VCP-DCV vSphere Performance and Scaling Practice Question
Which TWO factors contribute to increased CPU ready time on a vSphere host?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse memory over-commitment (ballooning) with CPU over-commitment, or mistakenly think that CPU affinity always reduces ready time, when in fact it can increase ready time if not used carefully due to load imbalance and reduced scheduler flexibility.
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
✓
Over-provisioning of vCPUs relative to physical cores.
Over-provisioning vCPUs relative to physical cores leads to contention for CPU resources. When the total number of vCPUs across all powered-on VMs exceeds the number of logical processors (including hyper-threads), the ESXi scheduler must time-share access, resulting in increased ready time as VMs wait for a physical core to become available.
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 ballooning due to memory over-commitment.
Why it's wrong here
Ballooning affects memory, not CPU.
- ✓
Over-provisioning of vCPUs relative to physical cores.
Why this is correct
Too many vCPUs cause contention and ready time.
- ✗
Using CPU affinity to pin VMs to specific cores.
Why it's wrong here
Affinity can reduce ready time by preventing migration.
- ✓
Enabling hyper-threading on hosts that already have high vCPU-to-core ratios.
Why this is correct
HT can increase contention because logical processors share cores.
- ✗
High disk latency on the datastore.
Why it's wrong here
Disk latency does not cause CPU ready time.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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