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

The error message “Authentication by failed” typically indicates an issue with the authentication credentials being used. Since the administrator is using SSH key-based credential to authenticate, it’s essential to ensure that the private key associated with this credential is correct and accessible. If there’s an issue with the private key, such as it being incorrect or inaccessible, authentication will fail. Increasing the retries or modifying the timeout will not help if the credential is invalid. Changing to password authentication credential may work, but it’s not the best option as it may compromise security and require additional configuration. References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 3 - Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, page 2
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5 - X-Play, Lesson 5.2 - Credential Management, page 7
• Nutanix Calm User Guide, Credential Management, SSH Key-Based Authentication

 In the context of Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), the order of actions in a playbook is crucial for its successful execution. In this case, the playbook is designed to execute a script to fix a known problem in an application but keeps failing because it attempts to power off the VM and take a snapshot before executing the script. The correct order should be to execute the script first, then power off the VM if necessary, and finally take a snapshot. References: I found some references from Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Learning documents or resources that might be helpful for you:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam: 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.
• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: This is another version of the exam blueprint guide that has similar content as the previous one.
• Free Questions for NCP-MCA by certscare - p2pexams.com: This is a PDF document that contains 11 questions and answers for the NCP-MCA exam. The question you asked is one of them, and the answer is the same as mine.

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

The administrator should assign the VMs to an Inactive:VM category as an action and trigger a playbook on alert with the Inactive VM alert policy. By doing this, they can create a custom category to group and identify the inactive VMs and use a custom alert policy to trigger a playbook that can perform automated actions on them, such as powering them off, deleting them, or sending notifications. This is based on the general practices in managing VMs in a multicloud environment, as well as the specific features and requirements of Nutanix X-Play and Nutanix Calm. References:

• How to create custom categories | Prism central | Nutanix Community
• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 1: Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles, Objective 1.4: List how to implement categories for the appropriate use cases
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Nutanix X-Play, Lesson 2: Nutanix X-Play Playbooks
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Nutanix Calm Governance, Lesson 2: Nutanix Calm Alerts

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

A Playbook action has a default memory limit of 256 MB, which can be increased up to 1024 MB in the advanced settings of the action. If the action requires more memory than the limit, it will fail with the error message “Internal Error, Maximum Memory size limit reached”. To resolve this issue, the administrator can edit the action and increase the memory limit to a suitable value, depending on the complexity and requirements of the action.

References:

• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.3: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 19: Action Settings
• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.3: Determine the correct method to validate required Playbook configurations

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”

 Nutanix Calm is a feature of Prism Central that enables you to automate the deployment and management of infrastructure and applications across multiple clouds. Prism Central is a centralized management plane that provides unified visibility and control over Nutanix clusters and services. Prism Element is the local management plane for each Nutanix cluster that runs the Acropolis Operating System (AOS). Both Prism Central and Prism Element are required for Nutanix Calm to function properly and access the resources and services of the Nutanix platform. References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, page 1
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 1 - Introduction to Nutanix Multicloud Automation, Lesson 1.1 - Nutanix Multicloud Automation Overview, page 4
• Nutanix Calm User Guide, Introduction to Nutanix Calm, Nutanix Calm Architecture

The port 5986 is used for PowerShell Remoting over HTTPS, which is a secure way of executing PowerShell commands on a remote Windows VM. Calm uses PowerShell Remoting to run scripts on Windows VMs as part of the blueprint actions. Therefore, the port 5986 needs to be opened on the VM firewall to allow the communication between Calm and the VM. The other ports are not related to PowerShell Remoting, as they are used for SQL Server (1433), Remote Desktop Protocol (3389), and PowerShell Remoting over HTTP (5985). References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix Calm User Guide,page 93.

An X-Play Trigger is a condition that initiates a Playbook. There are four types of X-Play Triggers: Alert, Audit, Event, and Time1. An Alert Trigger is based on a Prism alert, such as a VM power state change or a disk failure. An Audit Trigger is based on a Prism audit entry, such as a user login or a cluster operation. An Event Trigger is based on a Prism event, such as a VM creation or deletion. A Time Trigger is based on a schedule, such as daily, weekly, or monthly2. In this scenario, the administrator needs to create a Playbook to be notified when VMs are deleted. Therefore, the appropriate X-Play Trigger would be an Event Trigger, since VM deletion is a Prism event. References: 1: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 42: Getting Started with Nutanix X-Play – Nutanix.dev

 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.

 A variable is a placeholder for a value that can be used in a blueprint or a script. A variable can be defined at the global, project, or blueprint level. A global variable is available to all projectsand blueprints, while a project variable is available to all blueprints within a project, and a blueprint variable is available only to the blueprint where it is defined. To make a variable visible to a blueprint, the developer needs to share the variable with the project that contains the blueprint. This can be done by going to the Variables page in the Calm UI and clicking on the Share button next to the variable name. Then, the developer needs to select the project from the drop-down list and click on Save. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.2.

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 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 most optimal way to correct the failed deployment is to retry the failed deployment. This option allows the administrator to resume the deployment from the point of failure, without having to redeploy the entire application or create a new runbook. Retrying the failed deployment also preserves the application state and configuration, and avoids creating duplicate resources or conflicts.

Redeploying the application is not the best option, because it requires the administrator to delete the existing application and launch a new one from scratch. This option wastes time and resources, and may result in data loss or inconsistency.

Creating a runbook to retry is also not the best option, because it requires the administrator to write a custom script or workflow to handle the retry logic. This option adds complexity and overhead to the automation process, and may not be compatible with the original blueprint or application.

Rewriting the blueprint to have error handling is a valid option, but it is not the most optimal one. This option requires the administrator to modify the blueprint code and add logic to handle different types of errors and exceptions. This option improves the robustness and reliability of the blueprint, but it does not correct the failed deployment itself. The administrator still has to redeploy the application or retry the failed deployment after rewriting the blueprint.

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 3: Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings

The hercules.log file is the log file for the Calm service, which is responsible for managing the integration with various cloud providers, including Azure. The administrator can check this log file to troubleshoot any issues related to the Azure integration, such as authentication, configuration, or communication errors. The other log files are not relevant for the Azure integration. The sytx.log file is the log file for the Sytx service, which is responsible for managing the Calm UI and API. The durga.log file is the log file for the Durga service, which is responsible for managing the Calm Marketplace and blueprints. The arjun.log file is the log file for the Arjun service, which is responsible for managing the Calm runbooks and playbooks.

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
• [Troubleshooting Calm | Nutanix Community]

Nutanix Calm supports various providers to manage and orchestrate applications across different cloud environments. Providers are the cloud platforms or services that host the VMs or containers that run the application components. Calm supports the following providers12:

• Nutanix AHV
• VMware vSphere
• AWS
• Azure
• GCP
• Kubernetes
• Bare Metal
• OpenStack
• Cloud-Init
• Terraform

Among the options given, only Kubernetes and GCP are supported providers in Calm. Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud are not supported providers in Calm. References:

• 1: Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide3
• 2: Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training4

 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

A playbook REST API action allows the administrator to send an HTTP request to a specified endpoint, such as the Prism Central API, to perform an operation, such as deleting a VM. A playbook webhook action allows the administrator to send a payload to a specified URL, such as a ServiceNow webhook, to trigger an event, such as an approval flow. Both of these actions can be used to automate the deletion of VMs from a ServiceNow approval flow, where the developers can request and confirm the removal of their environments. A playbook webhook trigger and a playbook REST API trigger are not valid options, as they are used to initiate a playbook based on an external event, not to perform an action within a playbook. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 4; NCP-MCA Exam Dumps - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud …, question 70.

 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.

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To deploy blueprints to Calm SaaS and execute them, the administrator must first configure a site-to-site VPN tunnel and a tunnel entity in the environment where the blueprint will be deployed. A site-to-site VPN tunnel is a secure connection between two networks over the internet that allows Calm SaaS to communicate with the on-premises or cloud environment. A tunnel entity is a logical representation of the VPN tunnel in Calm SaaS that contains the tunnel configuration and credentials. The administrator must also register the environment and the provider accounts in Calm SaaS before deploying the blueprints. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 9; Nutanix Calm SaaS User Guide, section 3.1.1 and 3.1.2.

Plays are event-driven automation workflows that can be triggered by alerts, schedules, or manual actions. They consist of one or more actions that run on specified hosts or clusters. An administrator can obtain the following information from Plays:

• Host where the action runs: Each action in a Play can be configured to run on a specific host or cluster, or on the host or cluster where the alert was triggered. The administrator can view the host or cluster name for each action in the Play details page.
• Execution result status: Each action in a Play has an execution result status that indicates whether the action was successful, failed, skipped, or cancelled. The administrator can view the status for each action in the Play details page, as well as the overall status of the Play.

The other options are incorrect because:

• Start time and end time of each action: Plays do not show the start time and end time of each action, only the duration of the action. The administrator can view the duration for each action in the Play details page, as well as the overall duration of the Play.
• CVM IP where the alert was triggered: Plays do not show the CVM IP where the alert was triggered, only the host or cluster name where the alert was triggered. The administrator can view the host or cluster name for the alert in the Play details page.

References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 1.2
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 4: X-Play
• Training Spotlight: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Video 4: X-Play

The Policy Engine is a Calm feature that allows you to define and enforce policies for your projects, such as quotas, approvals, and actions. You can use the Policy Engine to set project quotas for the ESXi hypervisor, such as the number of VMs, CPU cores, memory, and storage that can be provisioned by the project. This helps you to control the resource consumption and allocation of your ESXi clusters. References:

• Nutanix Support & Insights: This is the official Nutanix documentation for Calm on ESXi, where you can find information about the Policy Engine and how to configure it for your projects.
• Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 2 Question 28 Discussion: This is a forum where you can find discussions and explanations for Nutanix certification exam questions, including question 28 from topic 2, which is similar to your question.
• Calm on ESXi Deployment: This is a Nutanix community post where you can learn more about how to deploy and use Calm on ESXi.

 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

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

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”

A post-create task is a task that runs after a blueprint or runbook deployment is completed. A post-create task can be used to perform additional configuration or automation on the deployed resources. An HTTP task is a task that executes an HTTP request to a specified URL, with optional headers, body, and authentication. An HTTP task can be used to trigger an API call to another system or service, such as creating a front end application. A predefined task is a task that uses a predefined script or command to perform a common operation, such as installing a package or running a service. A predefined task cannot be used to trigger an API call to another system or service. An eScript task is a task that executes a custom script written in JavaScript or Python. An eScript task can be used to perform complex logic or operations that are not available in predefined tasks. However, an eScript task requires more coding skills and testing than an HTTP task. A simple task is a task that executes a simple command or script on the target VM or host. A simple task cannot be used to trigger an API call to another system or service. References: 

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ebg-ncp-mca-6.pdf

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-multicloud-automation-v6-5

Nutanix Calm is a cloud-agnostic automation and orchestration solution that can be deployed on Nutanix AHV or any public cloud platform, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. Calm can also manage applications across multiple cloud environments, including hybrid clouds. Calm cannot be deployed on vSphere Essential Edition or VMware ESXi, as these are not supported hypervisors for Calm. However, Calm can manage existing VMs on vSphere or ESXi clusters through the VMware provider. References:

• Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training1
• Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide2

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 optimizethe 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.

 In order to enable the developer to complete the requested task, AWS and Azure Providers need to be created (Option A). This is because, in the context of Nutanix Calm, providers are integrations with public and private cloud infrastructures. The developer is trying to deploy an application on AWS and Azure clouds but currently only has Nutanix as a configured provider. After creating the providers, they need to be added to the project (Option B) so that applications can be deployed on them. Option C is incorrect because environments are not required for multicloud deployments. Option D is also incorrect because Calm version 3.2.x is not relevant to the question.

References: The information can be verified from Nutanix official training and certification documents available at Nutanix Training & Certification. You can also check out the Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam guide for more details on the exam objectives and format. Additionally, you can watch the Nutanix Calm - Multicloud Automation playlist on YouTube for some video tutorials on Nutanix Calm features and functionalities.

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. References: Ifound some references from Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Learning documents or resources that might be helpful for you:

• 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.

The Playbook is designed to manually reduce the vCPU count on any selected VM within the environment. However, it failed during a test run on VM2 because there was a running snapshot of the VM. According to Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) principles, you cannot reduce the vCPU count on a VM that has an active snapshot1. This is because the snapshot captures the state of the VM configuration and data, and reverting to a snapshot will restore both the guest OS and the virtual hardware2. Therefore, changing the vCPU count while a snapshot is running will cause inconsistency and error. The other options are incorrect because:

• A. The Playbook can be executed against a VM on AHV, as long as there is no snapshot running3.
• B. The VM does not need to be powered off before vCPU can be reduced, as this can be done using hot-plug CPU feature4.
• D. The play will not cause the VM to go below the minimum vCPU, as the minimum number of vCPUs is set to 1 in the Playbook, and the VM has 4 vCPUs initially. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, Solved: Snapshot query !! - VMware Technology Network VMTN, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community, Virtual CPU Configuration and Limitations - VMware Docs