5V0-22.23 VMware vSAN Specialist (v2) Questions and Answers

To achieve the best performance for the database virtual machines and tolerate two host failures in a vSAN OSA cluster, the administrator must use RAID-1 as the RAID configuration in the storage policy. RAID-1 is a mirroring technique that creates multiple replicas of each object across different hosts. RAID-1 provides the best performance among the available RAID configurations, as it does not involve any parity calculations or stripe splitting. To tolerate two host failures, the administrator must set the Failures to Tolerate (FTT) policy to 2, which means that each object will have three replicas. The other options are not correct. RAID-5 and RAID-6 are erasure coding techniques that split each object into data segments and parity segments across different hosts. RAID-5 can tolerate one host failure, while RAID-6 can tolerate two host failures. However, both RAID-5 and RAID-6 have lower performance than RAID-1, as they involve more complex calculations and network traffic. RAID-0 is a striping technique that splits each object into multiple stripes across different hosts. RAID-0 does not provide any data redundancy or fault tolerance, and therefore cannot tolerate any host failure. References: RAID Configurations, FTT, and Host Requirements; RAID 5 or RAID 6 Design Considerations

To replace a failed cache drive in a vSAN OSA cluster, the vSAN administrator should remove the existing vSAN disk group and physically replace the device. Then check to verify that the ESXi host automatically detects the new device Afterwards manually recreate the Disk Group. This is because when a cache drive fails, it affects the entire disk group that contains it, and vSAN does not allow removing only the cache drive from a disk group. Therefore, the administrator must remove the whole disk group before replacing the cache drive, and then recreate it with the new cache drive and the existing capacity drives. The other options are not correct. Physically replacing the failed cache drive without removing the disk group first might cause errors or inconsistencies in vSAN configuration. vSAN will not automatically create a new disk group or allocate storage after replacing a cache drive, as these actions require manual intervention from the administrator. Rebalancing the cache layer is not necessary after replacing a cache drive, as vSAN will automatically distribute data across all devices in the disk group. References: Replace a Flash Caching Device on a Host; How to manually remove and recreate a vSAN disk group using esxcli

The correct answer is D, add additional capacity disks to each disk group. This is because adding capacity disks to existing disk groups is the fastest and easiest way to expand the capacity of the vSAN datastore without disrupting any ongoing operations or requiring additional hardware. The administrator can add up to five capacity disks per disk group in vSAN OSA, which means each host can have up to 25 capacity disks in total. The administrator should make sure that the new capacity disks are unformatted and not partitioned, so that vSAN can recognize and claim them. The administrator should also manually rebalance the cluster after adding the capacity disks to distribute the data evenly across the new devices. The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

• A, enable Deduplication and Compression on the cluster level, is incorrect because enabling Deduplication and Compression is not a recommended way to expand the capacity of the vSAN datastore. Deduplication and Compression is a space efficiency feature that reduces the logical space consumption of data by eliminating duplicate blocks and applying compression algorithms. However, enabling Deduplication and Compression requires a full data evacuation and resynchronization, which can be disruptive and time-consuming. Deduplication and Compression also introduces additional CPU and memory overhead, which can affect the performance of the cluster. Deduplication and Compression is only supported on all-flash clusters, not on hybrid clusters.
• B, add additional capacity by adding a disk on one host and creating a storage pool, is incorrect because creating a storage pool is not supported in vSAN OSA. A storage pool is a new configuration introduced in vSAN 8 ESA, where all disks are treated as capacity disks and use a new algorithm to distribute data acrossthem. This configuration is not compatible with vSAN OSA, which uses a disk group configuration where one disk is designated as a cache disk and the rest are capacity disks. To use a storage pool, the administrator would need to migrate to vSAN 8 ESA on a new cluster with new hardware.
• C, add additional capacity by adding a vSAN ReadyNode to the cluster, is incorrect because adding a vSAN ReadyNode to the cluster is not the fastest or easiest way to expand the capacity of the vSAN datastore. A vSAN ReadyNode is a preconfigured server that meets the hardware requirements for running vSAN. Adding a vSAN ReadyNode to the cluster would require additional hardware procurement, installation, and configuration. It would also increase the compute capacity of the cluster, which may not be necessary for the workload. Adding a vSAN ReadyNode would also trigger a resynchronization of data across the cluster, which can affect the performance and availability of the cluster. References:
• VMware vSAN Specialist v2 Exam Preparation Guide, page 10

To create an image using vSphere Lifecycle Manager, the mandatory requirement is to specify the ESXi version. An image is a collection of software components that define the desired state of hosts in a cluster. An image must include at least one ESXi version component, which determines the base hypervisor software for the hosts. Optionally, an image can also include other components, such as vendor add-ons, firmware and drivers add-ons, or custom components. The other options are not correct. A component is a generic term for any software element that can be included in an image, but it is not a specific type of component. A firmwareand drivers add-on is an optional component that provides firmware and drivers updates for hardware devices on the hosts. A vendor add-on is an optional component that provides vendor-specific software for the hosts. References: About Images; Create an Image

When a host in a vSAN stretched cluster goes offline, the data components on the hosts will be marked as degraded. This means that the data is still available, but the redundancy level is reduced. vSAN will try to rebuild the missing components on another host in the same fault domain, if there is enough capacity and resources. If the host comes back online within 60 minutes, vSAN will resync the data and restore the redundancy level. If the host does not come back online within 60 minutes, vSAN will rebuild the missing components on another fault domain, if there is enough capacity and resources. This will incur additional network traffic across the witness link. References: VMware vSAN Specialist v2 EXAM 5V0-22.23, page 17

To monitor the performance of vSAN File Services, the vSAN administrator must enable both the vSAN File Services and the vSAN Performance Service. The vSAN File Services provides SMB file shares to host clients, while the vSAN Performance Service collects and analyzes performance statistics and displays them in the vSphere Client. The other services are not related to vSAN File Services performance monitoring. References: VMware vSAN Specialist v2 EXAM 5V0-22.23, page 9, Objective 7.4; [vSAN File Services]; [vSAN Performance Service]

To create a Kerberos secured NFS v4.1 file share, the administrator needs to provide the following information during the configuration of the File Service:

• Active Directory Domain: The domain name of the Active Directory server that provides Kerberos authentication service for the NFS server and clients. For example, example.com.
• User Account: The user name of the Active Directory account that has permissions to join the NFS server to the domain and create service principal names (SPNs) for the NFS server. For example, administrator@example.com.
• Password: The password of the Active Directory account that is used for authentication. For example, P@ssw0rd.

These information are required to enable Kerberos security for NFS 4.1 and allow the NFS server to obtain a Kerberos ticket from the Active Directory server. The administrator also needs to specify the NFS share name, path, and access permissions1 References: 1: VMware vSphere Storage Guide, page 118

The Capacity Reserve feature in vSAN 8.0 OSA reduces the amount of capacity reserved for transient and rebuild operations by using a slack space threshold. This threshold is calculated based on the size of the largest component in the cluster and the number of failures to tolerate. If the used space on vSAN datastore exceeds the suggested slack space threshold, the feature will not operate properly and vSAN will revert to using the host rebuild reserve threshold. The other scenarios will not affect the Capacity Reserve feature. References: [VMware vSAN Specialist v2 EXAM 5V0-22.23], page 28

The reason why the vSAN administrator cannot find any vSAN performance statistics on the cluster summary page is that the vSAN performance service is not enabled. The vSAN performance service is a feature that collects and analyzes performance metrics and displays them in graphical charts in vCenter. The vSAN performance service must be turned on manually for each vSAN cluster, as it is not enabled by default. The other options are not correct. The integration of vRealize Operations Manager with the vSAN cluster is not required to view vSAN performance statistics, as they are available in vCenter. The administrator’s permissions on the cluster level do not affect the visibility of vSAN performance statistics, as they are accessible to any user who can view the cluster. vSAN performance statistics are not only available via CLI, as they can also be viewed in vCenter using the vSAN performance service. References: About the vSAN Performance Service; Enable or Disable the Performance Service

 To design a HCI Mesh solution with VMware vSAN and VMware vSphere High Availability (HA), two considerations that the architect should assess are: A minimum of three nodes are required within the client cluster for vSphere HA to work. This is because vSphere HA needs at least three nodes in a cluster to form a quorum and elect a master host that monitors the availability of other hosts and VMs. If there are less than three nodes in a cluster, vSphere HA cannot function properly and might fail to detect or respond to host or VM failures. If vSphere HA is to work with HCI Mesh, Datastore with All Paths Down (APD) must be configured to Power off and restart VMs. This is because APD is a condition that occurs when a storage device becomes inaccessible due to loss of physical connectivity, resulting in I/O errors or timeouts for VMs that use that device. When using HCI Mesh, APD can happen if the network connection between the client cluster and the server cluster is lost or disrupted, causing the remote datastore to become unavailable. To ensure that vSphere HA can restart the affected VMs on another host that has access to their storage, Datastore with APD must be set to Power off and restart VMs in the vSphere HA settings. The other options are not correct. A server vSAN cluster can serve its local datastore up to 15 client vSAN clusters, not five. This is the maximum number of client clusters that can mount a remote datastore from a server cluster using HCI Mesh. A client cluster can mount up to five remote datastores from one or more vSAN server clusters, not ten. This is the maximum number of remote datastores that can be mounted by a client cluster using HCI Mesh. References: VMware vSAN HCI Mesh; vSphere Availability; Handling All Paths Down (APD) Conditions

The impact to any virtual machine that was running on the failed host using vSANPolicy1 is that each virtual machine will be restarted on another vSAN host using vSphere HA. This is because vSANPolicy1 has a Failures to Tolerate setting of 1 failure - RAID-5 (Erasure Coding), which means that each object has four components (three data and one parity) distributed across four hosts. If one host fails, the object can still be accessed with the remaining three components,and vSphere HA will restart the virtual machine on another host. vSAN will also try to rebuild the missing component on another host, if there is enough capacity and resources. The other options are incorrect because they either assume that the object is unavailable or that the recovery process is delayed or impossible. References: [VMware vSAN Specialist v2 EXAM 5V0-22.23], page 16

To make sure that Skyline online health will work for vSAN, two requirements must be met: enable CEIP and join the program, and have a working Internet connection. CEIP stands for Customer Experience Improvement Program, which is a voluntary program that collects anonymous product usage data from customers who participate in it. By enabling CEIP and joining the program, customers can benefit from Skyline online health, which provides proactivenotifications and recommendations for software and hardware issues based on VMware Analytics Cloud. A working Internet connection is also required for Skyline online health to communicate with VMware Analytics Cloud and receive online notifications. The other options are not requirements for Skyline online health. References: About the vSAN Skyline Health; Skyline Health

The correct answer is A, the disk group must be deleted on each physical host in the vSAN OSA cluster to use the NVMe device. This is because vSAN OSA uses a disk group configuration where one disk is designated as a cache disk and the rest are capacity disks. To replace the cache disk with a different type or size, the disk group must be deleted first, which will erase all data on the disks and trigger a resynchronization of the affected objects. The administrator should put the host in maintenance mode and choose the option to evacuate all data before deleting the disk group. After replacing the cache disk with the NVMe device, the administrator should recreate the disk group and exit maintenance mode. The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

• B, the disk group does not need to be removed before adding new cache, is incorrect because adding a new cache disk to an existing disk group is not supported in vSAN OSA. The cache disk can only be replaced by deleting and recreating the disk group.
• C, the host must be removed from vSAN OSA cluster before changing cache devices, is incorrect because removing the host from the cluster is not necessary and will cause more disruption and data loss than putting the host in maintenance mode. Removing the host will also delete its disk groups and require re-adding them after rejoining the cluster.
• D, the cache disk drives must have a larger capacity, is incorrect because there is no requirement for the cache disk to have a larger capacity than the existing one. The cache disk size should be determined by the workload characteristics and performance requirements, not by the expansion process. References:
• VMware vSAN Specialist v2 Exam Preparation Guide, page 10

The VMware solution that requires vSAN usage is VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware Cloud Foundation is an integrated software stack that bundles compute virtualization (VMware vSphere), storage virtualization (VMware vSAN), network virtualization (VMware NSX), and cloud management and monitoring (VMware vRealize Suite) into a single platform that can be deployed on premises or as a service within a public cloud. VMware Cloud Foundation relies on vSAN as the primary storage solution for its workload domains, which are logical pools of resources that can be used to run different types of workloads. The other options are not correct. VMware Horizon, VMware Telco Cloud Automation, and VMware Aria Automation are VMware solutions that do not require vSAN usage, although they can benefit from it. VMware Horizon is a platform that delivers virtual desktops and applications across a variety of devices and locations, and it can use any supported storage solution, including vSAN. VMware Telco Cloud Automation is a cloud-native orchestration and automation platform that enables communication service providers to accelerate the deployment and lifecycle management of network functions and services across any network and cloud. It can use any supported storage solution, including vSAN. VMware Aria Automation is not a valid VMware solution name. References: VMware Cloud Foundation Overview; VMware Horizon Overview; VMware Telco Cloud Automation Overview

 To upgrade the vSAN environment from vSAN 7.0 U3 to vSAN 8.0 using vLCM in a non-internet connected environment, the administrator should configure the vSphere Lifecycle Manager to download updates from a local UMDS-shared repository. UMDS stands for Update Manager Download Service, which is a component of vSphere Lifecycle Manager that can be used to download patches and updates for ESXi hosts, virtual appliances, and VMware Tools from the VMware online depot and store them in a shared repository. The administrator can then configure the vSphere Lifecycle Manager to use the UMDS-shared repository as a custom depot for patching and upgrading the vSAN cluster. This option allows the administrator to perform offline upgrades without requiring internet access for the vSAN cluster12 References: 1: VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Administration, page 22 2: VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Service, page 5

To introspect multiple performance metrics of a single virtual machine, such as latency, throughput, IOPS, and congestion, the feature that should be used is I/O Trip Analyzer. This feature allows the administrator to diagnose the virtual machine I/O latency issues by providing a breakdown of the latencies at each layer of the vSAN stack, such as VM, host, network, and disk group. The other options are not correct, as they do not provide multiple performance metrics of a single virtual machine. esxcli is a command-line tool that can be used to manage various aspects of ESXi hosts, but it does not provide detailed performance analysis of virtual machines. Skyline Health is a feature that provides proactive notifications and recommendations for software and hardware issues based on VMware Analytics Cloud, but it does not provide granular performance metrics of virtual machines. llOlnsiqht is not a valid feature name in vSAN. References: Use I/O Trip Analyzer; Monitoring vSAN Performance

A possible cause of high latency on the vSAN cluster is that there is congestion in one or more disk groups. Congestion is a measure of how busy the storage devices are in handling I/O requests. When congestion is high, it means that the storage devices are overloaded and cannot process the requests fast enough, resulting in increased latency and reduced throughput. Congestion can be caused by various factors, such as insufficient cache capacity, disk failures, network issues, or heavy workload. The other options are not likely to cause high latency on the vSAN cluster. The Virtual Machines can use PVSCSI controllers without affecting latency, as they are optimized for high performance. Erasure Coding is a space efficiency feature that does not impact latency significantly. Jumbo frames are not required for vSAN, and enabling them does not guarantee lower latency. References: vSAN Performance Monitor; [vSAN Congestion Explained]

In a vSAN stretched cluster configuration, both data sites are active sites, but one site must be designated as the preferred site and the other site as the secondary or nonpreferred site. This configuration helps to ensure that data remains on a given site in case of a network partition between the sites. If the network connection between the two active sites is lost, vSAN continues operation with the preferred site, unless it is resyncing or has another issue. The site that leads to maximum data availability is the one that remains in operation. The other options are not relevant to this scenario. References: Introduction to Stretched Clusters; vSAN Stretched Cluster Guide

To implement HCI mesh between two clusters on vSAN that are located in geographically separate sites, the vSAN administrator should consider the following requirements:

• Either Layer 2 or Layer 3 communications can be used. HCI mesh supports both Layer 2 and Layer 3 network configurations, as long as the network latency and bandwidth requirements are met3
• The configuration must meet the same latency and bandwidth requirement as local vSAN. HCI mesh requires a network latency of less than or equal to 5 ms RTT between any two hosts in the participating clusters, and a network bandwidth of at least 10 Gbps for the vSAN network vmkernel port3 References: 3: VMware vSAN Specialist v2 Exam Preparation Guide, page 15