300 Questions and Answers
1. What is Cohesity DataPlatform? Answer: Cohesity DataPlatform is a
hyperconverged secondary storage solution that consolidates backup, archive,
file services, object storage, dev/test, and analytics workloads on a single, web-
scale platform.
2. What are the key components of Cohesity architecture? Answer: Node
hardware, Cohesity OS (SpanFS distributed file system), web-based
management interface, and REST APIs for integration and automation.
3. What is SpanFS? Answer: SpanFS is Cohesity's distributed file system that
provides global deduplication, compression, encryption, and scales across all
nodes in the cluster.
4. What are the minimum hardware requirements for a Cohesity cluster?
Answer: Minimum 3 nodes for production deployment, with each node
containing CPU, memory, network interfaces, and storage (HDD/SSD
combination).
5. What is a Cohesity View? Answer: A View is a logical mount point that
provides NFS or SMB access to data stored on the Cohesity cluster, enabling
file services functionality.
6. What protocols does Cohesity support for file services? Answer: NFS
v3/v4, SMB 2.1/3.0/3.1, and S3 protocol for object storage access.
7. What is the purpose of Cohesity's global deduplication? Answer: Global
deduplication eliminates duplicate data blocks across the entire cluster, reducing
storage requirements and improving efficiency.
8. How does Cohesity handle data compression? Answer: Cohesity uses
inline compression algorithms to reduce data size before writing to disk,
improving storage efficiency and performance.
,9. What encryption methods does Cohesity support? Answer: AES-256
encryption for data at rest and in transit, with support for both software-based
and hardware-based encryption.
10. What is a Protection Group in Cohesity? Answer: A Protection Group is
a collection of data sources (VMs, physical servers, databases) that are backed
up together using the same policy and schedule.
11. What is the Cohesity Marketplace? Answer: The Cohesity Marketplace is
a collection of applications and services that can be deployed on the Cohesity
platform to extend functionality.
12. What is SnapTree technology? Answer: SnapTree is Cohesity's snapshot
technology that creates space-efficient, instantly accessible point-in-time copies
of data.
13. How does Cohesity handle node failures? Answer: Cohesity uses
distributed architecture with data replication across nodes, automatically healing
and rebalancing data when nodes fail.
14. What is the minimum replication factor in Cohesity? Answer: The
default replication factor is 2, meaning each data block is stored on at least 2
different nodes for fault tolerance.
15. What is Cohesity Iris? Answer: Cohesity Iris is the analytics and search
engine that indexes all data on the cluster, enabling fast search and classification
capabilities.
16. What are the benefits of Cohesity's web-scale architecture? Answer:
Linear scaling, no single points of failure, simplified management, and the
ability to run multiple workloads on the same infrastructure.
17. What is a Virtual IP (VIP) in Cohesity? Answer: A Virtual IP is a shared
IP address that provides high availability for client access to Views and
services, automatically failing over between nodes.
18. How does Cohesity handle software updates? Answer: Rolling upgrades
that update one node at a time while maintaining cluster availability and service
continuity.
19. What is the purpose of Cohesity's REST API? Answer: The REST API
enables programmatic management, automation, and integration with third-
party tools and workflows.
, 20. What is a Cohesity tenant? Answer: A tenant is a logical organization unit
that provides multi-tenancy capabilities, allowing isolation of data and
management between different groups.
21. What storage types can Cohesity integrate with? Answer: Local storage
(HDD/SSD), cloud storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud), and NFS-
mounted external storage.
22. What is the Cohesity Cluster Virtual Edition (CVE)? Answer: CVE is a
software-only version of Cohesity that runs on virtual machines in VMware,
Hyper-V, or other virtualization platforms.
23. How does Cohesity handle data locality? Answer: Data is automatically
placed on the most appropriate storage tier based on access patterns, age, and
performance requirements.
24. What is the purpose of Cohesity's quality of service (QoS)? Answer:
QoS controls resource allocation and prioritization to ensure critical workloads
receive adequate performance and resources.
25. What backup sources can Cohesity protect? Answer: VMware vSphere,
Microsoft Hyper-V, physical servers, databases (SQL Server, Oracle,
PostgreSQL), cloud workloads, and NAS devices.
26. What is Cohesity DataGovern? Answer: DataGovern is Cohesity's data
classification and governance solution that helps organizations understand and
manage their data.
27. How does Cohesity handle network configuration? Answer: Support for
multiple network interfaces, VLANs, link aggregation, and both IPv4 and IPv6
addressing.
28. What is the Cohesity Support Channel? Answer: A secure
communication channel that allows Cohesity support to remotely diagnose and
resolve issues without accessing customer data.
29. What is erasure coding in Cohesity? Answer: An advanced data
protection method that provides higher storage efficiency than replication while
maintaining fault tolerance.
30. How does Cohesity handle time synchronization? Answer: Integration
with NTP servers to ensure accurate timestamps across all cluster nodes for
consistency and compliance.
31. What is the Cohesity Agent? Answer: Software installed on protected
systems to facilitate backup, recovery, and management operations.
1. What is Cohesity DataPlatform? Answer: Cohesity DataPlatform is a
hyperconverged secondary storage solution that consolidates backup, archive,
file services, object storage, dev/test, and analytics workloads on a single, web-
scale platform.
2. What are the key components of Cohesity architecture? Answer: Node
hardware, Cohesity OS (SpanFS distributed file system), web-based
management interface, and REST APIs for integration and automation.
3. What is SpanFS? Answer: SpanFS is Cohesity's distributed file system that
provides global deduplication, compression, encryption, and scales across all
nodes in the cluster.
4. What are the minimum hardware requirements for a Cohesity cluster?
Answer: Minimum 3 nodes for production deployment, with each node
containing CPU, memory, network interfaces, and storage (HDD/SSD
combination).
5. What is a Cohesity View? Answer: A View is a logical mount point that
provides NFS or SMB access to data stored on the Cohesity cluster, enabling
file services functionality.
6. What protocols does Cohesity support for file services? Answer: NFS
v3/v4, SMB 2.1/3.0/3.1, and S3 protocol for object storage access.
7. What is the purpose of Cohesity's global deduplication? Answer: Global
deduplication eliminates duplicate data blocks across the entire cluster, reducing
storage requirements and improving efficiency.
8. How does Cohesity handle data compression? Answer: Cohesity uses
inline compression algorithms to reduce data size before writing to disk,
improving storage efficiency and performance.
,9. What encryption methods does Cohesity support? Answer: AES-256
encryption for data at rest and in transit, with support for both software-based
and hardware-based encryption.
10. What is a Protection Group in Cohesity? Answer: A Protection Group is
a collection of data sources (VMs, physical servers, databases) that are backed
up together using the same policy and schedule.
11. What is the Cohesity Marketplace? Answer: The Cohesity Marketplace is
a collection of applications and services that can be deployed on the Cohesity
platform to extend functionality.
12. What is SnapTree technology? Answer: SnapTree is Cohesity's snapshot
technology that creates space-efficient, instantly accessible point-in-time copies
of data.
13. How does Cohesity handle node failures? Answer: Cohesity uses
distributed architecture with data replication across nodes, automatically healing
and rebalancing data when nodes fail.
14. What is the minimum replication factor in Cohesity? Answer: The
default replication factor is 2, meaning each data block is stored on at least 2
different nodes for fault tolerance.
15. What is Cohesity Iris? Answer: Cohesity Iris is the analytics and search
engine that indexes all data on the cluster, enabling fast search and classification
capabilities.
16. What are the benefits of Cohesity's web-scale architecture? Answer:
Linear scaling, no single points of failure, simplified management, and the
ability to run multiple workloads on the same infrastructure.
17. What is a Virtual IP (VIP) in Cohesity? Answer: A Virtual IP is a shared
IP address that provides high availability for client access to Views and
services, automatically failing over between nodes.
18. How does Cohesity handle software updates? Answer: Rolling upgrades
that update one node at a time while maintaining cluster availability and service
continuity.
19. What is the purpose of Cohesity's REST API? Answer: The REST API
enables programmatic management, automation, and integration with third-
party tools and workflows.
, 20. What is a Cohesity tenant? Answer: A tenant is a logical organization unit
that provides multi-tenancy capabilities, allowing isolation of data and
management between different groups.
21. What storage types can Cohesity integrate with? Answer: Local storage
(HDD/SSD), cloud storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud), and NFS-
mounted external storage.
22. What is the Cohesity Cluster Virtual Edition (CVE)? Answer: CVE is a
software-only version of Cohesity that runs on virtual machines in VMware,
Hyper-V, or other virtualization platforms.
23. How does Cohesity handle data locality? Answer: Data is automatically
placed on the most appropriate storage tier based on access patterns, age, and
performance requirements.
24. What is the purpose of Cohesity's quality of service (QoS)? Answer:
QoS controls resource allocation and prioritization to ensure critical workloads
receive adequate performance and resources.
25. What backup sources can Cohesity protect? Answer: VMware vSphere,
Microsoft Hyper-V, physical servers, databases (SQL Server, Oracle,
PostgreSQL), cloud workloads, and NAS devices.
26. What is Cohesity DataGovern? Answer: DataGovern is Cohesity's data
classification and governance solution that helps organizations understand and
manage their data.
27. How does Cohesity handle network configuration? Answer: Support for
multiple network interfaces, VLANs, link aggregation, and both IPv4 and IPv6
addressing.
28. What is the Cohesity Support Channel? Answer: A secure
communication channel that allows Cohesity support to remotely diagnose and
resolve issues without accessing customer data.
29. What is erasure coding in Cohesity? Answer: An advanced data
protection method that provides higher storage efficiency than replication while
maintaining fault tolerance.
30. How does Cohesity handle time synchronization? Answer: Integration
with NTP servers to ensure accurate timestamps across all cluster nodes for
consistency and compliance.
31. What is the Cohesity Agent? Answer: Software installed on protected
systems to facilitate backup, recovery, and management operations.
