This guide provides an exhaustive question-and-answer repository curated for senior viva examinations and technical interviews on Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V Virtualization. Use the interactive filters or the search box below to jump to specific categories.
Q1
What is the primary difference between a Type-1 and Type-2 Hypervisor?
Answer: A Type-1 hypervisor (e.g. Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi) runs directly on bare-metal hardware beneath the OS kernel, achieving minimal virtualization overhead and direct hardware access. A Type-2 hypervisor (e.g. Oracle VirtualBox, VMware Workstation) runs as an application process on top of an existing host OS kernel.
Q2
Why must Generation-2 VMs in Hyper-V use SCSI controllers for boot?
Answer: Gen-2 VMs eliminate emulated legacy hardware (such as IDE controllers, PCI bridges, and floppy drives). They use UEFI firmware and communicate exclusively through high-speed synthetic VMBus device drivers, requiring the OS boot disk to attach to a synthetic SCSI controller.
Q3
What is Dynamic Memory in Hyper-V and how does Memory Weight affect contention?
Answer: Dynamic Memory adjusts RAM allocation based on real-time guest demand between configured
MinimumBytes and MaximumBytes. Memory Weight determines priority during host memory contention—VMs with higher weights receive priority allocation from the host pool over lower weighted VMs.
Q4
Explain the core difference between DAS, NAS, and SAN.
Answer:
- DAS (Direct Attached Storage): Disks directly wired to a single server motherboard (e.g. SATA, SAS, NVMe).
- NAS (Network Attached Storage): File-level storage accessible over standard TCP/IP using protocols like SMB/NFS.
- SAN (Storage Area Network): Block-level storage accessible over dedicated networks or TCP/IP using protocols like iSCSI or Fibre Channel, presenting remote LUNs as local raw unpartitioned disks.
Q5
What is an iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN) and what is its standard structure?
Answer: An IQN is a globally unique identifier for iSCSI nodes (targets and initiators). Standard format:
iqn.yyyy-mm.naming-authority:unique-name (for example: iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:srv-01-target-lab01).
Q6
What is the purpose of Reverse Lookup Zones in DNS and what record type do they store?
Answer: Reverse Lookup Zones map IP addresses back to Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs). They store PTR (Pointer) records within the special
in-addr.arpa domain hierarchy (e.g. 10.168.192.in-addr.arpa for 192.168.10.x).
Q7
How does IIS host multiple websites on a single IP address and Port 80?
Answer: Using Host Headers (the HTTP 1.1
Host: request header). The IIS HTTP.sys listener inspects the requested hostname (e.g. portal.lab.local vs www.lab.local) and routes traffic to the matching website binding.
Q8
What are DHCP Scope Options 003, 006, and 015?
Answer:
- Option 003: Router / Default Gateway IP address.
- Option 006: DNS Server IP address(es).
- Option 015: Domain Name (primary DNS suffix for single-label resolution).
Q9
Why is DHCP Authorization required in an Active Directory domain?
Answer: To prevent unauthorized ("Rogue") DHCP servers from handing out incorrect IP configurations, rogue gateways, or executing Man-in-the-Middle attacks. Unauthorized DHCP servers fail to start their service on domain subnets.
Q10
What is the PowerShell command to create an automated volume backup in Windows Server?
Answer:
wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:C:\Backups -include:C: -quiet -allCritical
Q11
What is the purpose of an Internal Virtual Switch in Hyper-V?
Answer: An Internal Virtual Switch permits network communication strictly between guest virtual machines and the management host operating system partition, without binding to physical network adapters or bridging traffic to external physical LANs.
Q12
What is the difference between Simple, Mirror, and Parity resiliency in Windows Storage Spaces?
Answer:
- Simple (RAID 0): Stripes data; highest throughput/capacity; 0 fault tolerance (loss of 1 disk destroys all data).
- Mirror (RAID 1/10): Duplicates data blocks (2-way needs 2+ disks, 3-way needs 5+ disks); survives disk loss.
- Parity (RAID 5): Calculates parity stripes across 3+ disks; optimizes capacity with 1-disk fault tolerance.
Q13
What is the role of SConfig in Windows Server Core?
Answer:
SConfig (Server Configuration Tool) is a built-in menu-driven CLI utility for baseline admin tasks (IP setup, computer rename, Windows updates, domain join, remote management) without needing a GUI or complex scripting.
Q14
How does Network Load Balancing (NLB) distribute client traffic in Unicast vs Multicast modes?
Answer: In Unicast mode, all cluster nodes replace their network adapter's MAC address with a single cluster MAC, preventing inter-node communication over that NIC. In Multicast mode, nodes keep their original MAC address and add a shared multicast MAC, allowing inter-node communication.
Q15
What is the difference between Authoritative and Non-Authoritative DNS servers?
Answer: An Authoritative DNS server holds the official primary/secondary master zone file containing resource records for a specific namespace (e.g.
lab.local). A Non-Authoritative server answers queries by recursively asking external authoritative servers and returns cached records.
Q16
What happens when a client computer cannot contact any DHCP Server?
Answer: The client OS invokes APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing), self-assigning an address in the
169.254.0.1 to 169.254.255.254 range with subnet mask 255.255.0.0 for local subnet communication only (no default gateway).
Q17
What are the three profiles in Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security?
Answer:
- Domain Profile: Applied when the host is connected to a network with an authenticated Active Directory domain controller.
- Private Profile: Applied to isolated home or enterprise trusted subnets.
- Public Profile: Applied to untrusted networks (Wi-Fi hotspots, public Internet) with the highest default inbound block restrictions.