Define the difference between an event and a task:
Event: An indication of an occurrence in vCenter that was part of running vCenter
Task: An indication that an admin has permed an action that has yet to complete. A task is an event that an Admin caused to happen
What tab would you use to monitor tasks and events at a host:
1. Tasks
2. Tasks and Events
3. Events
4. None of the above
4. There is no tab at a host to monitor tasks and events. There is an "event" tab and "recent tasks" pane.
What steps would you need to take to show events for just a cluster and not its object?
Inventory -> Host and Clusters->[Select Cluster Object] - > Tasks & Events Tab -> [Select Events button] -> [Select small pull down arrow on left corner for "Show Cluster Entries"]
What can you do if the "Show All Entries" and "Keyword Filtering" selections are not available in the "Tasks and Events" tab?
Click "View" and select "Filtering"
Identify four common memory techniques used by the VMkernels.
Transparent Page Sharing (TPS)
Balloon Driver Mechansm
Memory Compression
Swap File
Define TPS
Transparent Page Sharing where the VMkernal only keeps one copy of a page in physical RAM that is used by multiple VMs.
When is TPS used?
A. By Default
B. When there's memory contention
C. When memory contention exceeds 10% of physical memory
D.When memory contention exceeds 25% of available memory
A By Default. TPS is used regardless of whether or not there's memory contention.
If a VM is using it's swap file, but not ballooning what should you check?
C. If VMware tools is properly implemented on the VM.
The file vmmemctl is growing. What's the problem?
VMmemCtl is the balloon driver. It's increasing because the VMkernel has determined that that memory is scarce and is increasing the size of the driver, consuming memory in the shared memory space, and forcing the the guest OS to use more of its swap file (page.file.sys in Microsoft)
What can memory compression reduce the size of the page to?
A. 2K
B. 4K
C. 6K
D. 8K
With 100 percent compression, the VMkernel can compress each bage to 2K.Normally, large pages are broken down to 4K.
When is Memory Compression used?
A. All the time
B. When memory is scarce
C. When 10 percent of the memory has been used
D. When 80 percent of the memory has been used.
When memory is scarce
How would I adjust the size of the memory compression cache for a VM?
You can't; it's set for a host.
How would I adjust the size of the memory compression cache for a host?
Home -> Hosts and Clusters -> Configuration tab -> Software section advanced settings -> Mem ->Mem.MemZipMaxPct. Default is 10% of memory.
The SWAP file has increased, what might be the cause?
A reservation is reduced.
If the swap file increased when will it decrease?
A. Immediately
B. Once you restart the VM
C. Once you restart the host
D. Never
B, once you restart the VM
Which of the following conditions should be considered "serious" and investigated?
C. A lot of ballooning. A little bit is normal.
The CPU Ready value is low. What does that indicate?
A No problem. There is plenty of CPU.
B. Big problem. There is insufficent CPU.
A. No problem.
You are showing a CPU ready value 2. What does that indicate?
1. Nothing to be concerned about
2. Wait time for the CPU resources is higher than normal and the VM is starved for CPU resources.
3. CPU resource availability is higher than normal and the VM will have plenty of CPU resources available.
2. Wait time for the CPU resources is higher than normal and he VM is starved for CPU resources
The amount of memory with which you provisioned your VM is called...
Host Memory
The amount of memory you told your guest it can use is called...
Host Memory
The amount of memory that the VMkernel thinks it will use to run the virtualized workload is called...
Overhead memory
The amount of physical memory that has been allocated to the VM is called...
Consumed memory
What is the main difference in how "Consumed" memory is calculated on the Resource Allocation tab vs. the Performance tab?
Resource Allocation tab included overhead memory; the Performance Tab does not include overhead memory.
The amount of memory that is currently being provided from the physical memory of the host is called...
Private Memory
The total amount of memory that is currently being shared by Transparent Page Sharing (TPS) is called...
Shared Memory
The amount of memory that is currently being reclaimed by VMkernel swapping is called...
Swapped Memory
The amount of memory that is currently stored in the VM's compression cache is called...
Compressed Memory
The amount of memory reclaimed by the balloon driver is called...
Ballooned Memory
What value should Balooned Memory be?
Zero
The amount of memory that has never been accessed by this guest is called...
Unaccessed Memory
The amount of memory that is currently actively used, an estimate done by statistical sampling is called...
Active memory
When should you investigate a CPU Ready issue?
When the value is 1 or 1+ over a sustained period of time
Why use vmxnet3 vNIC drivers?
A. Give access to additional troubleshooting tools.
What two factors should you be concerned about when monitoring your storage infrastructure?
VMkernal command latency
Physical device command latency
If the avg. time spent on a SCSI command is too high the array or host may be overworked. What is considered "too high"?
D. 2 to 3ms
If the avg. time avg. time the phyiscal devices ttake to completea SCSI command is "too high" then the array may be overworked or under designed. What is considered "too high"?
D. 15-20ms.
You're network administrator reports that he is unable to access a host through SNMP. The network is not the problem and nor is security. What is the issue?
SNMP GETs are disabled by default. To enable it you must use the vicfg-snmp command from the vSphere CLI.
What is the default value for Active Directory Timeouts?
60 seconds
What four parameters can you adjust for Active Directory connections?
Active Directory Timeout
Enable Query Limit
Enable Validation
Validation Period
Active Directory is taking too long to load. What can you do?
Set the "Enable Query Limit." Without the box selected, all users and groups will appear in the add presmission dialog box.
A setting of "0" will preopopulate all users and groups.
What is enable validation in reference to Active Directory?
Determines if and how frequently (see validation period) the vCenter will check its known AD users against the AD server in the domain
What is the default logging?
information (Normal Logging)
Vcenter Server is having a problem. How would you restart it?
go to Services Microsoft Console (services.msc) on the server.
Scroll to VritualCenterServer
Select restart
How do you start ESXi Host Agent?
Log into the host. From the DCUI select "Troubleshooting Options" and then "Restart Managmenet Agents" and then F11 to confirm.
What are the normal default settings for time out?
30 seconds for normal operations and 120 seconds for long operations
How would you create a chart for tracking the CPU Ready Value?
What is Resxtop? What enviornment does it run under?
Resxtop is a vSphere CLI utility that providees a detailed look at how your ESXI uses its resources in real-time. It requires a Linux environment.
What is a "world" in Resxtop?
A "world" is a VMkernel schedulatable netity, similar to a process or thread in other operations
What is a "group" in Resxtop?
A "group" can contain multiple worlds.
What do you need to do to run Resxtop?
Resxtop only runs on Linux.
You must install a vSphere CLI package on a Linux client or special Linux virtual appliance, the vSphere Management Assistant (VMA) to your ESXi host or vCenter System.
What do you type from you vCLI to log into a vCenter server?
resxtop--server servername
servername - is the IP address or name of the host that you want to monitor
How would you determine host performance from Resktop
1. Login to the host
resxtop ---server servername
2. view CPU used
PCPU USED% - an average of each CPU in ral time. If close ot 100 percent then overcomitting the CPU.
IN Resxtop, what is the difference between PCPU USED% and PCPU UTIL%?
PCPU USED% = an avg. of each CPU in real time
PCPU UTIL% = factors in that some totals will include "idle" time and take out the "idle" world before calculating the value.
Differences between the two is usually due to hyperthreading, but could be power management technologies.
What key do you press with Resxtop to view available fields?
f (lower case)
What key do you press to jump to memory statistics?
m (lowercase)
In Resxtop, what value refers to physical memory?
PMEM
In Resxtop, what value refers to balloon memory?
MEMCTL
In Resxtop, what value refers to compressed memory?
ZIP
In Resxtop, how would I view "virtual disk"
Press "v" (lowercase)
In Resxtop, how would I view "networking"
Press "n" key (lowercase)
If I wanted to gather accurate information within Windows about my environment, what could i do?
Use PerfMon with the VMWare-specific counters availabile when you install VMware Tools
What is the purpose and default threshold for:
Host CPU Usage
Monitors host CPU usage
75% for five min - warning
90% for five min - alert
What is the purpose and default threshold for:
Host Memory Usage
Monitors host physical memory usage.
90% for five min - Warning
95% for five min - Alert
What is the purpose and default threshold for:
Virtual Machine CPU usage
Warning: 75% for five min
Alarm: 90 % for five min
What is the purpose and default threshold for:
Virtual Machine Memory Usage
Monitors the use of available memory on each VM
Warning: 85% for 10 min
Alarm: 95 for 10 min
What is the purpose and default threshold for:
Datastore usage on a disk
Disk usage on all configured datastores on each host.
Warning: 75%
Alert: 85%
What are the default connectivity alarms in vCenter?
1. Cannot connect to storage
2. Host connection failure
3. Network connectivity lost
4. Network uplink redundancy lost
What does the "Network Connectivity Lost" alarm monitor?
Network conenctivity of a virtual switch to the hosts to which it is configured
What is the default trigger type when go to create an alarm?
VM CPU usage
What are the two types of triggers and what are their differences?
Conditions: Can have a timer
State and Event: Do not have a timer
If a CPU Ready value is 5% that is
B. Just Right. CPU Ready samples vCPU activity every 20 seconds. 5% indicates 1/20seconds, which is the same as saying CPU Ready is a 1.
On performance charts CPU Ready value is measured in