NCP-EUC Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6.5Exam Questions and Answers

one of the possible ways to optimize the virtual desktop environment is to verify if VAAI plugin is running. VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration) is a technology that enables VMware ESXi hosts to offload storage operations to Nutanix storage controllers. This can improve performance and efficiency of cloning, migrating, and snapshotting virtual machines234.

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-ncp-euc-v6

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-daas/install-configure/machine-catalogs-create.html

A gold image is a master image that contains the operating system, drivers, patches, and configurations for a virtual desktop. A non-persistent Citrix MCS environment is one where virtual desktops are created from a gold image and discarded after each user session.

Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS) is a tool that uses a gold image to create and manage virtual machines for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environments. MCS can create different types of machines, such as pooled random, static assigned, or dedicated2.

One of the challenges of using MCS is managing multiple gold images for different user groups or application needs. Updating multiple gold images can be time-consuming and error-prone. Therefore, it is recommended to use a single base image without any applications and leverage another tool such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to deliver applications dynamically to the cloned virtual desktops3.

This approach can simplify image management, reduce storage consumption, improve performance, and enhance user experience. SCCM can also provide additional features such as patch management, compliance enforcement, inventory reporting, etc.3

Citrix NetScaler VPX is a virtual appliance that provides web and application load balancing, secure and remote access, acceleration, security and offload features1. To set up and configure a Citrix NetScaler VPX appliance, you need to download it from the Citrix website, install it on a hypervisor such as Citrix XenServer or Microsoft Azure23, and log on to the console using the nsroot credentials2.

To expose the Citrix NetScaler VPX private VIP to the internet in order for users to be able to access the Citrix VDI desktops upon a DR failover, one possible solution is to use a floating IP address. A floating IP address is an IP address that can be dynamically assigned to an instance by using API calls. It allows you to redirect network traffic from one instance to another without changing any DNS settings or client configuration.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=TN-2041-Nutanix-Files:file-server-virtual-machines.html

https://next.nutanix.com/files-storage-71/command-line-access-to-nutanix-file-server-vm-fsvm-via-ssh-nutanix-files-33420

The file server VM (FSVM) is a virtual machine that runs on Nutanix Files and provides file services such as SMB shares and NFS exports. The FSVM is based on CentOS and incorporates all the security and hardening that goes into the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM)2. The CVM is a virtual machine that runs on each node of a Nutanix cluster and provides storage management, data protection, cluster coordination, and other services3.

The FSVMs have some default configuration settings that can be changed depending on your workload requirements. For example, you can change the number of vCPUs, RAM, network interfaces, or disk size of an FSVM2. However, you should not change these settings without consulting Nutanix Support first.

One of the factors that affects the performance of an FSVM is its memory allocation. The more memory an FSVM has, the more cache it can use for file operations. This can improve the throughput and latency of file serving workloads4. Therefore, increasing the FSVM RAM to 96GB can help optimize its performance for a large number of users.

This is because this option will allow the administrator to use Citrix Director to reset user profiles on a Nutanix Files share that provides high performance, scalability, and resilience3.

Citrix Profile Management is a solution that allows administrators to manage user profiles and settings across different devices and sessions12. Nutanix Files is a software-defined file storage solution that provides high performance and scalability for file data12. Nutanix Files supports all forms of profile management with efficient metadata caching techniques that optimize for faster VDI logon times12. Nutanix Files offers two types of shares: standard shares and distributed shares3. Standard shares are hosted on a single file server, while distributed shares are hosted on multiple file servers for load balancing and high availability3.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops:BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops

The CPU usage percentage indicates how much of the allocated CPU resources the virtual desktop is consuming.

A high CPU usage percentage means that the virtual desktop is using a lot of CPU resources, which can affect the performance of other virtual desktops on the same host or cluster.

According to Nutanix best practices, the recommended CPU usage percentage for virtual desktops is less than 80%.

• VM-0001 (99%)
• VM-0002 (98%)
• VM-0003 (97%)
• VM-0004 (96%)
• VM-0005 (95%)
• VM-0010 (85%)
• VM-0016 (81%)

These virtual desktops are likely contributing to the performance issue by consuming too much CPU resources and starving other virtual desktops from performing adequately.

persistent virtual desktops are virtual desktops that retain their state and configuration across sessions.

This means that users can customize their virtual desktops with their own applications, settings, and data, and have them available every time they log on.

Persistent virtual desktops are suitable for users who need a consistent and personalized experience, such as developers.

According to Nutanix best practices2, one of the recommended migration paths for persistent virtual desktops is to convert the physical computers to virtual desktops.

This can be done by using a tool such as VMware Converter or Microsoft Disk2vhd to create a virtual disk image of the physical computer’s hard drive.

Then, this image can be imported into Nutanix Cloud Platform and used as a base image for creating persistent virtual desktops.

This migration path can preserve the existing applications, settings, and data of the physical computers and minimize the disruption for the users.

regarding replicating AppStacks between Nutanix clusters, it is likely that the correct answer would involve configuring some form of replication or disaster recovery technology on the Nutanix clusters themselves.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=BP-2135-VMware-App-Volumes:BP-2135-VMware-App-Volumes

The schedule has two rows: one for Weekdays and one for Tuesday and Thursday.

Each row has a column for Instances, which indicates how many instances should be running during that time range.

Each row also has a column for Time Range, which indicates the start and end time for running the instances.

The time range is expressed in 24-hour format, where 00:00 means midnight and 24:00 means midnight of the next day.

According to the exhibit, the schedule Dev has the following settings:

• On Weekdays (Monday to Friday), five instances are running from 09:00 am till 05:00 pm.
• On Tuesday and Thursday, five instances are running from 00:00 am till 24:00 pm.

Frame is a cloud-native desktop-as-a-service platform that allows you to deliver virtual desktops and applications from any cloud. Frame supports multiple public clouds, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud2. You can bring your own public cloud account and use Frame to provision and manage your virtual desktops on demand.

Frame also supports Nutanix private cloud model running AHV, which is a native hypervisor for Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform. You can use Frame to deliver virtual desktops and applications from your own data center using Nutanix AHV clusters3. You can benefit from the simplicity, scalability, and performance of Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure.

Based on the given information, the administrator is deploying 1000 instant clone virtual desktops, 500 full clone virtual desktops, and 150 applications. To support these workloads, the Nutanix solution will need multiple storage containers.

According to the Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6 guide, for VDI workloads, it is recommended to create a separate storage container for each type of desktop (e.g. instant clone, full clone) and another container for AppStacks. It is also recommended to have at least one container for metadata and one container for replicas.

Therefore, for this scenario, a total of 3 storage containers should be created:

• One container for 1000 instant clone virtual desktops
• One container for 500 full clone virtual desktops
• One container for 150 applications delivered via AppStacks

So the answer is C. 3.

Nutanix's Shadow Clones feature is used to create linked clones or snapshots of base VMs, which can improve VM provisioning time and storage efficiency by reducing the amount of duplicated data.

If an administrator disables Shadow Clones within a company's VDI environment, it is likely that deployment times would increase as the number of deployed desktops increases. This is because linked clones or snapshots would no longer be used, so each new desktop deployment would require creating a full copy of the base VM.

Nutanix Shadow Clones allow for distributed caching of a particular disk or VM data, which are in a ‘multi-reader’ scenario. This can help in scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms, where VMs on multiple nodes read from the same set of base disks12

https://docs.frame.nutanix.com/platform/admin/account-creation/

The Public Network option provides access to the Frame environment over the public internet, while the Private Network with VPN option allows for a secure connection to the Frame environment over a private network using a VPN.

Shadow Clones are a feature of the AOS storage that enables distributed caching of virtual disks (vDisks) that are read by multiple VMs on different nodes. This can improve performance and reduce network traffic in scenarios such as VDI deployments.

Therefore, if Shadow Clones were disabled, it could cause delays in the deployments of VD’ desktops, as they would have to read the vDisk from a remote node instead of a local cache.

non-persistent VDI machines are deleted when they are rebooted, logged off, or shut down. Therefore, Windows Update policy should be configured to prevent automatic updates that may trigger a restart on these machines1.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint/onboarding-and-servicing-non-persistent-vdi-machines-with/ba-p/1360721

The feature in Nutanix that would be used to complete the task of deploying virtual desktops to a Hyper-V Nutanix cluster with writable differencing disks using a read-only master image with clones that link back to the image is Shadow Clones. Shadow Clones allow for the creation of a snapshot or a clone of a VM that uses the original VM's disks as read-only, and only writes changes to a separate differencing disk. This is useful when deploying virtual desktops as it can reduce storage requirements and improve performance.

Nutanix shadow clones are a feature that enables distributed caching of virtual disks (vDisks) that are in a multi-reader scenario. This can improve performance and reduce network traffic for scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms1

gpumodeswitch is a command-line tool that is used to switch supported NVIDIA GPUs between compute and graphics mode. Compute mode allows multiple VMs to share a GPU for CUDA workloads. Graphics mode allows a single VM to use a GPU for graphics workloads12. 

This option allows you to create a custom report with the required metrics for all VMs across all clusters and send it automatically to the operations team via email4. This way, you don’t have to manually export or FTP the data every month.