VMware IQ
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iCrewMate 8/27/22 Interview Questions
VMware Interview Questions iCrewMate Learning Center
1. What is the importance of virtualization?
A virtualization process creates a virtual version of a physical device, such as a server, storage
device, network device, on a physical host. On a single machine/server known as an ESXi (ESX
integrated) host, several virtual machines, as well as multiple operating systems and
applications, can be operated. It has the following advantages:
• Increasing IT agility, flexibility, and scalability while reducing costs.
• Increased workload mobility, performance, and resource availability.
• Automated operations that save time.
• Simplify IT management and make it less expensive to operate.
2. Explain the different types of virtualizations available.
Virtualization generally enables your organization to run many processes at once with fewer
physical infrastructures, leading to greater efficiency and cost savings. VMware manages
different types of virtualizations, each having different uses in the industry.
Types of virtualization-
• Server Virtualization: It is a type of virtualization where many virtual machines (VMs)
run on one physical server. Since you do not have to buy new servers or expand your server
room, you save floor space and money. Server virtualization is offered by a few well-known
providers, such as vSphere, XenServer, Hyper-V, and RedHat.
• Network Virtualization: It refers to the process of combining all the physical network
components into one virtual network. A virtual network can be composed of NICs, switches,
VLANs, network storage devices, virtual network containers, and network media. This type of
virtualization has the primary function of eliminating physical network device dependencies.
One of its examples includes VMware NSX.
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• Application Virtualization: The process involves virtualizing and hosting applications
on a server so that end users can have access to them on their devices such as laptops,
smartphones, and tablets. The app can be accessed via any Internet-connected device, so you
don't have to log in to a desktop at your office to use it. Its example includes VMware ThinApp,
Citric XenApp, etc.
• Desktop Virtualization: Often called OS virtualization or VDI (Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure), desktop virtualization is the process that enables you to run or deploy multiple
virtual desktop OS on a physical server. The user may access his or her virtual desktop from
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anywhere since it is stored on a remote server. In this way, the need for individual CPUs is
eliminated. Its example includes VMware Horizon View, Citrix Xen Desktop, etc.
• Storage Virtualization: Using storage virtualization, multiple network storage devices
can be combined into a single storage device/array by pooling their physical storage. It
provides an easy way to manage storage and ensure consistent performance. Its example
includes vSAN.
3. Explain VMKernel and its importance.
VMware's VMkernel is a high-performance operating system that runs directly on the ESXi host.
VMkernel generally acts as an interface between VMs and the physical hardware of the system
and is referred to as microkernel by VMware since it runs on bare metal, directly on VMware
ESX hosts. In addition to providing hardware abstraction and operating system (OS) services,
VMKernel allocates memory and schedules CPUs. In addition, it handles services such as
vMotion, Fault Tolerance, NFS, and iSCSI. In order for VMs to communicate with ESXi, the
VMKernel is vital.
4. Write four core elements of the VMkernel networking layer.
VMkernel networking enables vSphere to interact with the outside world. It consists of four
core elements:
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• Virtual SAN
• Fault Tolerance
• VMFS Shared storage
• VMotion
5. What do you mean by Hypervisor? Write its type.
Hypervisors, also known as VM monitors or VMMs, are software that creates and runs virtual
machines (VMs) as well as also manages and allocates resources to them. By sharing its
resources in virtual ways, such as memory and processing, a host computer can support
multiple guest VMs. The special feature of a hypervisor allows several virtual machines to run
on a single physical server. As a result, it reduces:
• Space efficiency
• Energy usage
• Server maintenance requirements.
Types of Hypervisors-
• Type-1 Hypervisor (also known as Bare Metal or Native Hypervisor)
• Type-2 Hypervisor (also known as Hosted Hypervisor)
6. What do you mean by ESXi?
ESXi (Elastic Sky X Integrated): ESXi (formerly ESX) is a virtualization platform developed by
VMware for deploying and managing virtual machines. With ESXi, you get a very secure OS
architecture that includes and integrates essential OS components like the Kernel. For
efficiency, reliability, and performance, it's the leading choice. ESXi partitions hardware to
consolidate applications and reduce costs by directly accessing and controlling underlying
resources. It is a hypervisor that makes use of bare-metal virtualization technology.
7. 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.
8. Explain NFS and VMFS.
• NFS (Network File System): ESXi hosts use this file-sharing protocol to share files with
NAS devices. Storage devices such as NAS connect to networks and enable ESXi hosts to access
files.
• VMFS (Virtual Machine File System): In VMware vSphere, it is a block-level file system
that stores virtual machine files. In vSphere 6.0, it can also store large files up to 64TB in size.
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9. Explain the .vmdk file.
Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) is an open file format by VMware which is used to store the
content of virtual hard disks. In vSphere 5.5 and later versions, it can be up to 62 TB in size.
Earlier, VMware products used the extension .dsk to store content or data or virtual disk files.
10. What is VMotion? Why is it used?
VMotion could also be a key enabling technology for creating the dynamic, automated, and
self-optimizing data centre.
We used VMware VMotion because it enables the live migration of running virtual machines
from one physical server to a special with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and
complete transaction integrity.
11. Name some of the VMware products.
VMware offers the following products:
• VMware Mirage
• VMware Pivotal Container
• VMware Photon Platform
• VMware Thinapp
• VMware vCloud NFV
• VMware vCloud NFV Openstack
• VMware vRealize
• VMware vRealize Operations, etc.
12. What are the VMware components?
VMware infrastructure consists of the following components:
• VMware ESX Server
• VirtualCenter Server
• VMware Infrastructure Client (VI Client)
• VMware Infrastructure Web Access (VI Web Access)
• VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)
• VMware Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP)
• VMware VMotion and VMware Storage VMotion
• VMware High Availability (HA)
• VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
• VMware Consolidated Backup (Consolidated Backup)
• VMware Infrastructure SDK
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13. Explain VMware DRS.
DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), as the name suggests, provides a way to schedule and
balance resources across a vSphere environment. Through the use of clusters and resource
pools, virtual environments are able to automatically balance available resources across hosts.
DRS uses VMware HA (High Availability) to move VMs from one host to another to ensure that
resources are evenly distributed among them.
14. Explain what you mean by Port-group.
As the name suggests, port groups are groups of virtual ports on our virtual switch. In general,
the port group provides a stable anchor point for virtual machines connected to labeled
networks by aggregating multiple ports into a single configuration. Every port group is
assigned a network label, which is unique to the host. VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) tags,
for example, are shared by each port group member.
15. Write three port-groups that are configured in ESXi networking.
The following are the three port-groups configured in ESXi networking:
• Virtual Machine Port Group: They are used for Virtual Machine Network.
• Service Console Port Group: They are used for Service Console Communications.
• VMKernel Port Group: They are used for vMotion, iSCSI, NFS (Network File System)
Communications.
16. Explain iSCSI storage.
Generally, iSCSI SANs consist of an iSCSI storage system, which houses one or more storage
processors. Communication between the host and array occurs over TCP/IP protocol, and ESXi
hosts are configured with an iSCSI initiator. Such an initiator is either hardware- or software-
based. The hardware-based initiators can be dependent or independent; the software-based
ones are called iSCSI software initiators.
17. What is the meaning of vVol?
vSphere 6.0 introduces the concept of Virtual Volume, also known as VVol, for managing virtual
disks. Whenever a virtual disk is created in a virtual environment, VVol is automatically created.
At the virtual disk level, it enables array-based operations.
18. Explain Cluster.
In VMware, the cluster is defined as a logical grouping of multiple ESXi hosts. It lets you add
and remove hosts from a cluster. HA and DRS are also provided on the cluster.
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19. Explain cold and hot migration?
• Cold Migration: This is the process of migrating a powered-off VM, including its
configuration and data, from a single host to another. One can migrate VMs manually or set
up a scheduled task to perform cold migration.
• Hot Migration: This is the process of migrating a powered-on VM from a single host to
another. It is also known as live migration because there is no need to shut down the VM.
20. Why use virtual machines instead of original hardware?
In the absence of virtualization, it would be impossible to run multiple operating systems at
once, such as Windows and Linux. Virtual machines serve mainly the purpose of running
multiple operating systems concurrently on a single piece of hardware. Splitting a physical
server into multiple units reduces the need to invest in additional units. You can also use VMs
to enable rapid disaster recovery and automatic backups of your data.
21. What is the major advantage of VM running under a type 1 hypervisor than type 2
hypervisor?
• Type-1 Hypervisor: It acts as a lightweight OS and runs directly on the host system. A
base server OS is not required, and direct hardware access is available. Its example includes
VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, etc.
• Type-2 Hypervisor: It cannot run directly on the underlying host system, but can run
as an application layer on a host system, similar to other computer programs. Its example
includes VMware player or parallel desktop, VMware Server, etc.
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Advantages of using Type-1 over Type-2 Hypervisor:
It is more secure to use type-1 hypervisors since they do not rely on the underlying OS, unlike
type-2 hypervisors. The type 2 server also loses some efficiency, performance, and speed due
to this dependency. So, if you're under attack, a type-1 hypervisor will give you better
protection than a type-2 hypervisor.
22. What do you mean by RDM?
The Raw Device Mapping (RDM) files are contained in VMFS and act as proxies for raw physical
devices. This feature enables VMware's virtual machines (VMs) to access logical unit numbers
(LUNs) directly. This eliminates the need to use the virtual machine file system (VMFS) because
the LUN can be formatted using any file system like NTFS (New Technology File System). It is
generally beneficial for cluster configurations including VM-to-VM, physical-to-VM, or SAN
(Storage Area Network) snapshots. But it has some limitations, including the inability to map
disk partitions and possibly not working with direct-attached block devices.
The figure above shows that an RDM disk exists as an address mapping file on a VMFS volume.
This mapping file acts as a symbolic link between a VM's access to an RDM disk to LUNs.
23. What is clone and template in VMware? Differentiate between them.
• VMware clone: It is an identical copy of a VM (called parent VM (Virtual Machine), since
it is the one from which you made a clone). MAC addresses and UUIDs for both cloned and
parent VM, however, will be different. Any changes to the cloned VM will not impact the original
VM or parent VM (and vice versa).
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• VMware template: It is a golden image or a master copy of Virtual Machine that is
capable of creating and provisioning virtual machines. It can later be used to make many clones.
Clone Template
A master copy of a VM with basic
An exact copy of an existing virtual
configurations, although it cannot work
machine that works independently.
independently.
You can turn it on/off. You cannot turn on/off or edit a template.
The template can be converted back to a
Virtual Machine and updated with the
It is not possible to convert a cloned VM
latest configuration before being
back to a parent or original VM.
converted back to the template for use in
future VM deployments.
For deployment of mass virtual machines
They are ideal for test environments or
in production environments, the template
disaster recovery environments.
works well.
For large deployments of VMs, it is not When deploying large numbers of VMs, it
recommended. is recommended.
A powered-on VM cannot be used to
The VM that is powered on can be cloned.
create a Template.
24. What do you mean by VMware HA and VMware FT? Difference between them.
• VMware HA (High availability): It generally works on Cluster Level. By pooling VMs
and the hosts they reside on into a cluster, VMware HA provides high availability for VMs. VMs
running on a failed host are forced to be restarted on alternate hosts.
• VMware FT (Fault Tolerance): It generally works on VM Level. In this, a secondary VM
is created and maintained that is identical to the primary and can replace it when the ESXi host
fails to provide continuous availability of VMs. A complete copy of a VM is made, including
storage, computation, and memory. To configure FT, a 10GB NIC is recommended.
Difference between VMware HA and VMware FT-
• While VMware HA is enabled per cluster, VMware FT is enabled per VM.
• VMware HA works on cluster level whereas VMware FT works on VM level.
• An HA system will restart and power on VMs on another host in the event of a failure,
while an FT system will activate the second copy in case of a loss of the primary host. By
providing fast backup and continuous availability, it reduces downtime.
25. How many CPUs can be used for a VM in FT in vSphere 7.0?
In VMware vSphere 7.0, up to 8 vCPUs can be used with the VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus
license.
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26. Explain FT logging traffic.
For VMware FT, fault tolerance logging traffic is considered as the second network requirement.
For continuous data syncing between primary and secondary VMs, Fault Tolerance applies FT
logging. Additionally, this is a VMkernel connection type used to move nondeterministic events
from primary to secondary VMs.
27. What is the difference between vSphere and vCenter?
• VMware vSphere: It's an enterprise-scale virtualization platform that lets you build a
reliable and resilient infrastructure to meet pretty much any business need while staying within
your budget. vSphere adds important capabilities to data center infrastructure that prevent
unplanned downtime and can completely eliminate maintenance and storage downtime.
• VMware vCenter: It is a centralized platform used to manage virtual infrastructure. From
a single console, you can control all your hosts and virtual machines, enhancing visibility and
preventing errors. Even if you are managing a large-scale environment, vCenter Server lets you
optimize routine operations and daily tasks. As a result of this functionality, you are able to get
a detailed understanding of how your environment is configured.
28. Will FT (Fault Tolerance) work if the vCenter server goes down?
Fault Tolerance on a VM can only be enabled through the vCenter Server. FT does not require
vCenter to be online once configured. Due to this fact, no FT failure between the primary and
the secondary will occur when vCenter is down.
29. 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.
30. What will happen if vMotion fails?
A virtual machine will not be migrated if the target host does not have enough memory i.e.,
vMotion fails. This can be fixed by moving the VM to another ESXi host providing guaranteed
memory, or by reducing the virtual machine's memory reservation.
31. Explain Promiscuous mode.
A promiscuous mode is network security, monitoring, and administration method that allows
any network adapter configured on a host system to access all network data packets. You can
specify it at the virtual switch or port group level in vSphere ESX/ESXi. Essentially, promiscuous
mode is a method of monitoring (sniffing) network traffic. You have two options: accept or
reject. Additionally, all communication will be visible to all virtual machines if the promiscuous
mode is set to accept.
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32. There are several features such as DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), SMP (Symmetric
Multi-Processing), VMotion, etc., but why do we need ‘HA’?
VMware HA is critical for us since we need uninterrupted service. Let's suppose that one of the
ESX servers in the cluster crashes suddenly for some reason. What would happen to the virtual
machines running on that server? Do they continue running or are they falling? Likewise, they
go down too. Thankfully, VMware HA allows you to restart these VM's on any other ESX server
in the same cluster as soon as they fail.
33. What is the importance of snapshots in VMware?
VMware snapshots allow you to quickly and easily save the state of a VM before making
changes. A snapshot is taken when upgrading or installing software. In VMware snapshots, the
current state of the virtual machine is preserved, so after testing, the machine can be quickly
reverted to the desired state. After a specific task is completed, a snapshot should be removed
to improve performance.
34. What are vSS and vDS?
To connect virtual machines, VMware vSphere offers two types of virtual switches. vSphere
administrators can control the traffic between VMware virtual machines using either type of
virtual switch.
• vSphere Standard Switch (VSS): VSS is the default virtual switch when ESXi is installed.
The switch allows VMs installed on one physical host to communicate with one another. The
switch controls how a VM communicates with another VM on the same physical server, just as
a physical switch would.
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• vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS): It acts as the single switch in a virtual environment
and provides central provisioning, administrative, and monitoring capabilities for virtual
networks. Additionally, it supports advanced networking features in VMware vSphere.
35. What is Port-group?
VM port groups are how we will create logical rules round the virtual ports that are made
available to VMs. It’s common to make a port group for every VLAN and network subnet that
you simply want to present to your VMs.
36. What is vSwitch in VMware?
vSwitch is the software-based virtual networking switch used to connect virtual machines to
the ESXi host & it also provides the connectivity between the virtual machines on that virtual
switch. vSphere Standard Switch is referred to as vSwitch. Each ESXi host requires its own
vSwitch.
37. What do you mean by vCloud Suite?
vCloud Suite is often described as an enterprise-grade cloud and management solution. It is a
collection of multiple VMware components to build and provide a completely integrated cloud
infrastructure, that includes virtualization, software-defined datacenter services, disaster
recovery, application management, etc.
38. Why use VMware Workstation?
VMware Workstation is software that allows users to run multiple operating systems on the
same host computer. Virtual machines are capable of running one instance of any operating
system such as Microsoft, Linux, etc.
Here are three reasons why VMware workstation is useful:
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• Allows the user to run more than one operating system on the same computer.
• It saves the current OS configuration as virtual machines.
• You can work across different OSs without switching.
39. What is the role of VMware admin?
Virtual machines, hardware, and servers are familiar terms to most VMware admins. They use a
specific VMware environment such as vSphere to create and install computer infrastructure,
including hardware, servers, and virtual machines. Maintenance and troubleshooting are a
major part of their job.
The following are some of the roles of a VMware administrator:
• Managing the host's storage and VMs
• Maintain and upgrade the Virtual Center
• Simplify template management and cluster management
• Coordinate with vendors
• VM Troubleshooting, etc.
40. What’s VMFS?
VMFS may be a block level high-performance clustered filing system for virtualization. It is
often shared between multiple ESXi hosts or VMs and may simultaneously write and also read
data to and from one storage location.
41. What’s a VMware Data-store?
Data-stores are the storage containers for files. Generally, data-stores hide the specifics of
every memory device and supply a consistent model for storing VM files. Data-stores are
wont to hold virtual machine files, templates, and ISO images etc.
42. What’s the difference between NFS and VMFS data-stores?
NFS may be a file level filing system while VMFS may be a block level filing system. Once we
create a VMFS Data-store, the VMFS filing system is made by the vSphere but the NFS filing
system is on the Storage side and is merely mounted and features a shared folder on the
vSphere.
43. What’s FCoE protocol?
Fibre Channel over Ethernet or FCoE may be a transport standard that takes Fiber Channel
frames and encapsulates them within an enhanced Ethernet network. FCoE retains Fiber
Channel upper-level protocol features like flow control and data integrity checking but not its
cables and interfaces.
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44. How does VMware measure IOPS?
VMware measures IOPs by these two formulas:
A.IOPS = 1/(Avg. Latency + Avg. Seek)(ms) (per Disk )
B.Total IOPS = IOPS * Total number of Disks.
45. What’s IOPS in VMware?
IOPS stands for Input/output Operations per Second may be a common performance
measurement to benchmark memory devices like hard disc drives, solid state drives and cargo
area networks.
46. 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.
47. What percentage sorts of snapshots are there in VMware?
As the perspective of files VMware snapshot are often four types:
1. Delta disk files
2. Flat file
3. Database file
4. Memory file
48. Are you able to restore a VM from a snapshot?
Yes, one can restore a snapshot in VMware by using the Revert and attend commands.
49. 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.
50. What’s the default number of ports configured with the virtual switch?
The default number of ports configured with the virtual switch is 128 ports.
51. What do you understand about Promiscuous mode?
Promiscuous mode is used for monitoring traffic. In the Promiscuous mode, all the network
data packets can be viewed and accessed by all the network adapters operating in this mode.
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It is a network security, monitoring, and administration method that allows any network adapter
configured on a host system to access all network data packets.
52. What are the Virtual Machine Files?
File Usage Description
.vmx vmname.vmx Virtual machine configuration file
.vmxf vmname.vmxf Additional virtual machine configuration files
.vmdk vmname.vmdk Virtual disk characteristics
-flat.vmdk vmname-flat.vmdk Virtual machine data disk
.nvram vmname.nvram or nvram Virtual machine BIOS or EFI configuration
.vmem vmname.vmem Virtual machine paging backup file
.vmsd vmname.vmsd Virtual machine snapshots
.vmsn vmname.vmsn Virtual machine snapshot data file
.vswp vmname.vswp Virtual machine swap file
.vmss vmname.vmss Virtual machine suspend file
.log vmware.log Current virtual machine log file
-#.log vmware-#.log Old virtual machine log files
(where # is a number starting with 1)
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