220-1101 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Practice Question
A company runs its virtualized infrastructure on a cluster of hypervisor hosts. The administrator configures the cluster to automatically move virtual machines to other hosts in the event of a planned host maintenance, minimizing downtime. The administrator also wants to ensure that virtual machines are redistributed to balance CPU and memory utilization across the cluster periodically. Which two technologies or features are being utilized? (Select TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse High Availability (HA) with planned maintenance migration, but HA only reacts to unplanned host failures, whereas vMotion handles intentional host moves and DRS handles periodic load balancing.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
vMotion
vMotion is the VMware technology that enables live migration of running virtual machines between hypervisor hosts with zero downtime, making it the correct choice for moving VMs during planned host maintenance. The scenario explicitly describes moving VMs automatically to other hosts for maintenance, which is the primary function of vMotion.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
vMotion
Why this is correct
vMotion is a vSphere feature that migrates a running virtual machine from one ESXi host to another with no downtime, transferring the VM's memory contents and CPU state over a dedicated network while leaving the VM's virtual disks on shared storage. This allows an administrator to evacuate a host for planned maintenance without interrupting user sessions or application availability. vMotion is the core enabling technology that DRS invokes to rebalance workloads automatically.
- ✓
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
Why this is correct
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) is a vSphere cluster feature that continuously monitors CPU and memory utilization across all hosts and automatically places or migrates virtual machines to optimal hosts using vMotion. By applying migration thresholds and affinity rules, DRS can balance workloads across the cluster without any manual intervention or service interruption. DRS gives the cluster the intelligence to react to changing demands, whereas a single vMotion migration is merely the manual or scripted execution of such a move.
- ✗
Fault Tolerance (FT)
Why it's wrong here
Fault Tolerance (FT) protects a VM by running a secondary shadow VM in lockstep on a different host and capturing every input and event so the secondary can take over instantly if the primary fails. However, FT is a failover mechanism, not a migration tool; it does not move the primary VM off a host for maintenance or rebalance resources. In fact, FT places additional load by duplicating execution, so using it for planned maintenance or load balancing would be counterproductive.
- ✗
High Availability (HA)
Why it's wrong here
High Availability (HA) is a vSphere cluster feature that detects host failures by monitoring heartbeats and automatically restarts the affected virtual machines on other healthy hosts in the cluster. This recovery is a cold restart, not a live migration, so the VMs experience downtime while the operating system boots again. Because HA only reacts to failures and does not transfer a running VM's memory state, it cannot be used for planned maintenance or load balancing—the two scenarios that demand vMotion.
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