350-601 Storage Network Practice Test 20 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A data center uses FCoE to consolidate storage and LAN traffic. Which IEEE standard ensures that FCoE frames are not dropped due to congestion by providing lossless Ethernet?

Accepted Answer

PFC (Priority Flow Control). PFC (Priority Flow Control) is the IEEE 802.1Qbb standard that provides lossless Ethernet by allowing per-priority flow control. It ensures that FCoE frames, which are assigned to a no-drop priority, are not dropped during congestion. This is essential for FCoE to operate reliably over Ethernet.

Answer

ETS (Enhanced Transmission Selection)

Answer

FIP (FCoE Initialization Protocol)

Answer

DCBX (Data Center Bridging Exchange)

Question 2

A network engineer is designing an NPV environment with Cisco MDS switches. The edge switch is configured in NPV mode. Which port type does the edge switch present to the core switch when connecting upstream?

Accepted Answer

NP-port. In NPV (N_Port Virtualization) mode, the edge switch presents an NP-port (N_Port Proxy) upstream to the core switch. The NP-port acts as a proxy N_port, allowing the edge switch to log in to the core on behalf of its downstream N_ports without consuming domain IDs in the core fabric.

Answer

N-port

Answer

E-port

Answer

F-port

Question 3

An administrator wants to create separate FC fabrics on a single Cisco MDS switch for isolation of production and backup traffic. Which technology should they use?

Accepted Answer

VSAN. VSANs (Virtual SANs) allow a single physical MDS switch to be partitioned into multiple logical Fibre Channel fabrics, each with its own fabric services, zoning, and domain ID. This provides the isolation needed to separate production and backup traffic on the same hardware.

Answer

PortChannel

Answer

NPV

Answer

Zoning

Question 4

During iSCSI configuration, the storage administrator requires authentication between initiator and target. Which method uses a bidirectional secret to verify both ends?

Accepted Answer

CHAP. CHAP (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol) supports bidirectional authentication, where both the initiator and target authenticate each other using a shared secret. This is known as mutual CHAP or bidirectional CHAP, and it verifies both ends of the iSCSI connection.

Answer

RADIUS

Answer

IPsec

Answer

Kerberos

Question 5

Which Fibre Channel address component uniquely identifies a port within a fabric and is assigned during fabric login (FLOGI)?

Accepted Answer

FCID. The FCID (Fibre Channel Identifier) is a 24-bit address assigned to a port during fabric login (FLOGI). It uniquely identifies the port within the fabric and is used for routing frames between N-ports. It is composed of Domain ID (8 bits), Area ID (8 bits), and Port ID (8 bits).

Answer

WWNN

Answer

Domain ID

Answer

WWPN

Question 6

A storage array uses thin provisioning. A volume is created with a virtual size of 1 TB but only 100 GB of physical storage is allocated initially. What happens when the host writes data beyond the currently allocated physical space?

Accepted Answer

The array automatically extends the volume by allocating more physical blocks from the pool.. Thin provisioning decouples the volume's presented (virtual) size from its physically consumed capacity. When the host writes beyond the currently allocated blocks, the array's allocation engine automatically carves additional blocks from the shared storage pool and maps them to the volume, transparently to the host. The write succeeds as long as the pool has free space.

Answer

The write fails immediately.

Answer

The host must reconfigure the volume size.

Answer

The volume is expanded to 1 TB physical.

Question 7

In an FCoE environment, a CNA presents a VN-port to the network. Which protocol is used to establish the virtual link between the VN-port and the FCoE switch's VF-port?

Accepted Answer

FIP. FIP (FCoE Initialization Protocol) is used to establish the virtual link between a VN-port (on the CNA) and a VF-port (on the FCoE switch). FIP performs discovery, fabric login, and fabric logout for FCoE devices, allowing the VN-port to obtain an FCID and become part of the Fibre Channel fabric. This is the correct protocol for virtual link establishment in FCoE.

Answer

ARP

Answer

LLDP

Answer

DHCP

Question 8

A Cisco MDS switch has two VSANs (VSAN 10 and VSAN 20). The engineer wants to connect two switches using a single ISL that carries both VSANs. Which configuration is required on the ISL interface?

Accepted Answer

Configure the port as a trunk port (EISL).. An EISL (Enhanced ISL) trunk port is required to carry multiple VSANs over a single physical ISL between two MDS switches. Configuring the interface as a trunk port enables 802.1Q-like tagging of Fibre Channel frames with VSAN identifiers, allowing VSAN 10 and VSAN 20 to traverse the same link. This is the standard method for interconnecting MDS switches while preserving VSAN isolation.

Answer

Use two separate ISLs, one for each VSAN.

Answer

Create a PortChannel and add the ISL.

Answer

Configure the port as a regular E-port.

Question 9

A storage network engineer is planning an FC SAN upgrade. Which two benefits does Fibre Channel PortChannel provide over a single ISL? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Increased aggregate bandwidth. Option C (Increased aggregate bandwidth) is correct because a Fibre Channel PortChannel bundles multiple physical ISLs between two switches into one logical link, so the total throughput is the sum of the member links' speeds (for example, four 16 Gbps ISLs yield 64 Gbps of aggregate bandwidth), which a single ISL cannot provide. Option E (Redundancy and load balancing) is correct because if one member link in the PortChannel fails, traffic is redistributed across the remaining links, preserving connectivity while distributing flows across all members for more efficient utilization. Option A is not a benefit specific to PortChannel, since bundling links does not inherently reduce per-frame latency compared with a single ISL. Option B is incorrect because zoning is configured independently of link aggregation and is not simplified by a PortChannel. Option D is incorrect because all ports in a Fibre Channel PortChannel must be of the same port type (for example, all E_Ports or all F_Ports); mixing port types in one channel is not supported.

Answer

Lower latency

Answer

Simplified zoning configuration

Answer

Support for different port types in the same channel

Question 10

An organization uses synchronous replication between two storage arrays for disaster recovery. Which three characteristics apply to synchronous replication? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Write acknowledgment is sent only after data is written to both arrays.. Option B is correct because in synchronous replication the host write is not acknowledged until the data has been committed to both the source and the target array, guaranteeing the remote copy is identical at acknowledgment time. Option C is correct because the write must traverse the link and be committed on the remote array before the I/O completes, so round-trip latency is added to every write, making it slower than asynchronous replication. Option E is correct because, since every acknowledged write exists on both arrays, no committed data is lost on failover, yielding a zero RPO. Option A is wrong because synchronous replication typically needs more bandwidth and lower latency than asynchronous, since each write must be transmitted and confirmed in real time. Option D is wrong because high-latency, long-distance links are precisely where synchronous replication performs poorly; such links are better suited to asynchronous replication.

Answer

It requires less bandwidth than asynchronous replication.

Answer

It is suitable for long-distance links with high latency.

Question 11

A storage administrator needs to isolate traffic between two departments on the same Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure. Each department has its own storage array and hosts. Which technology should be used to create separate logical fabrics without additional hardware?

Accepted Answer

VSANs. VSANs (Virtual SANs) allow partitioning of a single physical Fibre Channel fabric into multiple isolated logical fabrics, similar to VLANs in Ethernet.

Answer

NPV

Answer

Zoning

Answer

PortChannels

Question 12

A data center architect is designing an FCoE deployment. The network must support lossless Ethernet for storage traffic. Which set of IEEE standards must be enabled on the Ethernet switches to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

802.1Qbb (PFC), 802.1Qaz (ETS, DCBX). Lossless Ethernet for FCoE is delivered by the IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging extensions: 802.1Qbb defines Priority Flow Control (per-priority PAUSE) and 802.1Qaz defines Enhanced Transmission Selection plus DCBX. These two standards together provide the no-drop, bandwidth-guaranteed, auto-negotiated behavior that Fibre Channel assumes.

Answer

802.3ae (10GbE), 802.3ba (40/100GbE), 802.3by (25GbE)

Answer

802.1Q (VLAN tagging), 802.1p (CoS), 802.3ad (LACP)

Answer

802.1X (port security), 802.1AE (MACsec), 802.1AR (secure device identity)

Question 13

An iSCSI storage array is being deployed with two network interfaces for redundancy. The hosts also have two iSCSI initiators. To ensure load balancing and failover, which feature should be configured?

Accepted Answer

MPIO. MPIO (Multipath I/O) is the feature that allows multiple physical paths between a host and storage array to be used simultaneously for load balancing and failover. With two network interfaces on the array and two initiators on the host, MPIO aggregates the paths, providing redundancy and increased throughput. It is the standard solution for iSCSI redundancy and performance.

Answer

Jumbo frames

Answer

VLAN tagging

Answer

CHAP authentication

Question 14

A storage administrator wants to provide a volume that appears larger than its actual physical capacity, allocating storage blocks only as data is written. Which storage provisioning method is being described?

Accepted Answer

Thin provisioning. Thin provisioning allocates storage capacity on demand, presenting a logical volume larger than the physical capacity and only consuming physical blocks when data is written. This allows over-subscription of storage, improving utilization. The description matches thin provisioning exactly.

Answer

Snapshot

Answer

Thick provisioning

Answer

RAID-5

Question 15

Which Fibre Channel address component identifies the port on a storage target?

Accepted Answer

WWPN. The World Wide Port Name (WWPN) is a 64-bit identifier assigned to each individual port on an FC device, so it uniquely identifies the specific port on a storage target (or initiator). Zoning and LUN masking are typically performed using WWPNs, which is why it is the correct answer for identifying a port.

Answer

WWNN

Answer

FCID

Answer

VSAN ID