20 VxRail Interview Questions and Answers

VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that offers a simple, scalable and cost-effective way to deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure. As a VxRail engineer, you will be responsible for designing, implementing and supporting VxRail systems. When interviewing for a position on the VxRail team, you can expect questions about your technical skills and experience as well as your ability to work in a fast-paced environment. In this article, we will review some commonly asked VxRail interview questions and provide tips on how to answer them.

VxRail Interview Questions and Answers

Here are 20 commonly asked VxRail interview questions and answers to prepare you for your interview:

1. What is VxRail?

VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that is designed to simplify and accelerate IT transformation for customers of all sizes. VxRail is built on industry-leading technology from Dell EMC, VMware, and Intel, and is available in a wide range of configurations to meet the specific needs of any workload.

2. What are the main components of a VxRail appliance?

The main components of a VxRail appliance are the servers, storage, networking, and management software. The servers are the physical machines that make up the appliance, while the storage is the hard drives and other data storage devices that are used to store the appliance’s data. The networking components are the routers and other networking hardware that are used to connect the appliance to the rest of the network. Finally, the management software is the software that is used to manage the appliance and its data.

3. What’s VxRail Manager?

VxRail Manager is a centralized management platform that provides a single pane of glass for all VxRail operations. It includes features such as monitoring, provisioning, firmware updates, and support ticketing.

4. How does VxRail manage storage?

VxRail storage is managed through a process called storage virtualization. This process allows VxRail to create a pool of storage resources that can be used by any of the VxRail nodes. This makes it easy to add or remove storage resources from the VxRail cluster as needed, and also makes it possible to use storage resources from multiple VxRail nodes at the same time.

5. What do you understand about vSAN in context with VxRail?

vSAN is a software-defined storage solution that is fully integrated with VxRail, providing a simple, scalable, and cost-effective storage solution for your VxRail environment. vSAN aggregates local storage resources across all VxRail nodes in a cluster to create a shared data store that is accessible to all nodes. This shared data store provides a number of benefits, including improved storage utilization, simplified storage management, and increased flexibility and scalability.

6. Can you explain what a virtual disk group is?

A virtual disk group is a collection of disks that are used to store data for a virtual machine. This data can include the operating system, applications, and user data. The virtual disk group can be created using either physical disks or logical disks.

7. What are the different types of clusters that can be created using VxRail?

There are four different types of clusters that can be created using VxRail: all-flash, hybrid, stretched, and converged. All-flash clusters are composed entirely of flash storage, while hybrid clusters use a mix of flash and spinning disk drives. Stretched clusters span two data centers for increased availability, while converged clusters combine compute, storage, and networking into a single platform.

8. What is the recommended configuration for creating a cluster with VxRail?

The recommended configuration for creating a cluster with VxRail is to have a minimum of four nodes. This will provide you with the necessary redundancy and performance for your applications.

9. Can you explain how to configure default settings and host groups in VxRail?

You can configure default settings for VxRail in the VxRail Manager. To do this, go to the Settings tab and click on the “Configure Defaults” button. From here, you can set the default values for various settings, including network, storage, and security.

Host groups can be created in the VxRail Manager by going to the Hosts tab and clicking on the “Create Host Group” button. You will then be prompted to enter a name and description for the host group. Once the host group has been created, you can add hosts to it by selecting them from the list of available hosts and clicking on the “Add” button.

10. Why is it necessary to create a Support Bundle when installing VxRail?

A support bundle is necessary when installing VxRail in order to provide all of the relevant information to support personnel in the event that something goes wrong during or after the installation. The support bundle includes information on the system configuration, logs, and any other relevant data that could be used to troubleshoot any issues that may arise.

11. What is the best way to determine whether a failed upgrade was caused by hardware or software issues?

The best way to determine whether a failed upgrade was caused by hardware or software issues is to check the compatibility matrix to see if the hardware and software versions are compatible. If they are not compatible, then it is most likely that the hardware is the cause of the failed upgrade.

12. Can you give me some examples of real-world use cases of VxRail appliances?

VxRail appliances are used in a variety of settings, including data centers, remote offices, and cloud environments. They are often used to provide storage, compute, and networking resources in a single, easy-to-manage appliance.

13. What are the advantages of using VMware HCI over traditional SAN solutions?

There are many advantages of using VMware HCI over traditional SAN solutions, but some of the most notable are the increased flexibility and scalability that VMware HCI provides. With traditional SAN solutions, it can be very difficult and time-consuming to add new storage capacity or make changes to the existing storage configuration. With VMware HCI, these changes can be made much more quickly and easily, which can save a lot of time and money in the long run.

14. What are the primary benefits of deploying VxRail on site versus co-lo facilities?

The main benefits of deploying VxRail on site are that it can save on costs associated with colocation, and it can provide better performance and security. VxRail on site can also provide easier management and maintenance, as well as better integration with on-site systems.

15. How do you ensure high availability with VxRails?

There are a few ways to ensure high availability with VxRails. One way is to use multiple VxRails in a cluster configuration. This way, if one VxRail fails, the others can pick up the slack. Another way to ensure high availability is to use redundant components within each VxRail. For example, you can use multiple power supplies and multiple network cards to make sure that if one component fails, there is a backup that can take its place.

16. What happens if an ESXi host fails during an upgrade operation on a VxRail cluster?

If an ESXi host fails during an upgrade operation on a VxRail cluster, the cluster will automatically roll back the upgrade for that host. This ensures that the cluster remains operational and that no data is lost.

17. What is the minimum number of nodes required for setting up a VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)?

The minimum number of nodes required for setting up a VxRail HCI is four.

18. What is the difference between scale out and scale up configurations in VxRail?

A scale out configuration is one in which you add more nodes to the VxRail cluster in order to increase capacity. A scale up configuration is one in which you increase the size and capacity of the existing nodes in the VxRail cluster.

19. What is the maximum number of VxRail appliances that can be part of a single cluster?

A maximum of eight VxRail appliances can be part of a single cluster.

20. Can you explain how VxRail manages caching across multiple nodes?

VxRail uses a technique called “cache coherency” to keep track of changes made to data stored in the cache across multiple nodes. This ensures that all nodes in the system have the same up-to-date copy of the data, and prevents data loss or corruption.