Virtualization Interview Questions and Answers

> What is Virtualization ?

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an
operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources.

You probably know a little about virtualization if you have ever divided your hard drive into
different partitions. A partition is the logical division of a hard disk drive to create, in effect, two
separate hard drives.

Operating system virtualization is the use of software to allow a piece of hardware to run
multiple operating system images at the same time. The technology got its start on mainframes
decades ago, allowing administrators to avoid wasting expensive processing power.

In 2005, virtualization software was adopted faster than anyone imagined, including the experts.
There are three areas of IT where virtualization is making headroads, network virtualization,
storage virtualization and server virtualization.

>What are the benefits of virtualization ?

There are some well accepted and inherit benefits to using Virtualization. Here are some of them:

*Reduce the number of physical servers

*Reduce the infrastructure needed for your data center (power, cooling, battery backup, network
switch ports, KVM ports and space)
*Reduce administrative overhead because servers can be administered from a single console
*Ability to bring up new servers quickly (it could take days or weeks to put in a new physical
server but it could take just a few minutes to create a new virtual server from a template)
*Hardware Independence of virtual servers – a virtual server can run on any host server,
regardless of the host hardware
*Because of hardware independence, you receive reduce your disaster recovery cost, complexity,
and recovery time
*A “greener” datacenter & server environment due to the consolidation
Overall, lower TCO of servers

>What is a Hypervisor ?
You can think of a Hypervisor as the kernel or the core of a virtualization platform. The
Hypervisor is also called the Virtual Machine Monitor. The Hypervisor has access to the physical
host hardware.
Of the total amount of disk space taken for a virtualization platform (like Hyper-V or VMware
ESX), the Hypervisor is, by far, the smallest part. A Type 1 Hypervisor runs on the bare metal of
the hardware. Examples of a Type 1 Hypervisor are Hyper-V and ESX Server. A Type 2
Hypervisor is hosted by an operating system. Examples of a Type 2 Hypervisor are VMware
Server and Microsoft Virtual Server.

>What is ESX Server ?

ESX Server is VMware’s flagship enterprise server virtualization platform. It comes in two
versions – ESX Server and ESXi Server where the latter has no service console and is the
thinnest version available. ESX Server has many optional features like VMotion and VMHA
(both discussed below) and some built-in features like the VMFS file system. Most end users
purchase VMware ESX Server with some set of optional features in a package called VMware
Infrastructure. ESX Server is managed by the VMware Infrastructure Client. Its centralized
management platform is called Virtual Center.

>What is Hyper-V ?
Codenamed "Viridian" but given the the formal name of Hyper-V, it is a hypervisor-based
Windows Server virtualization platform that is included as a role of Windows Server 2008.
Hyper-V enables you to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server using a broad range
of services ranging from resource-intensive services like Microsoft SQL Server to third-party
applications that may run on previous versions of Windows or Linux.

>What are a host, guest, and virtual machine ?

A host system (host operating system) would be the primary & first installed operating system.
If you are using a bare metal Virtualization platform like Hyper-V or ESX, there really isn’t a
host operating system besides the Hypervisor. If you are using a Type-2 Hypervisor like VMware
Server or Virtual Server, the host operating system is whatever operating system those
applications are installed into.

A guest system (guest operating system) is a virtual guest or virtual machine (VM) that is
installed under the host operating system. The guests are the VMs that you run in your
virtualization platform.

Some admins also call the host & guest the parent and child.

>What products are available for Server Virtualization ?

Bare Metal Hypervisor / Native / Type 1:
VMware ESX Server
Microsoft Hyper-V
Citrix/Xen Server

Hosted in an OS / Type 2:

VMware Server
Microsoft Virtual Server
Parallels Server

> What products are available for desktop virtualization ?

Host in an OS / Type 2 / intended for workstations:

VMware Workstation
Microsoft Virtual PC
Parallels Workstation
VMware Fusion for Mac OS
Parallels Desktop for Mac OS

>What is the difference between ESX Server and VMware Server ?

While both ESX Server and VMware Server are server virtualization products, the difference is
that VMware ESX installs and runs on the bare metal of a physical server where as VMware
Server needs a base operating system. In other words, VMware ESX has a type 1 hypervisor
where as VMware Server has a type 2 hypervisor.

You will obtain must better performance from ESX Server as it has much less overhead. ESX
Server also has many features available such as VMFS, VMotion, VMHA, and DRS. On the
other hand, ESX Server is also a commercial product that must be purchased where as VMware
Server is a free product. VMware Server is an excellent option to choose to slowly migrate to
server consolidation at a low cost. VMware Server is also an excellent way to learn about
virtualization as well as a way to run multiple operating systems on your desktop PC, at no cost.

>What is the difference between Hyper-V and Virtual Server ?

Like the difference between ESX Server and VMware Server, Hyper-V and Virtual server have
similar differences. Hyper-V is a type-1 hypervisor where Virtual Server is a type 2 hypervisor.
Virtual Server requires that you first host a Windows operating system to load it.

Hyper-V is meant to be a higher performance commercial virtualization platform with a

centralized management platform and 3rd party add-ons. Virtual Server, on the other hand, is a
free virtualization platform meant for the desktop or for small-scale server virtualization
solutions.
.

>What is the difference between emulation, native virtualization, and paravirtualization ?

Emulation is where software is used to simulate hardware for a guest operating system to run in.
This has been used in the past but is difficult to do and offers low performance.

Native virtualization (or full virtualization) is where a type-2 hypervisor is used to partially allow
access to the hardware and partially to simulate hardware in order to allow you to load a full
operating system. This is used by emulation packages like VMware Server, Workstation, Virtual
PC, and Virtual Server.

Paravirtualization is where the guest operating systems run on the hypervisor, allowing for
higher performance and efficiency. For more technical information and videos on this topic, visit
VMware’s Technology Preview for Transparent Virtualization. Examples of paravirtualization
are Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware ESX Server.

>What are the different types of virtualization ?

Server Virtualization – consolidating multiple physical servers into virtual servers that run on a single
physical server.
Application Virtualization – an application runs on another host from where it is installed in a variety of
ways. It could be done by application streaming, desktop virtualization or VDI, or a VM package (like
VMware ACE creates with a player). Microsoft Softgrid is an example of Application virtualization.
Presentation Virtualization – This is what Citrix Met frame (and the ICA protocol) as well as Microsoft
Terminal Services (and RDP) are able to create. With presentation virtualization, an application actually
runs on another host and all that you see on the client is the screen from where it is run.
Network Virtualization – with network virtualization, the network is “carved up” and can be used for
multiple purposes such as running a protocol analyzer inside an Ethernet switch. Components of a virtual
network could include NICs, switches, VLANs, network storage devices, virtual network containers, and
network media.
Storage Virtualization – with storage virtualization, the disk/data storage for your data is consolidated to
and managed by a virtual storage system. The servers connected to the storage system aren’t aware of
where the data really is. Storage virtualization is sometimes described as “abstracting the logical storage
from the physical storage.

> What is Service Console?

The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to
manage the VMKernel

> What are the basic commands to troubleshoot connectivity between vSphere Client
/vCenter to ESX server?
service mgmt-vmware restart (restarts host agent(vmware-hostd) on vmware esx server)
service vmware-vpxa restrat (restarts Vcenter agent service)
service network restart (restarts management networks on ESX)

> What is vCenter Agent?

VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and
ESX server. This Agent will be installed on ESX/ESXi will be done when you try to add the ESx
host in Vcenter.

> What is the command used to restart SSH, NTP & Vmware Web access?
Service sshd restart
Service ntpd restrat
Service vmware-webaccess restart

> What are the types of Ports groups in ESX/ESXi?

There are 3 types of port groups in ESX
1.Service console port group
2.VMkernel Port group
3. Virtual machine port group

There are only 2 types of port group in ESXi

1. Vmkernel Port group
2.Virtual Machine Port group

> What is VMKernel ?

VMWare Kernel is a Proprietary kernel of vmwareand is not based on any of the flavors of Linux
operating systems, .VMkernel requires an operating system to boot and manage the kernel. A
service console is being provided when VMWare kernel is booted. Only service console is based
up on Redhat Linux OS not VMkernel.

> What is the use of Service Console port ?

Service console port group required to manage the ESX server and it acts as the management
network for the ESX. Vcenter/Vsphere Client uses the service console IP's to communicate with
the ESX server.

> What is the use of VMKernel Port ?

Vmkernel port is used by ESX/ESXi for vmotion, ISCSI & NFS communications. ESXi uses
Vmkernel as the management network since it don't have service console built with it.

> What is the use of Virtual Machine Port Group?

Virtual Machine port group is used by Virtual machine communication.

> How Virtual Machine communicates to another servers in Network ?

All the Virtual Machines which are configured in VM Port Group are able to connect to the other
machines on the network. So this port group enables communication between vSwitch and
Physical Switch by the use of uplink (Physical NIC) associated with the port group.
> What is the default number of ports configured with the Virtual Switch?
When the time of Virtual switch created, Vswitch is created with 56 ports by default. We can
extend the no of ports by editing the vswitch properties.

> What are the different types of Partitions in ESX server?

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

> What are the security options available for ESX vswitch?
Promiscuous Mode - Reject
MAC Address changes - Accept
Forged Transmits - Accept

> What is Promiscuous Mode ?

If the promiscuous mode set to Accept, all the communication is visible to all the virtual
machines, in other words all the packets are sent to all the ports on vSwitch. It can be useful
when you are running virtual machines with network sniffers to capture packet in that network.

> What is MAC Address changes?

All the virtual machines nics are provide with the MAC address at the time of creation and it is
stored in .VMX file. If the packet doesn't match with the MAC address as same as in the .VMX
file , it does not allow incoming traffic to the VM by setting this option as reject.

If it is set as Accept,ESX accepts requests to change the effective MAC address to other than the
MAC address save din the .VMX file.

> What is Forged Transmits ?

Which is same as the Mac Address changes setting but it worked for the outgoing traffic but the
MAC address changes setting is for incoming traffic.

> What is a VLAN ?

A VLAN is the Virtual LAN which is used to broke down the Broadcast traffic into many logical
groups. Basically, one physical switch comprise of one broadcast domain. VLAN used to
separate the one broadcast domain into many small pieces to separate the networks within the
broadcast domain.

> What are the types of VLAN tagging in Vsphere?

There are 3 types of VLAN tagging available in Vsphere.
1.Virtual Switch Tagging (VST)
2.External Switch Tagging (EST)
3.Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT)
> What are the Traffic Shaping policies available in the Vswitch?
Traffic shaping policies are disabled by default. There are 3 different traffic shaping policy
setting

Average Bandwidth (kbps)

Peak Bandwidth (kbps)
Burst Size (kbps)

> What are the Load balancing policies available in vswitch?

Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID
Route based on source MAC hash
Route based on IP hash

Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID - Chooses an uplink based on the virtual
port where the traffic entered the virtual switch. The traffic will be always send with that same
uplink until that particular uplink is failed and failed over to another NIC.

Route based on source MAC hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source Ethernet
MAC address.The traffic will be always send with that same uplink until that particular uplink is
failed and failed over to another NIC.

Route based on IP hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source and destination IP
addresses of each packet.

> What are the types for Network Failover Detection settings?
Link Status only
Beacon Probing

Link Status only - Relies solely on the link status provided by the network adapter. This detects
failures, such as cable pulls and physical switch power failures, but it cannot detect configuration
errors, such as a physical switch port being blocked by spanning tree or misconfigured to the
wrong VLAN or cable pulls on the other side of a physical switch.

Beacon Probing - Sends out and listens for beacon probes — Ethernet broadcast frames sent by
physical adapters to detect upstream network connection failures — on all physical Ethernet
adapters in the team. In addition to link status, to determine link failure. This detects many of the
failures which are not detected by Link Status.

> What is the VMlibrary?

The VMlibrary (/vmlib) is simply a directory on your ESX Server that lets you organize the tools
and files you need to manage and maintain your virtual infrastructure.

> I cant add a new virtual hard drive to my virtual machine. What should I do?
ou may not have the appropriate permissions to add virtual hardware to the VM, or the VM may
be powered on and won't allow the addition of virtual hardware while powered on.
> I just created a new virtual machine and attached to an existing disk. Every time I power
on the VM, I get a blue screen. What could the problem be?
Make sure the OS type that you selected when you created the VM matches the OS type installed
on the virtual disk. For example, if you selected Windows 2003 Standard for the VM when you
created it, but the existing virtual disk has Windows 2000 Standard installed, you'll probably
encounter issues.

> Which version of VMware ESX Server supports Boot from SAN?
ESX Server 2.5 supports Boot from SAN but has the following limitations: ESX server had to be
installed in boot from SAN mode, the HBA can only be used by the Service Console, LUN
masking should be used to restrict other ESX servers from the boot LUN, the HBA of the boot
LUN must be a QLogic HBA, and the boot LUN must be the lowest numbered LUN controlled
by the storage processor.

> Where are log files for VMware ESX Server written to?
/var/logs/vmware.

> What do you do if you forget the root password of the Service Console?
You will need to boot into single-user mode from the Service Console by selecting linux from
the LILO boot menu and appending -s to your boot choice. This will boot the console into single-
user mode and will allow you to use the passwd command to change the root user password.

> I accidently unmounted the VMFS volume on my ESX Server. How can I re-mount the
volume without re-booting.
type mount t vmfs vmfs /vmfs

> What is vCenter Agent?

VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and
ESX server. This Agent will be installed on ESX/ESXi will be done when you try to add the ESx
host in Vcenter.