Question 1

What type of port is required for establishing a connection to an NFS storage system?
A)VMkernel
B)VMotion
C)FTP
D)VMNFS

Accepted Answer

A VMkernel port is required for establishing a connection to an NFS storage system. VMkernel ports are also required for vMotion and Fault Tolerance; both of these provide high availability for virtual machines, whereas NFS is a network-based file system for housing virtual machine files.

Question 2

What is the maximum number of NFS datastores than can be connected to a single ESX host by default?
A)12
B)8
C)32
D)64

Accepted Answer

The maximum number of NFS datastores than can be connected to a single ESX host by default is 8. Using advanced settings on a per-host basis, you can increase this figure to 64.

Question 3

An NFS is a file-based system, and only one ESX host can access a given NFS datastore at any time.

Accepted Answer

multiple ESX hosts can access a NFS datastore at once. ESX hosts can use NFS datastores and participate in advanced features such as vMotion and Storage vMotion.

Question 4

What is the maximum size of a VMFS Volume?
A)2 TB
B)2 TB minus 512 kB
C)64 TB minus 16 kB
D)64 GB

Accepted Answer

The maximum size of a VMFS Volume is 64 TB minus 16 kB. In order to achieve this size, you would have to add multiple extents to the original volume. This is not considered best practice because if any single extent is lost, the entire VMFS Volume would become unavailable.

Question 5

What is the maximum size of a LUN that can be attached to an ESX host?
A)2 TB
B)2 TB minus 512 bytes
C)64 TB minus 16 kB
D)64 GB

Accepted Answer

The maximum size of a LUN that can be attached to an ESX host is 2 TB minus 512 bytes. The VMFS volume created on this LUN can be extended by adding additional extents.

Question 6

Guy, a VMware administrator, has attached a LUN to his ESX host and split this LUN into 8 separate VMFS volumes. He has added 20 virtual machines to each VMFS volume, but he is receiving complaints that the virtual machines are not performing as expected. What is the reason for this?
A)Best practice dictates that a single VMFS volume should reside on a single LUN.
B)Best practice dictates that no more than 12 virtual machines should reside on a single VMS volume.
C)Guy has not set the advanced option to allow 20 virtual machines to reside on a single VMFS datastore.

Accepted Answer

The virtual machines are not performing as expected due to the fact that best practice dictates that a single VMFS volume should reside on a single LUN. This is to avoid LUN-level locking, which occurs whenever a write operation occurs to a LUN. Note that in this scenario, the full LUN will be locked for every file system operation and not just the singular VMFS volumes that are calling for the write operation.

Question 7

When an NFS datastore is dismounted, all data on the datastore remains intact.

Accepted Answer

When an NFS datastore is dismounted, all data on the datastore remains intact. However, it will no longer be visible to the hosts that it was dismounted from. If it is dismounted in the data store view, you can select the hosts that you wish it to be removed from; any host not selected will still be able to view the datastore.

Question 8

It is possible to apply a username and password challenge to NFS-based storage.

Accepted Answer

It is not possible to apply a username and password challenge to NFS-based storage. Furthermore, NFS storage access requires root access; it is for this reason that NFS based storage should only be used on trusted networks.

Question 9

What is the maximum number of virtual machines per VMFS volume?
A)64
B)128
C)96
D)256

Accepted Answer

The maximum number of virtual machines per VMFS volume is 256. However, the maximum number of volumes per host is 256, allowing significantly more virtual machines to be hosted on a single host, other maximums considered.

Question 10

What should be configured on a 10GbE adapter for maximum throughput of ISCSI-based storage?
A)No lock standard
B)MTU of 9000
C)None locking architecture
D)MTU of 256

Accepted Answer

An MTU of 9000 (Jumbo Frames) should be configured on a 10GbE adapter for maximum throughput of ISCSI based storage. This allows the frames to be sent as 9kB instead of 1.5kB. Note that every link in the storage chain has to be set to an MTU of 9000 (Jumbo Frames) or it will not work.

Quiz 3: ESX I Storage

What type of port is required for establishing a connection to an NFS storage system?

What is the maximum number of NFS datastores than can be connected to a single ESX host by default?

An NFS is a file-based system, and only one ESX host can access a given NFS datastore at any time.

What is the maximum size of a VMFS Volume?

What is the maximum size of a LUN that can be attached to an ESX host?

Guy, a VMware administrator, has attached a LUN to his ESX host and split this LUN into 8 separate VMFS volumes. He has added 20 virtual machines to each VMFS volume, but he is receiving complaints that the virtual machines are not performing as expected. What is the reason for this?

When an NFS datastore is dismounted, all data on the datastore remains intact.

It is possible to apply a username and password challenge to NFS-based storage.

What is the maximum number of virtual machines per VMFS volume?

What should be configured on a 10GbE adapter for maximum throughput of ISCSI-based storage?