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If you were looking for VMware interview questions and answers then you are landed on the right page where you will learn a lot of things beneficial for your professional career. Nowadays, VMware course is attracting the expert developers with high salary pay and a number of job openings. It is a great opportunity to get certified by VMware and got a job in top companies of the world. Either you are experienced or newbie, these VMware interview questions and answers are equally important and beneficial to become an expert VMware developer.

VMware Interview Questions and Answers    

1. What is VMware? 

VMware is a top company in providing cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology to accelerate the digital transformation for evolving IT environments in an efficient manner. The products provided by the VMware are mainly categorized as client/desktop and server applications.

2. What is hypervisor in VMware and describe its main purpose?

Before we start the VMware introduction, it is necessary to understand the virtualization concept. Virtualization is the name of an act in which a single machine act as a guest for practical usage of bandwidth, CPU memory and other computing resources. Virtual machine monitor or hypervisor is a software or process that creates and run different virtual machines. The main purpose of hypervisor is to run more than one virtual computer on a single host machine (or physical server machine). 

3. Do you know about VMware Server?

It is a product of VMware that helps to make partitions of a single physical server into different virtual machines. 

4. Why we need virtualization?

It is a necessary part of virtualization interview questions whenever you will be asked about virtualization question you will be asked about why we need it? In some special cases, when we need to run multiple machines to perform a task without increasing the cost then we use virtualization and share resources of a single physical machine. VM Virtualization decreases the length of your physical network and make easy to manage.

5. What is the main difference between Type1 and Type2 hypervisors?

Following are the types of virtualization:

• Hypervisors that are able to run on hardware directly are known as Type1 such as ESXi hypervisors
• Type of hypervisors that run on software and specially installed on the top of the Operating System such as VMware Workstation is known as Type2.

6. What is the difference between vpxd and vpxa?

Vpxd: it is the main service that provides the functionality to a vCenter Server.

Vpxa: it runs on the ESXi hosts that are connected to the Vcenter Server. It is a bridge between hostd and vpxd.

7. What is ESXi?

It is Type 1 hypervisor that runs on the hardware of host server without an underlying operating system and reduces the costs. ESXi improves efficiency by minimizing the resources required to run hypervisor.

8. How to install ESXi?

You will download the software from VMware’s download page.

If you want to install ESXi on Bare-Metal hardware or any other server, run the VMware ESXi installer. Don’t forget to check the compatibility of your server in order to reduce the failure. You will click on F11 to accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). The System will find the drives where you want to install. After this step, the screen for keyboard layout selection will appear on your monitor.

9. Do you know about the ESXi Shell?

Yes, it is a command-line interface, mainly used to diagnostics and repairs purposes. Whenever you want to use ESXi shell, open it by vCenter Server Enable/disable, SSH or DCUI.  

10. What is NFS?

It is a file-sharing protocol over TCP/IP networks and provides the communication between ESXi hosts and storage devices or NAS (Network Attached Storage ). Network File System holds different templates and ISO files to allow a user to view, store or share files on remote computing machines as though it was a local computer. When you will enter the password for root then the installation will begin and after the boot process the server will obtain the IP address manually or using the DHCP server.

11. How many types of Virtualization used? Discuss in details

When you will start the preparation for VMware interview questions and answers, you must prepare VMware technical questions and theoretical questions in details. Make a good research and try to figure out more and more VMware questions.  Mainly, the following types of virtualization are used:

• Presentation Virtualization

As the named indicates, presentation virtualization is a delivery method of applications that delivers applications or desktops with the help of a shared server and allow the control of client applications from a central machine connected with client desktops.

• Storage Virtualization

This is the concept of using different storage devices in a manner that these appear to be a single storage pool. Using storage virtualization, we can integrate the hardware of VMware datacenter and networks into one logical view on SAN (storage area network) used to centralized the storage.

• Server Virtualization

It is the process of running multiple servers virtually on a single physical server.  

• Application Virtualization

Application virtualization is becoming popular nowadays, it allows users to use different software applications on their computers without installing on their machines. It can be done by Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, VMware ACE or application streaming.

• Network Virtualization

Network virtualization combines multiple physical networks into a single virtual network or divide a physical network into small independent virtual networks to boost IT productivity and improves recovery times with excellent security features.

12. What is VMware vSphere?

It is a prominent server virtualization product by VMware for a complete virtualization infrastructure management. VM sphere is mainly based on ESXi server and vCenter servers. VM sphere certification is a proven record of a professional career.

13. How to install vSphere?

vSphere is a client-side application as you can see in the diagram given above. You can install vSphere using the Vcenter server installation or with the help of web browser to make the connection with ESXi host.

Click on the autorun.exe file and start the installation process by selecting the VMware vSphere Client. Set your default language, accept the agreement and specify your installation location. You will see the VMware VSphere Client icon on the desktop, open it and enter the hostname or IP address with user credentials to login.

14. How many disk types are in vSphere?

You can assign the following three disk types are in vSphere:

Thin provision: Thin disks have the dynamic nature and most used in the virtual machines because we can add space on demand. As compared to thick disks, think disks don’t take much time to add new space or extending the existing space. Using thin provision, storage capacity can be utilized 100% because when size of data increases we can easily add new space.

Thick Provisioned Lazy zeroes: it is the physical disk space assigned to the virtual disks by default when you create new virtual machine and can be converted into thin disks.

Thick Provision Eager Zeroes: in VMware, it is the fault tolerance disk space allocated at the time of creation. As compared to other disks, it takes additional time to create a virtual disk.

15. Discuss the Fault Tolerance of VMware?

It is a feature of VM vSphere to provide continuous protection and enhance the High Availability technology. This process is well-aligned that creates a virtual machine that shares the same virtual files of the parent virtual machine. The parent machine will produce the outputs and both act as a single machine. When a failure occurs then the child machine will take over.

16. How Can we configure the fault tolerance?

Following are the steps to configure fault tolerance in a VMware:

• Visit Host in the vSphere web client and go to manage
• Choose VMkernel adapters under networking
• Click a host by clicking on add host networking
• Choose VMkernel network adapter under connection type
• Select a new vSphere standard switch option under select target device page
• Now open port properties and check fault tolerance
• Make sure the configuration of a network for vMotion VMkernel interface
• Review the settings and click on the finish
• Right-click on the fault tolerance and turn on the fault tolerance

You have created the VMkernel port group now you can turn on FT by simply right-clicking the VM and selecting Fault Tolerance from the menu as you can in the picture given below.

17. What is VMotion and when it is used?

VMotion is live migration of workloads from one physical server to another with zero downtime. Using VMotion, you can perform hardware maintenance without scheduling downtime.

18. What is vCenter?

It is a central unit of VMware vSphere that facilitates you simplified and efficient server management. vSphere accommodates thousands of ESXi hosts with the ability to handle and multi ESXi hosts in VMware vSphere environment. 

19. How to install vcenter server?

you need to understand the minimum hardware requirements before going to install your Vcenter server.

• Visit the official website of VMware and download ISO file of vCenter Server.
• Run the Autorun.exe file and select the vCenter Server for Windows option and click on the install button to start this process.
• Accept the license agreement and check the Embedded Deployment option  
• Enter your system name and create a new vCenter Single Sign-on configuration, give password and site name then proceed next
• Use windows local system account and use an embedded database for this deployment
• Carefully verify the configure ports and leave destination dictionary default

Review your settings and click install to finish your installation process.

20. Your company want to use Oracle databases, so can you use Oracle with vCenter?

Absolutely yes, I will use JDBC driver and perform this task without any trouble. 

21. How to install VMware tools Linux?

Power on your virtual machine, login as root user and open a command shell. Open the main menu of the VM machine click on Guest and Install/Upgrade VMware Tools. For more information, you can also visit VMware’s official knowledgebase.

22. What are the main differences between VMware Clone and template?

Following are the main differences between a Clone & Template:

23. What is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure?

VDI VMware is defined as the hosting of desktop environments (virtualized physical computers or laptops) on a central server. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is a type of Desktop virtualization where a thin client is used to connecting end-users to their desktops. All real-time computing actions and activities are performed on the server and users use VMware Horizon view for the connection to the desktop. For an in-depth understanding, you can view the diagram given below:

24. Why we need VMware tools?

VMware tools are used to increase the management and performance of virtual machines. By installing VMware tools, you may experience the improvements of the following issues:

• Bad video resolution
• Restricted and slower cursor movement
• Difficulties in copying pasting and drag, drop operations
• Insufficient color depth
• Time synchronization of guest and host operating systems

25. What is VMware High Availability?

It is configured on the cluster and performs its operations on the host level. A Cluster is a group of servers working together on the same tasks to deliver high quality of speed and reduce the downtime. So, VMware HA decreases the failure risk by migrating and restarting all VMs running under any of the hosts to another host under the same cluster. All Servers send heart-beat to each other after a five-second interval, if any sever lose three consecutive heartbeats then VMWare High Availability detects the failures of servers and initiates the failover action.

26. Do you Know about VMKernal? Is it important?

Yes, it is a Virtualization interface between a virtual machine and ESXi host which stores different Virtual Machines. It is also responsible for allocating memory, CPU, Storage and other resources. VMKernal controls the vMotion, traffic management, Fault tolerance and other special services.

27. Compare ESX and ESXi

28. What is vSAN?

Virtual Storage Area Network is software-defined storage and fully integrated with the vSphere to enhance the efficiency of storage. Basically, SAN is based on the local storage of ESXi hosts and creates the distributed shared storage solutions. 

29. Define vSAN configuration options?

Hybrid and All-Flash are the configuration options in vSAN, where Hybrid use magnetic and flash-based storage disks. Magnetic disks for storage and flash-based for caching. All-flash uses both for caching and storage of data.

30. Differentiate cold and hot migration?

In the case of server failover, the virtual machines are transferred from one server to another either using hot or cold migration. 

31. Hot Migration

It is the process of transferring OS and applications to physical machines while the applications or operating systems still in running condition.

 32. Cold Migration

It involves suspended virtual machines or turned-off migration and move storage disks from one to another database.

33. Name of any three Virtual Machine files?

Virtual Machine required many files to perform correctly, here is are some:

• VMSD – VM snapshot state file
• NVMEM – page file of VM
• VMX – VM configuration file
• NVRAM – BIOS file of VM

34. Why VMware Esx server is desired over a virtual server?

VMware Esx server has excellent resource management because there is a virtual layer in the kernel that communicates with the hardware directly.

35. What method you will implement to prevent storage failure?

I will take backups of each Virtual machine on a separate storage medium continually in order to restore when we need it in case of any storage failure.  

36. What do you do to customize the Linux virtual machine clone?

These type of operating systems are open source and VC itself includes the tools for customization.

37. Do you know about the new features of ESXi Hypervisor that enhance the functionality?

Following enhancements are made in ESXi Hypervisor:

• Hot-pluggable PCIe SSD Devices

It is a very cool feature that you can add or remove SSD (Solid State Disks) devices while vSphere host is running.

• Support for Reliable Memory Technology

To prevent the memory error, reliable memory technology is used to enhance the placement of Virtual Machine kernel and initial thread and many more.

• CPU C-states Enhancements

C-state is a good feature that is used to give extra power savings.

38. What is RDM?

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) is a file stored in VMFS volume that acts as a proxy for raw physical devices and allows the storage of virtual machine’s data on LUN (Logical Unit Number) directly.          

39. What are the RDM modes?

Visual compatibility mode and Physical compatibility mode are the RDM modes as you can see in the picture given below:

40. What is Snapshot?

It is a duplicate copy of a virtual machine with timestamp that can be restored in some special cases is called a snapshot. We take the snapshots when we need to install or upgrade the software. It is a proactive approach to remove the snapshot when completed to experience an excellent performance.

41. What are the settings needed to initiate a Snapshot?

• Properly configured Virtual Machine having attached hardware
• State of the VM Hard disk file so that we can revert back if you need
• State of the Virtual Machine Memory

42. What is DRS?

Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) helps to balance the resources between the hosts by clustering or pooling methods automatically.

43. Enlist the core services of a VC?

Following are the core services of VC:

• Event logging
• task scheduling
• VM provisioning

44. List the types of partitions used in ESX server?

These are the types of partitions:

• /-root
• Swap
• /var/core
• /opt
• /tmp
• /home
• /var

45. What are the monitoring methods for vSphere HA?

Following are the host monitoring methods used in Master and Slave hosts:

• Network Heartbeat
• Datastore Heartbeat

46. Why we need VLAN?

Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a type of network in which we broke down the broadcast traffic into different logical groups to separate the one broadcast domain into small pieces.

We need this action in order to separate the networks within the broadcast domain.

 47. Do you know about the consolidated Backups?

Yes, it is a framework for backup that is used to take the backups of VMs and ESX servers with the support of 3^rd party utilities. Keep in mind it is not a backup service.  

48. What is SRM?

(Site Recovery Manager) is a helpful tool to manage data recovery by enabling failover & disaster recovery testing and prioritize the recovery in a specific order.

49. How to create SRM in VMware?

• Click on the virtual machine, open setting editor and click on Add
• Open hardware wizard, click on the hard disk and create a New Virtual Disk
• Select SCSI or IDE disk according to your virtual storage disk
• Fix the size of your newly created virtual disk
• Higher disk space means higher performance
• Choose the filename and storage location for the virtual disk file

50. What is DPM in VMware?

Distributed Power Management (DPM) continuously monitors requirements of resources in a cluster and consolidates the workloads when there are low usages of resources. When resource requirements are increased in case of higher usages of resources then DPM makes the availability of resources to ensure the service levels are met.

51. What are the key benefits of a Distributed Switch?

Following are the main benefits:

• NetFlow support
• Central Management of all ESXi hosts where a single switch manages the multiple hosts
• The ability to enable NIOC (Network IO Control)

52. Discuss the basic differences between VMware and Hyper-v?