VCP-DCV vSphere Architecture, Products and Solutions Practice Question
A vSphere administrator is designing a new cluster for a mission-critical application that requires maximum availability. The cluster will consist of four ESXi hosts. Which vSphere feature should be enabled to protect against host failures while minimizing resource waste?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse vSphere HA (which provides host-level failover) with vSphere DRS (which only optimizes resource usage) or assume that Fault Tolerance is the only way to achieve maximum availability, ignoring its massive resource overhead and practical limitations.
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
✓
Enable vSphere HA and configure admission control to reserve resources for one host failure.
VSphere HA with admission control configured to reserve resources for one host failure ensures that if a host fails, the VMs can be restarted on the remaining hosts without overcommitting resources. This provides maximum availability for mission-critical applications while minimizing resource waste by only reserving enough capacity for a single host failure, not for multiple or all hosts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable vSphere DRS and set the migration threshold to the most aggressive setting.
Why it's wrong here
DRS is for load balancing, not for failover protection.
- ✓
Enable vSphere HA and configure admission control to reserve resources for one host failure.
Why this is correct
This provides the required availability while optimizing resource usage.
- ✗
Enable vSphere Fault Tolerance on all VMs in the cluster.
Why it's wrong here
FT is per-VM and has limitations (e.g., vCPU count), not a cluster-level availability feature.
- ✗
Configure vSphere Replication for all VMs to replicate to a secondary site.
Why it's wrong here
This is a disaster recovery solution, not for host failure within the cluster.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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