NCP-MCI-6.10 Sample Questions Answers

When diagnosing CPU performance issues, CPU Ready Time and CPU Usage are the key indicators of whether more vCPUs are needed.

Option A (VM CPU Ready Time) is correct:

High CPU Ready Time means the VM is waiting for CPU resources, indicatingCPU contention.

Option B (VM CPU Usage) is correct:

If CPU usage isconsistently high, adding more vCPUsmay improve performance.

Option C (Host CPU Usage) is incorrect:

Host-wide CPU usage does not indicate whether a specific VM needs more vCPUs.

Option D (Host Memory Swap Out Rate) is incorrect:

Memory swappingaffects RAM performance, not CPU allocation.

A cluster runway below 365 days does not necessarily indicate an issue if Intelligent Operations determines that workloads are sustainable.

Option B (Because new workloads are sustainable) is correct:

Nutanixanalyzes resource trendsand marks clusters as healthyif new workloads are within projected capacity.

Option A (Storage Runway is still good) is incorrect:

Storage isone component, butCPU and memoryalso affect runway calculations.

Option C (Recommended resources) is incorrect:

Recommendations help optimize capacity, butdo not define cluster health.

Option D (Target is 1 month) is incorrect:

The scenario’s target window does not impact the actual runway calculation.

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.

Dead VMs and Zombie VMs are different classifications of inactive VMs in Nutanix, and their deletion timelines depend on Playbook configuration.

Dead VMs→ Consideredinactive after 30 days, then must wait99 more daysbefore deletion.

Total time: 30 + 99 = 129 days.

(Option C is correct).

Zombie VMs→ Consideredinactive after 30 days, then must wait99 more daysbefore deletion.

Total time: 30 + 99 = 129 days.

(Option B is correct).

TheBully VMs Listview in Prism Central’sIntelligent Operationsidentifies VMs that are consumingexcessive resources(CPU, memory, or storage IO) and causing resource starvation for other VMs.

From theNutanix ECA documentation:

“Bully VMs List identifies virtual machines with high resource consumption, enabling administrators to investigate and take action to prevent performance degradation in other VMs.”

The other options:

A (Constrained VMs): Shows VMs that are being starved of resources.

C (Inactive VMs): Shows VMs that are using little to no resources.

D (Overprovisioned VMs): Shows VMs with allocated resources beyond actual usage.

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

From theNutanix ECA documentation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus, the correct requirement is 30 days of history.

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.

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.

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.

The Nutanix data protection guide specifies that NearSync replication provides an RPO between 1 and 15 minutes, which is the lowest RPO available for standard asynchronous-based replication models. The documentation further states that NearSync is the supported method for achieving sub-hour RPO on one- and two-node clusters. Asynchronous replication has a minimum RPO of 60 minutes and therefore cannot be used for lowest RPO requirements. While scheduling intervals such as 1–15 minutes appear similar, Nutanix notes that these intervals are only achievable under the NearSync replication mode. Therefore, selecting NearSync is the required configuration to meet the goal of achieving the lowest RPO.

The LCM (Life Cycle Manager) precheck failures in this scenario indicate an inability to connect to vCenter to validate ESXi-specific checks, such as LACP configuration, HA, and pinned VMs. The appropriate log to analyze the details of the LCM precheck failures is the 1cm_ops.out log.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“The 1cm_ops.out log file contains detailed output and error information related to LCM operations, including prechecks, execution, and post-checks. This log is essential for troubleshooting LCM framework failures and understanding the root cause of any issues preventing upgrades.”

Protection Domains (PDs) in Nutanix ensure that entire applications and their associated data are protected during failover.However,Volume Groups (VGs) are not automatically includedunless explicitly configured.

Option A (Select "Auto protect related entities") is correct:

This setting ensures thatassociated Volume Groups, networks, and other dependencies are included in the Protection Domainautomatically.

Without enabling this, only the VM itself would be protected, leading tomissing application data upon failover.

Option B (Manually add Volume Groups to Protected Entities) is correct:

If"Auto protect related entities" is not enabled, the administrator mustmanually add Volume Groups to the Protection Domain.

This ensures that bothVMs and their attached Volume Groupsare replicated and recovered together.

Option C (Place Volume Groups in a separate Protection Domain) is incorrect:

Separating Volume Groups into a different PDdoes not guarantee they failover together with VMs.

It is best practice tokeep related VMs and Volume Groups in the same PD.

Option D (Use application-consistent snapshots) is incorrect:

Whileapplication-consistent snapshots improve data integrity, theydo not fix missing Volume Groups in failover scenarios.

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

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

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

Option A is incorrect:

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

Option B is incorrect:

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

Option C is incorrect:

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

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.

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.

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.

For NutanixDisaster Recovery (DR) protection policies, thefirst stepis to establish a connection between theProduction cluster and the DR site, which is done by creating anAvailability Zone (AZ) (Option B).

Availability Zones (AZs) define remote sites for replicationand are a requirement for configuring protection domains and disaster recovery plans.

Option A (Installing NGT)is not necessary for setting up replication but is useful for application-consistent snapshots.

Option C (Converting the source cluster to AHV)is not required, as Nutanix supports cross-hypervisor DR betweenESXi and AHV.

Option D (Creating a point-in-time snapshot)is a later step after setting up theAvailability Zone and Protection Policy.

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

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

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

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

When 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.

When creating templates in Nutanix, Prism Central supports two official, built-in guest customization frameworks depending on the operating system family.

The Nutanix guest customization documentation states:

“For Windows VMs, Prism Central supports Sysprep-based customization. For Linux VMs, Prism Central supports Cloud-init customization.”

These two tools allow automation of hostname assignment, networking configuration, user accounts, and post-deployment initialization.

Additional extracts from internal documentation:

“Sysprep is automatically invoked during clone operations from Windows templates to ensure that the cloned VM receives unique identifiers.”

“Cloud-init is used for Linux templates to allow dynamic provisioning, SSH key injection, and package installation during instantiation.”

Nutanix does not list “Custom Script” or “Guided Script” as valid VM template customization mechanisms. Scripting can be applied after deployment but not as a built-in template customization framework.

Thus, the only valid template customization options are Sysprep and Cloud-init.

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

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

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

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

Explanation of Options:

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

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

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

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

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

Additional Context from ECA:

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

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

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

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

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.

In a dark site deployment, LCM does not automatically fetch updates from the internet. The administrator must manually upload compatibility bundles.

Option B (The latest compatibility bundle has not been uploaded) is correct:

Thecompatibility bundlecontainsfirmware mappings, allowing LCM to detect the correct BIOS version.

Option A is incorrect:

AOSdoes not need to be upgraded firstfor a BIOS update.

Option C is incorrect:

TheBMC firmware does not always need updatingbefore BIOS updates.

Option D is incorrect:

In a dark site deployment,LCM does not rely on an internet connection, so webserver access is not required.

When a node is placed intoMaintenance Mode, Nutanix follows a structured process to ensureservice continuity and data integrity.

Option B (All eligible VMs on the host are migrated to other hosts) is correct:

Live Migration automatically moves VMs to other hoststo avoid downtime.

This ensures workloads remain operational during maintenance.

Option D (Non-migratable VMs are powered off) is correct:

Some VMs, such as those usingGPU pass-through or local storage dependencies,cannot be live-migrated.

These VMsmust be powered offbefore placing the host into Maintenance Mode.

Option A is incorrect:

Non-migratable VMs are not automatically restarted on other hosts—they remain powered off until manually restarted.

Option C is incorrect:

Eligible VMs are live-migrated, not powered off.

In Nutanix AHV-based clusters, when you want to ensure that a specific VM (e.g., a critical VM like a domain controller) is powered on before other VMs during a host startup or failover scenario, you use the Agent VM configuration setting.

Here’s the exact explanation from the Nutanix ECA course:

“Agent VMs are special VMs that are automatically powered on before other user VMs during host startup or recovery. This ensures that critical VMs, such as those that provide essential services, are always available first.”

In contrast:

✅Recovery Plan (A) — This is used in the context of DR and failover, typically with Nutanix Leap.

✅Host Affinity (B) — Host affinity rules control placement policies of VMs but not startup priority.

✅High Availability (C) — HA ensures VMs are restarted on surviving hosts but does not control startup order.

Therefore, setting the VM as an Agent VM guarantees that it is powered on before the other VMs during host start-up. Let me know if you’d like steps on how to configure an Agent VM within Prism Central or Prism Element!

In Nutanix Protection Domain-based replication, both thesourceanddestinationstorage containersmust have the same Replication Factor (RF)to ensure consistent data protection and replication. This is a key requirement for the data’s protection and integrity.

From theNutanix ECAdocumentation:

“Replication and recovery require that the source and destination containers have the same RF setting (either RF2 or RF3). If the RF does not match, replication and recovery points will not be generated in the DR site.”

The other options:

A (NGT): NGT is not required for crash-consistent protection.

C (Windows updates): Updates are not directly relevant to replication consistency.

D (container name): Names can differ; what matters is the container’s RF setting.

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.

When the maximum instance count of retained reports is reached, Nutanix automatically deletes the oldest report to accommodate the new one.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“To ensure storage and performance efficiency, Nutanix reporting limits the number of stored reports. If this maximum is reached, the oldest report instance is automatically deleted to make space for new reports.”

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

For high-performance databases like MySQL, optimizing storage access is critical.

Option B (Create additional vDisks for SQL data) is correct:

Multiple vDisks allowbetter parallelismin NutanixDSF (Distributed Storage Fabric), improving IOPS.

Option C (Use LVM to stripe SQL data across multiple vDisks) is correct:

Striping across multiple disksdistributes the load, reducing latency.

Option A (Thick provisioned vDisks) is incorrect:

Nutanixalways provisions vDisks thinly, and thick provisioningdoes not improve IOPS.

Option D (Thin provisioned vDisks) is incorrect:

All Nutanix vDisksare thin-provisioned by default.

The requirement states:

• Custom apps use Volume Groups

• VM + VG must remain consistent together

• Lowest possible RPO is required (RPO → 0)

• Must survive cluster failure

Nutanix data protection documentation clearly states:

“Synchronous replication provides an RPO of zero by ensuring every write is committed on both sites before acknowledgement.”

Additionally:

“When protecting application VMs using Volume Groups, both the VM and the Volume Group must be placed in the same Consistency Group to ensure write-order fidelity and to preserve database or application integrity during failover.”

This is critical because Volume Groups operate at the block layer, and placing them in separate groups breaks atomic write-order correctness.

Option analysis:

A. Metro AHV provides HA-style zero RPO but is not the required mechanism here because the question specifically references protection policies and VGs, which Metro does not orchestrate in the same way.

B. Synchronous replication alone is not sufficient unless VMs and VGs are inside the same consistency group.

C. This is the correct and complete solution: synchronous replication + consistency grouping ensures RPO0 and atomic updates.

D. NearSync has RPO 1–15 minutes, not the lowest possible RPO.

Therefore, placing both VMs and VGs in the same consistency group under Synchronous Replication is the correct method.

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

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

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

Multicast traffic can generate unnecessary overhead if it is not properly managed.IGMP Snooping (Option C)ensures thatmulticast packets are only sent to VMs that have requested them, rather than broadcasting to all VMs.

Option C (IGMP Snooping) is correct:

Itreduces unnecessary multicast trafficby ensuring that only subscribed VMs receive the packets.

It is supportednatively in AHV networking.

Option A (LACP) is incorrect:

Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)improves bandwidth and redundancy but doesnot control multicast traffic.

Option B (UDP) is incorrect:

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a transport protocol, not a network optimization feature.

Option D (Network Segmentation) is incorrect:

Segmentation (VLANs, VPCs) isolates networksbut does not optimizemulticast traffic specifically.

Moving vDisks to a storage container with compression enabled ensures better data efficiency without downtime.

Option A (Migrate vDisks) is correct:

vDisk migration is non-disruptiveand allows compression settings to be applied dynamically.

Option B (Recreate the VM) is incorrect:

Rebuilding the VM is unnecessaryand would causedowntime.

Option C (Migrate the VM) is incorrect:

VM migration does not guarantee that only vDisks move, and it may disrupt performance.

Option D (Recreate vDisk) is incorrect:

This method ismanual and time-consuming, while Nutanix provides anautomated approach.