VCP-DCV vSphere Performance and Scaling Practice Question
A company's vSphere environment has multiple clusters with varying workloads. The operations team notices that one cluster consistently shows high CPU ready times on several hosts. Which action should be taken to address this performance issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse CPU ready time with memory pressure or storage latency, leading them to choose memory or storage-related solutions instead of addressing the core CPU over-provisioning issue.
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
✓
Reduce the number of virtual CPUs assigned to VMs and consider adding more hosts.
High CPU ready times indicate that VMs are contending for physical CPU resources because the host is over-provisioned with vCPUs relative to available pCPUs. Reducing the number of vCPUs per VM decreases scheduling overhead and contention, while adding more hosts increases the total pCPU count, directly alleviating the bottleneck. Option C correctly addresses both the demand-side (vCPU reduction) and supply-side (host addition) of the CPU scheduling issue.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the memory allocation of VMs with high CPU ready times.
Why it's wrong here
CPU ready time measures time a vCPU waits for a physical core, so adding memory addresses none of that contention. It is tempting because memory pressure can indirectly inflate ready times, and adding RAM would be correct where ballooning or swapping is starving VMs of the resources they need to run.
- ✗
Increase the CPU reservation for VMs with high ready times.
Why it's wrong here
Reservations guarantee a minimum share of a host's CPU, but they do not create capacity; on an already oversubscribed host they can worsen contention for unreserved VMs. Reservations are tempting because they genuinely help latency-sensitive workloads, but only where spare physical cores exist to back them.
- ✓
Reduce the number of virtual CPUs assigned to VMs and consider adding more hosts.
Why this is correct
High CPU ready indicates VMs are waiting for physical CPU cycles, so reducing vCPUs cuts scheduling contention and adding hosts increases available cores. This directly relieves the oversubscription driving the elevated ready times across that cluster's hosts.
- ✗
Enable Storage DRS to balance storage I/O load.
Why it's wrong here
Storage DRS balances datastore I/O and capacity, which has no bearing on CPU scheduling contention on hosts. It is tempting because DRS is the standard vSphere remedy for imbalance, and enabling Storage DRS would be correct for datastore latency or uneven storage utilisation rather than high CPU ready times.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This VCP-DCV practice question is part of Courseiva's free VMware certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the VCP-DCV exam.