NCP-MCI-6.10 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI v6.10) Questions and Answers

When configuring application-consistent snapshots in a Nutanix protection domain for applications such as SQL, Oracle, and Exchange, it is critical to group all related VMs in the same consistency group within the protection domain. This ensures that the snapshot captures a consistent state of the entire application stack.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“A consistency group ensures that snapshots across multiple VMs are taken at the same time, maintaining application consistency for distributed applications. This is especially important for multi-tiered applications like SQL, Oracle, and Exchange, where data integrity depends on coordinated snapshot creation.”

Additionally:

“For application-consistent snapshots, leverage guest tools or volume shadow copy services (VSS) in Windows to quiesce applications, and configure the consistency group to include all relevant VMs.”

By creating one consistency group for all VMs comprising an application, the administrator ensures that snapshots represent a consistent state across the application components.

Nutanix capacity planning includes a feature called “Reserve Capacity for Failure,” which ensures that enough resources are preserved to sustain one or more node failures without impacting cluster functionality.

For RF3 clusters, the documentation states:

“Reserve Capacity for Failure should be set to Auto Detect, which calculates the required resources dynamically based on node count, RF policy, and data distribution.”

RF3 requires more resiliency than RF2, and manual settings such as fixed percentages do not accurately reflect the space needed during multi-node failure resiliency. “None” is never recommended because it eliminates failover protection. Memory reserve percentages do not impact storage resiliency. Storage reserve percentages are static and do not reflect the real RF3 overhead.

Auto Detect ensures Nutanix automatically calculates the resources needed to sustain the required failure domains.

Nutanix Prism Central uses Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) combined with Projects to segment access to workloads. Documentation describes Projects as:

“Projects provide a scalable method to group VMs and assign user or group permissions so that access is restricted to only the resources belonging to that project.”

When VMs are added to a project, Prism Central automatically handles:

scoping of administrative permissions

allowed actions (power, console, modify)

limiting visibility only to VMs inside that project

isolation between different teams or business units

Role mapping alone does not limit scope; it only assigns permissions. Without projects, users may see more VMs than intended. VPCs relate to Flow Virtual Networking and network segmentation, not Prism RBAC or VM-level access control. Security Policies isolate network traffic, not administrative visibility.

Thus, creating a project for each team lead and assigning VM access is the most efficient and intended Nutanix mechanism.

In Nutanix Prism Central,categoriesallow administrators togroup and organize entitiesfor management, automation, and policy enforcement.

Alerts (Option B) can be categorizedto group similar system events and create filtering rules.

Virtual Machines (Option C) can be categorizedto apply security policies, automation tasks, and resource allocation rules.

Option A (Storage Containers) cannot be categorizedin Prism Central. Storage policies apply at the container level but are not managed via categories.

Option D (ISO Images) cannot be categorizedbecause ISOs arestatic objects, not active entities.

Nutanix storage container configuration guidance specifies that “Advertised Capacity” is the setting used to define a maximum limit for the container. This value enforces a hard cap on space usage. Reserved Capacity, in contrast, defines a minimum guarantee of space for the container and does not limit growth.

Prism Element is the correct interface for creating storage containers with specific data reduction settings such as compression and deduplication, as the container-level storage policies are applied directly at the cluster’s storage layer.

The documentation further clarifies that RF1, inline compression, and deduplication settings are configured within Prism Element under container creation. Therefore, to enforce the 100 GiB limit, the administrator must create the container in Prism Element and set the Advertised Capacity to 100 GiB.

Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) has built-in workflow controls that allow administrators to pause or stop active upgrade sessions. The documentation states:

“Administrators can use the Stop Update option in the LCM UI to halt further job progression. This safely stops the upgrade pipeline without disrupting already-applied updates.”

More internal behavior details:

Stop Update immediately prevents LCM from starting additional node or component upgrades.

It safely terminates queue execution while maintaining cluster consistency.

It does not require command-line interaction or service restarts.

Using .py scripts is not recommended and is reserved for engineering workflows. Restarting Genesis or canceling tasks via ecli may interrupt LCM activities but do not cleanly stop the scheduled upgrade workflow.

The supported and correct control method is the built-in Stop Update button.

The NCC alert indicates connectivity failure to the remote site. Resolving this involves confirming network connectivity and re-establishing the remote site configuration if necessary.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“The primary ports used for replication between clusters are 2009 (for Prism Element API) and 2020 (for data replication). Ensuring these ports are open and reachable is critical for remote site connectivity.”

Also:

“If the remote site has been re-imaged or reconfigured, it may have a new cluster incarnation ID. In such cases, the remote site configuration must be recreated to align with the current cluster information.”

Steps like checking ping with MTU 9000 (D) are not directly related to remote site connectivity for replication, and NAT configurations (B) are generally not recommended unless explicitly required.

Nutanix storage containers allow administrators to configure capacity reservations and advertised limits for better resource management.

Option D (Set Reserved Capacity to 10 GiB and Advertised Capacity to 500 GiB) is correct:

Reserved Capacityensures that10 GiB is always available for this container and not consumed by other containers.

Advertised Capacitydefines alogical limit of 500 GiBto prevent over-allocation.

Option A is incorrect:

Advertised Capacity of 10 GiB is too lowand does not match the requirement of a500 GiB storage container.

Option B is incorrect:

Only setting Advertised Capacity does not guarantee Reserved Capacity, meaning other containers could consume the reserved space.

Option C is incorrect:

Setting only Reserved Capacity does not enforce an upper limit, which could lead to overprovisioning.

The Nutanix ECA course addresses Metro Availability, a high-availability feature that provides synchronous replication between two Nutanix clusters for zero Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and near-zero Recovery Time Objective (RTO). The NCC warning about thebreak_replication_timeoutbeing below the recommended minimum indicates a configuration issue that could affect the stability of Metro Availability. Thebreak_replication_timeoutparameter determines how long the Protection Domain (PD) waits before breaking replication if connectivity between the Metro clusters is disrupted.

Extract from Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) Course Documents:

Module: Data Protection, Section: Metro Availability Configuration"Metro Availability uses synchronous replication to ensure data consistency between two clusters. The break_replication_timeout parameter defines the timeout period for replication. The recommended minimum value is 15 seconds to prevent premature replication breaks due to transient network issues."

Module: Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC), Section: Metro Availability Alerts"An NCC warning indicating that the break_replication_timeout for a Metro Protection Domain is below the recommended minimum suggests the timeout is too low, risking unnecessary replication breaks. The recommended setting is 15 seconds to balance stability and responsiveness in Metro Availability setups."

Explanation of Options:

A. Update the break_replication_timeout to 10 secondsThis is incorrect. A timeout of 10 seconds is below the recommended minimum of 15 seconds, as specified in the ECA course. Setting the timeout too low increases the risk of replication breaking due to transient network latency or jitter, which could disrupt Metro Availability and cause unnecessary failovers. The ECA documentation warns:"A break_replication_timeout below 15 seconds may lead to frequent replication breaks, reducing the reliability of Metro Availability."

B. Update the break_replication_timeout to 5 millisecondsThis is incorrect. A timeout of 5 milliseconds is far too low and impractical for Metro Availability, as even minor network delays would trigger replication breaks. The ECA course does not support millisecond-level timeouts and explicitly recommends 15 seconds as the minimum. Such a low value would destabilize the Metro setup, as noted:"Extremely low timeout values are not supported, as they cause replication to break under normal network conditions."

C. Update the break_replication_timeout to 15 millisecondsThis is incorrect. A timeout of 15 milliseconds is still significantly below the recommended minimum of 15 seconds. Similar to option B, this setting would cause replication to break too quickly, undermining the purpose of Metro Availability. The ECA course clarifies:"Timeouts in milliseconds are not recommended for Metro Availability, as they do not account for typical network latency in synchronous replication setups."

D. Update the break_replication_timeout to 15 secondsThis is the correct answer. The ECA course explicitly recommends abreak_replication_timeoutof 15 seconds as the minimum to ensure Metro Availability remains stable. This value allows the system to tolerate transient network issues without prematurely breaking replication, maintaining data consistency and availability. The NCC warning indicates the current timeout is below this threshold, and updating it to 15 seconds resolves the issue.

Supporting Extract:"To resolve NCC warnings about break_replication_timeout, set the value to 15 seconds using the ncli command: ncli pd update-metro-avail-pd name= break_replication_timeout=15. This ensures compliance with Nutanix best practices."

Additional Context from ECA:

Metro Availability Overview: Metro Availability synchronously replicates data between two clusters, typically within 100 km, to achieve zero RPO. Thebreak_replication_timeoutis a critical parameter that balances responsiveness to network issues with the need to avoid unnecessary replication breaks. The ECA course notes:"A timeout of 15 seconds is the default and recommended value to handle typical network fluctuations in Metro setups."

NCC Warning Resolution: The NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check) monitors cluster health and flags configurations that deviate from best practices. The warning aboutbreak_replication_timeoutindicates a risk to Metro Availability stability, and setting it to 15 seconds aligns with Nutanix recommendations.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Support Portal (https://portal.nutanix.com) confirms the ECA guidance: "For Metro Availability, the break_replication_timeout should be set to a minimum of 15 seconds to prevent replication breaks due to transient network issues, as flagged by NCC warnings."

Categories in Nutanix are used to group resources and require only a name and a value for definition.

Option A (A name and a value) is correct:

Categoriesrequire a name (e.g., "Production VMs")and a value (e.g., "Tier 1").

These are then applied to VMs, storage, and other resources forpolicy-based management.

Option B (Policy and Entity) is incorrect:

Policiesuse categories but are not required to define a category.

Option C (Service and Scope) is incorrect:

Categoriesdo not require servicesor a defined scope.

Option D (Catalog and Template) is incorrect:

These apply toself-service provisioning, not categories.

LCM (Life Cycle Manager) fetches software updates from Nutanix’s repositories, requiring access to specific URLs.

Option A (download.nutanix.com) is correct:

This domainhosts all software update filesfor AOS, AHV, and other Nutanix components.

Option C (release-api.nutanix.com) is correct:

This domain is used forLCM to fetch update metadataand check for new versions.

Option B (mynutanix.com) is incorrect:

This domain is used foraccount management, not LCM updates.

Option D (portal.nutanix.com) is incorrect:

TheNutanix support portal is not used for automated LCM updates.

Metro Availability in Nutanix requires that the primary and secondary storage containers be configured identicallyto ensuredata replication consistency.

Option C (The destination storage container is not empty) is correct:

Theremote storage container must be emptybefore Metro Availability can be enabled.

Existing data can cause conflictsand prevent it from appearing in the "Compatible Remote Sites" list.

Option D (Both storage containers must have the same name) is correct:

Metro Availability requires thatstorage containers have identical names across clusters.

If namesdo not match, thestorage container will not be listed as compatible.

Option A is incorrect: Metro Availability works regardless of hardware vendor differences.

Option B is incorrect:Compression does not affect compatibilitybut may impact performance.

Data-in-Transit Encryption for Prism Central and CVMs requires specific internal communication ports to be open. Nutanix internal component documentation states:

“Port 2020 is used by the Nutanix encryption service for encrypted CVM-to-CVM communication during Data-in-Transit Encryption operations.”

This port is essential for establishing secure tunnels between control-plane services. Ports 2009 and 2010 are used by other CVM services (e.g., Stargate, Curator coordination) but not for transport encryption. Port 9440 is for Prism UI/API traffic, and while it must be accessible for management, it does not enable encrypted back-end service traffic.

Thus, the administrator must ensure that port 2020 is permitted to enable Data-in-Transit Encryption functionality.

The Nutanix ECA course provides guidance on performance monitoring and troubleshooting for VMs, including metrics to analyze when determining whether additional vCPUs are needed. The scenario involves a VM experiencing performance issues, with the cluster performing well overall, suggesting the issue is VM-specific.

Extract from Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) Course Documents:

Module: Performance Monitoring, Section: VM Performance Metrics"To determine if a VM requires additional vCPUs, analyze VM CPU Usage and VM CPU Ready Time. High CPU Usage indicates the VM is under heavy load, while high CPU Ready Time suggests the VM is waiting for CPU resources, both justifying additional vCPUs."

Module: Troubleshooting, Section: VM Performance Issues"When a VM experiences performance issues, VM CPU Usage and VM CPU Ready Time are critical metrics. CPU Usage shows demand, while CPU Ready Time indicates contention or scheduling delays, helping determine if more vCPUs are warranted."

Explanation of Options:

A. VM CPU UsageThis is correct. VM CPU Usage measures the percentage of CPU resources the VM is consuming. High CPU Usage (e.g., consistently above 80–90%) indicates that the VM is under heavy load and may benefit from additional vCPUs to handle the workload. The ECA course emphasizes:"VM CPU Usage is the primary metric to assess whether a VM’s CPU allocation is sufficient for its workload."

B. VM CPU Ready TimeThis is correct. VM CPU Ready Time measures the time a VM is ready to run but waiting for CPU resources from the hypervisor due to contention or oversubscription. High CPU Ready Time (e.g., above 5–10%) suggests that the VM is not getting enough CPU cycles, and adding vCPUs could alleviate the issue. The ECA course notes:"High VM CPU Ready Time indicates CPU contention, often resolved by adding vCPUs or optimizing resource allocation."

C. Host Memory Swap Out RateThis is incorrect. Host Memory Swap Out Rate indicates memory pressure on the host, causing memory pages to be swapped to disk. While this can affect VM performance, it is unrelated to CPU performance and does not justify adding vCPUs. The ECA course states:"Host Memory Swap Out Rate is relevant for memory-related issues, not CPU allocation decisions."

D. Host CPU UsageThis is incorrect. Host CPU Usage measures the overall CPU utilization of the host, not the specific VM. Since the cluster is performing well overall, high Host CPU Usage is unlikely, and it does not directly indicate whether the VM needs more vCPUs. The ECA course clarifies:"Host CPU Usage is a cluster-wide metric and less relevant for diagnosing VM-specific CPU performance issues."

Additional Context from ECA:

Performance Monitoring Tools: In Prism Element or Prism Central, VM CPU Usage and CPU Ready Time can be monitored underVM > Monitoror through dashboards. These metrics provide insight into the VM’s CPU demand and contention.

Adding vCPUs: The ECA course advises caution when adding vCPUs, as over-allocation can increase CPU Ready Time due to scheduling overhead. However, if both CPU Usage and Ready Time are high, adding vCPUs is justified.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Bible (https://www.nutanix.com/go/the-nutanix-bible) supports: "For VM performance issues, analyze VM CPU Usage and CPU Ready Time to determine if additional vCPUs are needed, as these metrics directly indicate CPU demand and contention."

In Nutanix Prism Central, if anadministrator is also an approverfor an approval policy, it can result in repeated prompts for approvals even after the original request is approved. This occurs because the system requires the approver (who is also the requester) to explicitly confirm actions involving protected snapshots to maintain compliance and avoid accidental deletion.

From theNutanix ECA documentation:

“When an administrator is configured as an approver in the approval policy, repeated approval requests may occur because the same user must explicitly confirm actions they initiated, such as deleting protected snapshots. This ensures administrative actions are fully deliberate.”

When synchronous replication has been configured and a planned failover is required for datacenter maintenance, Nutanix recommends performing aplanned failoverto ensure data consistency and a clean transition of services.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“A planned failover ensures that data replication is complete and consistent between the primary and standby sites before the workload is migrated. This prevents data loss and ensures seamless recovery.”

Additionally:

“A planned failover can be initiated either from the primary site or from the standby site. This provides flexibility depending on operational preferences and site availability during maintenance windows.”

“Unplanned failovers should only be used in the event of unexpected site outages or catastrophic failures, as they may involve data loss or incomplete synchronization.”

Therefore, the correct approaches are to conduct a planned failover either from the standby site (B) or from the primary site (D). This ensures seamless workload transition during the datacenter maintenance event.

Application discovery in Prism Central requires sufficient Prism Central resources and an active internet connection to retrieve application signatures.

Option A (Sufficient Prism Central VM resources) is correct:

Prism Central needsadequate CPU and memoryto process application signatures and discovery data.

Option B (Internet connection) is correct:

Application discovery depends on Nutanix’scloud databaseto recognize application patterns.

Option C (API key and key ID) is incorrect:

API keys are not requiredfor automatic application discovery.

Option D (Network controller enabled) is incorrect:

Application discoverydoes not depend on a network controller feature.

The Nutanix ECA course addresses data protection mechanisms, including how to safeguard disaster recovery (DR) snapshots from inadvertent or malicious deletion. Ensuring that DR snapshots are protected while providing notification requires a policy-based approach to control and monitor deletion actions. The ECA course emphasizes the use ofApproval Policiesin Prism Central to enforce oversight on critical operations like snapshot deletion.

Extract from Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) Course Documents:

Module: Data Protection, Section: Approval Policies"Approval Policies in Prism Central allow administrators to enforce review and approval for operations such as snapshot deletion. By creating an Approval Policy for DR snapshots, administrators can ensure that deletion requests are reviewed by designated approvers, preventing unauthorized or accidental deletions and providing notifications to relevant stakeholders."

Module: Prism Central Management, Section: Policy Engine"To protect critical resources like DR snapshots, an Approval Policy can be applied to require approval for deletion actions. This ensures that no snapshot is deleted without explicit authorization, and notifications are sent to approvers to maintain oversight."

Explanation of Options:

A. Create and Apply an Approval PolicyThis is the correct answer. An Approval Policy in Prism Central is the best way to protect DR snapshots from inadvertent or malicious deletion. The policy requires designated approvers to review and authorize snapshot deletion requests, ensuring oversight and preventing unauthorized actions. Notifications are sent to approvers, meeting the requirement for awareness of deletion attempts. The ECA course highlights:"Approval Policies are ideal for protecting critical data assets, such as DR snapshots, by enforcing a mandatory review process before deletion."

B. Create and Apply an Alert PolicyThis is incorrect. Alert Policies in Nutanix are used to notify administrators of system events or thresholds (e.g., high CPU usage or disk failures) but do not prevent actions like snapshot deletion. While an Alert Policy could notify administrators after a deletion occurs, it does not provide proactive protection or require approval, failing to meet the question’s requirements. The ECA course states:"Alert Policies are reactive and designed to notify administrators of events, not to control or prevent actions like snapshot deletion."

C. Assign DR Admin Role to usersThis is incorrect. Assigning a DR Admin Role grants users permissions to manage DR operations, including snapshot deletion, but does not add protection or notification mechanisms. In fact, it could increase the risk of deletion by granting more users access. The ECA course notes:"The DR Admin Role provides administrative privileges for data protection tasks but does not enforce approval workflows or protect against unauthorized deletions."

D. Create a Playbook to alert on eventThis is incorrect. Playbooks in Nutanix Flow or Prism Central are used to automate responses to events (e.g., scaling resources or sending alerts), but they are not designed to prevent snapshot deletion or enforce approval workflows. A Playbook could alert administrators after a deletion event, but it lacks the proactive control provided by an Approval Policy. The ECA course clarifies:"Playbooks are suited for automated remediation or notifications but cannot enforce approval for actions like snapshot deletion."

Additional Context from ECA:

Approval Policy Workflow: In Prism Central, an Approval Policy can be created underPolicies > Approval Policies, specifying DR snapshots as the target resource and defining approvers. When a user attempts to delete a protected snapshot, the request is queued for approval, and notifications are sent to approvers via email or Prism Central’s interface.

Use Case: For DR snapshots, which are critical for recovery, Approval Policies ensure that only authorized personnel can approve deletions, reducing the risk of data loss.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Bible (https://www.nutanix.com/go/the-nutanix-bible) supports the ECA documentation: "Approval Policies in Prism Central provide granular control over operations like snapshot deletion, ensuring critical DR resources are protected through mandatory approval workflows."

The most efficient way to move a VM’s storage to a container that has different storage optimization policies (like compression) is to perform aVM migrationto the target container. This operation ensures that all the VM’s vDisks are moved to the destination container and allows leveraging the configured optimizations on the Production container.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“VM migration to another storage container in Nutanix Prism Central is supported and can be performed with minimal disruption. When moving a VM to a new container, it inherits the storage optimization policies of that container, including compression, deduplication, and encryption.”

Furthermore:

“Migrations can be initiated at the VM level in Prism Central or Prism Element. This is the most streamlined method to ensure all vDisks for a VM are moved together, preserving data integrity and performance characteristics.”

Recreating the VM or vDisks would be cumbersome and require manual data copying, introducing potential risks and downtime.

To ensureVM high availability (HA) in the event of a node failure, the administrator mustenable HA Reservation (Option B)in Prism Element.

High Availability (HA) in Nutanix ensures that VMs restart on another available node if the host they are running on fails.

Option A (Redundancy Factor 3)affectsstorage redundancy, not VM failover.

Option C (Protection Domains)is related todisaster recovery (DR), not local HA failover.

Option D (RF1 Storage Container)would reduce fault tolerance and is not recommended for production environments.

The Intelligent Operations and Analysis Dashboard in Prism Central supports generating ad-hoc reports. These reports are temporary artifacts and are not designed for long-term storage. Internal documentation states, “Generated reports are retained for 24 hours and then automatically purged by the system to prevent report accumulation and data bloat.” This automatic cleanup is part of the reporting subsystem and applies regardless of user role or storage location. The reports are not stored in Prism Element, nor are they archived automatically. Therefore, after the 24-hour retention window, the system removes them, explaining why the user could not find the previously generated report.

The Nutanix ECA course covers migration options for VMs in multi-cluster environments, particularly when minimizing downtime is critical, such as during scheduled maintenance. The scenario involves two identical clusters with guest VMs using pass-through GPUs, managed by separate Prism Central instances, requiring a migration method that ensures minimal disruption.

Extract from Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) Course Documents:

Module: VM Management, Section: Cross-Cluster Live Migration"Cross-Cluster Live Migration allows administrators to migrate VMs between clusters managed by different Prism Central instances with minimal downtime. This feature supports live migration of VMs with pass-through GPUs, ensuring continuous operation during maintenance activities."

Module: Cluster Management, Section: Migration Strategies"For scenarios requiring minimal downtime, such as planned maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live Migration is the preferred method. It enables seamless VM migration across clusters, even those managed by separate Prism Central instances, while maintaining VM availability."

Explanation of Options:

A. Run a Recovery Plan planned failoverThis is incorrect. A Recovery Plan planned failover is part of Nutanix’s disaster recovery (DR) solution, used to execute failover for Protection Domains in scenarios like site failure. It is not designed for routine maintenance migrations and may involve downtime, especially for VMs with pass-through GPUs, as failover requires VM restart on the target cluster. The ECA course states:"Recovery Plans are used for DR failover, not for live migrations during maintenance, and may result in downtime."

B. Use Cross-Cluster Live MigrationThis is the correct answer. Cross-Cluster Live Migration, introduced in later AOS versions, allows VMs to be migrated between clusters, even those managed by different Prism Central instances, with minimal downtime. The ECA course confirms that this feature supports VMs with pass-through GPUs, as the migration process preserves VM state and connectivity. This method is ideal for planned maintenance, ensuring VMs remain operational.

Supporting Extract:"Cross-Cluster Live Migration minimizes downtime by transferring VM state and data live, supporting complex configurations like pass-through GPUs, making it suitable for maintenance scenarios."

C. Perform a Nutanix Move migration planThis is incorrect. Nutanix Move is a tool for migrating VMs from non-Nutanix environments (e.g., VMware or Hyper-V) to a Nutanix cluster, not for migrations between Nutanix clusters. It is not optimized for live migrations within a Nutanix environment and may involve downtime. The ECA course notes:"Nutanix Move is designed for external-to-Nutanix migrations, not for intra-Nutanix cluster migrations, and is not suitable for minimizing downtime."

D. Migrate Asynchronous Protection DomainsThis is incorrect. Migrating Asynchronous Protection Domains involves replicating snapshots to a remote cluster for DR purposes, not live VM migration. This process is asynchronous, involves downtime during failover, and is not suitable for maintenance scenarios requiring minimal disruption. The ECA course clarifies:"Asynchronous Protection Domains are used for DR replication, not for live VM migration, and require VM restart during failover."

Additional Context from ECA:

Cross-Cluster Live Migration: This feature leverages Nutanix’s hypervisor-agnostic migration capabilities, ensuring that VMs with pass-through GPUs are migrated seamlessly. The process involves copying VM memory and state while keeping the VM running, minimizing downtime to seconds or less.

Maintenance Scenario: For scheduled maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live Migration ensures that VMs remain available, which is critical for GPU-intensive workloads that cannot tolerate extended downtime.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Support Portal (https://portal.nutanix.com) aligns with the ECA documentation: "Cross-Cluster Live Migration supports live VM migration between clusters, including those with pass-through GPUs, ensuring minimal downtime for maintenance tasks."

By default, Nutanix Prism Central retains the last 10 instances of a report if no retention policy is configured.

Option B (10) is correct:

Nutanixstores up to 10 reports, after which older reports areautomatically deleted.

Options A (5), C (15), and D (20) are incorrect:

Whileretention policies can be customized, thedefault setting is 10 reports.

In a 12-node FT2 cluster, onlyonenode can be placed into maintenance mode at a time. This ensures that the cluster maintains data redundancy and protection (FT2 indicates 2-failure tolerance).

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“For FT2 clusters, a maximum of one node can be placed in maintenance mode at a time to ensure the cluster’s ability to tolerate failures and maintain quorum.”

High SSD utilization in a hybrid cluster can lead to increased I/O latency as new writes may spill over to HDDs, reducing overall performance.

Option D (Average I/O latency in the cluster may increase) is correct:

If SSD usage isabove 75%,data tiering shifts to slower HDDs,increasing latency.

Option A is incorrect:

SSD failures are managed via redundancy policies (RF2/RF3), and high utilizationdoes not impact failure handling.

Option B is incorrect:

Metadata is stored separately, and high SSD usage does not mean metadata is at risk.

Option C is incorrect:

Clusters do not go into read-only mode due to high SSD utilization—they simply experienceperformance degradation.

The test_esx_entering_mm_pinned_vms check in an AOS upgrade validates whether there are any pinned VMs on ESXi hosts, which could prevent host maintenance mode transitions.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Affinity or anti-affinity rules that pin VMs to specific hosts prevent those VMs from migrating during host maintenance mode entry. This directly triggers a failure in the LCM precheck test_esx_entering_mm_pinned_vms check.”

Within Nutanix Recovery Plans, IP address transformations are handled through an automated mechanism known asIP Address Mapping. The documentation describes two methods: fixed mappings and offset-based mappings.

Offset-based mapping allows administrators to maintain consistent host identity attributes such as the last octet while shifting only the subnet portion during DR failover. The internal guidance states, “Offset-based mapping enables automatic recalculation of target IP addresses using offsets applied to source subnets, allowing preservation of host-specific octets across networks.”

Custom scripts are possible but not recommended because Nutanix already provides a built-in, automated IP transformation system. Editing IPs inside VMs after failover is operationally expensive and defeats the purpose of an orchestrated DR workflow. IPAM is useful for dynamic IP assignment but does not preserve the last octet mapping requirement.

Thus, Offset-based IP mapping is the correct mechanism for this requirement.

When Life Cycle Manager (LCM) reports thata newer framework version is available, thecorrect actionis toperform an inventory scan (Option C).

Performing an inventory scan updates the available firmware/software versionsand allows LCM to download required updates.

Option A (Run an AOS upgrade)is unrelated to the LCM framework update process.

Option B (Run an AHV upgrade)is a separate component update and does not affect the LCM framework.

Option D (Download manually from a CVM)is not necessary because LCM updates are automatically pulled after an inventory scan.

Nutanix Protection Policies replicate VM data between clusters using Nutanix’s built-in data protection engine. For inter-site or cloud-based replication, Nutanix documentation specifies that replication traffic can be encrypted using the Data-in-Transit Encryption feature. The internal description states:

“Data-in-Transit Encryption secures replication traffic moving between clusters by encrypting data packets before transmission across external or untrusted networks.”

This is distinct from Data-at-Rest Encryption, which protects stored data on disks but does not secure network traffic. Self-encrypting drives and secure boot only protect the VM locally, not the replication path. Because replication to NC2 travels over the Internet, encryption of the transport channel is mandatory to meet security compliance.

Therefore, the required capability is Data-in-Transit Encryption.

When synchronous replication fails immediately between two clusters, it is often due to blocked communication across the required ports (2009 and 2020). These must be open manually if the clusters are in different subnets or if network policies block traffic.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Replication communication relies on specific ports, which must be allowed through the firewall. If the clusters are in different subnets or if there are external firewalls, these ports must be explicitly opened.”

“The modify_firewall command is used to open or close ports on cluster nodes. For replication and remote site communication, eth1 is typically used for external replication traffic.”

Since eth1 is typically used for external connectivity and replication traffic, opening ports on this interface using modify_firewall resolves the communication block.

Capacity Runway analytics in Prism Central rely on historical usage data to generate forward-looking projections. Nutanix documentation specifies:

“Capacity runway forecasts require a minimum of 30 days of historical utilization data to build growth rate baselines and trending models.”

The modeling engine uses CPU, memory, and storage trends over time to estimate depletion dates. Insufficient historical data prevents generating meaningful predictions.

Prism Central will display “Not enough data” or simply omit runway metrics until the minimum time window is met.

The 21-day threshold applies to anomaly detection, not runway calculations.

The 3-month and 6-month options refer to optimal historical windows for accuracy but are not required.

Thus, the correct requirement is 30 days of history.

VMs using GPU pass-through cannot be live-migrated because they are directly tied to a physical GPU on a specific host.

Option B (VMs use GPU pass-through) is correct:

Pass-through devices (such as GPUs) are directly assigned to VMs, makingmigration impossibleunless the VM is powered off first.

Option A (VMs use a Volume Group) is incorrect:

Volume Groupssupport live migrationunless they are configured incorrectly.

Option C (VM-VM anti-affinity) is incorrect:

Anti-affinity rules prevent two specific VMs from running together, but do not prevent migration.

Option D (VMs use external NAS) is incorrect:

Using NAS does not block VM migration, as Nutanixsupports shared storage across hosts.

Offset-based IP mapping in Nutanix Recovery Plans allows automatic subnet changes during DR failover.

Option D (Utilize Recovery Plan Offset-based IP mapping) is correct:

This methodautomatically adjusts the IP rangewhile keeping the same last octet.

It eliminates the need formanual interventionafter failover.

Option A (Custom script) is incorrect:

Scripting is an option, butRecovery Plan IP mapping is simpler and native to Nutanix.

Option B (Use IPAM) is incorrect:

IP Address Management (IPAM) is useful, butoffset-based mapping provides more control.

Option C (Manually update IPs) is incorrect:

This would betime-consuming and error-prone.

During cluster expansion, Nutanix uses the Controller VM discovery service, which relies on multicast-based node advertisement. The internal architecture documentation states:

“Node discovery during cluster expansion requires IPv4 multicast to be enabled and permitted on the switching infrastructure.”

This allows new nodes to announce themselves to the existing cluster through standard Nutanix discovery packets.

IPv6 multicast is not used for node discovery. Matching AOS or hypervisor versions is recommended for compatibility but not required for discovery itself. These are post-discovery compatibility concerns, not prerequisites.

Thus, IPv4 multicast is required for automatic node discovery.