To begin the practice scenarios: Once you have read through the setup instructions below, choose Scenario 1 from the dropdown menu on right. From that point on you can navigate either by the next button or the dropdown menu.
This practice exam is intended to serve as a tool to help you determine your readiness to the take the actual VDCA510 and VDCA550 exam.
Before starting the practice set, you should prepare a personal lab environment that is configured according to the following specifications. If your personal lab environment is not configured as indicated, then you should plan to accommodate for the differences between your environment and the specifications as you perform the exercises.
Windows-based vCenter Server: vcenter-01.lab.local
vCenter Server configuration: Configure vCenter Server to manage the following: datacenter, cluster, and ESXi hosts.
Datacenter: datacenter-01
HA/DRS Cluster: cluster-01 (DRS: not enabled; HA: not enabled)
ESXi hosts:
VMware Update Manger: Install on vcenter-01.lab.local, but do not configure any baselines.
ESXi host network adapters:
Standard virtual switches:
vSwitch0:
vSwitch1:
vSwitch2:
Distributed virtual switches:
dvSwitch0:
dvSwitch1:
iSCSI Storage: Be sure to configure the iSCSI-1 and iSCSI-2 vmkernel ports with IP addresses on the same subnet. Configure the iSCSI software adapter. Configure the appropriate LUNs and masking to provide the following datastores. Do not configure binding on the iSCSI software adapter, and do not configure multipathing.
iSCSI-based VMFS datastores: (200 GB, presented to all ESXi hosts)
VMFS-01
iSCSI-based VMFS datastores: (10 GB each, presented to all ESXi hosts)
VMFS-10, VMFS-11, VMFS-12, VMFS-20, VMFS-21, VMFS-22
Scenario 19: Refers to a LUN whose ID is naa.6000d771000020d40f1ac91fb172e72e. Make note of the ID assigned to VMFS-22, and plan to use that ID when performing exercise 19.
Simple VMs (1 vCPU, 1 GB memory, 2 GB virtual disk thin provisioned, no installed guest operating system, stored on VMFS-10, powered-off):
Windows VMs: (2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 60 GB thin provisioned virtual disk [C:], 200 GB thin provisioned [E:], Windows 2008 R2, connected to VM network, stored on VMFS-01, powered on)
PowerCLI Windows system: A Windows 7 VM named desktop-01. Download this Zip file from VMware VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-depot.zip, and store it at d:\depot\VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-depot.zip.
The actual exam will require some troubleshooting steps, in which something is broken and you must fix it. In some cases, the actual exam will identify a symptom of the problem that needs to be repaired and provide requirements on fixing it. In other cases, the actual exam may not directly identify the problem or directly bring it to your attention. Instead, you will discover a problem on your own as you attempt to perform the work for a specific exercise[md]the only way to complete the exercise will be to fix the underlying problem. Naturally, such approaches are difficult to provide in this practice exam, without a means to implement misconfigurations into your personal lab environment without your knowledge.
For example, in the actual exam, perhaps a storage problem exists due to the misconfiguration of the iSCSI software adapter. Although the actual exam does not warn you of the problem, it might give you an exercise that involves cloning a VM to an iSCSI-based datastore. The only means to complete the exercise and meet its requirements is to fix the unidentified iSCSI problem.
In this practice exam, the previous example could be handled using two different approaches. In one approach, the practice exam could instruct you to intentionally break the iSCSI software adapter connection by modifying its IQN, IP address, vmkernel port binding, CHAP, or virtual port configuration. It could require you to examine tasks, events, log files, and other items to gain familiarity with the symptoms. In this approach, do not be concerned with the amount of time required to perform the exercise.
In another approach, the practice exam could provide symptoms of an iSCSI issue and require you to fix it, even though your personal lab environment is not actually broken. You could simply approach the exercise as if the environment was truly broken (pretend) and use various methods to troubleshoot. Or perhaps, you could have a colleague read the solution and break your personal environment accordingly, so you could perform the exercise as intended.