VMware and Windows Interview Questions: Part 2



  1. Maximum number of LUNs that can be attached to a host (ESXi 5.0)
    • 256



  1. Maximum number of vCPUs that can be assigned to a VM (ESXi 5.0)
    • 32




  1. What are the uses of ntdsutil tool?
    • Some of the main uses of ntdsutil tool
      1. Authoritative Restore - Authoritatively restores the Active Directory database or AD LDS instance
      2. ifm  - Create installation media for writable and RODC setups (Offline DC provisioning)
      3. metadata cleanup - Cleans up objects of decommissioned servers
      4. roles - Transfers and seizes operations master roles
      5. set DSRM password - Resets DSRM administrator password
      6. snapshot - Manages snapshots of the volumes that contain the Active Directory database and log files



  1. FSMO roles and its failure scenarios



  1. IPv6 addresses and its DNS record
    • 128 bit address
    • Represented as 8 groups of 4 hexadecimel digits seperated by colons
    • Represented by ‘AAAA’ record in DNS
    • Uses DHCP v6 for addressing




  1. Loadbalancer vs Clustering
    • Clustering
      1. Cluster is a group of resources that are trying to achieve a common objective, and are aware of one another.
      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.
      3. It usually also includes load balancing, wherein, the request is routed to one of the resources in the cluster as per the load balancing policy
    • Load Balancing
      1. 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.




    • This can be done using 2 methods
      1. Assigning
      2. Publishing
    • Assign :
      1. If you assign the program to a user, it is installed when the user logs on to the computer. When the user first runs the program, the installation is completed.
      2. If you assign the program to a computer, it is installed when the computer starts, and it is available to all users who log on to the computer. When a user first runs the program, the installation is completed.
    • Publish :
      1. You can publish a program distribution to users.
      2. When the user logs on to the computer, the published program is displayed in the Add or Remove Programs dialog box, and it can be installed from there.
    • msi packages are used for installation. Normal exe would not work.
    • Windows cannot install the software while the user is already logged on. The user need to log off and log in



  1. Group policy security filtering for users. Which all users are in there by default. Members of Authenticated Users group
    • Security filtering is a way of refining which users and computers will receive and apply the settings in a Group Policy object (GPO)
    • In order for the GPO to apply to a given user or computer, that user or computer must have both Read and Apply Group Policy (AGP) permissions on the GPO, either explicitly, or effectively through group membership
    • By default, all GPOs have Read and AGP both Allowed for the Authenticated Users group.
    • The Authenticated Users group includes both users and computers. This is how all authenticated users receive the settings of a new GPO when it is applied to an organizational unit, domain or site




  1. Relevance of host file and its location
    • Came before the concept of DNS
    • An FQDN is first checked in Host file
    • Location : C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc



  1. L3 switch vs Routers
    • L3 switches just have the ethernet ports only whereas the routers have WAN interfaces
    • QoS is not available with L3 switches whereas in routers it can be enabled
    • Routers have expansion slots and cards that allow them to use different media types, like serial connections for T1 and T3 circuits
    • Routers are more intelligent in handling packets
    • L3 switches does not support NAT



  1. VLAN vs Subnet
    • VLAN works at layer 2 while subnet is at layer 3
    • Subnets are more concerned about IP addresses.
    • VLANs bring more network efficiency
    • Subnets have weaker security than VLANs as all the subnet uses the same physical network



  1. Contents of System state backup
    • Registry
    • COM+ Class Registration database
    • Boot files, including the system files
    • System files that are under Windows File Protection
    • Active Directory directory service (If it is domain controller)
    • SYSVOL directory (If it is domain controller)
    • Cluster service information (If it is a part of a cluster)
    • IIS Metadirectory (If it is an IIS server)
    • Certificate Services database (If it is a certificate server)



  1. Incremental vs Differential backups
    • Incremental backup - Will take the backup of files whose archive bits are set and resets it after backup
    • Differential backup - Will take the backup of files whose archive bits are set but does not reset it after backup



  1. Robocopy
    • Microsoft tool used for copying files effectively
    • It has plenty of options to manage the copy process



  1. How do you patch microsoft applications? Frequency of patches released by Microsoft
    • The Microsoft applications can be patched using WSUS
    • In WSUS, we can create several computer groups to manage this patch process.
    • MS patches are released once in a month



    • GPO - Group Policy Object : Refers to the policy that is configured at the Active Directory level and is inherited by the domain member computers. You can configure a GPO at the site level, domain level or OU level. GPO stores policy settings in two locations GPC and GPT
    • GPO behaviour : Local Policy > Site GPO > Domain GPO > OU GPO > Child OU GPO
    • GPC - Group Policy Container :This is the AD portion of the group policy. This can be viewed using ADSI edit.  It stores version information, status information, and other policy information. When you create a new GPO, an AD object of class groupPolicyContainer gets created under the System\Policies container within your AD domain
    • GPT - Group Policy Template :  The GPT is where the GPO stores the actual settings. It stores software policy script, and deployment information.
    • GPT is stored in SYSVOL share (\\DomainNameHere\SYSVOL\Policies) whereas GPC is stored in the AD



  1. What is CPU affinity in VMware? Its impact on DRS?
    • CPU refers to a logical processor on a hyperthreaded system and refers to a core on a non-hyperthreaded system
    • By setting CPU affinity for each VM, you can restrict the assignment of VMs to a subset of available processors
    • The main use of setting CPU affinity is when there are display intensive workloads which requires additional threads with vCPUs.
    • DRS will not work with CPU affinity







  1. VMversion 4 vs VMversion 7
    • Version 4
      1. Runs on ESX 3.x
      2. Max supported RAM 64 GB
      3. Max vCPUs 4
      4. MS cluster is not supported
      5. 4 NICs/VM
      6. No USB Support
    • Version 7
      1. Runs on vSphere 4.x
      2. Max supported RAM 256 GB
      3. Max vCPUs 8
      4. MS cluster is supported
      5. 10 NICs/VM
      6. USB support



  1. What happens to the VMs if a standalone host is taken to maintenance mode?
    • In case of standalone servers , VMware recommends that VMs should be powered off before putting the server in maintenance mode
    • If we put the standalone host in maintenance mode without powering off the VMs, it will remain in the ‘entering maintenance mode’ state until the VMs are all shutdown
    • When all the VMs are powered down, the host status changes to ‘under maintenance’




  1. What is new in Windows server 2012
    • Server core improvements: no need of fresh installation, you can add/remove GUI from server manager
    • Remotely manage servers , add/remove roles etc using Server manager-manage 2008 and 2008 R2 with WMF 3.0 installation, installed by default in Server 2012
    • Remote server administration tools available for windows 8 to manage Windows server 2012 infrastructure
    • Powershell v3
    • Hyper-V 3.0
      1. supports upto 64 processors and 1 TB RAM per virtual machine
      2. upto 320 logical hardware processors and 4 TB RAM per host
      3. Shared nothing live migration, move around VMs without shared storage

    • ReFS(Resilient file system), upgraded version of NTFS- supports larger file and directory sizes. Removes the 255 character limitation on long file names and paths, the limit on the path/filename size is now 32K characters!
    • Improved CHKDSK utility that will fix disk corruptions in the background without disruption




  1. How does the backup software recognize that a file has changed since last backup?
    • The files use a bit called archive bit for tracking any change in the file.
    • The backup softwares normally checks the archive bit of the file to determine whether the file has to be backed up or not


  1. How can you edit a vm template?
    • The VM templates cannot be modified as such
    • First , the VM template have to be converted to a virtual machine
    • After making necessary machines in the virtual machine, convert the virtual machine back to template


  1. VMware configuration maximums
ESXi 5.5
ESXi 5.1
ESXi 5.0
ESXi 4.x
VMs
vCPU
64
64
32
8
RAM
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
255 GB
vNIC
10
10
10
10
VMDK size
62 TB
1 TB
1 TB
2 TB for 8MB block
Hosts
Logical CPU
320
160
160
160
Memory
4 TB
2 TB
2 TB
1 TB
LUNs
256
256
256
256
LUN size
64 TB
64 TB
64 TB
64 TB
Virtual Machines
512
512
512
320
  1. What is the major difference between Windows server 2008 and windows server 2012 in terms of AD promotion?


           In Win 2012, dcpromo has been depreciated. In order to make a Windows server 2012 to a domain controller, the ADDS service has to be installed from the server manager. After installation, run the post-deployment configuration wizard from server manager to promote the server as AD
                 
  1. VMware hardware version comparison




Comments

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  15. Alwin30 May 2017 at 12:52

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  16. Anonymous20 June 2021 at 21:10

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