Palo Alto Networks (PANW) System Engineer (PSE) Practice Exam

In PAN-OS 10.2, what significant change was made regarding VM-Series deployment?

1. Increased session limits

2. Dependence on specific VM hardware

3. Transition to vCPU-based deployment

4. Improved physical hardware compatibility

The correct answer is: Transition to vCPU-based deployment

The transition to vCPU-based deployment in PAN-OS 10.2 is a significant change that improves the flexibility and efficiency of deploying VM-Series firewalls. This shift means that the performance and resource allocation can now be directly associated with virtual CPUs (vCPUs), which allows a more straightforward scaling of resources according to the demands of the network environment. This approach is particularly beneficial in virtualized environments where workloads can change dynamically, as it allows administrators to allocate resources more efficiently. By adopting vCPU-based deployment, PAN-OS 10.2 enhances the ability to fine-tune resource allocation, leading to better overall performance, especially in environments requiring high levels of throughput or handling a large number of concurrent sessions. In contrast, changes related to session limits, hardware dependencies, or physical hardware compatibility are not as critical or transformative as the move to vCPU-based deployment. Each of those aspects is relevant to system performance or compatibility, but they do not represent the fundamental shift in deployment strategy that the vCPU model does.