NCP-MCA Practice Exam Questions with Answers Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA v6.5) Exam Certification

To automate routine tasks such as acknowledging alerts, generating reports, and looking up cluster details on a set interval, the administrator should implement a Time Trigger. Time Triggers allow actions to be scheduled to run at specific times or intervals, ensuring consistent execution without manual intervention.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Triggers.

Nutanix Best Practices for Automating Routine Tasks.

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By creating and assigning the Linux OS Category to the newly-created VM, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VM from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

 According to the Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course1, you can create and configure multi-VM blueprints for the Nutanix, AWS, VMware, GCP, and Azure providers. However, according to the Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide2, the exam objectives only cover Nutanix and AWS as the providers for multi-VM blueprints. Therefore, the correct answer is C. Nutanix and E. Amazon AWS. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course and Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide

 A macro is a placeholder for a value that is resolved at runtime. Macros can be used to reference various Calm objects, such as variables, secrets, credentials, tasks, and services. The correct syntax for using a macro within a Calm blueprint is @@{calm.object}(@@, where calm.object is the name of the object to be referenced. For example, @@{username}(@@ would resolve to the value of the username variable at runtime. The other options are incorrect syntaxes for macros and would not be resolved by Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation

The best way to automate the scale-out of the application layer using a third-party tool is to create a Playbook with a webhook as a trigger and a REST API call as an action. A webhook is a mechanism that allows a third-party service to send a notification to a Calm server when a certain event occurs, such as a code commit or a build completion. A REST API call is a way to interact with the Calm server programmatically, such as launching a blueprint or scaling out a service. By creating a Playbook that combines these two elements, the administrator can enable the third-party tool to trigger the scale-out action on the Calm server with a single command. The other options are either not feasible, not efficient, or not relevant for this task. References: Nutanix Calm: Playbooks - Read the Docs and Nutanix Calm: REST API - Read the Docs.

To automate the reduction of vCPUs in a VM on a specific schedule, the administrator should create a playbook triggered at a specified time. This playbook can be scheduled to run at 1:00 AM on the following Sunday and perform the task of reducing the number of vCPUs in the VM.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Scheduling.

Nutanix Best Practices for Automating VM Tasks.

A Developer permission level grants access to create, update, delete, and duplicate blueprints in Nutanix Calm12. A Developer can also launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as create, update, delete, and duplicate runbooks2. A Consumer can only launch and manage applications from blueprints, but cannot modify them2. An Operator can launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as run and manage runbooks, but cannot create or modify them2. A Domain Admin can perform all the actions of a Developer and an Operator, as well as manage projects, categories, and endpoints2. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA)

To manage and optimize the performance of virtual machines (VMs) within a playbook, administrators often need to adjust the resources allocated to VMs. Here are the appropriate actions:

VM Add Memory Action: This action allows the administrator to increase the memory allocation to a VM, which can be essential for applications requiring more RAM.

VM Add CPU Action with limits: Adding CPUs with defined limits ensures that the VM receives the necessary CPU resources without exceeding the cluster's capacity.

These actions enable the dynamic scaling of resources, improving VM performance and ensuring resource availability.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Actions.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

 A time trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to specify a schedule for running a playbook. This trigger is useful for automating tasks that need to be performed periodically or at a specific time. A manual trigger requires the user to initiate the playbook execution manually, which is not ideal for a recurring task. A report trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to run a playbook when a specific report is generated. However, this trigger does not guarantee that the report will be generated on the first of every month, as it depends on the report settings. A wait until day of month action is a type of playbook action that pauses the playbook execution until a specified day of the month. This action is unnecessary if the playbook already has a time trigger that specifies the desired schedule.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Playbooks, Lesson 4.1: Playbook Triggers

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3.1: Create a playbook to automate IT operations using X-Play

Autopilot is a feature of Nutanix Calm that allows the administrator to automate the execution of playbooks based on predefined conditions or triggers. Autopilot can optimize the performance, availability, and cost of applications by applying the appropriate actions in response to events or metrics. Before configuring autopilot, the administrator must be aware of the following limitations12:

Autopilot never waits for approvals. This means that the administrator must ensure that the playbooks are tested and verified before enabling autopilot. Autopilot will execute the playbooks without any human intervention or confirmation.

Autopilot feature only applies to metric-based alerts as triggers. This means that the administrator can only use metrics from the Nutanix Prism Central or the Nutanix Karbon clusters as the conditions for triggering the playbooks. Autopilot does not support other types of triggers such as schedules, webhooks, or manual triggers. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Calm SaaS User Guide, section 4.3.

The Calm Marketplace acts as an application store, providing end users with a catalog of available applications. By default, Calm comes pre-seeded with validated Blueprints for multiple open source and enterprise applications. These are the set of pre-seeded application Blueprints. Additionally, Marketplace Manager acts as a staging area for publishing default and user-created Blueprints to your local Marketplace. These are the published and versioned Blueprints. The other two options, library of executable tasks and store of all Blueprints created in Calm, are not features of the Calm Marketplace. References: Calm: Marketplace - Read the Docs and Calm: Marketplace - Read the Docs

 In order to add users to a Project, the Prism Central administrator must first configure an Authentication Directory. This is a service that provides user authentication and authorization for Prism Central, such as Active Directory or OpenLDAP. By configuring an Authentication Directory, the administrator can enable users to log in to Prism Central using their existing credentials and assign them roles and permissions based on their group membership. The administrator can also create local user accounts for users who do not belong to any Authentication Directory.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 2, Lesson 2.2

Configuring Authentication | Nutanix Community

When a play is stuck in a suspended state, a common reason is that the playbook was set with a Manual trigger and requires manual intervention to proceed. This can occur if the playbook is designed to pause at a certain step, waiting for an administrator or user to manually approve or provide additional input before continuing.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Triggers.

Nutanix Best Practices for Playbook Automation.

Runbooks are a feature of Calm that allows for the creation of task-based automation against dynamic lists of Windows or Linux VMs. A runbook is a collection of tasks that can be executed on one or more VMs or services. A task is a unit of automation that can perform actions such as executing commands, running scripts, invoking APIs, or sending notifications. A runbook can be triggered manually, on a schedule, or based on an event. Runbooks can be used to automate common operations such as backup, restore, patching, scaling, or troubleshooting. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 16; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.4.

 The styx.log file contains the logs related to blueprint packaging and deployment. It can be accessed by SSHing to Prism Central and navigating to the /home/calm/log directory. The other options are not relevant for blueprint package failures, as they show the application status, audit events, or service logs. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; NCP-MCA Exam Dumps - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud …, question 63.

 The error code 1314 indicates that the user does not have the required privilege to perform the requested operation. This means that the credentials provided in the Calm Blueprint are not valid or do not have enough permissions to run the script on the Windows machine. To fix this issue, the administrator should verify the credentials and ensure that they have the appropriate rights to execute the script, such as local administrator or domain administrator privileges. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 15, section 3.3. Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, module 5, lesson 2. Nutanix NCP-MCA Certification Exam Sample Questions, question 25

To remove an application from Self-Service (formerly Calm) while keeping the VM up and running, the administrator should:

Go to the Manage tab of the application in Self-Service.

Select the Delete action.

By doing this, the application will be removed from the management of Self-Service, but the VM will remain running in the environment.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Managing Applications.

Nutanix Best Practices for Application Deletion.

The Plays dashboard in Prism Central provides a centralized view of all the Playbooks that have been executed across the clusters registered with Prism Central. It shows the status, duration, and output of each Playbook run, as well as the details of the triggers, targets, and actions involved. An administrator can use the Plays dashboard to troubleshoot why a Playbook failed to grow the memory of a VM by checking the error messages, logs, and output of the Playbook run. The other options are not the correct places to check for Playbook failures, as they do not provide the same level of information and visibility as the Plays dashboard. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 4 Question 20 Discussion

 The Snapshot tab allows you to view the captured snapshots, restore applications from snapshots, and delete the snapshots for an application. Use this tab to create snapshots of single VM applications that are running with Nutanix as the provider1. You can also view the date and time, and the name of the snapshot, and perform actions like Delete, Clone, Restore2. The AMIS tab is for Amazon Machine Images, the Recovery point tab is for Calm applications, and the Manage tab is for day 2 actions3. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, List VMs with snapshots on Nutanix AHV, Nutanix Calm: Introducing Snapshot and Restore Actions

The Blueprint Editor in Nutanix Calm is the graphical interface that allows users to visualize and configure components and their dependencies within an environment. This tool provides a visual representation of application blueprints, enabling users to design, configure, and manage application deployments with ease.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Blueprint Editor.

Nutanix Best Practices for Designing Blueprints.

The policy engine is a single VM setup for the single or scale-out Prism Central. When you enable the policy engine for your Calm instance, a new VM is created and deployed for the policy engine. All you need is an available IP address that belongs to the same network as that of your Prism Central VM for the policy engine VM. You do not need to provide any public or private keys, or any Prism Central virtual IP addresses for this task. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community

The default connection timeout value for an HTTP endpoint in Nutanix Calm is 60 seconds. This timeout defines how long the system will wait for a connection to be established before timing out.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on HTTP Endpoints.

Nutanix Best Practices for Configuring Endpoints.

To enable Self-Service (formerly Calm) policies for scheduling and approval tasks, the minimum requirement is the Policy Engine VM. The Policy Engine VM is responsible for managing and enforcing policies, including scheduling and approval processes within Nutanix Calm.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Policy Engine.

Nutanix Best Practices for Scheduling and Approval.

The administrator should modify the alert by adding the correct category and assign the category Environment:Development to development VMs. By doing this, they can filter out alerts for development VMs that are expected to have memory constrained alerts and focus on those that are critical, such as production VMs. This is based on the general practices in managing alerts in a multicloud environment, as well as the specific features and requirements of Nutanix Calm and Prism Central. References:

How to create custom alert policies | Prism central | Nutanix Community

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.1: Determine the causes of a Blueprint or Runbook deployment failure

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Nutanix Calm Governance, Lesson 1: Nutanix Calm Governance

 The alert in Prism Central indicates that Calm showback is not able to reach the beam service. This could be due to network connectivity issues or incorrect configurations. The administrator should check the DNS configuration in Prism Central (Option A) to ensure that it is correctly configured to allow communication with the Beam service. Additionally, checking if Prism Element is configured with Proxy settings (Option C) is essential as it can also affect the communication between Calm and Beam. Pulse (Option B) and Flow (Option D) are not related to the Calm showback feature and do not impact its functionality.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, Objective 2.4 - Identify required configuration settings for a Nutanix Calm deployment

Enabling and Disabling Showback in Calm | Nutanix Community

In the context of deploying an application with Calm, if a customer receives an error for a Linux VM, it could be due to the absence of network adapters selected for the Address box in the Connection section within the blueprint. This means that there is no specified network connection for the VM, leading to a failure in script execution. 

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: This is the official exam blueprint guide that covers the objectives, topics, and skills required for the certification. It also provides some sample questions and answers. The question you asked is similar to the one in section 3.1.1.

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA): This is a training course that teaches you the skills needed to install, configure, operate, and manage Nutanix X-Play and Nutanix Calm. It includes topics such as blueprint creation, connection configuration, and script execution.

Nutanix Calm User Guide: This is a user guide that explains how to use Nutanix Calm to automate the deployment and management of applications across different environments. It includes topics such as connection settings, blueprint validation, and error handling.

 A Playbook is a collection of tasks that can be executed based on a trigger, such as a time, a webhook, or a manual action. A Playbook can be used to automate workflows across different systems and services, such as Nutanix Prism, VMs, hosts, and external APIs. A Playbook can also use variables, conditions, and loops to customize the execution logic and data.

In this scenario, the administrator wants to automate the batch processing application on the Linux VM, which can only be controlled by a command on the VM console. The application should run only outside of business hours, and the VM should send REST API calls to Prism to report its status.

The best way to configure a Playbook for this process is to use a Time Trigger, which allows the administrator to specify a schedule for the Playbook execution, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. The Time Trigger can also be configured to run only on certain days or hours, such as weekdays or nights. This way, the administrator can ensure that the Playbook runs only outside of business hours, without requiring any manual intervention.

The Playbook should then have two VM SSH tasks, one to initiate the batch processing application, and one to terminate it. A VM SSH task is a task that executes a command or script on a target VM using SSH. A VM SSH task can be used to control applications or services that do not have a programmatic interface, such as the batch processing application in this scenario. The VM SSH task can also use variables to pass data to or from the command or script, such as the VM name, IP address, or output.

The Playbook should also have a Wait for Some Time task, which is a task that pauses the Playbook execution for a specified duration or until a condition is met. A Wait for Some Time task can be used to ensure that the batch processing application has enough time to complete its work, or to wait for a certain event or state to occur, such as a file creation, a service status, or a VM power state.

The Playbook should also have two REST API tasks, one before and one after the Wait for Some Time task. A REST API task is a task that executes an HTTP request to a specified URL, with optional headers, body, and authentication. A REST API task can be used to interact with external systems or services that expose an API, such as Nutanix Prism in this scenario. The REST API task can also use variables to pass data to or from the HTTP request, such as the VM name, IP address, or response.

The REST API tasks should be configured to send the VM status to Prism, such as the start and end time of the batch processing, the CPU and memory usage, or the output of the application. This way, the administrator can monitor and manage the VM and the application from Prism, without having to connect to the VM console.

The Playbook configuration should look something like this:

Time Trigger: Set the schedule to run daily, only on weekdays, and only at night (e.g., 10 PM to 6 AM).

VM SSH: Set the target VM to the Linux VM, and set the command or script to initiate the batch processing application (e.g., ./batch.sh start).

REST API: Set the URL to the Prism API endpoint, and set the HTTP method, headers, body, and authentication as required. Use variables to pass the VM name, IP address, and start time of the batch processing to the HTTP request (e.g., {"vm_name": "{{vm_name}}", "vm_ip": "{{vm_ip}}", "start_time": "{{start_time}}"}).

Wait for Some Time: Set the duration to the expected time for the batch processing to finish, or set a condition to wait until a certain event or state occurs (e.g., wait until file /tmp/batch.done exists).

REST API: Set the URL to the Prism API endpoint, and set the HTTP method, headers, body, and authentication as required. Use variables to pass the VM name, IP address, end time, and output of the batch processing to the HTTP request (e.g., {"vm_name": "{{vm_name}}", "vm_ip": "{{vm_ip}}", "end_time": "{{end_time}}", "output": "{{output}}"}).

VM SSH: Set the target VM to the Linux VM, and set the command or script to terminate the batch processing application (e.g., ./batch.sh stop).

References: 

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/datasheets/ds-ncp-mca-6-5.pdf

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ds-ncp-mca.pdf

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By assigning new VMs to a category, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VMs from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

Nutanix Command Line Interface | Nutanix Community, section “SSH to any CVM as a nutanix user and type ncli and hit return to enter the ncli command shell and will be the same process for acli.”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Customizing a Linux VM with Cloud-Init”

To share a Runbook across projects in Nutanix Calm, it should be published to the Calm Marketplace. The Calm Marketplace allows administrators to publish and share blueprints, runbooks, and other resources, making them available for use across different projects within the organization.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Marketplace Publishing.

Nutanix Best Practices for Sharing Runbooks.

To update the running configuration for a multi-VM application in AWS using the Manage tab for the application in Calm, the administrator needs to provide the provider information for the AWS account. This includes the access key, secret key, region, and VPC ID. If the provider information is missing, the administrator will not be able to perform any actions on the application from Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 16, section 4.1.1. 

Before a Single-VM Blueprint in Self-Service (formerly Calm) can be published to the Marketplace, it is necessary to create both a project and an environment. A project defines the scope and access control for the blueprint, while the environment provides the necessary configurations and settings for the deployment, such as network, credentials, and other resources.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Project Creation.

Nutanix Calm documentation on Environment Setup.

Calm integrates natively with AWS and AHV as providers. A provider is a cloud platform or infrastructure that hosts the application VMs or services. Calm supports various providers such as Nutanix, AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and Kubernetes. AWS and AHV are two of the most commonly used providers in Calm, as they offer scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency for deploying applications. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.1.

 To view the last two actions taken by a single VM blueprint, the administrator should go to the History Tab. This tab shows the history of all the actions performed on the blueprint, such as launch, update, delete, etc. The administrator can filter the history by date, action, status, and user. The history tab also provides details of each action, such as the start time, end time, duration, and logs.

The other three options are not correct because:

The AMIS tab shows the list of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that are available for the blueprint. The administrator can use this tab to select an AMI for the blueprint or create a custom AMI.

The service tab shows the list of services that are part of the blueprint. The administrator can use this tab to add, edit, or delete services, as well as configure the dependencies, tasks, and variables for each service.

The Metrics tab shows the performance metrics of the blueprint, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. The administrator can use this tab to monitor the health and performance of the blueprint and its services. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 18

Nutanix Calm User Guide, section “Blueprint History”

The Consumer can ensure all underlying VMs are deleted with the removal of the application by going to the Manage tab of the application and selecting the Hard Delete action. This option will delete the application and all its associated resources from the Nutanix platform, without leaving any traces or backups. This option is useful when the application is no longer needed or has to be removed for compliance reasons.

From the Applications page, selecting the checkbox next to the application and selecting Delete from the action’s menu will not delete all underlying VMs. This option will only delete the application from the Calm UI, but not from the Nutanix platform. The application and its resources will still be available in the Nutanix cluster and can be restored from the Calm UI using the Restore action.

From the Marketplace page, selecting the checkbox next to the application and selecting Delete from the actions menu will not delete the application or its underlying VMs. This option will only delete the application from the Marketplace, but not from the Calm UI or the Nutanix platform. The application and its resources will still be available in the Calm UI and the Nutanix cluster.

Going to the Manage tab of the application and selecting the Delete action will also not delete all underlying VMs. This option will only delete the application from the Calm UI, but not from the Nutanix platform. The application and its resources will still be available in the Nutanix cluster and can be restored from the Calm UI using the Restore action.

References:

Nutanix Calm User Guide: Chapter 6: Managing Applications

Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide: Chapter 4: Blueprints

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: Section 2: Deploy and Configure Self-service and Related Components

The PagerDuty Integration service allows you to create and manage incidents in PagerDuty based on events in Nutanix X-Play. To configure the PagerDuty Integration service, you need to provide the following information:

Service Name: The name of the PagerDuty service that you want to integrate with X-Play.

API Key: The API key generated from the PagerDuty service settings.

Plays: The plays that you want to trigger incidents in PagerDuty. You can select one or more plays from the list of available plays in X-Play. You can also specify the incident priority, escalation policy, and alert details for each play.

Alert Grouping: (Optional) The alert grouping strategy that you want to use for the PagerDuty incidents. You can choose from the following options:

Intelligent: PagerDuty will group alerts based on their content and context.

Time: PagerDuty will group alerts based on the time they are received.

None: PagerDuty will not group alerts and create a new incident for each alert. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Guide, Process Automation | PagerDuty

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

According to the Nutanix Calm documentation1, the Snapshots tab allows the administrator to view, create, and restore snapshots of the VMs that are part of a blueprint. The Manage tab only shows the status and actions of the blueprint, and the Recovery tab is used for disaster recovery operations2. References:

1 Nutanix Calm: Introducing Snapshot and Restore Actions3

2 Nutanix Calm User Guide: Blueprint Operations

The administrator needs to add AWS as a provider in Calm. A provider is a cloud platform or infrastructure that hosts the application VMs or services. Calm supports various providers such as Nutanix, AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and Kubernetes. To add a provider, the administrator needs to go to the Providers page in the Calm UI and click on the +Create Provider button. Then, the administrator needs to select the AWS provider type and enter the required information such as name, access key, secret key, and regions. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.1.

The error message indicates that the password parameter is not a secret parameter, which means it is not encrypted and stored securely in the Calm database. This can happen when a Playbook is cloned from another Playbook that has a password parameter defined as a secret parameter. The cloned Playbook will inherit the password value from the original Playbook, but it will not be a secret parameter. To resolve this issue, the administrator needs to either delete the password parameter and create a new one as a secret parameter, or edit the password parameter and mark it as a secret parameter. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 15, section 4.2.1

Nutanix Calm Playbooks

Nutanix Calm Parameters

To deploy Self-Service (formerly Calm), the Nutanix product version that must be compatible is Prism Central. Self-Service relies on Prism Central for orchestration, management, and automation of applications and services across multiple environments.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Self-Service (Calm) Requirements.

Nutanix Best Practices for Deploying Self-Service.

The role required to create a remote Prism Central account within Self-Service (formerly Calm) is the Prism Admin role. Prism Admins have the necessary permissions to manage infrastructure components, including creating and configuring remote Prism Central accounts which are crucial for integrating and managing multi-cluster environments.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on RBAC Roles.

Nutanix Best Practices for Prism Central Management.

The error message indicates that the project for the blueprint does not have any associated Nutanix account. This typically means that the new account added in Self-Service (formerly Calm) has not been verified. Account verification is required to ensure the account is properly configured and has the necessary permissions to be used within a Self-Service project.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Account Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Verifying Accounts.

Runtime variables are variables that can be modified by the Consumer during the deployment of a Blueprint or after the deployment is complete. They allow the Consumer to customize the attributes of the infrastructure and applications according to their needs. Runtime variables can be defined in the Blueprint settings or in the Blueprint YAML file. They can also be used in the Blueprint tasks to pass dynamic values to the scripts or commands. Runtime variables can be of different types, such as text, number, boolean, list, or password. They can also have default values, constraints, and descriptions to guide the Consumer.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 4, Lesson 4.3

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Chapter 4, Section 4.2

In the Guest Customization section of a blueprint for an AHV Linux service, you can apply a Cloud-init script. Cloud-init is a widely used method for customizing cloud instances during boot time, allowing for automated configuration of the virtual machine's operating system.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Guest Customization.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Cloud-init.

To trigger a series of actions (taking a snapshot, expanding the vDisk, and sending a Slack message) from a pipeline CI/CD, the appropriate trigger to use is "Webhook." Webhooks allow external systems, such as CI/CD pipelines, to trigger playbooks in Nutanix Calm via HTTP requests, making them suitable for integrating with CI/CD tools.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Webhook Triggers.

Nutanix Best Practices for CI/CD Integration.

 Categories are key-value pairs that you can use to tag and filter entities in Nutanix. There are two types of categories: system defined and user defined. System defined categories are built-in and cannot be deleted. User defined categories are created by the administrator and can be deleted if they are not used in any policy. Policies are rules that apply actions or restrictions to entities based on their categories. Flow policies are policies that control the network security and visibility of VMs. If a category is part of a flow policy, it cannot be deleted unless the policy is removed or modified. Therefore, the two conditions that could prevent an administrator from deleting a category are: the category is system defined, or the category is part of a flow policy. References:

Nutanix Support & Insights: This is the official Nutanix documentation for categories, where you can find information about the types, usage, and deletion of categories.

Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 1 Question 12 Discussion: This is a forum where you can find discussions and explanations for Nutanix certification exam questions, including question 12 from topic 1, which is related to your question.

Nutanix Flow Overview: This is a Nutanix community post where you can learn more about Nutanix Flow and its policies.

 The alert in Prism Central indicates that Calm showback is not able to reach the beam service. This could be due to network connectivity issues or incorrect configurations. The administrator should check the DNS configuration in Prism Central (Option A) to ensure that it is correctly configured to allow communication with the Beam service. Additionally, checking if Prism Element is configured with Proxy settings (Option C) is essential as it can also affect the communication between Calm and Beam. Pulse (Option B) and Flow (Option D) are not related to the Calm showback feature and do not impact its functionality.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, Objective 2.4 - Identify required configuration settings for a Nutanix Calm deployment

Enabling and Disabling Showback in Calm | Nutanix Community