VCP-DCV vSphere Performance and Scaling Practice Question
A vSphere environment experiences periodic performance degradation during peak business hours. Analysis shows that one ESXi host's CPU ready time for a specific mission-critical VM is consistently above 20%. Which corrective action should be taken first?
⚠ Common exam trap
VCP-DCV often tests the misconception that adding vCPUs or raising limits fixes CPU performance, when in fact CPU ready time is a host-contention symptom best resolved by reducing contention or migrating the VM.
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
✓
Migrate the VM to a different host with lower CPU utilization
CPU ready time above 20% indicates the VM is waiting for physical CPU resources because the host is overcommitted or contended. The first corrective action should be to migrate the VM to a less-utilized host (vMotion), which immediately relieves contention without changing the VM's configuration. This addresses the root cause — host-level CPU contention — rather than masking it.
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 VM's memory reservation
Why it's wrong here
Memory reservation guarantees RAM allocation but does nothing to reduce the scheduling delay that CPU ready time measures. It is tempting because reservation sounds like a performance fix, and it would be correct when the VM suffers memory ballooning or swapping rather than CPU contention.
- ✗
Set a higher CPU limit on the VM
Why it's wrong here
A CPU limit caps the VM's consumption and can throttle it, which does not reduce ready time and may worsen it. It is tempting because limits sound like control, and it would be correct when one VM must be prevented from monopolising host CPU.
- ✓
Migrate the VM to a different host with lower CPU utilization
Why this is correct
Migrating the VM to a host with lower CPU utilisation directly reduces the scheduling delay causing high CPU ready time. CPU ready measures the time a vCPU waits for a physical core; moving the VM to a less contended host lowers the ready percentage, addressing the peak-hour degradation constraint without altering VM configuration.
- ✗
Add more vCPUs to the VM
Why it's wrong here
Adding vCPUs increases the number of runnable threads competing for physical cores, which raises CPU ready time further rather than lowering it. It is tempting because more vCPUs appear to add capacity, and it would be correct when a VM is genuinely CPU-bound with low ready time.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official VMware exam blueprint
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.