350-601 Storage Network Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Match each Cisco storage protocol to its characteristic.

Accepted Answer

Fibre Channel: Uses dedicated optical cabling and switches.. The correct matches are: Fibre Channel uses dedicated hardware, iSCSI uses IP, FCoE encapsulates FC over Ethernet, and NVMe-oF extends NVMe over fabrics. Common confusions include mixing Fibre Channel and FCoE, or iSCSI and Fibre Channel characteristics.

Answer

Fibre Channel: Runs over standard Ethernet.

Answer

iSCSI: Uses dedicated fabric and optical cabling.

Question 2

A storage administrator reports that a new host cannot log into the SAN. The host is connected to a Cisco MDS switch. The switch interface shows up/up but the host is not in the active zone. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The zone set is not activated.. The host cannot log into the SAN despite the interface showing up/up because the zone set is not activated. In Cisco MDS Fibre Channel SANs, zone configurations are stored in the zone database but only take effect when the zone set is activated (using the 'zone activate' command). Without an active zone set, no zoning is enforced, and the host's WWPN is effectively invisible to other devices, preventing login even though the physical link is operational.

Answer

The switch port is in an isolated state.

Answer

The FC cable is faulty.

Answer

The host's WWPN is not in the zone configuration.

Answer

The host's driver is not installed.

Question 3

A Cisco MDS switch is configured with two VSANs. Hosts in VSAN 1 cannot communicate with hosts in VSAN 2. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The VSANs are not connected through an IVR zone.. By default, VSANs are isolated from each other, meaning traffic cannot cross VSAN boundaries. Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR) must be explicitly configured to allow communication between hosts in different VSANs. Without IVR, hosts in VSAN 1 and VSAN 2 remain in separate fabrics and cannot communicate, even if they are connected to the same switch.

Answer

The IVR is not configured.

Answer

The FC domain ID is conflicting.

Answer

The switch does not support multi VSAN.

Answer

The hosts are on different switches.

Question 4

An engineer is troubleshooting a SAN performance issue. The MDS switch shows high CRC errors on an F port. The host is connected via a 16 Gbps FC link. The errors increase when the host sends large I/O. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The cable length exceeds the supported distance for 16 Gbps.. At 16 Gbps Fibre Channel, signal integrity degrades over long cable distances, causing bit errors that manifest as CRC errors on the F port. The error increase with large I/O is characteristic of marginal signal quality, as larger frames are more likely to encounter corrupted bits. Option E correctly identifies that the cable length exceeds the supported distance for 16 Gbps, typically 10 meters for OM3 multimode fiber or 100 meters for OM4, depending on the transceiver type.

Answer

The host's HBA firmware is outdated.

Answer

The zone configuration is incorrect.

Answer

The host is experiencing buffer credit starvation.

Answer

The switch port is configured for 8 Gbps.

Question 5

A Cisco MDS switch is configured in NPV mode. A host connected to this switch fails to log into the SAN. Which command should be used to verify the host's FLOGI status?

Accepted Answer

show flogi database module . In NPV mode, the MDS switch acts as a passthrough and does not maintain its own FLOGI database; instead, it forwards FLOGI requests to the upstream NPIV-capable switch. The 'show flogi database module ' command is used on the NPV switch to verify the host's FLOGI status because it displays the FLOGI entries learned from the upstream switch for the specific module where the host is connected, which is essential for troubleshooting login failures.

Answer

show zone

Answer

show fcns database

Answer

show flogi database

Answer

show port-channel summary

Question 6

An engineer is designing a SAN to connect hosts to two storage arrays for redundancy. The hosts are dual-attached to two MDS switches. Each storage array has two controllers, each with a single FC port. The engineer wants to avoid a single point of failure and ensure that each host can reach both storage controllers. Which design should be used?

Accepted Answer

Connect each host HBA to a different switch, and zone each HBA to both storage controller ports.. It provides full redundancy: each host HBA connects to a different MDS switch, and each HBA is zoned to both storage controller ports. This ensures that if a switch, HBA, or storage controller fails, the host can still reach at least one storage controller via the remaining path. The dual-zoning per HBA allows each host to access both controllers without a single point of failure, meeting the requirement for host-to-controller reachability.

Answer

Connect both HBAs of each host to the same switch, and create zones that include both HBAs and both storage ports.

Answer

Connect each host HBA to a separate switch, and zone each HBA to one storage controller port.

Answer

Use NPV mode to simplify connectivity.

Answer

Connect each host HBA to a different switch, and zone each HBA to a specific storage controller, using zones that cross VSANs.

Question 7

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of NPV (N-Port Virtualization) in a Cisco MDS fabric?

Accepted Answer

It enables multiple hosts to share the same physical uplink.. Option A is correct because NPV allows an NPV edge switch (or NPIV-based host) to present multiple N_Port IDs over a single physical uplink to the core, so several hosts/initiators can share that same physical uplink. Option B is correct because NPV reduces the number of domain IDs consumed in the core fabric: the NPV edge switch does not take a domain ID of its own, and its servers' N_Ports are proxied through the core switch, conserving domain IDs. Option C is incorrect because it is NPIV, not NPV, that lets an edge device appear as a virtual host (multiple virtual N_Ports) to the core; NPV instead makes the edge switch appear as a host/NPV device to the core. Option D is incorrect because FC-SP authentication is not a mandatory requirement of NPV. Option E is incorrect because NPV is not restricted to 8 Gbps or higher ports; it is supported across various port speeds depending on platform and NX-OS release.

Answer

It allows the edge switch to appear as a virtual host to the core switch.

Answer

It requires FC-SP authentication.

Answer

It is only supported on 8 Gbps or higher ports.

Question 8

Which TWO of the following are valid methods to recover from buffer credit loss on a Fibre Channel link?

Accepted Answer

Reduce the link speed.. Option A is correct because reducing the link speed on a Fibre Channel link lowers the data rate, which allows the existing buffer credits to cover a longer distance (buffer credits scale with distance × speed), thereby restoring credit availability and recovering from buffer credit loss. Option B is correct because increasing the BB_Credit value on the port directly adds more receive buffers, which is the standard method to compensate for credit loss and maintain a lossless FC link. Option C is incorrect because WRED is a congestion avoidance mechanism used in Ethernet/IP networks, not a Fibre Channel buffer credit recovery method. Option D is incorrect because port channels aggregate Ethernet links and are not used to recover FC buffer credits. Option E is incorrect because RDMA credit recovery is a concept in RoCE/InfiniBand, not Fibre Channel buffer-to-buffer credit management.

Answer

Enable WRED on the switch.

Answer

Use port channel to aggregate links.

Answer

Credit recovery using RDMA.

Question 9

Which THREE of the following are required to configure FCoE NPV on a Cisco Nexus switch?

Accepted Answer

Enable FIP snooping.. FCoE NPV (N Port Virtualization) on a Cisco Nexus switch requires that FCoE be enabled globally on the switch with the 'feature fcoe' command, so option E is correct because the FCoE feature must be active before any FCoE NPV configuration can be applied. Option A is correct because FIP snooping must be enabled ('feature fip-snooping' and 'fip-snooping enable' on the relevant VLAN/interface) so the switch can enforce FIP-based login and prevent unauthorized FCoE traffic in the NPV topology. Option B is correct because the FCoE VLAN carrying the FCoE traffic must be mapped to the VSAN ('fcoe vlan vsan '), which binds the Layer 2 FCoE VLAN to the Fibre Channel VSAN used by the NPV core. Option C is not required because a 'storage VLAN' is not a distinct configuration object in FCoE NPV; the FCoE VLAN itself serves that purpose. Option D is not required as a separate step because the VSAN is created and then associated with the FCoE VLAN, which is already covered by option B rather than being an independent mandatory configuration.

Answer

Configure a storage VLAN.

Answer

Configure a VSAN for FCoE.

Question 10

Refer to the exhibit. A host with WWPN 10:00:00:00:c9:29:3b:23 can only see its own WWPN but not the target. What is the likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The target is missing from the zone.. The host can see its own WWPN but not the target, which indicates that the host has successfully logged into the fabric (FLOGI accepted) and is in the correct VSAN. The most likely cause is that the target WWPN is not included in the zone that contains the host. In Fibre Channel zoning, only members within the same zone can communicate; if the target is missing from the zone, the host cannot discover or access it.

Answer

The host is in a different VSAN.

Answer

The zoneset is not the full zoneset.

Answer

The host's FLOGI is rejected.

Answer

The zone is not activated.

Question 11

An engineer needs to design a resilient Fibre Channel SAN that eliminates single points of failure between two MDS switches and a storage array with two controllers. What is the minimum number of FC port channels required to achieve this goal?

Accepted Answer

Two. To eliminate single points of failure between two MDS switches and a dual-controller storage array, you need two Fibre Channel port channels. Each port channel connects one MDS switch to both storage controllers, providing redundancy for both the switch and the controller paths. This design ensures that if one switch or one controller fails, the other port channel maintains connectivity.

Answer

Three

Answer

One

Answer

Four

Question 12

A storage engineer is planning to migrate from an existing 2 Gbps Fibre Channel fabric to a new 16 Gbps fabric while maintaining connectivity during the cutover. The legacy and new switches are connected via ISL and use the same VSAN. What is a best practice to ensure a seamless migration?

Accepted Answer

Set the ISL port speed to 2 Gbps on both sides until the migration is complete. Setting the ISL port speed to 2 Gbps on both sides ensures that the new 16 Gbps switch negotiates down to the legacy fabric's speed, preventing buffer-to-buffer credit mismatches and frame corruption during the cutover. This allows both fabrics to operate at a common speed, maintaining stable connectivity until all devices are migrated and the ISL speed can be safely increased.

Answer

Assign the new switches to a separate VSAN to prevent mixing

Answer

Use a dedicated ISL for the migration and move zones gradually

Answer

Disable zoning on both fabrics and re-apply after migration

Question 13

During an FCoE deployment, the server team reports that hosts can reach the storage array but performance is intermittent with periodic timeouts. The network team sees no errors on the FCoE VLAN. The DCB configuration on the upstream switch shows that PFC is enabled for CoS 3. What should the engineer check next?

Accepted Answer

Check if the PFC configuration matches on both ends and that PFC is enabled on the FCoE VLAN interfaces. D is correct because PFC (Priority Flow Control) must be consistently configured on both ends of an FCoE link to prevent frame loss. If PFC is enabled for CoS 3 on the upstream switch but not on the server's vNIC or the FCoE VLAN interfaces, the lack of lossless behavior causes intermittent timeouts and performance degradation, even if the FCoE VLAN shows no errors.

Answer

Verify that jumbo frames are enabled on the storage array

Answer

Confirm that the VSAN is appropriately sized for the number of hosts

Answer

Ensure that the FCoE VLAN is enabled for FCoE on the server's vNIC

Question 14

A company is deploying a new storage array with dual controllers. Each controller has two 16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The engineer wants to connect each controller to two separate MDS switches for redundancy. What is the recommended port type configuration on the MDS switches for the storage-facing ports?

Accepted Answer

F port. A is correct because an F port (Fabric port) is the standard port type on an MDS switch for connecting to an N_port (Node port) on a storage array's Fibre Channel controller. Since each controller has two 16 Gbps FC ports and each connects to a separate MDS switch for redundancy, the switch-facing ports must operate as F ports to establish a point-to-point link with the array's N_ports, enabling fabric services and proper zoning.

Answer

Configure the port as auto to allow negotiation

Answer

NP port

Answer

E port

Question 15

Which TWO of the following Fibre Channel port types are used to connect end devices such as hosts or storage?

Accepted Answer

N port. (N port) is correct because an N_port (Node port) is the Fibre Channel port type used on end devices such as hosts (HBAs) or storage controllers to connect to a Fibre Channel switch. Option D (F port) is correct because an F_port (Fabric port) is the switch-side port that connects to an N_port, forming a point-to-point link between the end device and the fabric. Together, N_port and F_port enable standard fabric login (FLOGI) and frame exchange.

Answer

FL port

Answer

E port

Answer

NP port