Practice Free NCP-MCI-6.10 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI v6.10) Exam Questions Answers With Explanation

For Disaster Recovery to function correctly, the source and destination storage containers must have identical names.

Option C (Storage container name mismatch) is correct:

If thestorage container name at the DR site does not match, Nutanix cannot mapsnapshots and replication data.

This causesfailover operations to fail, even though data exists.

Option A (NGT not installed) is incorrect:

NGT is needed for application-consistent snapshots, butnot required for crash-consistent snapshots.

Option B (Windows updates) is incorrect:

OS updates do not affect replication availability.

Option D (Storage RF factor mismatch) is incorrect:

Replication works across different RF factors, but performance may vary.

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."

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.

Nutanix describes a special process for updating golden images or templates without modifying the original source object directly. The documentation states:

“Complete Guest OS Update creates a temporary, cloned instance of the template, boots it, and allows administrators to patch or update the operating system. Once updates are applied, the system recomposes the template with the modifications.”

This process ensures that templates remain clean and version-controlled while still allowing regular OS patching operations. Other options such as Create VM from Template merely instantiate running VMs and do not update the template source. Update Guest OS and Update Configuration refer to VM-level settings but do not create a temporary working copy for template lifecycle management.

Thus, Complete Guest OS Update is the correct feature.

Nutanix documentation for Cross-Hypervisor Disaster Recovery (CH-DR) specifies that Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) must be installed on all VMs participating in ESXi to AHV recovery workflows. NGT includes the VM Mobility Drivers, which are required for the VM to interpret AHV device models, storage controllers, and network adapters during recovery. The documentation notes that without NGT installed, VMs may fail to boot or attach devices correctly after being recovered on AHV. Legacy BIOS, RDMs, and delta disks are not listed as prerequisites or contributing factors for CH-DR success. Therefore, installing Nutanix Guest Tools on the source VM is mandatory for successful cross-hypervisor recovery.

Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) relies on validated firmware and driver bundles for hardware components. For GPU-enabled hosts, LCM documentation states:

“GPU-enabled AHV hosts require GPU driver bundles to be uploaded manually via the Direct Uploads mechanism so that LCM can validate and upgrade the necessary GPU components during workflow execution.”

GPU drivers are vendor-specific and not always available in the standard catalog, so the administrator must upload them before LCM can orchestrate the upgrade.

Running in dark site mode does not provide missing GPU bundles. Creating agent VMs is unrelated to GPU driver operations. Updating NCC improves validations but does not provide GPU support files.

Therefore, Direct Uploads of GPU driver bundles is required.

The best way to test the performance of a Linux VM that is underperforming at the storage level on an ESXi cluster, while minimizing downtime, is to migrate the VM to an AHV-based cluster. This allows leveraging Nutanix-native storage optimizations and hypervisor capabilities of AHV.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“AHV and Nutanix storage integration is natively optimized for performance, leveraging capabilities like data locality, I/O path enhancements, and advanced metadata management. Migrating workloads from ESXi to AHV can often resolve performance bottlenecks associated with storage I/O.”

Additionally:

“Using the Nutanix Move tool, administrators can migrate running VMs between different hypervisors (e.g., ESXi to AHV) with minimal downtime and fully automated steps, reducing the operational burden.”

Increasing vCPUs would not address storage-level performance issues, and collapsing disks would require significant reconfiguration and VM downtime. vDisk sharding is not directly user-configurable and not applicable in this scenario.

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.

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.

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.

Snapshots that are part of an active recovery operation cannot be deleted until the process is completed or manually canceled.

Option A (Active recovery in progress) is correct:

Nutanix does not allow deletion of snapshots ifthey are being used in an ongoing recovery process.

The administrator shouldverify whether the snapshot is currently part of a Protection Domain or Disaster Recovery (DR) plan.

Option B (Ransomware encryption) is incorrect:

Nutanix snapshots are immutable by defaultandcannot be encrypted by external threats.

Option C (Approval policy denial) is incorrect:

Snapshot deletionsdo not require manual approval, unless controlled by an external workflow system.

Option D (Snapshot corruption) is incorrect:

Nutanixuses checksums to prevent corruption, so snapshots cannot besilently damaged.

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.

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."

Receive Side Scaling (RSS) VirtIO-Net Multi-Queue improves network performance by distributing network processing across multiple CPU cores.

Option C (Enable RSS VirtIO-Net Multi-Queue) is correct:

This settingreduces CPU bottlenecksby allowing multiple queues to handle network packets.

It isessential for high-throughput network applications.

Option A (Add more vCPUs) is incorrect:

CPU resources are important, butwithout enabling RSS, additional vCPUs will not optimize network traffic distribution.

Option B (Enable AHV Turbo Technology) is incorrect:

AHV Turbo improvesdisk I/O, notnetwork I/O.

Option D (Add more RAM) is incorrect:

RAM does not directly impact network performance.

The Nutanix AHV virtualization guide explains that vGPU-enabled VMs can be live migrated only when the destination host contains compatible GPU hardware and has available vGPU capacity matching the profile assigned to the VM. The documentation states that the VM must have "adequate and equivalent GPU resources on the target host" for migration to proceed. Host affinity is a limiting factor and not a requirement. Agent VMs are not designed to be migrated. Changing the vGPU profile is not necessary as long as the target host supports the currently assigned profile. Therefore, ensuring the destination host has sufficient compatible resources is the required condition.

Nutanix Data Protection enforces strict snapshot lifecycle controls to ensure recovery integrity. The system prevents deletion of any snapshot that is actively referenced by a running operation. The documentation states:

“Snapshots that are part of an active recovery or restore workflow cannot be deleted until the operation completes, as they are required to maintain data consistency and restore points.”

This includes DR failover tests, restorations, or live recovery workflows. Corrupted snapshots do not cause deletion failure; the system can still delete a corrupted snapshot unless it’s attached to an active workflow. Ransomware affects guest data, not the snapshot metadata in Prism. Approval policies do not block snapshot deletion unless tied to automation policies, which is rare and would produce a different error.

Therefore, active recovery operations are the most common and most accurate cause when deletion is blocked.

For workloads requiring new IP addresses and DNS server settings during DR recovery, using custom scripting within the Recovery Plan is the recommended and supported method.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Recovery Plans support scripting within the Recovery Sequence to enable administrators to perform post-recovery customization tasks, such as updating IP addresses, configuring DNS, or applying application-specific settings.”

“This scripting capability provides a flexible, automated approach to ensure that VMs are correctly reconfigured to operate within the DR environment’s network and DNS settings.”

This avoids the need for manual reconfiguration post-recovery or adjusting settings in production prior to failover.

VM templates in Nutanix are supported only when the VM’s disks reside on storage containers configured with Replication Factor 2 (RF2) or higher.

Option C (VM has disks on RF2 containers) is correct:

VM templates requirea minimum RF2 for fault tolerance.

RF1 containers do not meet Nutanix best practices for VM templates.

Option A is incorrect:

VMs protected by Protection Domains can be cloned, but this is different from creating a VM template.

Option B is incorrect:

Agent VMs (e.g., Witness VMs) or Prism Central cannot be used as VM templates.

Option D is incorrect:

Nutanix VM templates are natively supported on AHV, not ESXi.

When usingFQDN instead of a Virtual IP in a scale-out Prism Central deployment, Nutanixenables load balancing across multiple Prism Central instances.

Option A (Load balancing) is correctbecause it ensures that requests are distributed among multiple Prism Central nodes, improving performance and redundancy.

Option B (Resiliency) is incorrectbecause resiliency is achieved through HA and replication, not through FQDN configuration.

Option C (Segmentation) is incorrectbecause network segmentation is handled at the VLAN or security policy level.

Option D (SSL Certificate) is incorrectbecause SSL certificates can be applied regardless of whether FQDN or Virtual IP is used.

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.

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.

Nutanix Categories allow administrators to group related VMs, making Disaster Recovery (DR) planning easier.

Option B (Utilize Categories to organize VMs in Recovery Plans) is correct:

Categories help group VMsbased on application tiers(e.g.,database, middleware, web servers).

This ensuresorderly failoverwhile maintaining application dependencies.

Option A (Naming schema) is incorrect:

Naming conventions help, but theydo not provide functional organizationin recovery plans.

Option C (1:10 Recovery Plan to VMs) is incorrect:

The ratio depends onbusiness requirements, not a fixed number.

Option D (RESTful APIs) is incorrect:

Automation is useful, butit does not replace proper VM grouping via categories.

For cross-hypervisor DR failover (e.g., ESXi to AHV), Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) must be installed on VMs to ensure proper configuration and recovery.

Option D (NGT must be installed on source guest VMs) is correct:

NGTensures correct reconfiguration of VM devices and networking settingsduring failover.

Ithandles disk and driver reassignmentsbetween ESXi and AHV.

Option A (Utilize delta disks) is incorrect:

Delta disks are used insnapshot optimization, not DR failover.

Option B (Deploy Legacy BIOS boot) is incorrect:

AHV prefers UEFI boot mode, and Legacy BIOS is not a requirement.

Option C (Use raw device mappings) is incorrect:

RDMs areVMware-specificand arenot used in AHV failover scenarios.

The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) course provides detailed guidance on managing images in a multicloud environment, particularly when administering multiple clusters across different geographic sites via a single Prism Central instance. The goal of optimizing image uploads to all locations involves ensuring efficient image availability, minimizing latency, and balancing storage and network resource usage. The ECA course emphasizes the use ofImage Placement Policiesto control how images are distributed and stored across clusters registered with Prism Central.

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

Module: Image Management, Section: Image Placement Policies"Prism Central allows administrators to manage images centrally for multiple clusters. Image Placement Policies define how images are distributed to clusters. A policy with Soft Enforcement ensures that images are uploaded to a preferred cluster and replicated to other clusters as needed, optimizing for network efficiency and availability while allowing flexibility if a target cluster is unavailable."

Module: Prism Central Management, Section: Multi-Cluster Image Management"For environments with clusters at different geographic sites, an Image Placement Policy with Soft Enforcement is recommended to optimize image uploads. This policy allows Prism Central to select a primary cluster for image storage and replicate the image to other clusters based on demand, reducing unnecessary uploads while ensuring images are available where needed."

Explanation of Options:

A. Image Placement Policy with Soft EnforcementThis is the correct answer. The ECA course highlights that anImage Placement Policy with Soft Enforcementis designed to optimize image distribution in multi-cluster environments, especially across geographic sites. With Soft Enforcement, Prism Central uploads the image to a designated cluster (e.g., the closest or most available) and replicates it to other clusters as needed, based on workload requirements or VM deployment demands. This approach minimizes redundant uploads, reduces network congestion, and ensures images are available efficiently across sites. The "soft" aspect allows flexibility—if a target cluster is offline or has insufficient storage, Prism Central can select an alternative cluster, ensuring operational continuity.

Supporting Extract:"Soft Enforcement allows Prism Central to prioritize a primary cluster for image storage but permits fallback to other clusters if the primary is unavailable, optimizing upload efficiency and image availability across multiple sites."

B. Custom Image Upload RoleThis is incorrect. The ECA course does not define a "Custom Image Upload Role" as a feature in Prism Central for optimizing image uploads. While Prism Central supports role-based access control (RBAC) for managing permissions, including image management, these roles govern who can upload or manage images, not how images are distributed or optimized across clusters. The ECA materials state:"RBAC in Prism Central allows administrators to assign permissions for image management, but it does not influence the placement or optimization of image uploads."This option is irrelevant to the question’s focus on optimizing image distribution.

C. Bandwidth Throttling PolicyThis is incorrect. While bandwidth throttling can regulate network usage during data transfers (e.g., during replication or migration), it does not directly optimize image uploads for availability or efficiency across multiple clusters. The ECA course mentions bandwidth throttling in the context of data protection and replication:"Bandwidth Throttling Policies can be applied to replication schedules to manage network usage, but they are not used for image placement or upload optimization in Prism Central."Throttling could even slow down image distribution, counteracting the goal of optimization, especially in a multi-site scenario.

D. Image Placement Policy with Hard EnforcementThis is incorrect. AnImage Placement Policy with Hard Enforcementstrictly mandates that images be uploaded to specific clusters as defined in the policy. If the designated cluster is unavailable (e.g., due to network issues, storage constraints, or downtime), the upload fails, which can disrupt operations in a multi-site environment. The ECA course notes:"Hard Enforcement ensures images are only stored on specified clusters, but this can lead to upload failures if the target cluster is offline or lacks capacity, making it less suitable for geographically distributed environments."This rigidity makes Hard Enforcement less optimal compared to Soft Enforcement, which provides flexibility and ensures image availability.

Additional Context from ECA:

Image Management Workflow: The ECA course explains that Prism Central’s Image Service centralizes image management for all registered clusters. When an image is uploaded, the Image Placement Policy determines where it is stored and how it is replicated. For geographically dispersed clusters, Soft Enforcement balances efficiency and availability by prioritizing a primary cluster (e.g., based on proximity or storage capacity) while allowing replication to other clusters as needed for VM provisioning or workload deployment.

Extract:"In multi-site deployments, Soft Enforcement optimizes image uploads by reducing redundant data transfers and ensuring images are accessible across clusters without requiring manual intervention."

Practical Consideration: In a multi-site scenario, network latency and storage availability vary across clusters. Soft Enforcement allows Prism Central to adapt dynamically, ensuring images are uploaded to a viable cluster and replicated efficiently, which aligns with the goal of optimization.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Bible (https://www.nutanix.com/go/the-nutanix-bible) reinforces the ECA documentation: "Image Placement Policies in Prism Central streamline image management across clusters. Soft Enforcement is ideal for multi-site environments, as it allows flexible image placement and replication, ensuring efficient uploads and availability."This confirms that Soft Enforcement is the recommended approach for optimizing image uploads in a multi-cluster, multi-site setup.

Metro Availability requires that VMs always read data from their primary site to maintain optimal performance and prevent remote data access latency.

Option C (Migrate the VM to its primary site and set appropriate rules) is correct:

If a VMfails over to the secondary sitebut is still running in the primary site, it will read data remotely, causinghigh latency and performance issues.

The solution is tomigrate the VM back to the primary siteand configureDRS rulesorhost affinity settingsto prevent unwanted movement.

Option A is incorrect:

The command listsactive Metro Availability protection domainsbut doesnot resolvethe issue.

Option B is incorrect:

Must-affinity rules can help, but they should be configuredafter migrating the VM back to the primary site.

Option D is incorrect:

RunningNCC health checkswill onlydiagnose the issue, not resolve it.

When using Metric or Entity Charts in Prism Central for performance monitoring, the most granular preset time interval that can be selected is1 hour.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Prism Central provides performance data visualization with customizable time intervals. The smallest preset interval for metric and entity charts is 1 hour, providing highly detailed performance information over short periods.”

This allows administrators to monitor performance fluctuations at a fine-grained level, aligning with best practices for troubleshooting and optimization.

Port mirroring requires the source and target VMs to be on the same host to efficiently copy network traffic without additional routing overhead.

Option B (Source VM and Target VM are on the same host) is correct:

AHV’s port mirroringonly works within a single hostbecause network packets are intercepted before leaving the hypervisor.

If the VMs are on different hosts,mirroring cannot be configured without additional network tools.

Option A (Same VLAN) is incorrect:

VLAN membership isnot a requirementfor port mirroring.

Option C (Same subnet) is incorrect:

Port mirroring happens atthe virtual switch level, which does not require VMs to be in the same subnet.

Option D (Same VPC) is incorrect:

While VPCs provide network isolation,they do not control port mirroring availability.

Understanding the Exhibit & the Alert

The alert states:

"The cluster is using password-based SSH access for the CVM."

"Password-based remote login is enabled on the cluster."

"It is recommended to use key-based SSH access instead of password-based SSH access for better security."

This means that the nutanix user can log in to Controller VMs (CVMs) using a password, which is a security risk.

Corrective Action: Enabling Cluster Lockdown

?(C) Enable Cluster Lockdown. (Correct Answer)

Cluster Lockdown Mode restricts password-based SSH access and forces key-based authentication.

This prevents users from logging into CVMs using passwords, enhancing cluster security.

To enable Cluster Lockdown:

Go to Prism Central or Prism Element.

Navigate to Settings ? Security ? Cluster Lockdown.

Enable Cluster Lockdown Mode.

Evaluating the Other Answer Choices

?(A) Rename the nutanix user. (Incorrect)

The nutanix user is a built-in system account required for cluster operations.

Renaming the user will not prevent SSH access via password.

?(B) Block port 22 on the CVM firewall. (Incorrect)

Blocking port 22 (SSH) will completely disable SSH access, including key-based authentication.

This may break cluster management and troubleshooting operations.

?(D) Delete the nutanix user. (Incorrect)

The nutanix user is a critical system account required for cluster functionality.

Deleting the account will cause serious issues with cluster management.

Multicloud Infrastructure References & Best Practices

Nutanix Security Best Practices:

Always use key-based SSH authentication instead of password-based logins.

Enable Cluster Lockdown Mode to enforce security policies.

Regularly audit user access to ensure security compliance.

Cluster Lockdown Benefits:

Prevents unauthorized SSH access via passwords.

Enforces public key authentication, reducing brute-force attack risks.

Strengthens CVM security against potential exploits.

Nutanix AHV networking documentation explains that high-connection-count workloads can saturate a single network queue, causing receive-side bottlenecks. VirtIO-Net supports Multi-Queue with Receive-Side Scaling (RSS), allowing the VM to distribute packet processing across multiple vCPUs. The documentation states, “Enabling RSS Multi-Queue improves performance for workloads handling a large number of simultaneous network flows by parallelizing packet handling.”

Trunk mode does not solve per-queue packet processing limitations. Adding vNICs is not recommended because the bottleneck is at the queue level, not the number of interfaces. Using the e1000 adapter results in lower performance compared to VirtIO and is discouraged. Therefore, enabling RSS Multi-Queue is the correct performance optimization for a VM handling thousands of client connections.

To resolve issues with application-consistent snapshots (script execution failures), two critical actions are needed:

NGT Service Status:From the ECA materials:

“The Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) service is responsible for executing pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts for application-consistent snapshots. If NGT is not running, these scripts will not execute.”

Script Validation:

“Before relying on scheduled snapshot runs, execute pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts manually to ensure they complete successfully. This helps to rule out script logic or permission issues.”

Ownership or log review of the script path itself (A and B) are secondary and typically not root-cause resolution steps.

Nutanix performance troubleshooting guidelines highlight CPU Ready Time as a key indicator of CPU contention. The documentation explains:

“High CPU Ready Time indicates that vCPUs are waiting to be scheduled on physical cores due to host CPU saturation or CPU overcommitment.”

CPU Ready Time doesnotrelate to storage issues or CVM sizing. Instead, it indicates that the hypervisor cannot schedule VM CPU operations promptly.

Internal extracts clearly describe the next diagnostic step:

“When CPU ready metrics rise, the first step is to check physical host CPU utilization to confirm whether the host is oversubscribed or running at high CPU usage.”

If the host is overloaded, remediation includes distributing VMs across hosts, reducing vCPU count on oversized VMs, or adding compute resources.

Other options are irrelevant:

Memory oversubscription is unrelated to CPU Ready Time.

SSD capacity affects storage latency, not CPU scheduling.

CVM CPU counts do not cause VM CPU Ready Time; CVM resource misconfiguration affects cluster services, not guest VM scheduling.

Thus, reviewing host CPU utilization is the correct next step.

To automate the deployment of a large number of Linux VMs (such as 100), each with similar base configurations but unique hostnames, local configurations, and additional package installations,Cloud-Initis the most appropriate approach. Cloud-Init is a widely supported industry-standard tool for automating the initialization and configuration of Linux instances at first boot.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Cloud-Init is the recommended method for configuring Linux virtual machines during deployment in Prism Central. It allows administrators to inject configuration scripts and user data that customize the VM at boot time, including hostname, network settings, user creation, and package installations.”

Specifically:

“Using Cloud-Init, you can create a template or base image for the Linux VMs and then customize each VM deployment by passing individualized configuration parameters, ensuring that while the base configuration remains consistent, each VM has unique settings such as hostname or installed software.”

This method is far superior to manual configuration, which is impractical for 100 VMs, and it’s not suitable to use SysPrep (which is for Windows-based customization). VM templates alone would provide only the base image; they do not address unique per-VM settings.

Therefore,Cloud-Initensures a repeatable, scalable, and fully automated deployment process that aligns with the Nutanix best practices for deploying large numbers of Linux VMs with unique configurations.

Nutanix performance troubleshooting guidelines emphasize the importance of adequate vCPU resources when diagnosing single-VM performance issues. The documentation states that “under-provisioned CPU is a primary cause of perceived storage latency and throughput limitations, as storage I/O processing and VirtIO-SCSI operations depend heavily on VM compute resources.”

Running a Windows Server VM with only one vCPU significantly constrains its ability to queue and process disk I/O, handle interrupts, and run kernel-level services. This is especially true when multiple disks are attached. Adding a second controller does not solve underlying CPU bottlenecks. Adjusting br0 TCP settings is not applicable to storage. Increasing CVM resources is unnecessary because the problem is isolated to a single VM while the cluster and other VMs perform normally.

Therefore, increasing vCPU allocation is the required corrective action.

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.

Nutanix AHV networking documentation describes IGMP Snooping as a feature that enables the AHV virtual switch to learn which VMs have joined specific multicast groups through IGMP membership reports. The documentation states that with IGMP Snooping enabled, multicast traffic is forwarded only to VMs that are registered members of a multicast group, preventing unnecessary flooding of multicast packets across all ports. LACP is for NIC bonding, network segmentation is for isolating networks, and LLDP is for link layer device discovery. None of these selectively deliver multicast traffic. Only IGMP Snooping provides the optimized multicast forwarding described.