VCP-DCV vSphere Performance and Scaling Practice Question
An ESXi host experiences high memory ballooning in virtual machines. The administrator checks the host's memory metrics and sees a high swap rate. The host has 512 GB of memory, and the VMs are configured with memory reservations. Which configuration is most likely contributing to the excessive swapping?
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
✓
Memory overcommitment is high, and some VMs have large memory reservations.
High memory overcommitment combined with large memory reservations can force the hypervisor to swap memory from VMs that have not reserved enough, even if those VMs are ballooning. When VMs have large reservations, the host must guarantee that memory, which can exacerbate swap activity when total demand exceeds physical memory. Option A is incorrect because memory shares affect proportional distribution during contention, not ballooning or swapping directly. Option C is incorrect because NUMA interleaving affects memory locality and performance, not memory pressure or swapping. Option D is incorrect because Transparent Page Sharing reduces memory usage and can actually lower swap activity, not cause 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.
- ✗
Memory shares are set too low for the VMs experiencing ballooning.
Why it's wrong here
Shares affect proportional distribution of unused memory, not swapping.
- ✓
Memory overcommitment is high, and some VMs have large memory reservations.
Why this is correct
Reservations guarantee memory, but when overcommitted, the host may swap out other VMs to satisfy reservations.
- ✗
The host is configured for NUMA interleaving, causing memory access delays.
Why it's wrong here
NUMA interleaving does not cause swapping.
- ✗
Transparent Page Sharing (TPS) is enabled and is aggressively sharing memory pages.
Why it's wrong here
TPS reduces memory usage, not increases swapping.
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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.