1 - What are the layers of the OSI reference model and What are its job?

There are 7 OSI layers: 1) Physical Layer, 2) Data Link Layer, 3) Network Layer, 4) Transport
Layer, 5) Session Layer, 6) Presentation Layer, and 7) Application Layer.

The Network layer is responsible for data routing, packet switching, and control of network
congestion. Routers operate under this layer.

2 - What are routers?

Routers can connect two or more network segments. These are intelligent network devices that
store information in its routing tables, such as paths, hops, and bottlenecks. With this info, they
can determine the best path for data transfer. Routers operate at the OSI Network Layer.

3 - What is a VPN?

VPN means Virtual Private Network, a technology that allows a secure tunnel to be created
across a network such as the Internet. For example, VPNs allow you to establish a secure dial-
up connection to a remote server.

4 - Briefly describe NAT

NAT is Network Address Translation. This is a protocol that provides a way for multiple
computers on a common network to share a single connection to the Internet.

5 - What are proxy servers, and how do they protect computer networks?

Proxy servers primarily prevent external users who are identifying the IP addresses of an
internal network. Without knowledge of the correct IP address, even the physical location of the
network cannot be identified. Proxy servers can make a network virtually invisible to external
users.

6 - How can you identify the IP class of a given IP address?

By looking at the first octet of any given IP address, you can identify whether it’s Class A, B, or
C. If the first octet begins with a 0 bit, that address is Class A. If it begins with bits 10 then that
address is a Class B address. If it begins with 110, then it’s a Class C network.

7 - What is the disadvantage of a star topology?

One major disadvantage of star topology is that once the central Hub or switch gets damaged,
the entire network becomes unusable.

8 - What is the main job of the ARP?

The main task of the ARP or Address Resolution Protocol is to map a known IP address to a
MAC layer address.
9 - What protocol can be applied when you want to transfer files between different platforms,
such as UNIX systems and Windows servers?

Use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for file transfers between such different servers. This is
possible because FTP is platform-independent

10 - What is ICMP?

ICMP is an Internet Control Message Protocol. It provides messaging and communication for
protocols within the TCP/IP stack. This is also the protocol that manages error messages that
are used by network tools such as PING

11 - What is SMTP?

SMTP is short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This protocol deals with all internal mail and
provides the necessary mail delivery services on the TCP/IP protocol stack.

12 - What is one basic requirement for establishing VLANs?

A VLAN is required because at the switch level. There is only one broadcast domain. It means
whenever a new user is connected to switch. This information is spread throughout the network.
VLAN on switch helps to create a separate broadcast domain at the switch level. It is used for
security purposes.

13 - What are the different types of VPN?

• Access VPN: Access VPN is used to provide connectivity to remote mobile users and
telecommuters. It serves as an alternative to dial-up connections or ISDN (Integrated
Services Digital Network) connections. It is a low-cost solution and provides a wide
range of connectivity.
• Site-to-Site VPN: A Site-to-Site or Router-to-Router VPN is commonly used in large
companies having branches in different locations to connect the network of one office to
another in different locations. There are 2 sub-categories as mentioned below:
• Intranet VPN: Intranet VPN is useful for connecting remote offices in different
geographical locations using shared infrastructure (internet connectivity and servers) with
the same accessibility policies as a private WAN (wide area network).
• Extranet VPN: Extranet VPN uses shared infrastructure over an intranet, suppliers,
customers, partners, and other entities and connects them using dedicated connections.

14 - Define different types of network topology

• Bus Topology: All the nodes are connected using the central link known as the bus. It is
useful to connect a smaller number of devices. If the main cable gets damaged, it will
damage the whole network.
 • Star Topology: All the nodes are connected to one single node known as the central node.
It is more robust. If the central node fails the complete network is damaged. Easy to
troubleshoot. Mainly used in home and office networks.
• Ring Topology: Each node is connected to exactly two nodes forming a ring structure. If
one of the nodes are damaged, it will damage the whole network. It is used very rarely as
it is expensive and hard to install and manage.
• Mesh Topology: Each node is connected to one or many nodes. It is robust as failure in
one link only disconnects that node. It is rarely used and installation and management are
difficult.
• Tree Topology: A combination of star and bus topology also know as an extended bus
topology. All the smaller star networks are connected to a single bus. If the main bus
fails, the whole network is damaged.
• Hybrid: It is a combination of different topologies to form a new topology. It helps to
ignore the drawback of a particular topology and helps to pick the strengths from other.

15 - What are Unicasting, Anycasting, Multicasting and Broadcasting?

• Unicasting: If the message is sent to a single node from the source then it is known as
unicasting. This is commonly used in networks to establish a new connection.
• Anycasting: If the message is sent to any of the nodes from the source then it is known as
anycasting. It is mainly used to get the content from any of the servers in the Content
Delivery System.
• Multicasting: If the message is sent to a subset of nodes from the source then it is known
as multicasting. Used to send the same data to multiple receivers.
• Broadcasting: If the message is sent to all the nodes in a network from a source then it is
known as broadcasting. DHCP and ARP in the local network use broadcasting.

16 - What happens when you enter google.com in the web browser?

• If not, the browser checks if the IP of the URL is present in the cache (browser and OS) if
not then request the OS to do a DNS lookup using UDP to get the corresponding IP
address of the URL from the DNS server to establish a new TCP connection.
• A new TCP connection is set between the browser and the server using three-way
handshaking.
• An HTTP request is sent to the server using the TCP connection.
• The web servers running on the Servers handle the incoming HTTP request and send the
HTTP response.
• The browser process the HTTP response sent by the server and may close the TCP
connection or reuse the same for future requests.
• If the response data is cacheable then browsers cache the same.
• Browser decodes the response and renders the content

17 - What is SNMP architecture?

SNMP has a simple architecture based on a client-server model.

 • The servers, called managers, collect and process information about devices on the
network.
• The clients, called agents, are any type of device or device component connected to the
network. They can include not just computers, but also network switches, phones,
printers, and so on.

18 - What are the different memories used in a CISCO router?

• NVRAM: stores the startup configuration file.

• DRAM: stores the configuration file that is being executed.3
• ROM It is the bootstrap software that runs and maintains instructions for POST
diagnostics.
• Flash Memory: stores the Cisco IOS.

19 - Differentiate User Mode from Privileged Mode

User Mode is used for regular task when using a CISCO router, such as to view system
information, connecting to remote devices, and checking the status of the router. On the other
hand, privileged mode includes all options that are available for User Mode, plus more. You can
use this mode in order to make configurations on the router, including making tests and
debugging.

20 - Differentiate full-duplex from half-duplex.

In full-duplex, both the transmitting device and the receiving device can communicate
simultaneously, that is, both can be transmitting and receiving at the same time. In the case of
half-duplex, a device cannot receive while it is transmitting, and vice versa.

21 - In configuring a router, what command must be used if you want to delete the
configuration data that is stored in the NVRAM?

erase startup-config

22 - What Is The Location Of The Active Directory Database?

C:windows Ntds Ntds.dit.

23 - Name the default protocol used in directory services?

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).

24 - Explain Emulation Drivers?

The emulation drivers are mainly devices that imitate another program. In simple terms,
emulation drivers are a trick to fool the device that it is some other sort of a device.
25 - What Are Synthetic Drivers?

Synthetic drives are different and better than the emulation ones in their functions. They don’t
imitate another program but, create another hardware complex device on a virtual platform.

26 - What Is Desktop Virtualization?

Desktop virtualization is a logical procedure to isolate and extract the OS or system from the
client that is ready to access it. There are many types of desktop virtualizations some of which
include virtual machines while some do not

27 - What Is Dac?

Microsoft Dynamic Access Control or DAC is a data governance tool in Windows Server 2012
that allows administrators control access settings. It uses centralized policies to permit
administrators to review who has access to individual files. Files can be classified manually or
automatically.

26 - Define SYSVOL?

The SysVOL file keeps the server’s copy of the domain’s public files. The fillings such as
users, group policy.

27 - What is Kerberos?

Kerberos is a verification protocol for the network. It is built to present secure verification for
client applications by using secret-key cryptography.

28 - What do you mean by organizational units?

The Organizational Unit is a serious design factor impacting policy, security, competence and
the charge of administration. Organizational Units are a kind of LDAP (X.500) pot. It can be a
reflection of as a sub-domain element with comparable properties to domains.

29 - What do you mean by Active Directory Recycle Bin?

Active Directory Recycle bin is a characteristic of Windows Server 2008 AD. It helps to re-
establish by chance deleted Active Directory objects without using a backed-up AD database,
rebooting area controller.

30 - Do we use clustering in Active Directory? …. Why?

No one installs Active Directory in a bunch. There is no need for clustering a field
controller. Active Directory provides total joblessness with two or more servers.

31 - What is child DC?

Child DC is a sub-area controller under the root domain controller which share a namespace.

32 - Tell me the port no of LDAP?

The port no of LDAP is 389

33 - If I try to look schema, how can I do that?

c:\windows\system32>regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll

Open mmc --> add snapin --> add Active directory schema

name it as schema.msc

Open administrative tool --> schema.msc

34 - Define Native Mode?

When all domain controllers in a given area are consecutively Windows 2000 Server, this way
permits organizations to take the lead of new Active Directory features such as worldwide
groups, inter-domain group membership and nested group membership

35 - What is VMware and what are their benefits?

VMware provides different applications and software for virtualization. VMware products are
categorized into two levels, desktop applications, and Server applications.

It is useful for:

• Running multiple operating systems and applications on a single computer

• Consolidate hardware to get vastly higher productivity from fewer servers
• Save more of total cost spend on IT
• It simplifies IT management and speeds up the deployment of new applications

36 - Explain what is hypervisor

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

37 - Explain VMware DRS?

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

38 - What are the storage and availability in vCloud Suite?

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

39 - What is the difference between VMware HA and Vmware FT?

VMware FT is enabled per VM basis while VMware is enabled per cluster

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

40 - What is Fault Tolerant Logging?

The communication between two ESXI host is known as Fault logging when FT is configured
between them.

41 - Explain vSS

vSS stands for Virtual Standard Switch is responsible for communication of VMs hosted on a
single physical host. It automatically detects a VM which wants to communicate with other VM
on the same physical server

42 - What are pluggable devices which can be added while Virtual Machine is running?

You can add HDDs and NIC while Virtual Machine is running.

43 - What is Cold and Hot Migration?

When you migrate powered off or suspended, it is known as cold migration. When you migrate
your running power on virtual machines, it is known as hot migration.

44 - Explain the importance of snapshot in VMWare

A VMWare snapshot is a copy of a virtual machine disk file which is used to restore a VM to a
specific point in time when the system fails, or system error occurs.
45 - Explain Cluster in VMware

Cluster in VMware is a logical grouping of multi ESXi hosts. It allows you to add or delete the
host from the cluster. It also provides a feature like HA, DRS, on the cluster.

46 - Disadvantages of the VMware virtualization platform

• It requires a considerable investment to buy the resources

• High-end server needs which increase the cost.
• Different technologies are required for its implementation

47 - Can we do vMotion between two data centers?

Yes, we can do vMotion between two datacenters. However, for this VM should be powered
off.

48 - What is RDM?

RDM is a sort form of Raw Device Mapping. It is a file stored in VMFS volume which acts as a
proxy for a raw physical device. It allows you to store virtual machine data directly on LUN.

49 - What is NFS?

NFS is a Network file system. It is a file sharing protocol which ESXI host used to
communicate with the NAS device. It is a specialized store device which connects to a network.

50 - What is VMKernel? Why is it important?

The VMkernel is the interface between virtual machines (VMs) and the physical hardware of
the system. The responsibility of VMkernel is to scheduling CPUs, allocating memory and
providing other hardware abstraction with other operating system (OS) services.

51 - How can I differentiate between virtual machine port groups and VMkernel ports?

The big difference between a Virtual Machine port group and a VMkernel port group is the sort
of traffic it’s passing. As you’ll see, a VMkernel port is passing traffic specific to VMware
vSphere. A virtual machine port group is simply passing your garden variety virtual machine
traffic.

52 - How does vMotion work in the background?

The Virtual Machine Memory state is copied over the Vmotion Network from the source Host
to the Target Host. users still access the virtual machine and potentially update pages in
memory. A list of modified pages in memory is kept during a memory Bitmap on the source
Host.
53 - What happens if VMotion fails?

VMotion will fail if the target host does not have enough memory to satisfy the reservation of
the virtual machine. If you want to fix this, migrate the virtual machine to another ESXi host
that can provide the guaranteed memory for the VM or reduce the memory reservation of the
virtual machine.

54 - What’s iSCSI in VMware?

iSCSI may be a protocol which uses the TCP to move SCSI commands and also enables the
utilization of the prevailing TCP/IP networking infrastructure as a cargo area Network.

55 - What’s the difference between FC and FCoE?

FCOE maps Fiber Channel over full duplex Ethernet networks based on IEEE 802.3 standard.
and therefore the other hand, Fiber Channel or FC may be a serial data transfer protocol and
standard for high-speed enterprise-grade storage networking. It accelerates to 128 Gbps and
delivers storage data over fast optical networks.

56 - What’s the utilization of snapshots in VMware?

The VMware snapshot is used to preserve the state and data of the Virtual machine at the
present point in time so once you are done testing, you’ll quickly revert the VM back to a
desired state. In VMware, VMware snapshots are easy and quick thanks to saving the state of a
virtual machine before you test a software update, patch or other change.

57 - What’s the complete sort of LUN?

LUN stands for Logical Unit Number.

58 - What’s the difference between RDM and VMDK?

RDM is additionally referred to as a pass-through disk, and may be a mapping file that acts as a
proxy for a physical device like a LUN. On the opposite side VMDK may be a file that appears
as a tough drive to the guest OS . Fundamentally it’s a virtual disk drive.

59 - What’s the difference between SAN and vSAN?

SAN leverages storage protocols like FCP and iSCSI while vSAN only works with ESXi hosts.
Within the case of SAN, storage administrators are required to pre-allocate storage on different
systems although vSAN automatically converts local storage resources into one storage pool.

60 - What’s a vSphere client?

The vSphere Client is an application software that permits management of a vSphere
installation. The vSphere Client provides an administrator with access to the key functions of
vSphere without the necessity to access a vSphere server directly.

61 - What’s the max number of virtual machines per host?

Maximum number of virtual machines per host is 100

62 - What are the 2 reasons why a virtual machine might fail to power on?

• The virtual machine is running on an ESXi host which has an expired license.
• The virtual machine is running on a data-store which has insufficient disc space for the
.vswp file.

63 - What’s the utilization of vCenter server?

vCenter is employed to manage multiple ESXi hosts, virtual machines and every one dependent
component from one centralized location.

64 - What are the services in vCenter server?

The vCenter Server services are vCenter Server, vSphere Web Client, Inventory Service,
vSphere Auto Deploy, vSphere ESXi Dump Collector, VMware vSphere Syslog Collector on
Windows and VMware Sphere Syslog Service for the vCenter Server Appliance.