VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV) Practice Exam

Which configuration option might lead to network connectivity issues between virtual machines?

1. VLANs of the physical NICs

2. Traffic shaping on the portgroup

3. Failover order of the uplinks

4. Security policy of the portgroup

The correct answer is: VLANs of the physical NICs

Choosing VLANs of the physical NICs as the configuration option that might lead to network connectivity issues between virtual machines is correct. VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) are used to segment network traffic, and if virtual machines are configured on different VLANs, they may not be able to communicate with each other directly. This is because VLANs provide a logical separation of traffic; devices on different VLANs require routing to communicate, which is not inherently available within a virtual switch context. If VLANs are not appropriately set and virtual machines that need to communicate are assigned to different VLANs, this could result in communication breakdowns and create connectivity issues. Hence, proper VLAN configuration is critical to ensure that virtual machines can interact as intended, especially within environments where they need to share resources or functionalities. The other options relate to aspects of networking configurations that typically do not directly block communications between virtual machines on the same logical network. For instance, traffic shaping can manage bandwidth but does not inherently cause connectivity issues. Similarly, the failover order of the uplinks manages high availability rather than direct communication, and security policies primarily impose restrictions that would generally apply to all machines in the portgroup, but do not affect VLAN segmentation directly.