ITSA is SOOO close to 4 million YouTube views, thank you!

 We're thankful to all who have supported us on social media and truly read our posts. ITSA is SOOO close to 4 million YouTube views with 17.3K subscribers! Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/ITSystemsAdmin/about - much obliged to you. Keep reading, keep liking, keep commenting, and help us to improve. Also, Heartiest thanks to all our LINKEDIN connections - followers; we’re highly appreciative of your comments. Thank you all for the ideas, opinion, help, and sharing our posts with others. Keep participating!  

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] VMware NSX Data Center a complete L2 - L7.

IS YOUR NETWORK THIS FAST AND RELIABLE? Full-Stack Network & Security Virtualization with VMware NSX. VMware NSX Data Center delivers a complete L2 - L7 networking and security virtualization platform. NSX Data Center provides a complete set of logical networking and security capabilities and services, including logical switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing, virtual private network (VPN), quality of service (QoS) and monitoring.  

Virtual networks are deployed non-disruptively over any existing networking hardware and can extend across data centers, public and private clouds, container platforms and bare-metal servers.     

* Switching * Routing * Gateway Firewall * Distributed Firewall * Load Balancing * VPN * NSX Gateway * NSX Intelligence * NSX Distributed IDS/IPS * Federation * Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) * NSX Data Center API * Operations * Context-Aware Micro Segmentation.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] vSphere HA fail-over failed with orphaned VMs.

Impressive answer! What do you understand by orphaned Virtual Machine (VM)? This is your best answer... During the vSphere HA fail-over when one host is failed, VM start migrating to other host and restart it. But sometime it fails to register itself to other host during fail-over and become orphaned. The interviewer expectation is that you will highlight why the VM became orphaned and describe some reasons.

Whoever is asking will be impressed if you also mention... In vCenter Server, an "orphaned" virtual machine is one that exists in the vCenter Server database but is no longer present in ESXi host inventory. Moreover, an "invalid" virtual machine is a VM that is inaccessible because the ESXi host is offline or inaccessible, the VM configuration file is locked or corrupt or contains a bad option, or other possible causes.

"Better days are coming. They are called Saturday and Sunday"

The weekend is always too short for all the things we would like to do. Even worse, time flies very fast when we are doing fun things. The only way to extend our weekend is to take a job that makes all weekdays interesting and exciting.

Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life. The More You Love Your Job, The Harder You’ll Work. Oftentimes, it’s not just the work that we love. It’s the reward and satisfaction we get after doing it well.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Modify resources on a running Virtual Machine.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you... which kind of resources is possible to modify on a running Virtual Machine (VM)? But fear not! With a little preparation, you'll know exactly what to say to impress. This really depends by the hypervisor and its version (and sometimes also by its edition), but there are a lot of possibility. The following table summarize the different operations on a running VM with a “recent” guest OS. SEE IMAGE.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention... To make the example much clear and specific. By default, you cannot add CPU resources to a virtual machine when the virtual machine is turned on. The CPU hot add option lets you add CPU resources to a running virtual machine.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Features of VMware tools.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you... What are some features of VMware tools? But fear not! With a little preparation, you'll know exactly what to say to impress. VMware Tools is a set of utilities that enhances the performance and improves management of the virtual machine’s guest operating system. VMware Tools also enhance the interactions between the host and the guest machines, with features such as:

_Optimized NIC drivers.

_Optimized SCSI drivers.

_Virtual machine heartbeat.

_Enhanced graphics and mouse performance.

_Time synchronization.

_Ability to shut down virtual machine.

_Better memory management.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention... Moreover, is not installed by default and are not required for the guest OS functionality, but offers many benefits like "Guest Introspection security" that you must install Guest Introspection thin agent included with VMware Tools for Windows.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] vSphere Standard Switch (vSS) EXPLAINED.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you... How vSphere Standard Switch (vSS) works? EXPLAIN like a pro! vSS provides network connectivity to hosts and virtual machines. The physical NICs on the physical ESXi hosts are connected to the uplink ports on the vSphere Standard Switch. Then, virtual machines running in vSphere use virtual network adapters or vNICs to connect to port groups on the VSS. 

The vSphere Standard Switch can make use of more than one physical NIC from the ESXi host to handle network traffic to and from the port groups configured. The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention... By either connecting physical NICs to the port groups on a vSphere Standard Switch, you can either have an isolated virtual switch (one where only VMs on the port group can communicate) or a virtual switch that is connected to the physical network.

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] Cross-vCenter vMotion”, also known as XVM.

This advanced “Cross-vCenter vMotion”, also known as XVM GUI tool is now built into vSphere 7.0U1c which allows bulk transfer of VMs between vCenter instances without the need of any additional fling/plugin installation. XVM does not depend on linked mode, which means that the vcenter servers can be in a separate SSO domains and can be used for migration between vCenter servers on-premise (VC to VC) and in the cloud (VC to VMC on any cloud platforms).

___Migrate VMs to vCs on premise and in the cloud from any vC 6.0U3 or higher

___Migrate VMs to the cloud which allows customers to bulk migrate VMs to VMC-AWS and other VMC cloud providers.

On any vSphere environment running vCenter 7.0U1c or above, you may simply Right-Click on a cluster or a host which will give you an option to “Import VMs” which you may choose to perform bulk migration of VMs from any previous version of vCenter environment to this environment.

[ VDI INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Horizon 8 or Horizon Apps.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you...When Should you Choose Horizon 8 And When Should you Choose Horizon Apps? EXPLAIN like a pro! Both Horizon 8 and Horizon Apps offer reliable and secure published RDS application delivery and management that include session-based desktops. Horizon 8 additionally provides virtual desktops, which provide a desktop experience and a highly reliable, high-performance, personalized desktop. 

Session-based desktops are useful in certain use cases when high performance, reliability, and personalization are not critical. The Interviewers will be impressed if you also say: Horizon 7 OR 8 editions also offer additional compelling features and products—such as VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon and VMware vSAN with lower bundle pricing incentives.

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] 4 10GbE NICs to be beneficial.

10GbE – This is an obvious option to begin with. If you can provide a larger pipe, the likelihood is that you will achieve greater throughput. Of course, if there is not enough I/O to fill a 1GbE connection, then a larger connection isn’t going to help you. But let’s assume that there are enough virtual machines and enough datas stores for 10GbE to be beneficial. 

A vSphere host has a single routing table for all of its VMkernel Ethernet interfaces. This imposes some limits on network communication. Consider a configuration that uses two or four Ethernet adapters with one VMkernel TCP/IP stack.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] vCenter Server High Availability (HA).

Impressive Answers! If they ask you...Which two steps would you complete when configuring vCenter Server High Availability (HA) using the vSphere Client? EXPLAIN like a pro! (STEP 1) Indicate that the Passive and Witness nodes have been manually created. (STEP 2) Choose the data replication network for the Active, Passive and Witness nodes.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also say; The vCenter Server Appliance must have a static IP address and SSH must be enabled on the vCenter Server Appliance. Moreover, I must Verify if the vCenter Server Appliance that will become the Active node is managing its own ESXi host and its own virtual machine or The vCenter Server Appliance is managed by another vCenter Server.

The two main types of hypervisors: Part 1 out of 6.

 A hypervisor is what makes virtualization possible as it is the control system of the created virtual machines. It is a software that can either sit on top of the operating system or be installed directly on the hardware. Its primary responsibility is to take that physical resources that are available and distribute them to one or more VMs. 

The hypervisor is a crucial part of virtualization since it acts as a barrier between the host operating system and the virtual machines, effectively making it two completely separate entities on one physical device. Its primary ability is to simulate hardware components in the host operating system that the VMs will run on. 

Virtual Machine (VM) & components: Part 1 out of 6.

 A virtual machine is a simulated computer system which runs on a physical computer. In other words, a virtual machine is a computer inside a computer. Virtual machines allocate memory, a virtual CPU, disk storage space, and a network interface. This means that we can have a Windows computer that runs multiple virtual machines composed of Ubuntu Linux, macOS, Windows 10, Solaris, and CentOS, and they will all be completely separate from our parent Windows operating system.

The types of VMware Clients: Part 1 out of 7.

The VMware Host Client: can be used for emergency management when vCenter Server is

unavailable. You can use the VMware Host Client to do administrative tasks and basic

troubleshooting tasks, as well as advanced administrative tasks.

The vSphere Client: acts as an administrative interface to access VMware hosts. These hosts, which run VMware ESXi, are the servers that run individual virtual machines (VMs).

The VMware vSphere Client: is a web-based application that connects to the vCenter Server so IT administrators can manage installations and handle inventory objects in a vSphere deployment.

 

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] What is a data center?

 "A data center (American English) or data centre (British English) is a building, dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems." Data centers are often referred to as a singular thing, but in actuality they are composed of a number of technical elements. These can be broken down into three categories:

__Compute: The memory and processing power to run the applications, generally provided by high-end servers

__Storage: Important enterprise data is generally housed in a data center, on media ranging from tape to solid-state drives, with multiple backups

__Networking: Interconnections between data center components and to the outside world, including routers, switches, application-delivery controllers, and more

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Loadbalancer and Clustering.

Impressive answer! What do you know about Loadbalancer and Clustering? What on VMware can you relate those features with. This is your best answer... A NSX Advanced Load Balancer in vSphere is used to forward requests to either one server or other, but one server does not use the other server’s resources. Also, one resource does not share its state with other resources. Ex: The NSX Edge load balancer enables high-availability service and distributes the network traffic load among multiple servers. 

A Cluster in vSphere is (1) A group of resources that are trying to achieve a common objective, and are aware of one another Ex: ESXi hosts.  (2) Clustering usually involves setting up the resources (servers usually) to exchange details on a particular channel (port) and keep exchanging their states, so a resource’s state is replicated at other places as well. The interviewer expectation is that you will highlight Loadbalancer and Clustering in vSphere.

[ TIP OF THE DAY ] How to Clone a Virtual Machine (VM).

How to Clone a Virtual Machine (VM) without VMware vCenter?

1. SSH to the ESXi host

2. Identify the path of the source 

(say, /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/SourceVM/ where sourceVM is the name of the source VM)

3. Create a new folder in the desired datastore

 mkdir /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/DesintationVM  

where Destination VM is the name of the new VM.

4. Clone the source VM vmdk to the newly created folder Destination VM

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/SourceVM/sourceVM.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/DesintationVM/DesintationVM.vmdk

5. Once cloning is completed, proceed with the creation of the new VM using vSphere client

6. In the option where you need to provision the harddisk for the new VM, choose 'Use an existing virtual disk'

7. Browse and point the newly cloned vmdk file

[ TECHNICAL QUESTION ] vSphere can't access patch information.

Which step can you take so that vSphere can access patch information if vCenter Server does NOT have Internet access? (Choose the best answer.)

A. Use a Web server on the vCenter Server machine to automate the transfer of files.
B. Install VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Service on a Windows server.
C. Use an offline ISO file to import patches to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot manually.
D. Install VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Service on a Linux server.

A Horizon VDI - Proof-of-Concept (POC)

 Is your organization looking to break-away from the old ways of deploying desktops? If so, how do you validate that a new approach is better, more efficient and overcomes past challenges? The answer: a Proof-of-Concept. This is the way to prove out the technology, gather intelligence about your user base, application usage, and network. It will require you to define requirements for success, those specific requirements will, of course, be different for each situation and organization. 

From a completely technical view of the solution, your choice in virtual desktop solutions must be able to deliver virtual desktops to any number of end-points. This is especially critical if you want your environment to allow secure, remote access to the virtual desktops by employees working from home or from any remote location.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] vCenter 6.x in HA troubleshooting.

If they ask you... Have you installed vCenter 6.x in HA mode? How do you troubleshoot if there is any issue with vCenter availability? Impressive Answers! Yes! When vCenter HA is installed, a three-node vCenter Server cluster (Active, Passive, and Witness nodes) is deployed. If the Active node stops serving client requests.

Log in to Active node’s console directly.
1. Power off and delete the Passive node and the Witness node virtual machines.
2. Log in to the Active node by using SSH or through the Virtual Machine Console.
3. Run the following command to remove the vCenter HA configuration.
destroy-vcha -f
4. Reboot the Active node.
The Active node is now a standalone vCenter Server Appliance.
5. Perform vCenter HA cluster configuration again.

These steps helps you to bring your vCenter back online into the management network. When the vCenter server was not responding.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] VMware Administrator with vSAN experience.

If they ask you... We are looking for VMware Administrator with vSAN experience. Have you ever configured vSAN cluster? Help me to understand your vSAN understanding and implementation experience. Impressive Answers. Yes! There are two deployment models: 1. In hybrid solution, you must have flash cache devices and mechanical cache devices (SAS or SATA). 2. In full-flash solution you have only flash devices for cache and capacity. The disks either flash or capacity will be aggregated in disk groups.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention... Moreover, each host can handle 5 disk groups at maximum (35 capacity devices per host). In each disk group, you can have 1 cache device and 7 capacity devices. This solution enables to aggregate local device storages as mechanical disks or SSD and create a highly available datastore.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] vSphere high level architecture design.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you... Can you draw on the whiteboard for a high level architecture design that details a cluster of 4 ESXi hosts, connected to a vCenter Server that has 150+ VM’s balanced across the hosts. There are 2 network switches vSS-1 & vDS-2 and ESXi servers are connected to for VM & management traffic via VLAN’s . The hosts are connected to four 500 GB shared storage LUN’s that are presented via fiber channel. Just look at the image created by ITSA.

This is a tough question as it involves lot of factors to explain specific answer. If you answer the theory question correctly then the interviewer is going to check your understanding of vSphere Architecture skills.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Troubleshooting vMotion failures.

Impressive Answers! How do you troubleshoot vMotion failures for VMs? How many times you see these messages at your vCenter Server? vMotion failing at 14% – 10% – 82% – 90 to 95% Interviewer wants to understand your skills for common issues in VMware with Virtual Machines. You can response, based on my experience a possible cause of these errors could be.

14% ESXi hosts were not able to connect over the vMotion network.
10% Failed to look up vMotion destination resource pool object.
82% Source detected that destination failed to resume.
90 to 95% A general system error occurred: failed to resume on destination.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention a few troubleshooting settings to be verified for any V-Motion failures:

-Ensure that vMotion is enabled on all ESX/ESXi hosts.
-Verify that VMkernel network connectivity exists using vmkping.
-Verify that the VM is not configured to use devices not valid on the target host.
-Verify that Name Resolution is valid on the host
-Verify that there are no issues with the shared storage.

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).

What is VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)? It's a Solution for private, public, hybrid Cloud. Consists of two types of Workload Domains that make up the Cloud Foundation Platform. These two Workload Domains are pools of logical resources. Each pool is a cluster or multiple clusters of ESXi hosts managed by an associated vCenter Server and NSX manager.

Each cluster manages the resources of all the hosts that are assigned to it. Within each cluster Cloud Foundation enables the VMware vSphere High Availability (HA), VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware vSAN capabilities.

There is one management domain of the first four hosts that is used to manage the SDDC infrastructure components within a Cloud Foundation deployment. There is one or more Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Workload Domain designed to run your business applications.

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] Affinity vs Anti-Affinity rules.

Impressive Answers! What is the difference between Affinity and Anti-Affinity rules and from where we create them? The interviewer wants to understand your vCenter & DRS skills . You can say... Affinitty rule means that the VMs will stick to the same host always. These VMs cannot be separated either by a vMotion or Automated DRS. On the other hand, Anti-Affinity rule means that the VMs will stay on separate ESXi hosts. They will never be together except in HA if the number of hosts in cluster are less.

The Interviewers will be impressed if you also mention. Note: If the VM is a windows clustered VM with RDM’s then in this case what is the purpose of creating anti-afinity rule when that VM with RDM can not be vMotioned so DRS has no chance of moving it. Also, If the DRS is running in fully automated mode and the 2 VM’s for which you just created an affinity rule, are running on different host, then DRS will bring them together.

Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure Experts.

ITSA VMware Engineer Consultants, a support from the Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure Experts. Our broad expertise, deep knowledge of VMware technology, and concentrated focus on your specific challenges help you reduce risk and complexity.

Meet ITSA VMware Engineer Consultants. A Highly Engaged Team

Every Short-Term Task, Recurring Project or Full-Time VMware Contract Work, will receive plenty of support from us to ensure that your needs are understood and that your expectations are exceeded.

 

[ MULTI-CLOUD EXPERTISE ] VMware Homelab 2020 - 2021.

HOT! Supermicro VMware Homelab 2020-2021 that can run vSphere, vCenter, ESXi, vSAN, NSX, HORIZON VDI and more. I'm providing you a quick overview plus the links to get more details information. ITSA: VMware Engineering Consultants.

((( SuperServer E200-8D )))
https://lnkd.in/dY47Nbc
CPU: 6-Core, 12 Threads
RAM: Up to 128GB ECC RDIMM DDR4
HDD: 2.5" fixed drive bay with bracket
NIC: 2 10GbE, 2 GbE LAN ports

((( SuperServer E300-9D-4CN8TP )))
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CPU: 4-Core, 8 Threads
RAM: Up to 512GB ECC LRDIMM,
up to 256GB ECC DIMM
DDR4-2666Mz; in 4 DIMM slots
HDD: 1 Fixed 2.5" drive bay with bracket
NIC: 4x 1GbE, 2x 10GBase-T, 2x 10G SFP+

((( SuperServer E301-9D-8CN8TP )))
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CPU: 8-Core, 16 Threads
RAM: Up to 512GB ECC LRDIMM,
HDD: 4x 7mm SSD
NIC: 4x 1GbE, 2x 10GBase-T, 2x 10G SFP+

((( SuperServer E302-9D )))
https://lnkd.in/d69rde6
CPU: 4-Core, 8 Threads
RAM: Up to 256GB ECC/non-ECC RDIMM
HDD: 2 Fixed 2.5" drive bay with bracket
NIC: 4x 1GbE, 2x 10GBase-T, 2x 10G SFP+

[ INTERVIEW QUESTION ] A live migration of a Virtual Machine.

Impressive Answers! If they ask you... Can you draw on the whiteboard how a live migration of a virtual machine from one ESXi host to another happens and what steps are performed during the vMotion process?

This is a tough question as it involves lot of factors to explain. Just look at the image created by ITSA. vMotion consist of these steps:

1. vMotion request is sent to the vCenter
2. vCenter sends the vMotion request to the destination ESXi host
3. vCenter computes the specifications of the virtual machine to migrate
4. vCenter sends the vMotion request to the source ESXi host to prepare the virtual machine for migration
5. vCenter initiates the destination virtual machine
6. vCenter initiates the source virtual machine
7. vCenter switches the virtual machine's ESXi host from the source to destination
8. vCenter completes the vMotion task

If you answer the theory question correctly then the interviewer is going to check your understanding of the vMotion process.