Go to Cluster2 and browse the Common Data Store.

Step7:

Select VM folder and right click on .VMX then click on Add to Inventory, his is called VM Registration
process.

NOTE:

By VM UN-Registration and VM Registration process we can fix the Orphaned VM’s.

Step8:

Now VM is visible in the Inventory then → right click on the VM→Go to edit settings→select Network
Card and choose the appropriate VLAN ID which you noted earlier → click on Ok.

Step9:

Now power on the VM and respond to answer file(Yes or no, You did or not).

Step10:

Finally we can access the VM from cluster to Network.

Step11:

After Migration we need to perform SV-Motion from Common LUN to Local Data Store where we
have enough/free space.
 • Local LUN → SV-Motion (Shared LUN) → UN Registration→ Registration→ SV-Motion.

Scenario 3:

How to Migrate VM from VC to VC:

Same process of Cluster to Cluster except we need to provide common LUN between VC to VC.

7. VM level: Unable to power ON VM--V.V.V.IMP

✓ Low disk space in datastore

✓ Network adapter lower version.
✓ ESXi host doesn't have the enough memory

8. HOW TO DO DISK CLONING? [ VMDK COPY FROM ONE VM TO ANOTHER VM]

When we need to copy vmdk from one VM to another VM, with help of #vmkfstools -i command we
can copy the disk.

➢ vmkfstools -i "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/examplevm/examplevm.vmdk"
"/vmfs/volumes/Datastore 2/newexamplevm/newexamplevm.vmdk" -d thin -a buslogic --->
Cloning and Converting VM Disk.

3. VCENTER LEVEL TROUBLESHOOTINGS

➢ VPXD not responding

Need to check VC server depending services like workstation, SQL, Storage & Orchestrator,
webservices,virtual storage drive.

➢ VCDB(VC database) /SSO full

VCDB default Size is 4GB(if VC & VCDB installed in same PC) and need to delete 'Log files' in 'ARG'
table.
To check the VCDB full need to go for 'Event Viewer'
➢ VCenter down:
If Vcenter is down, then Vmotion, DRS, SVmotion wouldn't work.
FT and HA will work.
First take a clone VCenter if any major changes for safety purpose .
Shutdown & Restart.

4.STORAGE LEVEL TROUBLESHOOTINGS

1. LUN not visibling at ESXi Level then how you can fix?

➢ Recheck with storage team for properly done Masking & Zoning.
➢ Rescan the HBA. Physical HBA card may damaged.

Ans:

Resolution:

These steps assist you in identifying a LUN connectivity issue:

1. Verify that the LUN is presented to the ESXi/ESX host. You may need to contact your array
vendor for assistance.

(1) Verify that the LUN is in the same storage group as all the ESXi/ESX hosts (if applicable
to the array).
(2) Verify that the LUN is configured correctly for use with the ESXi/ESX host.

Note: Consult the appropriate SAN configuration guide for your array (listed in the
Additional Information section).

(3) Verify that the LUN is not set to read-only on the array.
(4) Ensure that the HOST ID on the array for the LUN (on ESX it shows up under LUN ID) is
less than 255 for the LUN. The maximum LUN ID is 255. Any LUN that has a HOST ID
greater than 255 may not show as available under Storage Adapters, though on the
array they may reside in the same storage group as the other LUNs that have host IDs
less than 255. This limitation exists in all versions of ESXi/ESX from ESX 2.x to ESXi 5.x
due to the fact that SCSI lun ID field in hexadecimal range 00 -FF (256). This information
can be found in the maximums guide for the particular version of ESXi/ESX having the
issue.

2. Verify that the ESX /ESXi host can see the LUNs..

Verify that a rescan restores visibility to the LUN(s.Check the storage for latency.Verify that there
are not excessive SCSI reservation conflicts.

Note: LUN missing visibility at the time of ESXi Upgradation.

 NETWORK LEVEL TROUBLESHOOTING

➢ Uplink redundancy & connectivity status. Without Redundancy never configure the VSwitch.

vMotion Failing:

➢ Management & vMotion port Configuration option should be selected

➢ Port group label names should be Case Sensitive
➢ NIC Teaming: Combine all physical NICs and use as one logical uplink for Vswitch.NIC teaming is
the load Balancing and Failure

RECENT MAJOR SCENARIOS FOR INTERVIEW

1. Datastore contains 25 delta.vmdk files but in snapshot manager no snapshots?

CAUSES:

We unable to consolidate the virtual machine snapshot disks due to below causes.

(1) Due to Hidden and Stale delta vmdk; which were formed by snapshot creation and removal task
failures in daily VM image level backups.

(2) virtual machine backup solution creates a lock on a VMDK and fails to correctly release it is one of
the cause to consolidation failures.

(3) The VMware host held a lock on that snapshot, typically due to a communication error between
Veeam and the host/VC.

(4) Due to VSS in vmtools; virtual machine Image Level Snapshot Creation and Snapshot Removal task
failing during backups.

RESOLUTION:

1) Need to create a new snapshot on the affected virtual machine and then Perform a Delete All from
the snapshot manager to consolidate all snapshots. (Completed with errors as disk locked)

2) Regarding stale snapshot need to move the CBT (,Change Block Tracking files) files by connecting
SSH and consolidate snapshots.

3) For vmdk locked we need to kill the locked vmdk process id / World-ID on VM with help of Kill -9
command for this I need root password to take SSH. (KB-10051)
We need to run the below command to locate which host(s) had the lock on the vmdk.

vmkfstools -D /vmfs/volumes/yourvolume/yourVM/yourlockedVM.vmdk

Example: #esxcli vm process kill --type=soft –world-id=1268395

Example:#kill -9 PID

4) Needs to be re-install tools without VSS by Custom method to avoid vm snapshot backup creation
& removal task failures.

5) Need to perform svmotion and restart Hostd & Vpxa Agents then proceed on consolidation post
manual snapshot creation.

6) Remove all hot-added disks from the Veeam VM then create manual snapshot and perform “Delete
All” Operation. (Ensure remove disk from virtual machine not from delete disk)

Note: Solution 3 is recommended if the backup server is physical and 6 is for virtual.

(2) Unable to assign IP address when migrating virtual machine from Esxi 3.5 to 5.5?

Answer:

Need to upgrade VMware Tools and change Network Adapter to VMXNET3.

2. Cluster Master host is down?

Answer:

All Slaves will experience HA Failover failures . Hence election process will happen to elect new
master the new master will initiate HA process to restart old master virtual machines since its
acting as Slave .

3. VM performance graphs are not populating?

Ans:

Reason1: SQL communication port 1433 changed during any security Vulnerability task as
10001, so we need to update the same port at VCDB file in vCenter.
 Reason2: The below stats related tables are full. Need to truncate.

VPX_HIST_STAT1,
VPX_HIST_STAT2,
VPX_HIST_STAT3,
VPX_HIST_STAT4,
VPX_SAMPLE_TIME1,
VPX_SAMPLE_TIME2,
VPX_SAMPLE_TIME3,
VPX_SAMPLE_TIME4.

4. VM vmdk IDE want to increase ‘C’ drive in server 2003?

Ans:

Need to change disk type IDE to LSI LOGIC SAS by connecting host SSH and open VM vmdk
configuration by VI Editor.

Once we changed the disk type then we need to increase drive C: by the below any one of the
methods.

1.Dellexpert Utility
2. V2V
3.Helper Virtual Machine Technique.

5. ESXi high utilization? Investigation?

Ans:

1.We will check the Host Available resource.

2. Check if any Balloning happening at host level.

3. Check the Host Firmware and Drivers versions.

When master Esxi partially dead, what will happens?

Ans:

All Slaves will experience HA Failover failures in critical state and there is no chance of election
process to choose new master to overcome the situation so we need to restart the faulty
master manually to recover the situation with new election master.Hence election process will
happen to elect new master the new master will initiate HA process to restart old master
virtual machines since its acting as Slave .
6. Unable to extend vmdk?

Ans: Due to Virtual Machine snapshot & you might have IDE VMDK.

7. Unable to do vmotion due to absolute VLAN’s are not prompted or vmotion failing at 14%?

Ans:

We need to remove the Uplink from DVSwitch and re-add it back to switch after couple of
minutes.
Now we can able to see absolute IP and finish the vMotion.

8. VM is restarting regularly! Why?

Ans:

Virtual Machine scheduled Snapshot Remove task is taking more time, which is causing VM
unexpected reboot.

9. Unable to add the host into vcenter?

Lockdown Mode Enabled and ESXi Shell is disabled.

10. LUN’s / Datastores are visibling in all the Esxi in a cluster except one ESXi?

Causes:

1. Masking having an issue after SAN Upgradation.

2. Due to FC Switch issue we are not able to see the FC Devices, checked at FC BIOS.
3. ESXi HBA Firmware is older version, need to upgrade the latest version.

11. Upgradation from ESXi 5.1 to 6.0 failed at 92%? Showing the message cannot run upgrade
script on host?

➢ Due to /bootbank contains /State ID , so we need to clear /bookbank/state <ID>.

➢ Here we need to state.tgz folder to /var/tmp directory and reboot the host and
proceed with upgradation
 12. Vm appears inaccessible in v center?

Ans:

1. Might be Host disconnected from VC due to High resource utilization / High Network usage.
2. Storage disconnected to Host.
3. Port Group needs to check.
4. Needs to check the datastore available space.

13. How do you troubleshoot Virtual Machine Backup failures in your infrastructure?

Ans:

1. Will check the disk type Basic /Dynamic on compatibility check.

2. We will check the datastore free space to store snapshot and make sure allocate the
respective Block size.

14. How to export log bundle from the ESXi host?

Ans:
1. Connect host by Putty.
2. Type the command #vm -support
3. The log will store in /var/tmp folder
4. Install WINSCP in your Local Machine .
5. Run WINSCP and enter Host IP and login details .
6. You can able to see /var/tmp folder in WINSCP, just drag and drop into local PC.
7. Forward to Vmware vendor with help of FTP & SFTP to investigate logs.

MANAGER DISCUSSION ITIL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

ITIL [ Information Technology Infrastructure Library

It is a framework for delivering, supporting and improving IT services.

ITIL can help you

(a) Reduce it costs, increase quality and decrease risk.

(b) Improve decision making.
(c) Visibility to the total cost of ownership and utilization.
(d) Increase productivity.
(e) Provide clear and effective communication.
 TICKETING TOOLS

Can you explain about your ticketing tool?

In current organization we are using Service NOW to support all request like Incident, SR, Change
Request (CR) and Problem Tickets and supporting all these modules and also I have knowledge on
BMC Remedy Tool as well.

We will be resolved all these tickets as per the SLA and taking responsibility on particularly on High
and Critical cases and also participated in Critical management call whenever any P1 issue with the
Client and provide resolution as well as will be prepared RCA and submit to the Client.

Majorly will take Responsibility of Daily Operation discussion calls and Weekly CAB Call with the client
and participate in Internal DRS discussions with the team and preparing RCA’s

1) Service now (SNOW).

2) BMC Remedy.
3) Advance Help Disk (AHD/CA).

TYPES OF TICKETS

1) Incident.
2) Chang Ticket (CR\CO).
3) Problem Ticket.
4) Service Request (SR).

1) INCIDENT:-
When running server functionality broken or destroyed then we will receive incident.

Ex: Server shutdown or application not functioning or service stop or resource high utilization.

Most of the tickets will fall under Incident for the day to day activities approximately 60%
tickets we will be closed.

What is an Incident?

If any production server interrupted / running application function broken then to fix the issue we
can raise incident and simply it is outage for business.

Otherwise in simple terminology we can raise incident if something broken unexpectedly and
interrupted running business.

Example: Server Down, Service Down, Server restart, performance issues etc….
INCIDENT PRIORITY:-

Critical /P1, P2, P3 P4.

Critical & P1 process is standard and similar for most of the customers in MNCs

Server categaration:
1. Production (P1 & Critical).
2. Development (P2&P3).
3. Testing (P4).

All Production servers receive P1 & critical.

SLA (Service Level Agreement).

Based upon SLA Table we can work this module.

INCIDENT SLA DETAILS:-

SEV1 –Response Time is 15 Mins and Resolution Time is 3 Hours (Critical Incident)

SEV2—Response Time is 1 Hour and Resolution Time is 6 Hours (High Priority incident)

SEV3—Reseponse Time is 4 Hours and Resolution Time is 24 Hours (Medium Priority Incident)

SEV4—Response Time is 8 Hours and Resolution Time is 2 Days.

When P1 ticket came , we need to prepare RCA (Rout case analysis’s) and follow P1 Process.

Rout case analyses: Every P1 case will contain RCA & Change Ticket.

INCIDENT STAGES:-

1. Assign----When the customer raised ticket / when monitoring server triggered alert.
2. Work in progress (Wip)---Action began on issue.
3. Resolution or resolved---Issue Fixed.
4. Pending ----If any pending with Customer / Vendor / supplier.
5. Closed—After Resolved the ticket will audit by Audit team then the case will be closed.

Pending Reasons:

- Wait for the customer action.

- Wait for vendor action.

- Wait for supplier

- Monitoring the server resources (High CPU & High Memory).

2. CHANGE TICKET:-

If you going to make any changes on existing infrastructure then we should go with CR; basically CR
can be happen by Incident all CR’s can be reviewed by Change Manager. We will follow all CR Plans
such as

1) Business Justification
2) Implementation Plan
3) Test Plan
4) Backout Plan
5) Scheduled Window
6) Downtime Window
7) Involved Resources like other team (Network, Security, Windows, Database team etc..)

Ex: 1) Reconfiguring server resources.

2) Restarting server.

3) Remodifying the server.

4) Installing patches.

5) Installing third party application.

6) Upgrading the server.

7) Upgrading the H/W & Firmware.

When we create CR [Change Request] we need to follow the bellow

(1) Change Type: Standard / Minor / Major / Emergency CR. We have 4 types of changes.

( A) Standard change:-

Where we does not required the customer approval for CR implementation then we will
raise standard change

Example: Schedule reboots as recommended by Microsoft.

( B) Major change:-

If any downtime is required for the production servers during any reconfiguration and in
maintenance windows then we will be create Major CR. Always we will create Major CR for
production critical servers.
Major change phases:

a. Business justification. [ Why we need to implement this change ]

Ex: SAP Team requested changes as recommended by application vendor.

b. Implementing plane . [ How you going to implement ]

Ex: ESXi Upgradation with help of Update Manager.

c. Backout plan : What type of backup it is Ex: Snapshot, Clone, Host profile
d. Test plane : Is this change has been tested on test infra or not.
e. Schedule window (which Time): Schedule Start Time & Schedule End Time.
f. Down Time Window: What is exactly Start and End Downtime windows.
g. Onsite supporting team contact details.

(C )Emergence Change Request ERC:

During Critical Business outages to fix immediately we will be raise ECR.

NOTE: Major change and ECR change we need Customer Approval in Weekly CAB call to proceed.

(D)Minor Change : it is equal to Standard Change.

3.PROBLEM TICKET:-

Reoccurrence of issue or repeating issues then we will raise problem ticket to fix permanently.

Problem ticket won’t contain SLA.

Every problem ticket contains the change ticket.

4.What is SR (Service Request):-

There is no interrupt and service down issue but need some additional information to proceed for
operations is called SR.

Example: Adding user phone number in Existing User account, install additional plug ins , provide
additional access on the existing application etc..

What is Difference between Incident and SR?

Incident have downtime to your Server

No Downtime for your SR.

 PAST 6 MONTHS ALL MNC INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

CSS CORP WINDOWS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1) What is RAID 51?

Answer:

RAID 51 is a type of nested RAID level that provides RAID 1-based mirroring on each RAID 5 array. It is
similar to RAID 1, where each element is a disk with native redundancy capabilities. It requires a
minimum of six disks to operate. RAID 51 is also known as RAID 5+1.

2) What are Flavors of Windows Server 2012?

Answer:

Windows Server 2012 has four editions: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.

3) How you will create an Attribute for an Object?

Answer:

With help ADSI Editor

4) What will happen FSMO masters are failed? specifically when PDC and RID Failed?

5) What are the Groups in Windows?

6) How many Group Policies in Windows?

7) What is Handshaking Protocol in Windows?

8) Authoritative vs Non Authoritative Restorations?

9) When OS is Corrupted what you will do if you have backup?

10)What is FSMO?

11) What is DHCP Relay Agent?

12) What is LDAP & SSO?

 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS - CGI

1.How To Edit Template?

Answer:

Right Click on Template and Covert to VM then edit virtual machine or Guest OS.

2. Difference between Raw data store and LUN?

Answer:

i)RDM is Disk and LUN is a Piece from SAN. The LUN will act as Datastore as well as RDM.

ii)From the Datastore will take VMDK for VM and if the LUN directly adding to VM then RDM.

3. My VM is pinging but i am unable to take RDP? Why?

Answer:

1. RDP Option not enabled

2. 3389 port is not opened so need to check the port Listening state with help of Netstate command
3. Need to check IPSEC Service
4. Firewall need to stop / Off.

4. How many port groups in ESXi 5.5?

Answer:

1) Management Network Port Group 2) VMKernel Port Group 3) Virtual Machine Port Group

But in ESXi 5.5 VMKernel Port Group will act as Management and VMKernel.

5. I shutdown my vm but it still pinging? How?

Answer:

Might be VM IP is configured in network to another server, which is IP Conflict because of that you
getting Ping Response.
6. If my VM shutdown with forceful and graceful shutdown! In this case does VM completely
shut down immediately or not? If so why?

Answer:
Since your VM contains VMware Tools , Vmware tools will provide Graceful Shutdown Feature.

But when we press Shutdown Guest first VM will lose HA Protect and Stop the Tool functionality then
proceed to Guest OS level shutdown process.

7.Explain P2V & V2V Process?

Answer:

I. P2V Pre requirements:

i) Ports has to open 902,903,80,443,8080,8443,389 .

ii) Stop the Critical Services if we have any.
iii) Make a note of Local Administrator password
iv) Physical computer should have 500 MB Free space on Drive
v) Best practice is need to install Converter tool on physical computer.

II. Conversion Process:

i) Open Converter Tool and Click on convert machine.

ii) Provide Source Physical server details (IP,Administrator & Password)
iii) Provide Destination vCenter Server details (VC IP, username & Password)
iv) Choose vCenter data store and esxi host and provide vm name
v) edit the configuration of cpu, memory and hard disk (c drive expansion

III. Post Conversion:

i) Shutdown the physical server and Power On Virtual Machine

ii) Install Vmware Tools and check the storage ,network and domain configurations.
iii) Uninstall the persistent drivers from VM with help of ISO for best practise.
iv) Inform to business to check Applications & Databases health status.
v) If everything is good then we can monitor 2 weeks of time then proceed to physical server
decommission.
vi) If experiencing any issue with VM then shutdown the VM and power on physical server.

8.After P2V my server continuously coming PSOD and restarting and again PSOD and
restarting? Why?

Need to upgrade drivers and hardware versions of VM and also might needs to upgraded host drivers
and firmwares ( NIC & HBA).
9.Which cases will go for V2V?

Answer:

1. When we want to extend the server 2003 C: drive

2. To split the multiple volumes as vmdk's
3. To convert IDE hard disk to LSI Logic SAS and to upgrade hardware versions.

10. Which cases will go for P2V?

Answer:

1. When we need more capacity resource and Storage.

2. For VMotion Purpose and No Downtime.
3. For Good Backup solutions like snapshot,clone,FT and Image Level backup.
4. Low Investment and High Availability.
5. To utilize 100% utilization and HA & DRS.
6. Easy Manage in Centralized Vcenter and Licensing.

11.How to take DHCP and DNS backup?

DHCP:

(1) Manually we can take DHCP Backup from DHCP Server and also will perform DHCP Restore
as well from the server console.

(2) However we can perform automatic DHCP Backup with help of backup agent / tool

Windows automatically creates a backup of the DHCP database every 60 minutes.

SystemRoot%\System32\dhcp\backup

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCPServer\Parameters

DNS BACKUP:

(1) You can use the xcopy command to back up all zone text files on a DNS server. This command
would back up the contents of the default DNS folder to the "C:\dnsbk" folder:

xcopy %systemroot%\system32\dns c:\dnsbk /y

(2) However we can use DNSCMD to take Backup

For example, to backup nwtraders.msft zone, you

DnsCmd DNSserver1 /ZoneExport example.com example.com.bak

-->dnscmd /zoneexport nwtraders.msft backup\nwtraders.msft.b
12.How to edit log files with the help of VI editor? if through commands then what is the
command?

Answer:
Type: #vi /etc/hosts Then Press i

13.I needed to change the server configuration or infrastructure so i will raise change ticket? What
is the change process?

Answer:

-->We will get downtime confirmation from Application and Database teams.
--> Then will get confirmation from the Manager to open Change Request.
--> Will update change Plans Business Justification,Implementation Plan,Backout Plan,Test Plan
and Schedule window along with downtime window if we have any downtime.
--> Once we submit the change it will move from Draft to Review for Change Management.
--> Change Life Cycle is Draft-->Review-->Build and Test-->ManagerApproval-->Implementation
Approval [CAB APPROVAL]-->Implementation-->Post Implementation Review-->Close.
--> If change is failed then we can analyse and reschedule for next week.

14. What are the Hardware you are working with?

Answer:

Good Hands on in HP and Good in Cisco and also having hands on basic knowledge in Dell,IBM &
Fijustu. [Please refer our Hardware Document Models]

15. Do u know UCS?

Answer:
Yes. Good Basic Hands on Cisco UCS like Create Service Profile,Login into UCS Manager and
Monitor Chessis and Create Boot Policy.

16.Why DRS Rules? Which scenarios we will go for DRS rules?

Answer:
DRS is fully Automated and DRS have 3 Rules with Should & Must.

1. Affinity Rule. [Virtual Machines Together Ex: Exchange & SQL DB Server]
 2. Anti Affinity: [ Virtual Machines Separate Ex: Some customized Applications]
3. VM on the Host [Stick on the same Host without HA & DRS]
17. VM priority? which scenarios we will go for it?

Answer:
We will set VM Restart Priority on HA Cluster when Host Isolated on Network.

18. Difference between stay on host ( DRS rule) and VM priority?

Answer:

Stay on Host is DRS Rule and contains two rules Should and Must. If the Rule is Should then DRS
and HA both wont work. VM Priorities are High,Medium & Low.

19. Do you know ITIL process?

Answer:

Information Technology Infrastructure Library. Incident,Change,Problem & Service Requement

Management Modules.

21. Do you know patching in windows?

Answer:

(1) Yes, WSUS,SCCM & ALTIRIS.

22. Which VCenter version you are using and also ESXi version?

Answer:

vCenter 4.1 & 5.1 and ESXi alo the same.

23.Post vm hardware upgradation ,Vmdk size is going to zero getting error a Create Change Tracking
file

Answer:

We need to modify the Configuration file and connect host by Putty to change .vmdk.
 CGI QUESTIONS[PLEASE SEE ANSERS IN OUR DOCUMENT]

1)WHAT IS HA?
2)HOW YOU WILL UPGRADE THE ESXI ?
3)HOW MANY TYPES OF SWITCHES AND DIFFERENCES?
4)WHERE YOU WILL ENABLE VMotion IN DSWITCH?
5)WHAT ARE THE SCSI CONTROLLERS?
6)WHAT IS DIRECT DISK AND INDIRECT DISK?
7)IS MS CLUSTER IS USED IN VMWARE?
8)IF MY VC IS DOWN WHAT FEATURES WILL WORK AND NOT WORK?
9)HOW TO ADD DATASTORE AND WHAT INFORMATION WE HAVE TO GIVE TO STORAGE TEAM

HCL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS(02/07/2016)ONLINE TEST

1) Explain what is the major difference between NTFS ( New Technology File System) or FAT (File
Allocation Table) on a local server?

ANSWERES:

For local users FAT (File Allocation Table) and FAT32 provides security, while NTFS ( New
Technology File System) provides security for domain users as well as local users. NTFS provides file
level security which is not possible through FAT32.

2)What is the requirement to configure Full memory Dump in windows?

ANSWERS:Advanced > Settings > Startup and Recovery > Settings > Write debugging

information > Complete memory dump.

3) Path selection policies in ESXi?

ANSWERS: Most Recently Used (MRU), Fixed ,Round Robin

4)What is the location of vmkernel / vmkernel log?

ANSWERS:Answerwer: /var/log/boot-logs/sysboot.log & /var/log/vobd.log

5)What is the maximum size of virtual disk in VMFS-3

Answer:2TB - 512Bytes

6)Minimum and Recommended RAM size of vsphere 4?

Answer: ESX 4.0 ---2 GB &ESXi 4.0—3 GB

7)what is the command to check number of nics in esx3 & 4?

Answer: # esxcfg-nics –l / esxcfg-vmknic –l

8)How many concurent tasks from physical to virtual import?

Answer: 8

9)What images converter can’t covert? (Ex; Altris,VCB image, Ghost Image etcc...)

Answer: Windows 2000 ,NT, Northon Ghost,Altiris.

10)ESXi standard license maximum cores?

Answer: 12 Cores Enterprise is 32 & Standard is 8

11)Minimum memory for vcenter server 5.x?

Answer: 4 GB ( 4096)

12)what are two accounts have default admini rights?

Answer:root &vpxa

13)what is the command to get the information about vmkernel ports and its ip address?

Answer: esxcfg-vmknic –l

14)where should we enable the NIC teaming?

ANSWERS: on Host and Switch Level.

FIS AND CSS CORP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.

1.Difference between 2012 and 2008?

ANSWER: Read Final Document.

2. New features in windows server 2012?

ANSWERS:

IIS8,Hyper-V 3.0,Core is Separate

3.What is inter-site and intra site replications?

ANSWER:

Intrasite: Within Domain / Site Replications

Intersite: Site to Site Replication

4. What are the two SRM replications?

ANSWERS:

Array Based Replication & vSphere Replication

5. what are DNS records?

ANSWER:

Total Records:HostA,NS,CN,SOA,PTR & MX Record.

Forward Lookup Zone Contains: HostA,NS,CN,SOA,PTR & MX Record.

Reverse Lookup Zone contains only PTR Record

Stubzone contains: HostA,SOA & NS Record

6. What is authoritative and non -authoritative restores?

Authoritative restore means: within domain updates are sent to outside domains in forest but it will
never getting any updates from outside domain.(Sending is in active state but receiving is in deactive
state)

Non Authoritative restore means:Vice versa means within domain updates sending to other domains
in the forest also getting updates from other domains within the forest.

7. What Is Infrastructure Master? Can I Define My Infrastructure As GC?

Answer:

No. Since infrastructure master act as GC so both should not work together.

8. Explain How HA Works?

Answer:

Master and Slave Technique and Heartbeat Communication and also with FDM Technique.
When Host is Isolated on network HA will restart virtual machines on destination host with Priority
based on HA Admission Control and Policy.
9.What Is VNUMA?

Answer:

vNUMA is enabled by default on all virtual machines that have 8 or more vCPUs configured,

as generally this will improve performance on these bigger VM vNUMA by default enabled on VM ,
Once the Hot-Add feature is enabled on a VM, vNUMA is automatically disabled

10. Upgradation Process?

Answer: Update Manager-->Baseline Techniques-->Stage-->Remediation Process.

14. Major Differences between vSphere 5.5 and vSphere 6.0?

vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0

Released September 2013 March 2015

Physical CPUs per host 320 480
Physical RAM per host 4 TB 12 TB
VMs per host 512 1000
vCPU per VM 64 128
vMEM per VM 1 TB 4 TB
VMDK Size 62 TB 62 TB
Cluster Size 32 64
FT Max vCPU 1 vCPU 4 vCPU
FT Supported Disk Types Eager-Zeroed Lazy-Zeroed
Eager-Zeroed
Thin Provision
FT Supported Features HA, DPM, SRM, VDS HA, DPM, SRM, VDS, Hot
Configure FT, H/W
Virtualization, Snapshot,
Paravirtual Devices, Storage
Redundancy
VM Hardware Version 10 11
VMFS Version 5.60 5.61
Authentication Management Single Sign-On 5.5 Platform Services Controller
vMotion vMotion restricted to vMotion across vCenters
Datacenter object vMotion across vSwitches
Virtual Volumes NO YES
Virtual SAN VSAN 5.5 VSAN 6.0
VSAN Fault Domains NO YES

VERIZONE INTERVIEW QUESTINS AND ANSWERS

1.What are the components of HA?

Answer:

VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) is composed from three main components, which each of
them plays different role.

• FDM – Fault Domain Manager is responsible for communication between hosts which are part
of the cluster, informing other members about available resource, and VMs state. FDM
manages the restart of VMs in case host fails.

• Hostd Agent – responsible for communication between hostd and vCenter. If this agent has a
problem, then HA stops functionning. Restart possible from DCUI – Under Troubleshooting
Options >Enter > F11 >restart the services OR through the CLI… ./sbin/services.sh restart

• vCenter Server – is used to deploy and configure FDM agents inside the cluster. Manages the
election of server elected master. If the whole vCenter server (or just the service) fails, the HA
still continues to work.

2. Can I able to migrate the VM between 2 host if cpu vendors and speeds are differ?

Answer:

No. An EVC-enabled cluster only allows CPUs from a single vendor in the cluster. Virtual Center and
vCenter Server do not allow you to add a host from a different vendor into an EVC-enabled cluster.
 HP Interview Questions

1. what is VAAI ?

Answer:

vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) is an application program interface (API) framework from
VMware that enables certain storage tasks, such as thin provisioning, to be offloaded from the
VMware server virtualization hardware to the storage array.

Functions such as cloning and snapshots can be performed more efficiently by the storage device than
by the host,which reduces resource overhead on the ESXi hosts and can significantly improve
performance for storage-intensive operations such as storage cloning, zeroing, and so on.

The goal of VAAI is to help storage vendors provide hardware assistance to speed up VMware I/O
operations that are more efficiently accomplished in the storage hardware.

2.How to identify the storage latency?

Answer:

By ESXTOP Command. The interactive esxtop utility can be used to provide I/O metrics over various
devices attached to a VMware ESX host.

Configuring monitoring using esxtop

To monitor storage performance per HBA:

1. Start esxtop by typing esxtop at the command line.

2. Press d to switch to disk view (HBA mode).
3. To view the entire Device name, press SHIFT + L and enter 36 in Change the name field size.
4. Press f to modify the fields that are displayed.
5. Press b, c, d, e, h, and j to toggle the fields and press Enter.
6. Press s and then 2 to alter the update time to every 2 seconds and press Enter.

Analyzing esxtop columns

Refer to this table for relevant columns and descriptions of these values:

Column Description

CMDS/s This is the total amount of commands per second and includes IOPS (Input/Output
Operations Per Second) and other SCSI commands such as SCSI reservations, locks, vendor
string requests, unit attention commands etc. being sent to or coming from the device or
virtual machine being monitored.
DAVG/cmd This is the average response time in milliseconds per command being sent to the device.

KAVG/cmd This is the amount of time the command spends in the VMkernel.

GAVG/cmd This is the response time as it is perceived by the guest operating system. This number is
calculated with the formula: DAVG + KAVG = GAVG

These columns are for both reads and writes, whereas xAVG/rd is for reads and xAVG/wr is for writes.
The combined value of these columns is the best way to monitor performance, but high read or write
response time it may indicate that the read or write cache is disabled on the array. All arrays perform
differently, however, DAVG/cmd, KAVG/cmd, and GAVG/cmd should not exceed more than 10
milliseconds (ms) for sustained periods of time.

3.what are the CPU matrix to identify the Vm performance?

Answer:

(i) Monitoring with Virtual Center: We will configure Statistics Level of VM at vCenter Level

Administration –> vCenter Server Settings –> Statistics.

(ii) Monitoring with ESXTOP: We will connect Host by Putty and run ESXTOP Command to get result.

We will hit "V" post esxtop command which will populate real time CPU Utilizations.

(iii) Monitor inside the Virtual Machine / Guest OS Level

We will configure Perfmon Logs to Generate utilization Realtime CPU to identify the cause of high
CPU.

(iv) Monitoring with PowerCLI

We will use powershell (or) Power CLI Scripts to identify resource utilizations, which I am using
Vmware Health Check Script is call vCheck to identify CPU and Memory utilizations.
 WIPRO INTERVIEW QUESTION AND ANSWERS

(1) ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES / DAY TO DAY ACTIVITIES

Currently am supporting to XXXX Company as a L2+ VMWare & L@ Windows Administrator also have
basic knowledge on backup agents, SAN, NAS, and AD. I have hands-on experience on HP Blades &
CISCO Blades as well as i can handle DELL & IBM H/W, UCS Manager.

Basically my responsibilities in VMware as a part of

i) Build Process

ii) Operational Team.

BUILD LEVEL ACTIVITIES:

➢ ESXi Build

➢ Windows Physical Build

➢ VM build with help of Template & ISO

➢ Cluster build (HA & DRS configuration)

➢ Storage adding & N/W switches configuration WINDOWS PHYSICAL COMM

OPERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

➢ Server UP/DOWN issues

➢ Services UP / DOWN Issues (Service Start & Stop)

➢ Resources utilization analysis (High Memory, High CPU, High Network Traffic )

➢ Disk & Data stores issues ( Low disk space in Drive C: D: E: etc... and Datastore Low disk space)

➢ Patching of VM & ESXi (Microsoft Security ,Non Critical & Critical Patches. ESXi Patches from
VC)

➢ ESXi upgradation (With help of Update Manager by BaseLine)

➢ Vcenter upgradation (With help of ISO)

➢ VM tool & VM H/W upgradation. (Need Downtimes)

➢ Faulty H/W replacement by coordinating with H/W vendors to open the case

➢ Joining daily operations meeting & joins weekly CAB calls to get the approval from the
customer to implement CR.
 ➢ Majorly work on the changes incidents service request also part of the problem management
to fix the repeat.

➢ Currently am handling environmental upgradation activities 4.0 To 5.5.

➢ Also I take responsibilities of RCA on call support, escalation matrix.

➢ Finally I will be more interest on the technical document preparation for the team in daily
operations.

➢ Inventory updates, Firmware updates for daily & quarterly basis.

(2). What is DNS? DNS Queries? How to Add MX Record[Mail Server] Manually?

Answer:

➢ DOMAIN NAMEING SYSTEM (OR) DOMAIN NAMEING SERVICE –[DNS]

➢ It resolves Host Name To IP Address and IP Address To Host Name.
➢ Before DNS service we are using WINS(Windows Internet Naming Service), it same DNS
But it resolve only NetBIOS Names.
➢ DNS can Resolve DNS Names as well as NetBIOS names.
➢ Before WINS we are using HOSTS Files.
➢ DNS contain Authoritative & Non-Authoritative Server.
➢ DNS mainly used for Internet to resolve user friendly websites to IP Address.
➢ DNS mainly used for Intranet to resolve user friendly HostName to IP Address.
➢ DNS contain 3 Zones (1) Forward Lookup Zone (2) Reverse Lookup Zone (3) Stub Zone

DNS QUERIES: Recursive and Iterative Queries

➢ Browser (Cache)-->Stub Resolver(Cache)-->DNS (Root Server)-->DNS(Sub Root-->.com)-->DNS

Answer.
➢ EXAMPLE: WWW.GOOGLE.COM --> 1. ROOT DNS CHECK 2. SUB DNS CHECK 3. DNS ANSWER.

DNS PROCESS

➢ Request transfer from Client To Local DNS server

➢ DNS server send request to Root Server.
➢ Root Server send Reply Please contact Top Level Domain Server
➢ Top Level Domain Server send Reply Please contact Google.com
➢ DNS Server send request to Google.com server
➢ Google.com server send IP address to DNS Server
➢ DNS Server send IP Address to Client.
➢ This Total Process is called Recursive Resolver.
➢ DNS RECORDS ARE HOSTA,NS (NAME SERVER),MX (EXCHANGE RECORD),PTR,SOA,CNAME.
➢ FORWARD LOOKUP--FOR NAME TO IP
➢ REVERSE LOOKUP --IP TO NAME
➢ STUB ZONE --TO IDENTIFY AUTHORITATIVE DNS SERVER.

1. Open DNS Manager.

2. In the console tree, right-click the forward lookup zone to which you want to add the record,
and
then click New Mail Exchanger (MX).

3. What is DHCP? Explain the DHCP ? How it Works?

Answer:-

➢ DHCP---(DYNAMIC HOST CONFIGURATION PROTOCOL)

➢ DHCP is a Centralized IP Management Server.
➢ It Assigns IP Addresses Automatically to the Clients who is Requesting for IP Address.
➢ DHCP prevent IP Address Conflicts.
➢ DHCP reduces the Complexity and Amount of Administrative work by assigning TCP/IP
configuration automatically to the Clients.
➢ In Domain Model DHCP server should be authorized to assign IP Address to Clients.
➢ DHCP contains SCOPE,SUPER SCOPE,EXCLUDING & RESERVATION.
➢ SCOPE: It is Range of IP Addresses.
➢ SUPER SCOPE: Collection of SCOPE’s is called SUPER SCOPE.
➢ EXCLUDING: IP’s already used by users in the network.
➢ RESERVATION: Reserve specific IP Address with Mac binding to the PC.
➢ Ipconfig/renew, Ipconfig/all, Ipconfig/release.

DHCP PROCESS (OR) WORKS:-

(1) DHCP Client BROADCAST a DHCP Discover Packet.

(2) DHCP Server BROADCAST a DHCP OFFER Packet.
(3) DHCP Client BROADCAST a DHCP Request Packet.
(4) DHCP Server BROADCAST a DHCP Acknowledgement Packet.

NOTE:- (1) Before DHCP we are using BOOT P SERVER.

(2) DHCP Process also called as DORA Process.
 (4) What are different types of backup methods?

Answer:

Types of Backups:

➢ Normal (Full) Backups

➢ Incremental Backups
➢ Differential Backups
➢ Mirror Backups

Full Backups:

Full backup is the starting point for all other backups, and contains all the data in the folders and files frequent
full backups result in faster and simpler restore operations. This approach is good when the project includes not
so large amounts of data.

Incremental Backups:

An incremental backup stores all files that have changed since the last backup. The advantage of anincremental
backup is that it takes the least time to complete. However, during a restore operation, eachincremental
backup must be processed, which could result in a lengthy restore job.

➢ Incremental backups take less disk space. It allows you to create backups frequently. However, to restore
all the files, you have to restore the last full backup, and all the following incremental backups.

Differential Backups:

A differential backup contains all files that have changed since the Previous full backup.

Mirror Backups:

Mirror backup includes all files that have changed since the last full backup.

Backup Agents are: Tivoli Storage Manager & EMC Networker & Commvault.

(5) Network Class D Range?

Answer:

224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 -->Reserved for multicast groups

(6) What is COW (Copy on Write) in ESX Host?

Answer:

If you use snapshots on virtual machines running on an ESX host, each snapshot delta disk is a COW
(Copy On Write) disk.
This memory is used to store cached metadata.

The maximum configurable size for COW Heap Memory is 256 MB. The default configurable size is 192
MB

In ESX 3.5, the default COW memory heap is 32MB. When exhausted, virtual machines no longer
power on.

The following ESX versions ESX 3.5,4.0,4.1 can have their COW heap manually .

Few cases we cannot power on a virtual machine in ESX 3.5 due to COW memory heap exhaustion.

(7) What are different types of Group Policy?

➢ Local Policy.
➢ Site Policy.
➢ Domain Policy.
➢ OU Policy.

(8)How to edit the Schema in ADS?

ADSI Edit

(9) What is Domain Local, Global Group, Universal group?

Domain Local – Only Users with in Domain

Global groups are used to grant permissions to objects in any domain in the domain tree or forest.

Universal groups are used to grant permissions on a wide scale throughout a domain tree or forest.
(10) What are the different records in DNS?

➢ HOSTA – Address record

➢ MX – Mail Server Record
➢ NS – Name Server
➢ CNAME– Canonical name / Alias
➢ SOA – Start of authority
➢ PTR ---Pointer Record.

(11) What is Disk Quota? (HEXAWARE QUESTION)

Answer:

Disk Quota is the specifying the limits of usage on the disks.

To create the quota exception using the FSRM:

1. Launch the File Server Resource Manager.

2. Expand “Quota Management” -> “Quotas”
3. Select the folder you wish to make the exception for.
4. In the Action Pane click “Edit Quota Properties…”
5. Enter new limit for the quota.
6. Click “OK”

(12) What is RAID and its recommendations? Explain RAID 6?

Answer: RAID (Redundancy Array of Inexpensive Disk). It is used for High Availability or
Redundancy of a Hard disk. We will configure RAID before proceeding on OS installation.

TYPES OF RAIDS:

RAID 1 - Recommended for OS Installation - Min / Max 2 hard disks (N-1 Formula)

RAID 5 - Application Drive Purpose - MIN of 3 and MAX of 32 (N-1 Formula, Single parity)

RAID 6 - Application purpose - MIN of 4 and MAX of 32 (N-2, Double parity)

(13) What is the command for replication issue?

Answer:

repadmin /replsum---->where object is failed ,this which will display progress.

repadmin /showrepl--->By this command we can able to see when is last replication success status.
(14) Esxi Polices / Multi pathing Policies 5.5?(HEXWARE)

(1) Round Robin (2) VMware Fixed (3) MRU (Most Recently Used)

(15)How to monitor your infrastructure?

Answer:

1. By Monitoring Tools Alarms / Tickets.

2. Mail notifications from vcenter. (We will configure SMTP in vcenter)
3. vCenter VM performance TAB and Alarm Tab.
4.Otherwise will create performance counter in Guest OS level With Performon Command.
5. Customized Scripts such as vCheck and RVTools.
6. By using HPSIM and SCOM tools to monitor hardware failures.

(16) What is HOSTD?

Answer:

➢ HOSTD is ESXi agent and its main communication condent to the Host.
➢ If ESXi is not behaving normal in VC then we have to run the Agent with help of SSH
➢ In ESX 3.5 we can use #service mgmt-vmware start
➢ In ESXi 5.0/5.1 & 5.5 we can use #/etc/init.d/hostd restart

(17) What is VPXA and VPXD?

Answer:

➢ VPXA is a vCenter agent and also it will act as interface between ESXi and vCenter.
➢ Whenever you restart HOSTD then have to restart VPXA as recommendation.
➢ To restart VPXA in ESX 3.5 will use #service vmware-vpxa start/restart.
➢ To restart VPXA in ESXi 5.0/5.1 & 5.5 then will use #/etc/init.d/vpxa restart.
➢ VPXD is vCenter server service to login into the vCenter with help of vSphere Client.

(18) How you will restart ESXi Host / What is Maintenance Mode?

To upgrade ESXi,Install ESXi Patches,Upgrade ESXi Baseline,Upgrade Physical Hardware and to

upgrade Bulk

Virtual Machine VM Tools we will use Maintenance mode for Host.

(19)What is FT &Pre-Requisites of FT?

Answer:

➢ Fault Tolerance is one of the vcenter feature and backup technique of VM.
➢ If we enable FT on VM then mirrored image (Secondary VM) will create on another ESXi.
➢ Primary and Secondary will communicate continuously by VLOCKSTEP technology and FT is
0% downtime of VM.
➢ Whenever Host is down all VM's will restart by HA but FT enabled virtual machine won't
then second VM will act as primary and which will create another mirror in another ESXi
Host.

4. Virtual machines must be stored in virtual RDM or virtual machine disk (VMDK) files that
are thick provisioned. If a virtual machine is stored in a VMDK file that is thin provisioned
and an attempt is made to enable Fault Tolerance, a message appears indicating that the
VMDK file must be converted. To perform the conversion, you must power off the virtual
machine.
5. Virtual machine files must be stored on shared storage. Acceptable shared storage
solutions include Fibre Channel, (hardware and software) iSCSI, NFS, and NAS.
6. Only virtual machines with a single vCPU are compatible with Fault Tolerance.

ESXi Commissioning

1. We can insert the blade into the Chassis. If it is Rack, connect the rack into the core switch.
2. Request the Data Center operator to configure the remote board, ( ILO,DRACK, IMM,IRMC &
KVM)
3. Once configured remote board with datacenter operator as per standard access server IP.

Proceed on the installation by following methods:

a. Interactive Installation.
b. ISO
c. Script
d. With the help of update Manager
e. Auto deploy.
 4. To install Esxi we need to configure RAID and will configure the Raid 1 to install. While
installation use LUN 0. (LUN 0 is dedicated for Esxi installation and Choose default root
password for best practice).

Post Configuration:

1. Configure Management IP.

2. Enable SSH to access putty.
3. Enable Esxi shell to perform troubleshooting.
4. Add the Esxi host into Vcenter as a standard host or clustered host.
5. Add storage / create data stores with customer naming standard.
6. Create network switches / add networking.
7. Configure Esxi License
8. Add Esxi host into domain
9. Enable or disable ports.
10. Start the required services and firewalls.
11. Configure the NTP.
12. Post build check list / Quality check.

ESXi Decommissioning

1. We need to migrate all virtual machines to another ESXi so keep host in Maintenance
Mode.
2. Should send an email to storage team for Dezone the LUN's at SAN Level.
3. Unmount and Delete the datastores from ESXi, there should any LUN's visible on
Decommission host.
4. Reboot Host by ILO and Login into BIOS and break the RAID.
5. Remove host from vCenter and shutdown ESXi with help of ILO
6. Remove AD Object.
7. Remove from Monitoring server,CI Database and Inventory.
8. Close the Change Order / Change Ticket.

(20). WHAT IS FSMO

Answer:

FSMO having 2 divisions (1) Forest wide role and (2) Domain wide role

again Forest wide role classified as (a) Domain Naming Master (b) Schema Master

Domain Wide role classified as PDC,RID, Infra

Domain Naming: Maintain Unique domain names

Schema Master: Define AD Structure

PDC: Time Syncronization and Password Updates.

RID: Maintain Unique Object in Domain

Infra : Just like MGC which contain full information of Domain / Forest.

(21). How to identify the master

Click Start, click Run, type dsa.msc, and then click OK. Right-click the selected Domain Object in the
top left pane, and then click Operations Masters. Click the PDC tab to view the server holding
the PDC master role. Click the Infrastructure tab to view the server holding the Infrastructure master
role.

1. Run--> netdom query fsmo

2. DSQuery tools

(22). TYPES OF RESTORATIONS.

AUTHORITATIVE (SUPPOSE WE DELETED OU OBJECT THEN WE CAN APPROACH BACKUP TEAM TO

RESTORE). ONE WAY COMMUNICATION. (DC WITHIN FOREST)

NON-AUTHORITATIVE --ADVANCED BOOT MODE -->(ACTIVE DIRECTORY RECOVERY MODE)

TWO WAY COMMUNICATION. (DC TO DC WITHIN FOREST)

(23) . VM FILES:

WHEN WE CRATE A VM WITHOUT POWER ON

(l) Virtual Machine Configuration file --- vmname.vmx.

(m) Virtual Machine Disk file --- vmname.vmdk.
(n) Virtual Machine Log file --- vmname.log.
(o) Virtual Machine Snapshot Data --- Vmname.vmsn
(p) Virtual Machine Extend Config --- Vmname.Vmxf
(q) Virtual Machine Actual Hard disk File --- Vmname.Flat.vmdk.
WHEN WE POWER ON VM

Virtual Machine Bios File --- vmname.nvram.

Virtual Machine Swap file --- vmname.vswp.

WHEN WE CONVERT VM TO TEMPLATE.

Virtual Machine Template --- Vmname.Vmtx.

WHEN WE TAKE VM SNAPSHOT

Virtual Machine Snapshot Main File --- delta.vmdk

(24) P2V& V2V PROCESS?

Answer:

I. P2V Pre requirements:

i) Ports has to open 902,903,80,443,8080,8443,389 .

ii) Stop the Critical Services if we have any.
iii) Make a note of Local Administrator password
iv) Physical computer should have 500 MB Free space on Drive
v) Best practice is need to install Converter tool on physical computer.

II. Conversion Process:

i) Open Converter Tool and Click on convert machine.

ii) Provide Source Physical server details (IP,Administrator & Password)
iii) Provide Destination vCenter Server details (VC IP, username & Password)
iv) Choose vCenter data store and esxi host and provide vm name
v) edit the configuration of cpu, memory and hard disk (c drive expansion

III. Post Conversion:

i) Shutdown the physical server and Power On Virtual Machine

ii) Install Vmware Tools and check the storage ,network and domain configurations.
iii) Uninstall the persistent drivers from VM with help of ISO for best practise.
iv) Inform to business to check Applications & Databases health status.
v) If everything is good then we can monitor 2 weeks of time then proceed to physical server
decommission.
vi) If experiencing any issue with VM then shutdown the VM and power on physical server.
(25) TYPES OF SWITCHES AND PORT GROUPS?

Answer:

(1) Standard Switches: This will create ESXi Level.

(2) Distributed Switches: This will create at vCenter Level and its centralized switch

Port Groups are 3.

(1) Management Network: Dedicated for ESXi Communication.

(2)VMKernel Port Group: Dedicated for Vmotion and IScsi Storage.

(3) Virtual Machine Port Groups: Within ESXi Virtual Machines communication purpose.

(26) Microsoft Failover Cluster?

Answer:

NLB Cluster & Server Cluster.

What is Quorum ?

A shared storage need to provide for all servers which keeps information about clustered application
and session state and is useful in FAILOVER situation. This is very important if Quorum disk fails entire
cluster will fails.

(27) VM BLACK SCREEN? (HEXAWARE QUESTION)

Answer:

1. High CPU and High Memory usage at VM and Host Level. Need to upgrade VM Tools.

2. You might dont have free space in datastore. Need to extend datastore.

3. Daily VM image Level snapshots are running during this time Host consume more resource so
Virtual Machines wont communicate in network and getting black screen. Solution is we need to re-
schedule the snapshot backup in non business hours and needs to commit or revert nested snapshots.

(28) VCENTER DOWN?

Answer:

VMOTION,SVMOTION ,DRS& SDRS WONT WORK

HA AND FT WILL WORK

(29) WINDOWS LEVEL RESPONSIBILITIES? (HEX)

Answer:

1. Commission,Decommission of VM & Physical.

2. Microsoft Patching. (WSUS,SCCM,ALTIRIS)

3. Server Hung Issues,Drive expansions.

4. Resource Analysis

5. Technical document preparation, Inventory,Runbook ,Shift Roaster.

6. Hardware and OS Vendor co ordinations and Upgrade Drivers & Firmwares.

(30) What is the MS Patch Process? (HEX)

Answer:

➢ Download Patches from Microsoft Webserver TO WSUS Server

➢ Segregate patches as Securtiy,Critical & Non-Critical
➢ Approve the Patches and Push the Patches to Servers with GPO.
➢ Login into the servers and Click on Install.

(31) How you can increase VMDK at VM Level and OS Level?

Answer:

1.Increase space at VM Level, datastores should have enough free space.

2. Login into Guest OS -->Disk Management--> Extend Volume.

(Rescan Disk if we are not able to see unallocated space)

(32) How you can fix HDD Failed? [HEX]

Answer:

Login into the HP Smart Array Controller to check HDD Failure status. (Predictive Failure)

1. Login into Advance boot mode of Boot with Command Prompt and use CHKDSK /R to repair Disk.

2. Check the HDD Diagnostic Logs for further investigation

3. Upgrade HDD Drivers and Firmwares to fix the problem.

4. If still not able to fix then open a case with Vendor and replace Faulty disk for RAID Rebuild process.
(33) ONE STRONG ISSUE CAME YOU CANT ABLE TO FIX IT THEN HOW YOU WILL REACT? [HEX]

Answer:

Try to identify the root cause of the issue if not able to then escalate to next level if there is no
escalation matrix then I can open a case with Vendor before that will get permission from the
business based on support types then co ordinate with vendor to fix the problem then will submit RCA
for the same.

(34) WHAT ARE OPERTIONAL RESPONSIBILITES YOU CAN DO OTHER THAN WINDOW & VM? (HEX)

1. Update Master Inventory in regular intervals.

2. Update Customer Master Run Book Quarterly Basis.

3. Prepare Shift Roasters and Shift Handover Templates.

4. Prepare Technical Documents for the team based on issues.

5. Prepare RCA for P1 Cases.

6. Taking Weekend Support Responsibilities and Oncall Support as well.

(35) FSMO DOMAIN NAMING MASTER? (HEXAWARE QUESTION),

➢ It checks &Maintain the Uniques of the Domain Names in the Whole Forest.
➢ It is Responsible for Adding ,Removing& Renaming the Domain Names in Whole
Forest.

(36) GROUP POLICIES?

Answer:-

➢ GP is used for Restricting the users from accessing the Resources.

➢ It is collection of settings which can be applied on users & computers.
➢ With Group Policy Administrator Centrally Manage Users & Computers.
➢ Easy Administration.

Group Policies applied on:

➢ Organizational Unit Level Policies.

➢ Domain Level Policies.
 ➢ Site Level Policies.
➢ Delegation Control Level Policies.
➢ Script Level Policies
➢ Software Deployment Level Policies.
➢ Folder Redirection Level Policies.

(37) WHAT IS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHARE AND HIDDEN SHARE?

Answer:

1. Without $ is shared folder. With $ Symbol is called Hidden Share.

(38) SPECIFIC FOLDER HAS TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO SERVER TEAM HOW YOU?

By Advanced Settings of Security we can restrict the specific Groups.

(39) one of my vm performance is slow then how you can investigate? (HEXAWARE QUE)

Answer:

1. Check the Datastore space.

2. Check VMTools and Hardware Version .

3. Check Resource Limitations nothing Balloning.

4. ESXi Level of Resource usage and Balloning.

5. Check the scheduled backups of Virtual Machines (Snapshot backup by backup agent)

6. Check Network card type and disk provisioning.

7. Check at Guest OS Level have any issues and Contact App & DB Team to investigate at there level.

8. Try to Upgrade ESXi NIC and HBA Drivers and Firmwares to improve host level performance.

9. If above cases are not fixing the issue then Upgrade Hypervisor to fix the VM performance.

10. Patches also one of the constrain to improve Vm Performance.

(40) What is SDRS?

Storage DRS which will maintain Storage Load Balance at Datastores Level automatically.

(41) Scenario.

cores 16, memory 32 gb then 2 cpu & 2 gb ram then how many vm's can able to create.

2x16=32x2=64cpu,32/2== 16

(42) What is Buffer Cache ?

When we deploy VM in non shared storage then ESXi Buffer will be more and will
impact vm performance so we need to move the VM to shared storage.

(43) Dump Logs Location ?

For ESXi 3.5, ESXi/ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.x, use the esxcfg-dumppart utility:

# esxcfg-dumppart -L vmkernel-zdump-filename

(44) What /var/log/vmkernel contains.

/var/log/vmkernel.log: Core VMkernel logs, including device discovery, storage and networking device
and driver events,
and virtual machine startup.

/var/log/vmksummary.log: A summary of ESXi host startup and shutdown, and an hourly heartbeat
with uptime, number of
virtual machines running, and service resource consumption.

VMkernel - #/var/log/vmkernel – Records activities related to the virtual machines and ESX server.
Rotated with a numeric extension, current log has no extension, most recent has a ".1" extension

We will use the command to generate Kernal Log #less /var/log /Kernaldump.
 WIPRO L3 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS [HRISHKESH]

1. How to identify the Storage Latency?

Answer:

By ESXTOP Command (or) the vCenter Server performance graphs and set customized performance
graphs by defining individual values (High disk I/O, I/O Latency. Average I/O etc…)

The interactive ESXTOP utility can be used to provide I/O metrics over various devices attached to a
VMware ESX host.

Configuring monitoring using esxtop

To monitor storage performance per HBA:

7. Start esxtop by typing esxtop at the command line.

8. Press “D” to switch to disk view (HBA mode).
9. To view the entire Device name, press SHIFT + L and enter 36 in Change the name field size.
10. Press f to modify the fields that are displayed.
11. Press b, c, d, e, h, and j to toggle the fields and press Enter.
12. Press s and then 2 to alter the update time to every 2 seconds and press Enter.

D – disk adapter i.e. HBA

U – disk device i.e. LUN

V – VM disk i.e. [vmdk]

In the below screens we can see IOPS (CMDS/s) and latency statistics (DAVG/cmd, KAVG/cmd,
QAVG/cmd and GAVG/cmd), in this case vmhba0 is a local storage adapter and vmhba34 is an iSCSI
adapter.
The GAVG/cmd column is the total guest latency; the iSCSI adapter is very busy in this case with high
IOPS
(922.72) but low total latency (2.68).

Analyzing esxtop columns.

Refer to this table for relevant columns and descriptions of these values:

Column Description

DAVG/cmd This is the average response time in milliseconds per command being sent to the device.

KAVG/cmd This is the amount of time the command spends in the VMkernel.

GAVG/cmd This is the response time as it is perceived by the guest operating system. This number is
calculated with the formula: DAVG + KAVG = GAVG

These columns are for both reads and writes, whereas xAVG/rd is for reads and xAVG/wr is for writes.
The combined value of these columns is the best way to monitor performance, but high read or write
response time it may indicate that the read or write cache is disabled on the array. All arrays perform
differently, however, DAVG/cmd, KAVG/cmd, and GAVG/cmd should not exceed more than 10
milliseconds (ms) for sustained periods of time.

2. what are the CPU matrix to identify the Vm performance?

Answer:

(i) Monitoring with Virtual Center: We will configure Statistics Level of VM at vCenter Level

Administration –> vCenter Server Settings –> Statistics.

(ii) Monitoring with ESXTOP: We will connect Host by Putty and run ESXTOP Command to get result.
We will hit "V" post esxtop command which will populate real time CPU Utilizations.

(iii) Monitor inside the Virtual Machine / Guest OS Level

We will configure Perfmon Logs to Generate utilization Real time CPU to identify the cause of high
CPU.

(iv) Monitoring with PowerCLI

We will use powershell (or) Power CLI Scripts to identify resource utilizations, which I am using
Vmware Health Check Script is call vCheck to identify CPU and Memory utilizations.
 3. What is CPU Ready Time?

CPU Ready Time is a vSphere metric that records the amount of time a virtual machine is ready to use
CPU but was unable to schedule time because all CPU resources (on a ESX host) are busy.

There are 2 ways to monitor CPU Ready times.

▪ esxtop/resxtop
▪ Performance Overview Charts in vCenter

ESXTOP/RESXTOP

▪ Open Putty and log into your host. Note: You may need to enable SSH in vCenter for the hosts
first
▪ Type esxtop
▪ Press c for CPU
▪ Press V for Virtual Machine view

▪ %USED – (CPU Used time) % of CPU used at current time. This number is represented by 100 X
Number_of_vCPU’s so if you have 4 vCPU’s and your %USED shows 100 then you are using 100%
of one CPU or 25% of four CPU’s.
 ▪ %RDY – (Ready) % of time a vCPU was ready to be scheduled on a physical processor but could
not be due to contention. You do not want this above 10% and should look into anything above
5%.
▪ %CSTP – (Co-Stop) % in time a vCPU is stopped waiting for access to physical CPU high numbers
here represent problems. You do not want this above 5%
▪ %MLMTD – (Max Limited) % of time vmware was ready to run but was not scheduled due to CPU
Limit set (you have a limit setting)
▪ %SWPWT – (Swap Wait) – Current page is swapped out

Monitoring CPU Ready Time by Performance Overview Charts in vCenter.

Monitor CPU utilization through vSphere Client or the esxtop command. vSphere Client is preferable
because it measures CPU Ready Time in milliseconds. Select the virtual machine and click
the Performance tab. Select Advanced > Chart Options > CPU > Real Time > Ready.

Figure 1 – Select CPU Ready from the CPU Chart Options

 4. HOW TO RECOVER VMDK BY FLAT.VMDK?
Answer:

I enabled remote SSH, and logged in via Putty. I went to the mismatchDC folder to verify contents.

cd /vmfs/volumes/vmfs01/mismatchDC/

I was correct in finding only the mismatchDC.nvram and mismatchDC-flat.vmdk files there. I then
moved over to the Temp VM location.

cd ../temp/

and found the temp-flat.vmdk file. I renamed this to prevent it from being overwritten.

mv temp-flat.vmdk temp-flat.vmdk.old

Next, I copied over the original flat file and renamed it temp-flat.vmdk

cp /vmfs/volumes/vmfs01/mismatchDC/mismatchDC-flat.vmdk temp-flat.vmdk

When finished, I simply attempted to start the Temp VM.

As it started up, I saw the familiar Windows 2003 server splash screen, and called the SysAdmin over
to verify that it was working.

After a few minutes of evaluation, it was proven that the Domain Controller was back up and running
with less than an hour of data loss.

Steps to recover a VM from just the flat.vmdk file:

1. Build new temp VM with EXACTLY identical vmkd file size

2. Connect via CLI
3. Rename temp-flat.vmkd file
4. Copy existing-flat.vmdk file and rename to temp-flat.vmkd
5. Power on temp VM
 5. VM IS LOCKED BY ONE OF THE HOST THEN HOW YOU CAN FIX AND HOW WE CAN IDENTIFY?

Answer:
We need to run the below command to locate which host(s) had the lock on the vmdk.

vmkfstools -D /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore Name>/<VM Name>/<LockedVMName.vmdk>

Locating the lock and removing it

A virtual machine can be moved between hosts, because of this the host where the virtual machine is
currently registered may not be the host maintaining the file lock. The lock must be released by the
ESX/ESXi host that owns the lock. This host is identified by the MAC address of the primary
management vmkernel interface.

Note: Locked files can also be caused by backup programs keeping a lock on the file while backing up
the virtual machine. If there are any issues with the backup, it may result in the lock not being
removed correctly. In some cases, you may need to disable your backup application or reboot the
backup server to clear the hung backup.

This lock can be maintained by the VMkernel for any hosts connected to the same storage.

To identify the server:

1. Report the MAC address of the lock holder by running this command (except on an NFS volume):

# vmkfstools -D /vmfs/volumes/UUID/VMDIR/LOCKEDFILE.xxx

Note: Run this command on all commonly locked virtual machine files (as listed at the start of
the Solution section) to ensure that all locked files are identified.

2. Look for lines similar to:

Hostname vmkernel: 17:00:38:46.977 cpu1:1033)Lock [type 10c00001 offset 13058048 v 20, hb

offset 3499520
Hostname vmkernel: gen 532, mode 1, owner xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxx- xxxxxxxxxxxx mtime
xxxxxxxxxx]
Hostname vmkernel: 17:00:38:46.977 cpu1:1033)Addr <4, 136, 2>, gen 19, links 1, type reg, flags
0x0, uid 0, gid 0, mode 600
Hostname vmkernel: 17:00:38:46.977 cpu1:1033)len 297795584, nb 142 tbz 0, zla 1, bs 2097152
Hostname vmkernel: 17:00:38:46.977 cpu1:1033)FS3: 132: <END supp167-w2k3-VC-
a3112729.vswp>

The second line (in bold) displays the MAC address after the word owner. In this example, the
MAC address of the management vmkernel interface of the offending ESXi host is
xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
 So we can identify the vm locked Caused Host Name by MAC Address.

You see an output similar to:

[root@test-esx1 testvm]# vmkfstools -D test-000008-delta.vmdk

Lock [type 10c00001 offset 45842432 v 33232, hb offset 4116480
gen 2397, mode 2, owner 00000000-00000000-0000-000000000000mtime 5436998]<--------------
MAC address of lock owner
RO Owner[0] HB offset 3293184 xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx <------------------------------
MAC address of read-only lock owner
Addr <4, 80, 160>, gen 33179, links 1, type reg, flags 0, uid 0, gid 0, mode 100600
len 738242560, nb 353 tbz 0, cow 0, zla 3, bs 2097152

3. When successfully removed from the inventory, register the virtual machine on the host holding
the lock and attempting to power it on. You may have to set DRS to manual ensuring the virtual
machine powers up on the correct host.

If the virtual machine still does not power on, complete these procedures while logged into the
offending host.

Note: If you have already identified a VMkernel lock on the file, skip the rest of the section and
go to the Further troubleshooting steps section in this article.

4. # esxcli vm process list

# esxcli vm process kill --type=soft --world-id=1268395

[1] How you can add NAS Storage on ESXi?

Ans:

➢ I will check the storage availability in the existing datastores

➢ If you dont have enough space for the existing request, then will send a request to the
storage team to provision the new VOLUME/MOUNTPOINTS as a shared storage.
➢ Here we can provide the HOST IP address/Host name/NAS box IP address.
➢ Storage team will provision the MOUNTPOINT and confirm the MOUNTPOINT PATH with
VMWare.
➢ We will proceed to add the storage. HOST-->Configuration-->Hardware-->Storage-->Add
Storage.
➢ Choose NFS since its a Netapp --> Choose Unallocated Mountpoint-->Choose VMFS Datastore.
➢ Select the provisioned volume and update the NAS Filler IP address.
➢ Provide Datastore name as per the standard -->Check Block size = 1MB(Universal Block size)

NOTE: The Blocksize differs before ESXi 5.0

256GB= 1MB Blocksize

512GB = 2MB Blocksize

1TB = 4 MB Blocksize

2TB = 8 MB Blocksize

[2] How to Present / Add 2 TB SAN Storage on my ESXi ?

Answer:

1. Will drop an email to storage team with ESXi host name & IP address (or) with all HBA
WWN numbers to make the storage as shared storage at my all ESXi boxes.
2. Once storage team confirmed the 2 TB LUN with LUN ID then I can start adding storage at
ESXi
3. Select ESXi and goto configuration tab→Select Storage in Hardware section and Click on
Add Storage option.
4. Select LUN/DISK option and select new provisioned LUN
5. Format the LUN with VMFS-5 filesytem
6. Provide Datastore name according to the naming standard
7. Click on Next with 1 MB Block size and click on Finish.

Now the 2 TB LUN is visible for all ESXi boxes in the cluster

THE END