3/14: Network Infrastructure

Question 1

What two network discovery protocols are supported by the vDS?

Answer 1

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)

Question 2

What network discovery protocols are supported on the vSS?

Answer 2

Only Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), supported on the vDS, is NOT supported on the vSS

Question 3

What networking features are common or shared between the Standard and Distributed Switch?

Answer 3

Layer 2 switching

VLAN segmentation

IPv4 and IPv6

802.1Q tagging

NIC teaming

Outbound traffic shaping

Question 4

True or False? Link aggregation is NOT supported with iSCSI.

Answer 4

True - iSCSI multipathing requires just one uplink per vmkernel, and a LAG creates more than one.

Question 5

True or False? ESXi supports LACP on vSS.

Answer 5

False - LACP is ONLY supported on vDS

Question 6

True or False? It is possible to overcommit network bandwidth via NIOC?

Answer 6

False - The “Minimal Link Speed” that can be allocated is ONLY the maximum of a single physical interface per ESXi host.

Question 7

True or False - NIOC calculates the uplink bandwidth per ESXi host by aggregating the bandwidth of ALL the physical interfaces?

Answer 7

False - NIOC calculates the uplink bandwidth by determining the MINIMAL amount of bandwidth available. Meaning an uplink setup with two 10GbE interfaces per ESXi host will result in 10GbE of bandwidth that is available to divide over your traffic profiles.

Question 8

True or False? NIOC is enabled by default on a vDS?

Answer 8

True - NIOC is enabled by default on a vDS and must be manually disabled, if not desired.

Question 9

Does NIOC apply against ingress, egress, or both ingress and egress traffic in the context or prospective of the vDS?

Answer 9

NIOC applies ONLY against INGRESS traffic from the prespective of the vDS.

Meaning, traffic flowing from a VM or VMkernel adapter to the vDS; traffic ingressing to the vDS from the VM or VMkernel interface.

Question 10

True or False? Leveraging NIOC Limits is highly recommended.

Answer 10

False - Leveraging NIOC Limits is NOT recommended by VMware.

Question 11

What are the three network resource management constructs that enable NIOC configuration?

Answer 11

Shares, reservations, and limits.

Question 12

True or False? Is it NOT supported to leverage user defined resource pools and assign QoS to system traffic?

Answer 12

True - It is NOT supported to leverage user defined resource pools and assign QoS to system traffic with NIOC v3.

Question 13

True or False? Network bandwidth allocated within a reservation can be consumed by other network traffic types.

Answer 13

False - Network bandwidth allocated within a reservation CANNOT be consumed by other traffic types

When a reservation is not used to the fullest, NIOC does not redistribute the capacity to the bandwith pool that is accessible to different network network traffic types or network resource pools.

Question 14

What is the maximum physical adapter bandwidth that can be reserved within a NIOC policy?

Answer 14

75%

Question 15

NIOC allows for the configuration of bandwidth reservations against what two types of objects or entities?

Answer 15

Systems Traffic Types

&

Virtual Machines (VMs)

Question 16

What are the three pre-defined NIOC share levels and the associated share allocations?

Answer 16

Low, Normal, High, and Custom

Low = 25 Shares

Normal = 50 Shares

High = 100 Shares

Custom = 1 thru 100

Question 17

What are the default NIOC share priority allocations?

Answer 17

All traffic types, except VM traffic, gets 50 (normal) shares by default.

VM traffic, as an exception, gets 100 (high) shares by default.

Question 18

True or False - Network IO Control (NIOC) is available on the Virtual Standard Switch (vSS)?

Answer 18

False - NIOC is ONLY available on the vDS

Question 19

What is the recommended default port binding method for vDS based deployments?

Answer 19

Static (non-ephereral) bindings

Question 20

What port binding methdology is the fastest and most efficient? Static or Ephemeral?

Answer 20

Static (non-ephemeral) is the fastest and most efficient port binding methodology as there are no allocatoin and deallocation operations required.

Question 21

What vSphere entity owns a static (non-ephereral) binding and an ephereral binding?

Answer 21

Static - vCenter Owned and Managed

Ephereral - Host Owned and Managed

Question 22

Is static port binding supported on the vSS, vDS or both the vSS and vDS?

Answer 22

Static port binding is ONLY supported on the vDS.

vSS leverages ephemeral port bindings whereby the port binding is dynamically assigned upon the VM powering up, rebooting, suspending/resuming, vMotioning, or creating a snapshot!

Question 23

What VM actions or events will cause an ephemeral port binding and network port be to allocated and/or deallocated by the ESXi host?

Answer 23

VM Power-On

VM Power-Off

VM Reboot

VM Suspect/Resume

VM Snapshot Operation

Question 24

Identify all the port group types available on the virtual distributed switch (vDS)?

Answer 24

Virtual Machine Port Groups

VMkernel Adapter Port Groups

Uplink Port Groups

Question 25

Identify all the port groups available on a standard virtual switch (vSS)?

Answer 25

Virtual Machine Port Groups

VMkernel Adapter Port Groups

NOTE: Uplink Port Groups are NOT available on a vSS - only on a vDS

Question 26

True or False? A distributed virtual switch (vDS) is a vCenter managed network control plane and disagregated network I/O plane that is actually individual virtual standard switches (vSS) that are hidden and cannot be managed on each ESXi host?

Answer 26

True

Question 27

What is the formula for calculating the agggregated or total reservation for VM network resource pools?

Answer 27

Aggregated reservation for network resource pools = reservation for VM system traffic * number of DvUplinks