Your Daily VMware quiz!

Essendon

You are likely aware of it already Tom, the SRA detects replicated LUN's and they show up in the Datastore Groups area in SRM for you - it doesnt actually replicate the LUN's, that's done by your arrays' replication mechanism.

tomtom1

Essendon wrote: »

You are likely aware of it already Tom, the SRA detects replicated LUN's and they show up in the Datastore Groups area in SRM for you - it doesnt actually replicate the LUN's, that's done by your arrays' replication mechanism.

Actually, no I wasn't. I don't have hands on with SRM, either in the lab or in production. Perhaps something to look at a bit later on..

Essendon

Question 24

Well we know that Dorothy has lost her job and due to the natural disaster the company doesnt have any money just yet to hire a new vAdmin. One of the company's systems administrator is tasked with recovering data from tape (thank God for tapes, the company will be able to recover their data albeit with the significant outage). The last known good backup was taken 8 hours before the cyclone hit the primary datacenter. The amount of time the business can be without their services without incurring significant losses is 6 hours. It's been estimated it would take 4 hours for them to recover lost data, recover from backlog and verify operational services.

- What are the RTO, RPO, Work Recovery Time and Maximum Tolerable Downtime values?

- What could've been done to have more recent data available?

- The RPO seems to be determined by the time it takes to take a full backup. What should it be determined instead by?

- The admin now responsible for recovering data from tape has suggested synchronous replication for all LUN's so no data is ever lost. Has he taken into account the fact that the secondary datacenter is in a city about 30 kms. away. What are some of the other considerations this dude needs to take into account?

tomtom1

RTO = The amount of time, usually in hours that is needed for the business to restore itself to the last available point of restore (RPO). In this case, the time needed to restore has been determined to be 4 hours.
RPO = The amount of time, usually in hours, a backup may old. In this case, the RPO has been determined to be 8 hours.
MTD = The amount of time, usually in hours, the business may lose the business services and still recover from this. MTD = 6 hours
WRT = The amount of time the business needs to fully recover from the disaster, after having restored the data from the RPO, in the time specified by the RTO. The fact that the IT services have been restored after the disaster, do not mean that the business is fully operational again. The WRT would be 2 hours.

The sum of MTD = RTO + WRT.

What could have been done to have more recent data would be to decrease the RPO period. That would mean backups would be made more frequently and (more) recent data is available in the event of a failover. RPO and RTO values should always be primarily driven by business requirements. A technical solution should adhere to business requirements, and not the other way around.

When the technical solution does not meet the business requirements, this could also be interpreted as a risk, and therefore needs to be mitigated.

When the other admin is doing synchronous replication, he should consider these factors:

• Latency
• Distance
• Link Speed

All of these factors implement, in the end, the speed at which the storage arrays can do their replication tasks.

Essendon

Yep, your RPO and RTO times should be driven by business continuity requirements not by the backups regime. Backups and their frequency should be guided by your business requirements too, not the other way around (like Tom said).

As for the values, here:

- RPO = 8 hours
- RTO = 6 hours
- WRT = 4 hours
- MTD = 10 hours (RTO + WRT)

tomtom1

Essendon wrote: »

The amount of time the business can be without their services without incurring significant losses is 6 hours (MTD?). It's been estimated it would take 4 hours for them to recover lost data, recover from backlog and verify operational services (WRT).


As for the values, here:

- RPO = 8 hours
- RTO = 6 hours
- WRT = 4 hours
- MTD = 10 hours (RTO + WRT)

Not 100% sure I agree, but that's why we're on a forum right? Following these numbers, if we say the maximum amount of downtime the business can have their application (MTD) without causing significant issues would be 6 hours, and it would take them 4 hours WRT, then it would mean that there is automatically 2 hours left for RTO.

Because MTD is the sum of RTO + WRT, and the MTD (6 hours) and the WRT (4 hours) is a given, we should have 2 hours for the RTO.

So it would still be the total of 6 I came up with, only with WRT and RTO switched. But if you can give me a compelling argument why the 10 hours MTD is correct, I'm all ears!

Essendon

Sure. 6 hours is how long it takes for them to recover their systems (which is the RTO, at this time the servers/VM's/applications/whatever are up and running but no data has been recovered yet) and then it takes them another 4 hours to recover data from backups and verify the data (this'll be the WRT). Then of course, the MTD is the sum of the RTO and WRT, making it 10 hours.

TBH, I thought exactly the way you provided the answer to the question. But check out the link I've posted about this topic in the VCAP5-DCD resources thread and that should clear things up further.

jibbajabba

A technical solution should adhere to business requirements, and not the other way around.

Wonder if that is always possible though. Business requirements surely include budget as well, and that is where technology sometimes dictates business needs.

tomtom1

jibbajabba wrote: »

Wonder if that is always possible though. Business requirements surely include budget as well, and that is where technology sometimes dictates business needs.

Then it would be a constraint (in VCAP-DCD terms) and if the budget (constraint) would cause a failure to meet the business requirements, it would be considered a risk. The business would then need to decide to either:

-> Drop or adjust the business requirement that clashes with the constraint.
-> Increase the budgetary constraint

@Essendon: correct?

jibbajabba

Ah makes sense. Funny, I did attend the design course back in 4.x days - but that was a glorified sales pitch , if anything .
My favorite phrase when talking to customers about budget is that every 9 after the comma of uptime, adds a "0" to the price before the comma

tomtom1

I'll come with a more advanced question tomorrow about some common misconceptions (It's 9PM here now)

tomtom1

Question 25:

Still following the same company we used to, the new admin, Richard, is wondering why Dorothy didn't bring more structure into the organizations vCenter environment. After all, wouldn't it be kinda nice to have the virtual machines grouped by their function, instead of just being a VM in a cluster?

This is what he came up with:


OK, nice, in the DR site we have the VM's grouped by their function, which mainly is production. However, the dr-vma virtual machine wasn't really a part of the production, it's more like a management tool, so Richard decided to keep it out of the resource pool for now.

1) What is the critical misunderstanding that Richard has for grouping virtual machines to create a better overview?
2) In doing so, what would be the effect in case of CPU contention?
3) What would be a better way to achieve overview?

kj0

tomtom1 wrote: »

Question 25:

Still following the same company we used to, the new admin, Richard, is wondering why Dorothy didn't bring more structure into the organizations vCenter environment. After all, wouldn't it be kinda nice to have the virtual machines grouped by their function, instead of just being a VM in a cluster?

This is what he came up with:


OK, nice, in the DR site we have the VM's grouped by their function, which mainly is production. However, the dr-vma virtual machine wasn't really a part of the production, it's more like a management tool, so Richard decided to keep it out of the resource pool for now.

1) What is the critical misunderstanding that Richard has for grouping virtual machines to create a better overview?
Richard has misunderstood what Resource Pools are used for - They aren't used as Folders
2) In doing so, what would be the effect in case of CPU contention?
Depending on if Richard has chaged any shares, the Vms will fight for CPU resources. Which can cause lethargic VMs
3) What would be a better way to achieve overview?
Under VMs and templates view you can create Folders

I think thats right.

tomtom1

Correct, but, for question number 2 I'd like a bit more detailed answers (i.e what will happen in times of contentions). The second screenshot posted should give you the information necessary to derive a conclusion.

kj0

tomtom1 wrote: »

Correct, but, for question number 2 I'd like a bit more detailed answers (i.e what will happen in times of contentions). The second screenshot posted should give you the information necessary to derive a conclusion.

(I missed the second screenshot. It looks like you have DRS enabled, but will not work due to the resource pool. (I'm missing something, aren't I...)

tomtom1

DRS will work fine with a resource pool. As a matter of fact, you need to have DRS enabled to create a resource pool. What I meant:

kj0 wrote: »

Depending on if Richard has chaged any shares, the Vms will fight for CPU resources. Which can cause lethargic VMs

The second screenshot provided you with all the info necessary. Tell me what wil happen if CPU contention were to occur on mini1? How will the resources be divided and what can you learn from the placement of the VM from this?

kj0

Do you meant that the DR-VMA will take precedence over the Resource pool? I was focusing on the resource pool.


You don't need DRS for the resource Pool, I've just created one without it. Wouldn't DRS not work for the resource pool as it is connected to a host? It wouldn't move all the VMs under it and because those VMs are tied to that RP.

tomtom1

kj0 wrote: »

Do you meant that the DR-VMA will take precedence over the Resource pool? I was focusing on the resource pool.

Yes, that would be what I was searching for. The full answer would be: In case of CPU contention, 50% of the available CPU resources go to dr-vma.vcaplab.local, and 50% of the CPU resources go to the production resource pool, which then needs to devide those CPU resources between the 3 virtual machines placed into the resource pool. So you see, placing virtual machines in a resource pool, and some out of the resource pool under the host itself can have tremendous effects on the share.

kj0 wrote: »

You don't need DRS for the resource Pool, I've just created one without it. Wouldn't DRS not work for the resource pool as it is connected to a host? It wouldn't move all the VMs under it and because those VMs are tied to that RP.

If you have the situation which I have, in which my host is part of a cluster, you need to have DRS enabled to create a cluster. If you try to disable the DRS functionality after having created a resource pool, you get a nice warning like this.



When you create a resource pool in a DRS-enabled cluster, the VM's inside that RP are not "bound" to the host. The shares, limits and reservations on the RP itself represent CPU and memory resources in the cluster, not of a specific host anymore. That is why, when you add a host to a cluster, that has a local resource pool, vCenter presents you with the option to graft the resource pools in. You get a message like this:



I don't know how far along your VCP studies are, but I hope this gives you a basic understanding of how RP integrate with clusters.

Essendon

Question 26

Richard, our new admin, has decided to persist with the use of resource pools in his cluster. To ensure all VM's are all siblings in the pool, he has dragged dr-vma.vcaplab.local into the Production resource pool. As the number of machines grow in the Production cluster and some contention begins to occur, Richard discovers that the dr-vma machine is getting more shares than other VM's. Why could this be happening, considering he didnt change any values after dragging it into the pool?

In addition, a System Manager walks up to him one fine day, asking him to reserve all her VM's memory. Now Richard really like this manager and there seems to be something going on between them, so to make her happy he agree to check the "reserve all guest memory" box for her. Overjoyed and starry-eyed the manager walks back to her desk with Richard's eyes following her. Anyways, what are the consequences to Richard's other VM's in the Production cluster. Should he have agreed to her request and what should he have asked her before blindly agreeing to the request?

kj0

The dr-vma maintains it's previous setting of "High" over the "Low" settings that are already assigned to the Resource Pool.

Richard should have asked her out on a date before he has to clean up the mess he has created - Now he has no chance with her.

The VMs (depending on if they have a reservation set prior) would
A. Not turn on.
B. Go straight on to the swap file.

tomtom1

Nice answer Keiran, but a nice addition would be: He should have investigated whether the VM uses this memory at a constant pace. Whilst I'd stay away from reservations in general if they're not needed, they aren't necessary a bad thing if the resources that are being reserved are actually used. Windows for example has the nasty habit of touching all memory in the boot process. Once the memory is touched, with a reservation, it cannot be used to satisfy needs for other virtual machines anymore.

Since we can't see the settings of the RP, we can assume that an expandable reservation is enabled (default). This allows the resource pool to steal resources from it's top level resource pool. Even a resource pool with no parent resource pool can steal resources from the host itself, which in fact is one big resource pool.

Essendon

Yep, Windows has that habit of touching all memory when booting while Linux doesn't. On any VMware exam, pay particular attention to the OS of the guest OS when you answer questions involving reservations.

As for expandable reservation, note that it allows the child resource pool to borrow (or steal, if you like) resources from the parent resource pool to satisfy reservations set on a VM. Read that again - pay attention to "satisfy reservations". It doesn't ask for resources just because a VM suddenly needs more than its reservation. If no VM has a reservation set, "expandable reservation" doesn't do anything.

So if a resource pool has 6GB RAM available to dish out to its VM's, you can power on one VM with say 4GB RAM but the moment you try to power up another VM with 4GB RAM - you'll be greeted with a nice big red error message saying you cant power on your VM.

Another thing - continuing the above example, the resource pool wont prevent you creating a VM with say 16GB RAM. You can create whatever you fancy, but it wont let you power it on if you go beyond what's available.

kj0

Just searching blogs for specific items I feel I need a bit of a better understanding for, and came across this for Resource Pools. Understanding Resource Pools in VMware vSphere | Wahl Network

Essendon

Great resource there kj0, ensure you lab it up (I'm sure your doing it already) to make it sink in. Some of this stuff doesnt always make sense until you actually do and see it for yourself.

Essendon

Bringing down the difficulty and providing a larger number of questions so folks can have some more practice.

Question 27

a). Richard is looking at a datastore and observes that the there's a huge discrepancy between provisioned size and actual size of a .vmdk file. The provisioned size says 600GB while the actual size is 70GB.

It's a thin provisioned disk.

b). This time Richard needs to change the SMTP server that vCenter will use to send out notifications. Where will he change this setting?

Go to your vCenter > Administration > vCenter Server Settings > Mail (this is for the C# client). Check kj0's answer for the Web Client.

c). Richard has been observing that when he needs to provision a new datastore, he's able to see LUN's that are reference to by RDM's that he's already using. How can he ensure that he and his other fellow admins not see them when provisioning a new datastore?

This wont happen with the use of LUN masking. If you were to mask a LUN, it wont be visible to the host. You only want it to not show up in the list of available LUN's to be able to provision a datastore. So you'd go into the vCenter server's advanced settings and enter in the following filter > config.vpxd.filter.rdmFilter

d). Richard has discovered that VUM is a nifty little tool that he can use to update his hosts. So he goes off and installs VUM and sure enough the VUM plugin shows up as available to download. Upon downloading the plugin and setting up VUM, he's been told that the VUM server will not have a direct connection to the Internet. How can he download his updates?

In cases where the VUM cant get out to the Internet to download updates, for security reasons perhaps, your best/easiest choice is a little utility called UMDS. More information here > https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.update_manager.doc/GUID-AB1032CF-2C9A-44E5-94BA-216396F167F9.html

e). Continuing question d). - he's got this remote site that doesnt have any Internet connection and a very flaky network connection to the main site. How can send his patches/updates to the remote site's ESXi servers?

He can download the patches to a .zip file and have that transported over to his remote site. Care must be taken to ensure you keep an eye on available space where you download your patches to. The default location is the C drive of your VUM (I believe!) and you dont want it to fill up completely for obvious reasons.

f). Richard's manager has asked him to find out if there are any idle connections to his vCenter server. Where can he find this info?

vCenter > Administration area > Sessions

g). Is there a way Richard can send a broadcast message to all logged on vCenter admins that the server will be going down for maintenance in the evening?

Same location as above. Compose a message in the box and click change.

h). Richard is fed up of seeing the Getting Started tab. Can he get rid of this tab for every object in his clusters.

vCenter > Edit > Client Settings > Tabs > uncheck Show Getting Started Tabs

i). His manager has asked him to generate a report that shows the assigned IP addresses of all VM's running in a cluster. Is there a way he can generate a nice report?

Check kj0's answer to this question. Spot on. The only problem with this is you only see one IP address per VM. What if a VM's part of an MSCS cluster? Then your VM's going to have more than one IP addresses. The only way to get around that is to cook up a PowerCLI script somehow to get this information.

j). One of Richard's junior admins has created a new VM called VM1 and assigned it an available IP address in the same subnet as other VM's. But the admin reports that VM1 is unable to contact the domain controllers when she tries to join it to the domain. Why could this be happening?

Well, there could be a number of reasons. But at the vCenter level, you gotta make sure the VM's on a port group that can get to the domain controllers. Not necessarily the same IP subnet as the DC's, but be able to hit the DC's. Within the guest OS, you should look at the configured DNS server and the def g/w if the DC's on a different subnet.

k). Richard's FC SAN administrator has provisioned a new LUN so Richard can SvMotion off some vmdk's to a new datastore. Richard goes in and scans a host for New Storage Devices. The scan comes up as completed. Next, he goes into scan the second host in the cluster which also completes successfully. But when he goes in and tried to create a new datastore, the new disk doesnt show up in the available devices list. Why might this be happening?

Something's up with the zoning/masking at the array level. You should check with the SAN admin to ensure the host's WWNN/WWPN is in the right zone and that the LUN is not masked out.


l). Richard needs to check the temperature of the system board of his ESXi host. So he goes into the Hardware Status tab but sees nothing there. Why?

The plugin's missing. Click on Plugins > download and install the vCenter Hardware Status plugin. It's also possible that the service hasnt started (unlikely) or the right ports aint open in the firewall (more likely).

m). Richard's been looking at the HA Advanced Runtime Info of his cluster and he discovers the following info:



Why is there a difference between the total host and total good hosts in cluster?

The total hosts in the cluster is just, the total number of hosts. Good hosts are ones that are connected, not in maintenance and free of HA errors.

Why are the number of available slots = 0 while the number of failover slots = 35. Can Richard power on a new VM?

Richard will not be able to power on a VM because there are no available slots for the VM to be placed into. The two hosts in the cluster have different specifications and the larger host in the cluster is not yet participating in HA activities.

n). Your admin Richard has discovered that your cluster's been doing too many vMotion operations during the day. Why? What can he do to decrease the number of vMotion's?

He should tone down DRS's aggressiveness, perhaps to the middle of the scale.

o). What will the following setting do?



This will suppress the warning for the lack of the minimum number of Heartbeat Datastores, which is 2. I dont know where you'd do this, these datastores dont usually use much space, just a few GB will take care of your datastore heartbeating needs.


p). Check the following screenshot. When would you set the MAC address setting to Manual?



- There could be more than 256 vNIC's
- There's a conflict with another VM
- There's a requirement for a VM to have a static MAC. A VM may not retain the same MAC after being powered up on a different host and get a different MAC. There could be licenses issued to specific MAC's.


q). Richard needs to bump up the RAM on a VM. He right click on it and clicks on Edit Settings and discovers the following:



Why can he not increase the RAM and what should he do it be able to do this on-the-fly in the future?

The VM's powered on and the option to hot-add isnt enable. Note the "hot-add" term in there, you cannot "hot-subtract".

r). Richard sees the following when he goes to the Summary tab of a VM. Why cant he see the IP address, even though the VM is powered on?



The VMware Tools service isnt running.

kj0

Essendon wrote: »

Bringing down the difficulty and providing a larger number of questions so folks can have some more practice.

Question 27

a). Richard is looking at a datastore and observes that the there's a huge discrepancy between provisioned size and actual size of a .vmdk file. The provisioned size says 600GB while the actual size is 70GB.

Why?

Why, well there are two possible reasons. If he has the VMDK set up as Thick Provisioned Lazy Zero then he is seeing the size currently Zero'd out (That has data) and the total space acquired.
Second, it is thin provision and the 530Gb extra has not been reclaimed, This can be reclaimed by logging on to the datastore via ESXi (SSH) and running vmfstools --punchzero

b). This time Richard needs to change the SMTP server that vCenter will use to send out notifications. Where will he change this setting?

Richard will find these settings by clicking on the vCenter link > Manage Tab > General link > Click "edit" in the top corner > Select Mail


c). Richard has been observing that when he needs to provision a new datastore, he's able to see LUN's that are reference to by RDM's that he's already using. How can he ensure that he and his other fellow admins not see them when provisioning a new datastore?

Richard can use LUN masking to hide the LUNs

d). Richard has discovered that VUM is a nifty little tool that he can use to update his hosts. So he goes off and installs VUM and sure enough the VUM plugin shows up as available to download. Upon downloading the plugin and setting up VUM, he's been told that the VUM server will not have a direct connection to the Internet. How can he download his updates?

Richard can download his updates as a zip file and install them via the CLI.

e). Continuing question d). - he's got this remote site that doesnt have any Internet connection and a very flaky network connection to the main site. How can send his patches/updates to the remote site's ESXi servers?

f). Richard's manager has asked him to find out if there are any idle connections to his vCenter server. Where can he find this info?

Richard can find idle sessions under vCenter Server link > Manage Tab > Sessions

g). Is there a way Richard can send a broadcast message to all logged on vCenter admins that the server will be going down for maintenance in the evening?

You can send a Message of the Day to all Logged on users

h). Richard is fed up of seeing the Getting Started tab. Can he get rid of this tab for every object in his clusters.

He can get rid of this tab by clicking on the Getting Started Tab and clicking the cross in the top right hand corner of the main window.

i). His manager has asked him to generate a report that shows the assigned IP addresses of all VM's running in a cluster. Is there a way he can generate a nice report?

If Richard clicks on Cluster > Related Objects > Virtual Machines > Objects (bottom right hand corner) > select IP address > Generate CSV he can create a CSV to print out with the report, or view onscreen in vCenter Web Client.

j). One of Richard's junior admins has created a new VM called VM1 and assigned it an available IP address in the same subnet as other VM's. But the admin reports that VM1 is unable to contact the domain controllers when she tries to join it to the domain. Why could this be happening?

In the guest OS, the jnr needs to assign the correct DNS server that points to the DC

k). Richard's FC SAN administrator has provisioned a new LUN so Richard can SvMotion off some vmdk's to a new datastore. Richard goes in and scans a host for New Storage Devices. The scan comes up as completed. Next, he goes into scan the second host in the cluster which also completes successfully. But when he goes in and tried to create a new datastore, the new disk doesnt show up in the available devices list. Why might this be happening?

The SAN administrator has not assigned the WWN of the ESXi host to the allow list. The ESXi host is blocked from seeing any LUNs/Devices.

l). Richard needs to check the temperature of the system board of his ESXi host. So he goes into the Hardware Status tab but sees nothing there. Why?

If Richard can not see information in the hardware tab either the CIM service isn't started, or the port 427/5989 is blocked.

m). Richard's been looking at the HA Advanced Runtime Info of his cluster and he discovers the following info:



Why is there a difference between the total host and total good hosts in cluster?
Why are the number of available slots = 0 while the number of failover slots = 35. Can Richard power on a new VM?

n). Your admin Richard has discovered that your cluster's been doing too many vMotion operations during the day. Why? What can he do to decrease the number of vMotion's?

With multiple vMotions occurring during the day, this can put contention on several components of the environment. Under the Advanced Settings for the vCenter, you can set a maximum cost for the Hosts, Network or Storage.

o). What will the following setting do?



Datastore Hearbeat requires a minimum 2 Datastores, this setting of "true" will prevent a warning appearing to let you know that you do not meat the required 2 nodes.

p). Check the following screenshot. When would you set the MAC address setting to Manual?



Having the opportunity to change the MAC address can come in handy if there is ever a mac address conflict, or if the current Mac address is blocked (If Mac Address Changes is not rejected)

q). Richard needs to bump up the RAM on a VM. He right click on it and clicks on Edit Settings and discovers the following:



Why can he not increase the RAM and what should he do it be able to do this on-the-fly in the future?

Presuming the VM is running in this screenshot, he needs to enable Memory Hot Plug when the Vm is next turned off.

r). Richard sees the following when he goes to the Summary tab of a VM. Why cant he see the IP address, even though the VM is powered on?


This occurs when isolation.tools.setinfo.disable is set to true in the VM configuration Paramaters.

HAHA, Thanks bud, Just what I needed. The ones in Blue I have to go back and read through and find out. But that's good.

kj0

Updated - Hopefully I'll find the answer for the other two.

tomtom1

@kj0: A quick review, not able to go through them all now:

kj0 wrote: »

d). Richard has discovered that VUM is a nifty little tool that he can use to update his hosts. So he goes off and installs VUM and sure enough the VUM plugin shows up as available to download. Upon downloading the plugin and setting up VUM, he's been told that the VUM server will not have a direct connection to the Internet. How can he download his updates?Richard can download his updates as a zip file and install them via the CLI.

Although technical correct, UMDS would be a better fit.

kj0 wrote: »

n). Your admin Richard has discovered that your cluster's been doing too many vMotion operations during the day. Why? What can he do to decrease the number of vMotion's?With multiple vMotions occurring during the day, this can put contention on several components of the environment. Under the Advanced Settings for the vCenter, you can set a maximum cost for the Hosts, Network or Storage.

Assuming DRS is enabled and in fully automated: Why not lower the DRS migration threshold? Much simpeler.

kj0 wrote: »

r). Richard sees the following when he goes to the Summary tab of a VM. Why cant he see the IP address, even though the VM is powered on?
This occurs when isolation.tools.setinfo.disable is set to true in the VM configuration Paramaters.

Did you check the status of the VMware tools in the screenshot?

I'll see if I can go through the rest later for you.

tomtom1

A few questions, I'll see if I can throw up some more later today.

Question 28

a) A static route on your ESXi hosts is necessary to allow traffic flow between the local site and a remote site via an IPSec VPN connection. How would you create the static route (N.B. Setting the default gateway will not suffice).

b) You have a cluster host which shows the following error:

Since you will be adding extra NICs to the hosts next month, the warning can be ignored for now. How would you make this warning temporarily go away?

Essendon

Come on folks, take a shot at answering these questions. No minus points for incorrect/partially correct answers! We all stand to learn.