TestTrack Unplugged (Storage 1)

Back in 2012 I created TestTrack as a practice tool for the DCA510 (VCAP5-DCA on vSphere 5.0) exam. When the updated DCA550 exam launched I updated TT to match.

With the decommissioning of the VCAP5-DCA exams the current TestTrack is not longer relevant so I will be posting some of the scenarios and solution walk-throughs for the items contained in TestTrack, starting with the first of the Storage question.

Storage 1

Things to note:

• “a physical server failure with no downtime” = Fault Tolerance
• “The other administrator has reported a problem” = There is an underlying troubleshooting issue built into the scenario.
• “Leave all settings not specified at the default” = Next next next for anything not covered by the requirements or opening statement.

Step 1: Create the VM
Creating the VM goes fine if you pick all defaults other than the host, but enabling FT on the VM pops a few errors:

So, HA and vMotion are not enabled.

For this scenario when enabling vMotion you are not given any information other than the implied “make it work”. On the official exam you would be presented with any settings would you need so make sure you stay within the expected parameters. The idea is to only present one path that achieves the stated goal.

Step 2: Enable HA on the cluster and enable vMotion on vmk0 of both hosts.

Enabling FT again gets a new error, the one that explains why this is a storage question.

Turns out ISCSI0 has less than 7GB free and PayRoll needs 8GB when FT thick-provisions the disk.

Investigating iSCSI0 shows there is space available on the underlying LUN

Step 3: Extending the disk nets us enough space to enable FT.

Note! On the real exam, enabling FT takes a while.  Don’t sit there and twiddle your thumbs, make a note on the scratch pad like:

Q3 : Waitng on FT enabled on DB

and move on to the next question.

Scoring:

There are three scoring points
Is the VM on ISCSI0?
$HD = get-vm Pa* |get-harddisk |select -first 1 filename, capacityGB
if ($HD.filename -match "\[iSCSI0.*") {$one = 1}

Is the payroll harddrive still 8GB?
if ($HD.capacityGB -eq 8) {$two = 1}

Is FT enabled on the VM?
$vm = Get-VM p* | % { ($_ | Get-View).runtime.FaultToleranceState } | select -first 1
if ($vm -ne "notConfigured") {$three = 1}

Note that there were other things changed (vMotion, HA) that are not scored. On the real exam, the “best” points will be scored, those that best identify a Minimally Qualified Candidate.