NCP-MCI-6.5 Sample Questions Answers

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Prism-Central-Guide-vpc_2023_3:mul-cluster-storage-policy-pc-c.html

According to the Nutanix Prism Central Guide, you can click on any chart in a widget to expand it and view more details about the data elements.

One of the possible reasons for a cluster to transition out of NearSync is insufficient network bandwidth between the source and target clusters. NearSync requires a minimum network bandwidth of 10 Mbps per VM for replication3. If the network bandwidth is lower than the required amount, the replication of recovery points may take longer than the configured RPO, resulting in an Out of NearSync condition. To address this issue, you can increase the network bandwidth between the clusters or reduce the number of VMs protected by NearSync4.

References: 1: Stargate - Nutanix Bible 2: Nutanix Cluster Architecture Overview - Nutanix Bible 3: NearSync Disaster Recovery (RPO <= 15 minutes) - Nutanix Support & Insights 4: Transitioning in and out of NearSync - Nutanix Support & Insights

 According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, the name of the internal bridge used by AHV nodes and CVMs is br0. The internal bridge is an Open vSwitch (OVS) bridge that connects the AHV host management interface, the CVM interface, and the VM vNICs. The internal bridge also acts as a gateway for the CVM and VM traffic to reach the external network through the host physical NICs.

Step 1 ---> Login into Prism Element.

Step 2 ---> Select the Gear Icon at top right of the page.

Step 3 ---> Click Upgrade Software.

Step 4 ---> Select the component to upgrade.

Step 5 ---> Click download.

Step 6 ---> Once the download completes, select upgrade.

Invalid:-

1 - Select Prism Central.

2 - Select user login.

3 - On left select upgrade Prism Central.

According to the Troubleshooting hosted disk I/O performance problems (1008885), when using VMware hosted products, consider that both the virtual machines and host operating system often share the same disk resources and hardware. If a hard disk fails, the virtual machines that have data on the failed device will experience an HA event, causing them to restart on a node that contains the replica data.

The best method to provide access for a user to view real-time performance metrics for all VMs on all clusters across the datacenter is to configure AD authentication create a custom role, assign the user to the role, and apply the role to all clusters and VMs. This method accomplishes this with the least effort and ongoing maintenance because:

• AD authentication allows Nutanix Prism Central to integrate with an existing Active Directory (AD) domain and use AD users and groups for authentication and authorization5. This simplifies user management and avoids creating local users on Prism Central.
• Creating a custom role allows Nutanix Prism Central to define granular permissions for different actions and entities based on specific needs6. This ensures that users only have access to what they need and nothing more.
• Assigning the user to the custom role allows Nutanix Prism Central to grant access rights for that user based on the role definition7. This avoids assigning permissions individually for each user.
• Applying the role to all clusters and VMs allows Nutanix Prism Central to propagate the access rights for that role across all entities in scope8. This ensures that users can view real-time performance metrics for all VMs on all clusters without having to configure each entity separately.

References: 1: Health Dashboard - Prism Element Guide 2: Understanding Native VLANs - Cisco 3: VMs may lose network connectivity if connected to virtual network with … - Nutanix Support & Insights 4: VLAN Configuration - AHV Networking Guide 5: Active Directory Authentication - Prism Central Guide 6: Create Custom Roles - Prism Central Guide 7: Assign Roles - Prism Central Guide 8: Apply Roles - Prism Central Guide

This will allow the administrator to quickly identify VMs that are overprovisioned or underutilized based on their performance metrics.

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-multicloud-infrastructure-6_5

Nutanix supports two types of deduplication: post-process and inline. Post-process deduplication runs periodically on a schedule and can be enabled on any cluster. Inline deduplication runs in real time before data is written to disk and can be enabled only on all-flash clusters.

Therefore, by checking the type of storage and the type of deduplication, you can determine if you can enable inline deduplication on a storage container or not.

 Nutanix inline deduplication is a feature that reduces the stored size and avoids duplicate data on a storage container1. It is recommended only on some specific scenarios, such as when using Nutanix Files or virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) workloads12.

When a VM is connected to a Nutanix managed network, the IP address is assigned when the VM is powered on. A Nutanix managed network is a network that is created and managed by Prism Central using IP address management (IPAM). IPAM allows Prism Central to automatically assign IP addresses to VMs from a pool of available addresses in a subnet. IPAM also tracks the IP address usage and availability across clusters and networks4.

When a VM is connected to a Nutanix managed network, the administrator can choose one of the following assignment types for the IP address:

• Assign Static IP: This option allows the administrator to manually specify a static IP address for the VM from the subnet range. The IP address will not change unless the administrator changes it.
• Assign with DHCP: This option allows Prism Central to dynamically assign an IP address for the VM from the subnet range using DHCP. The IP address may change depending on the DHCP lease time and availability.
• No Private IP: This option allows the administrator to skip assigning an IP address for the VM. This option is useful for scenarios where the administrator wants to use an external IPAM solution or assign an IP address later5.

Regardless of the assignment type, the IP address is assigned when the VM is powered on. This is because Prism Central needs to communicate with the hypervisor (AHV or ESXi) to configure the virtual NIC (vNIC) of the VM with the IP address information. This communication can only happen when the VM is in a powered on state6.

References: 4: IP Address Management - Prism Central Guide 5: Creating a New Report - Prism Central Guide 6: IP Address Assignment - AHV Networking Guide

NTP service needs to be configured to ensure logs, alerts and information is consistent across clusters that are located in different countries. NTP stands for Network Time Protocol and it is used to synchronize the clocks of all the nodes in a cluster1. This helps to maintain accurate timestamps for logs, alerts and other information that are generated by Nutanix clusters1.

The correct answer is B. The existing and the expansion node are on different VLANs.

The output shows that the new node has a br0-up bond with four interfaces: eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3. The bond is configured with LACP active and LACP fallback set to false. This means that the bond will only work if the upstream switch supports LACP and is configured to form an LACP group with the four interfaces. However, the output also shows that the bond has no IP address assigned to it, which indicates that the bond is not operational. One possible reason for this is that the existing and the expansion node are on different VLANs, and the upstream switch is not configured to allow the VLAN traffic on the LACP group. This would prevent the new node from communicating with the cluster and being discovered by the Expand Cluster function in Prism.

To verify this, the administrator can check the VLAN configuration on the upstream switch and compare it with the existing nodes. Alternatively, the administrator can use the “manage_ovs show_uplinks” command on an existing node and compare the output with the new node. If there is a VLAN mismatch, the administrator can either change the VLAN configuration on the switch or on the new node to match the existing nodes.

The correct answer is D. VM Storage Controller Bandwidth.

VM Storage Controller Bandwidth is a metric that measures the amount of data that a VM is reading and writing to the storage fabric. The storage fabric is the network of storage controllers (CVMs) that provide distributed and fault-tolerant storage services to the VMs on the Nutanix cluster. The VM Storage Controller Bandwidth metric shows the read and write bandwidth in megabytes per second (MBps) for each VM. The higher the bandwidth, the more data the VM is transferring to and from the storage fabric1.

The administrator can use Prism Central to view the VM Storage Controller Bandwidth metric for each VM in a chart or a widget. The administrator can also use Prism Central to view other metrics related to the VM’s storage performance, such as VM Storage Controller IOPS, VM Storage Controller Latency, and VM Disk Usage2.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, the administrator can change the frequency of checks and alerts for the System Non-Root Partition Usage in Prism Element by going to the Health Dashboard > Manage Checks > Schedule. The administrator can select the check name, such as disk_usage_check, and click on Edit Schedule. The administrator can then choose the desired frequency, such as every 15 minutes, every hour, or every day, and click on Save. This will change how often the check runs and alerts are generated.

The issue described pertains to the inability to ping the IPMI IPs after moving the IPMI network links to the actual switches with specific VLAN configurations. The two changes that the administrator needs to make are:

A. SSH to AHV and set the VLAN ID using IPMI Tool: Since all VLANs are tagged in the new network configuration, the IPMI network interface needs to be aware of the VLAN it’s supposed to communicate on. This can be achieved by setting the VLAN ID using the IPMI Tool on the AHV.

C. SSH to AHV and change the IP address using IPMI tool: If the IPMI IP addresses were initially set in a different subnet that is not routable in the new network configuration, the administrator would need to change the IPMI IP addresses to match the new network configuration. This can be done by SSHing to the AHV and using the IPMI Tool to change the IP address.

A. This statement is incorrect because there is no static threshold set to trigger a critical alert at 6000 MB. The graph shows a peak that goes above 6000 MB, but the alert configuration below does not specify a static threshold at this value.

B. This is the correct statement. The configuration under "Behavioral Anomaly" is set to alert every time there is an anomaly, with a critical level alert set to trigger when the I/O working set size is between 0 MB and 4000 MB. The graph illustrates that the anomalies (highlighted in pink) occur when the working set size exceeds the normal range (blue band). Therefore, any anomaly detected above 4000 MB would trigger a critical alert.

C. This statement is incorrect because there is no indication that a warning alert is configured to trigger after 3 anomalies. The exhibit does not show any configuration that specifies an alert based on the number of anomalies.

D. This statement is incorrect as there's no indication that a warning alert will be triggered based on the I/O working set size exceeding the blue band. The alert settings are configured to ignore anomalies below 4000 MB and to trigger a critical alert for anomalies above this threshold.

The settings displayed in the exhibit are typically part of Nutanix's Prism infrastructure management platform, which can set various thresholds for performance metrics and trigger alerts based on those thresholds. The behavior is defined in the Prism documentation where the alert configuration is outlined.

The change password at next logon attribute is a setting that forces a user to change their password when they log on to a domain for the first time or after their password has expired. This attribute is enabled by default for new Active Directory user accounts or when an administrator resets a user’s password4.

However, Prism Central does not support this attribute for Active Directory authentication. Users with this attribute enabled will not be able to log on to Prism Central using their Active Directory credentials. They will receive an error message saying “Invalid credentials” or “Authentication failed” when they try to log on5.

Therefore, if an administrator is not able to log on to Prism Central using a new Active Directory user account, the most likely cause of this issue is that the change password at next logon attribute is set for that user account. To resolve this issue, the administrator should disable this attribute for the user account or log on to a domain workstation first and change their password before accessing Prism Central6.

To periodically send information about cluster efficiency via email to a set of users, the administrator can follow these steps:

• Create a report in Prism Central that contains the relevant information about cluster efficiency.
• Add a schedule to the report to generate and send the report via email to the set of users at a specified frequency.

This will ensure that the users receive regular updates about the cluster efficiency without the need for manual intervention.

According to the web search results, Prism Central is a multi-cluster manager that provides a single, centralized management interface for Nutanix environments12. One of the features of Prism Central is multi-cluster Single Sign On (SSO), which allows users to log in once and access multiple clusters without re-entering credentials3.

Automated live migration is a feature of Nutanix that allows the cluster to automatically move VMs from one host to another without any downtime, in order to optimize the performance and availability of the cluster. According to the Nutanix documentation1, automated live migration can occur in the following scenarios:

• Cluster resource hotspot: When a host or a group of hosts experience high resource utilization, such as CPU, memory, or network, the cluster can automatically migrate some VMs to other hosts with lower utilization, in order to balance the load and avoid performance degradation.
• AOS upgrade: When upgrading the Nutanix software (AOS), the cluster can automatically migrate the VMs from the host that is being upgraded to another host in the same availability zone, in order to maintain the VM availability and minimize the impact of the upgrade process.
• AHV host maintenance mode: When putting an AHV host into maintenance mode, the cluster can automatically migrate all the VMs from that host to another host in the same availability zone, in order to prepare the host for maintenance operations such as hardware replacement or firmware update.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details/?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v50:wc-bl ock-services-enabling-t.html

Provision storage on the Nutanix cluster by creating a volume group. Create a client whitelist to enable access to the volume group by using the IP addresses or client initiator IQNs in a whitelist (as part of the volume group configuration). Create a secret for the volume group if you are using CHAP authentication.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights, IPAM enables AHV to assign IP addresses automatically to VMs using DHCP. You can configure each virtual network and associated VLAN with a specific IP subnet, associated domain settings, and group of IP address pools available for assignment.

According to the web search results, Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) is the scale-out storage technology that makes HCI and cloud possible45. DSF pools the storage devices that are directly attached to a cluster of servers and presents them to applications across a variety of storage protocols4. DSF also manages and protects data by a fine-grained, distributed metadata system that ensures uniform distribution of data throughout the cluster to eliminate hot spots and speed up rebuilds

A bond is a logical interface that combines two or more physical interfaces on an AHV host. A bond provides high availability and load balancing for the network traffic of the host and its VMs. A bond can have different modes that determine how the traffic is distributed and how the bond handles failures of the physical interfaces. The most common bond modes are active-backup, active-active, and LACP1.

Nutanix recommends including at least two physical interfaces in every bond to ensure high availability and redundancy. If one of the physical interfaces fails or is disconnected, the other interface can take over the traffic without affecting the connectivity of the host or its VMs. Having at least two physical interfaces in a bond also allows for maintenance operations such as firmware upgrades or cable replacements without downtime2.

Nutanix does not recommend including NIC models from different vendors in the same bond, as this may cause compatibility issues or performance degradation. Nutanix also does not recommend using only one physical interface in a bond, as this provides no redundancy or load balancing benefits3.

According to the Dell Unity: Data Reduction Technical White Paper1, snapshots and clones on Dell Unity use the Copy-on-Write (CoW) algorithm to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. CoW is a technique that defers the copying of data until it is modified. This means that snapshots and clones only consume space when changes are made to the source or the clone, respectively. CoW also preserves the original data in case of a rollback or recovery operation.

According to the web search results, a consistency group is a group of related applications or services that must be recovered together in order to work properly, and this means more than being recovered at the same time67. They also typically need to be recovered to the same point in time6. Therefore, to meet the requirement of protecting all VMs of a multi-tier application at the same time, the administrator must create a consistency group for the application and place all VMs in it8. This way, the administrator can apply data protection policies and schedules to the entire consistency group as a single unit8.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, route injection is used to maintain I/O operations in the cluster when the Stargate service becomes unavailable on a single CVM on an AHV node. Route injection is a mechanism that allows the CVMs to communicate with each other and redirect the I/O requests to another healthy CVM in the cluster. Route injection uses the Linux kernel routing table to add or delete routes dynamically, based on the availability of the Stargate service on each CVM.

According to the web search results, the most efficient action an administrator should take to ensure a supported state when adding a node with a higher AOS release to an existing cluster is to perform a standalone reimage of the new node and then add it to the cluster1. This way, the new node will have the same AOS version as the existing nodes, and there will be no compatibility issues or downtime. Therefore, option C is correct, while options A, B, and D are not.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documen ts/details/?targetId=Prism-Central-Guide-Prism-v510:mul-alert-policies-user-defined-configure-pc-c.html

LCM (Life Cycle Manager) is a feature that allows Nutanix administrators to perform one-click firmware and software upgrades for Nutanix clusters and components. LCM fetches inventory and update information from a pre-configured URL that contains the latest versions of firmware and software packages. However, upgrading Nutanix AOS does not automatically update the fetch URL. To update the fetch URL, the administrator needs to update the LCM framework. The LCM framework is the core component of LCM that provides the logic and functionality for inventory, download, and upgrade operations1.

To upgrade the LCM framework, the administrator needs to perform an LCM inventory. An LCM inventory is a process that scans the cluster and its components for their current firmware and software versions and compares them with the available versions from the fetch URL. If there is a newer version of the LCM framework available, it will be shown as an update option under Cluster Software Component in the Available Updates page. The administrator can then select and apply the LCM framework update to upgrade it to the latest version2.

The administrator can perform an LCM inventory using Prism Element or Prism Central. The steps are as follows3:

• In Prism Element, go to the Network Configuration page and click Life Cycle Management.
• In Prism Central, go to the Services page and click Life Cycle Management.
• Click Inventory in the toolbar and select Perform Inventory from the drop-down menu.
• Wait for the inventory process to complete and check for any available updates.

https://hyperhci.com/2019/07/22/nutanix-lcm-upgrade-process-failed-trouble-shooting/

A Nutanix cluster requires a minimum of three nodes to maintain quorum and data availability. Removing a node from a 3-node cluster would violate the redundancy factor and cause data loss. Therefore, it is not possible to remove a host from a 3-node cluster using Prism or CLI. The only way to replace a node in a 3-node cluster is to use the Foundation tool, which will erase the existing cluster configuration and create a new cluster with the new node1.

According to the How to use the cvm_shutdown script web search result3, the cvm_shutdown script signals HA when shutting down the CVM (Controller VM) to forward the storage traffic to another healthy CVM. Instead of using sudo shutdown or sudo reboot commands, this script should be used to minimize I/O hits in user VMs running on the present hypervisor host. The cvm_shutdown -P now command will initiate the shutdown process on the CVM immediately. Therefore, if the administrator needs to perform an orderly shutdown of the CVM, they should execute this command from the CVM.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Prism-Central-Guide-Prism-v5_10:mul-pc-install-scratch-c.html

 According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result4, Prism Central can be installed manually on an AHV cluster by using three disk images: boot, home, and data. These disk images must be downloaded from the portal for the Prism Central VM and uploaded to an image service on the AHV cluster. The boot image contains the operating system and kernel for Prism Central. The home image contains the configuration files and logs for Prism Central. The data image contains the database and application files for Prism Central.

In this case, the administrator wants to investigate the performance of a core banking system that consists of application servers and database servers. The application servers have high CPU utilization during business hours, which may indicate a bottleneck or a resource contention issue. The administrator needs to review multiple metrics in Prism Analysis Graphs to identify the root cause and determine if there is a problem with the app servers only, or with other components as well.

The metrics that are relevant for this analysis are:

• Cluster IO: This metric shows the input/output operations per second (IOPS) and throughput (MBps) of the cluster. It can help to understand if there is a high demand for disk IO from the VMs or if there is any latency or congestion in the storage layer.
• Cluster CPU: This metric shows the CPU utilization (%) and load average of the cluster. It can help to understand if there is enough CPU capacity in the cluster to handle the workload or if there is any imbalance or contention among hosts.
• Cluster Memory: This metric shows the memory utilization (%) and available memory (GB) of the cluster. It can help to understand if there is enough memory capacity in the cluster to support the VMs or if there is any pressure or swapping in the memory layer.
• Network: This metric shows the network throughput (MBps) and packets per second (pps) of the cluster. It can help to understand if there is enough network bandwidth in the cluster to transfer data between hosts and VMs or if there is any congestion or packet loss in the network layer.
• App Server CPU: This metric shows the CPU utilization (%) and load average of each application server VM. It can help to understand if there is any variation or anomaly in the performance of each app server or if there is any correlation with other metrics.
• Database Server CPU: This metric shows the CPU utilization (%) and load average of each database server VM. It can help to understand if there is any variation or anomaly in the performance of each database server or if there is any correlation with other metrics.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights, in a two-node ROBO cluster with a witness VM, if one node goes down, the other node sends a leadership request to the witness VM and goes into single-node mode. The cluster remains available and can tolerate another failure of either the witness VM or the network link.

According to the web search results, two steps that should be taken to prepare for relocating an AHV cluster to a new datacenter during a maintenance window are:

• Shut down all user VMs in the cluster: This step is necessary to ensure that there is no data loss or corruption during the relocation process. The user VMs can be shut down either individually or in bulk by using the Prism Element web console or the acli command-line interface1.
• Stop all Nutanix Files clusters: If the AHV cluster hosts any Nutanix Files clusters, they should be stopped before relocating the cluster. Nutanix Files clusters are composed of one or more virtual machines that provide file services to clients. Stopping a Nutanix Files cluster will stop all the file server VMs and release the resources they consume2. The Nutanix Files clusters can be stopped by using the Prism Element web console or the ncli command-line interface3.

NGT is a software package that enables advanced VM management features provided by Nutanix, such as file-level restore, VM mobility, and application-consistent snapshots12. To use NGT, you need to enable the NGT feature for a VM in the Prism Element web console, mount the NGT installer (ISO disk file) in the VM, and install NGT in the VM1. However, before installing NGT, you need to ensure that the VM can communicate with the NGT-Controller VM service, which runs on the Controller VM (CVM) of each Nutanix node3. The NGT-Controller VM service listens on port 9943 for incoming requests from the guest VMs3. Therefore, you need to enable port 9943 on the ESXi-hosted VM to allow communication with the NGT-Controller VM service.

The best way for the administrator to limit the amount of storage space that data stored in a single container can consume is to set an advertised capacity for the container. This will ensure that the data stored in the container doesn't exceed the set limit, and it will also help prevent any potential performance issues due to resource contention. Additionally, the administrator should consider thick provisioning the container, which will pre-allocate the amount of storage space that can be used by the container. This will help ensure that the data stored in the container doesn't exceed the advertised capacity.

API Explorer page will launch when an administrator presses the letter A on the keyboard after logging into Prism Element. This is one of the keyboard shortcuts that Prism Element provides for accessibility and ease of use1. API Explorer is a tool that allows users to explore and test Nutanix REST APIs within Prism Element1.

https://www.nutanixbible.com/3b-book-of-prism-navigation.html

https://next.nutanix.com/installation-configuration-23/nutanix-vlan-34170