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

To improve CPU performance for a virtual machine, which action could an administrator take?

1. Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the VM

2. Decrease the memory allocation to the VM

3. Limit the number of power operations on the host

4. Increase the number of virtual disks attached to the VM

The correct answer is: Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the VM

Increasing the number of vCPUs assigned to the virtual machine is a valid action that can directly improve CPU performance. By adding more virtual CPUs (vCPUs), the virtual machine can utilize more processing resources available on the underlying physical hardware, allowing it to handle multiple simultaneous threads more effectively. This can lead to better performance, especially for workloads that are designed to take advantage of multiple processors. It's important to note that simply adding vCPUs will have the most noticeable effect if the application's architecture can leverage parallel processing. If the application is single-threaded or does not efficiently use multiple CPU cores, then increasing the number of vCPUs may not yield significant performance improvements. Other options do not effectively target the CPU performance improvement directly. Reducing memory allocation, for instance, could lead to performance bottlenecks where the virtual machine doesn’t have enough RAM to operate efficiently. Limiting power operations on the host doesn’t directly impact CPU performance. Lastly, while having more virtual disks might help with I/O performance depending on workload, it does not inherently enhance CPU processing power.