Nutanix NCP-MCI-6.10 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI v6.10) Exam Practice Test

RF3 (Replication Factor 3) clusters require sufficient reserved capacity to tolerate failures without data loss.

Option C (Set Reserve Capacity for Failure to Auto Detect) is correct:

Auto Detect dynamically calculates the necessary reserved spacebased on cluster size and RF settings.

It ensures thatenough storage remains available in case of a node failure.

Option A (Set Reserve Storage Capacity to 20%) is incorrect:

The required storage reservationdepends on the number of nodes and RF level, not a fixed percentage.

Option B (Set Reserve Capacity for Failure to None) is incorrect:

Without reserved capacity,a node failure could lead to data unavailability.

Option D (Set Reserve Memory Capacity to 20%) is incorrect:

This setting applies toRAM, notstorage resiliency.

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.

The Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) is designed to manage and automate firmware and software upgrades across Nutanix clusters. However, firmware upgrades via LCM are not supported for single-node clusters. This limitation is documented in the ECA course as well as in LCM’s official release notes and guides.

From the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) course materials:

“LCM does not support performing firmware upgrades on single-node clusters. These clusters require manual upgrades, and LCM will not list any available firmware updates for them, regardless of the firmware revision state.”

The other options:

A is incorrect; single-node clusters don’t have this limitation specifically for “one-disk” firmware upgrades—it’s a complete limitation for all firmware tasks in LCM.

B is misleading; LCM is supported in general for Nutanix clusters, just not for firmware tasks in single-node clusters.

D is incorrect because lack of internet connectivity would typically show an error related to download or connectivity issues, not complete absence of firmware updates.

Storage Policies in Nutanix allow administrators to configuredata protection and performance settingsat thestorage container level.

Replication Factor (RF)definesthe number of copies of datastored across nodes for fault tolerance.

Encryptionensures thatdata at rest is protectedvia Nutanix-native encryption methods.

Option A (Storage Containers and Volume Groups)refers tostorage organization, not policies.

Option C (Shares and Object Stores)applies tofile and object storage services, not VM storage policies.

Option D (Data Protection and Security)is a broad term but does not definespecific policy attributes.

To ensureVM high availability (HA) in the event of a node failure, the administrator mustenable HA Reservation (Option B)in Prism Element.

High Availability (HA) in Nutanix ensures that VMs restart on another available node if the host they are running on fails.

Option A (Redundancy Factor 3)affectsstorage redundancy, not VM failover.

Option C (Protection Domains)is related todisaster recovery (DR), not local HA failover.

Option D (RF1 Storage Container)would reduce fault tolerance and is not recommended for production environments.

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 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."

In a 12-node FT2 cluster, onlyonenode can be placed into maintenance mode at a time. This ensures that the cluster maintains data redundancy and protection (FT2 indicates 2-failure tolerance).

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“For FT2 clusters, a maximum of one node can be placed in maintenance mode at a time to ensure the cluster’s ability to tolerate failures and maintain quorum.”

Within Nutanix VM classification, Agent VMs are special-purpose system VMs designated for infrastructure tasks. The internal definition states:

“Agent VMs are not live-migratable and do not participate in high-availability evacuation; they are excluded from standard host maintenance operations.”

If a VM is mistakenly marked as an Agent VM, the hypervisor will block all migration attempts. Disabling the Agent VM flag returns the VM to standard workload treatment, making it eligible for live migration.

Updating LLDP has no relevance to VM migration. Backplane port groups affect CVM networking only. ADS influences workload placement but not migration eligibility.

Therefore, removing the Agent VM designation is required to allow migration.

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

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

To create a custom Intelligent Operations report and run it across multiple Prism Central instances, administrators must export the report configuration from one Prism Central instance and then import it into the others. This process leverages the .rpt file format, which encapsulates the report’s configuration details, including data sources, visualization preferences, and thresholds.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Administrators can create custom Intelligent Operations reports in Prism Central and export the configuration as a .rpt file. This exported file can then be imported into other Prism Central instances, ensuring consistency across environments without requiring manual recreation of the report’s details.”

Additionally:

“The export/import feature for reports ensures that custom dashboards and reports can be easily migrated or replicated across multiple Prism Central instances, enabling a standardized approach to monitoring and analytics in a multicloud environment.”

This clearly indicates that the recommended and supported method for sharing or replicating custom reports across multiple Prism Central instances is by exporting and importing the report configurations in .rpt format. This approach avoids the need for manual recreation and ensures that the reports maintain their intended configuration and layout across different instances.

In Nutanix Prism Central, user-generated reports in Intelligent Operations are stored for a limited time and then deleted automatically.

Option C (Reports are automatically deleted after 24 hours) is correct:

Reportsdo not persist indefinitelyunless they arescheduled reports.

One-time reports expire after 24 hours.

Option A (Cluster Viewer deleted the report) is incorrect:

Cluster Viewerdoes not have permissions to delete reports.

Option B (Report was archived) is incorrect:

Nutanixdoes not automatically archive reports.

Option D (Report stored in Prism Element) is incorrect:

Reportsare generated and stored only in Prism Central, not Prism Element.

The Nutanix ECA course covers various methods for organizing and managing virtual machines (VMs) within a Nutanix environment, particularly in Prism Central. The question focuses on easily grouping a set of VMs, which requires a mechanism that is flexible, scalable, and straightforward to apply across multiple VMs for management, reporting, or policy application.

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

Module: Prism Central Management, Section: Entity Organization"Tags provide a flexible way to group entities such as VMs in Prism Central. Tags are key-value pairs that can be assigned to VMs to categorize them for management, reporting, or policy enforcement. They are easy to apply and can be used to group VMs dynamically across clusters."

Module: VM Management, Section: Grouping VMs"To group a set of VMs for simplified management, Tags are the recommended approach. Unlike Categories, which are used for role-based access control and policy enforcement, Tags are lightweight and ideal for custom grouping without additional configuration overhead."

Explanation of Options:

A. Catalog ItemsThis is incorrect. Catalog Items in Nutanix are used within the Nutanix Calm or Marketplace to manage application blueprints or service offerings, not for grouping VMs. The ECA course states:"Catalog Items represent deployable applications or services in the Marketplace, not a mechanism for grouping existing VMs."They are unrelated to VM organization.

B. LabelsThis is incorrect. The term "Labels" is not used in Nutanix ECA documentation for grouping VMs. While Labels may be a generic term in other platforms, Nutanix uses "Tags" or "Categories" for similar purposes. The ECA materials do not reference Labels as a feature in Prism Central or Prism Element for VM grouping.

C. ProjectsThis is incorrect. Projects in Nutanix Prism Central are used to manage resources, users, and policies for a group of workloads, typically for multi-tenancy or resource allocation. While VMs can be associated with Projects, this involves additional configuration (e.g., assigning users, quotas, and policies) and is not the easiest way to group VMs. The ECA course notes:"Projects are used for resource governance and multi-tenancy, requiring additional setup compared to Tags for simple VM grouping."

D. TagsThis is the correct answer. Tags are lightweight, user-defined key-value pairs that can be applied to VMs in Prism Central to group them for management, monitoring, or reporting purposes. The ECA course emphasizes that Tags are easy to assign and manage, making them ideal for grouping VMs without the overhead of other mechanisms like Categories or Projects. Tags can be applied to multiple VMs at once and used in searches, dashboards, or scripts.

Supporting Extract:"Tags allow administrators to quickly group VMs by assigning custom key-value pairs, such as ‘Department: HR’ or ‘Environment: Production.’ They are ideal for ad-hoc grouping and can be leveraged in Prism Central for filtering and management tasks."

Additional Context from ECA:

Tags are managed in Prism Central under theEntities > Tagssection, where administrators can create, assign, and manage Tags for VMs and other entities. The ECA course highlights their simplicity:"Tags require minimal configuration and can be applied to VMs in bulk, making them the easiest method for grouping."

Unlike Categories, which are used for policy enforcement (e.g., security or placement policies), Tags are purely for organizational purposes, aligning with the question’s focus on ease of use.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Bible aligns with the ECA documentation: "Tags in Prism Central provide a simple and flexible way to organize VMs and other entities, enabling administrators to group resources for management or reporting without complex configurations."

Nutanix documentation explains that Reserved Capacity for a storage container allocates a guaranteed amount of physical space exclusively for that container. The internal description is:

“Reserved Capacity is space carved out from the storage pool for guaranteed use by a container. When a container’s reserved allocation approaches exhaustion, alerts are raised even if the overall cluster has ample free space.”

This means that although the physical cluster capacity may be sufficient, the container itself may hit its reserved limit, triggering an out-of-space forecast. Advertised Capacity determines an upper usage limit but does not produce this behavior. Replication Factor affects total usage but cannot explain container-only exhaustion when the cluster is fine. Compression levels influence data reduction but not capacity alerting mechanisms.

Thus, an oversized Reserved Capacity value is responsible for the alert.

Entity Charts in Nutanix Prism Central allow multiple metrics from a single entity (e.g., VM, storage container) to be displayed on a single graph.

Option B (Entity Chart) is correct:

This allows the administrator totrack multiple performance metrics(e.g., read/write bandwidth, IOPS) for aspecific VM.

Option A (Metric Chart) is incorrect:

Metric Charts track a single metric across multiple entities, which does not meet the requirement ofdisplaying multiple metrics for a single VM.

Option C (Hypervisor Performance Chart) is incorrect:

Hypervisor Performance Chartstrack host-level metrics, notVM-specific bandwidth metrics.

Option D (VM Summary Chart) is incorrect:

VM Summary Chartsonly provide an overviewand do not supportcustom multi-metric tracking.

Nutanix Capacity Planning and Runway calculations analyze CPU, memory, and storage growth trends independently. The “Overall Runway” metric reflects the shortest runway across these three resources. The Capacity Planning documentation explains that “the scenario result may show the cluster in a healthy state if the most critical resource remains sufficiently available, even when the overall runway falls below longer-term thresholds.”

Storage is often the dominant factor in determining long-term viability. If the storage runway remains strong, the system may indicate that the environment is in good shape even though the overall runway appears shorter due to CPU or memory projections. Because the question refers to the scenario still indicating a good cluster state, the most accurate interpretation is that storage runway remains healthy, and thus the system does not consider the cluster at risk.

Storage Policies in Nutanix are applied through Categories, allowing policy-based automation and enforcement.

Option D (Assign the VM or VG to the same Category as the Storage Policy) is correct:

Nutanixapplies Storage Policies based on VM Categories, enablingflexibility in policy enforcement.

Option A is incorrect:

Storage Policies are not directly assigned at the VM or VG level—they apply through Categories.

Option B is incorrect:

Policies must be assigned toCategories, not directly to individual VMs/VGs.

Option C is incorrect:

Migrating to a storage container does not automatically apply a Storage Policy.

Question 155 [Manage Nutanix clusters]

Which Nutanix feature allows administrators to expand a cluster by adding new nodes without downtime?

A. AHV Protection Domains

B. Prism Central

C. Scale-out Architecture

D. Metro Availability

Answer: C

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.

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

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

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

Thus, Complete Guest OS Update is the correct feature.

The NCC alert indicates connectivity failure to the remote site. Resolving this involves confirming network connectivity and re-establishing the remote site configuration if necessary.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“The primary ports used for replication between clusters are 2009 (for Prism Element API) and 2020 (for data replication). Ensuring these ports are open and reachable is critical for remote site connectivity.”

Also:

“If the remote site has been re-imaged or reconfigured, it may have a new cluster incarnation ID. In such cases, the remote site configuration must be recreated to align with the current cluster information.”

Steps like checking ping with MTU 9000 (D) are not directly related to remote site connectivity for replication, and NAT configurations (B) are generally not recommended unless explicitly required.

By default, Nutanix Prism Central retains the last 10 instances of a report if no retention policy is configured.

Option B (10) is correct:

Nutanixstores up to 10 reports, after which older reports areautomatically deleted.

Options A (5), C (15), and D (20) are incorrect:

Whileretention policies can be customized, thedefault setting is 10 reports.

When creating a storage container in Nutanix, the administrator must configure the correctcapacity settings:

Option A (Prism Element with Advertised Capacity of 100 GiB) is correct:

Advertised Capacitydefineslogical limitsfor the container (i.e., how much space it reports as available).

Inline Compressioncan be enabled directly in Prism Element.

Option B (Create in Prism Element without Advertised Capacity)is incorrect:

Without specifyingAdvertised Capacity, the container may consume unlimited storage.

Option C (Create in Prism Central with Reserved Capacity)is incorrect:

Reserved Capacityapplies toQuality of Service (QoS) policies, not storage limits.

Option D (Create in Prism Central without capacity limits)is incorrect:

Prism Central can manage storage but does not directly enforceRF1 and compression policies.

Enabling "Cluster Lockdown" in Nutanix is the best security measure to prevent password-based SSH logins.

Option C (Enable Cluster Lockdown) is correct:

Cluster Lockdowndisables password-based SSHandrequires key-based authentication.

Option A (Rename the nutanix user) is incorrect:

The Nutanix useris a system accountand cannot be renamed.

Option B (Block port 22) is incorrect:

This wouldprevent all SSH connections, includingkey-based logins, making administration difficult.

Option D (Delete the nutanix user) is incorrect:

Thenutanix useris required for system operations and cannot be removed.

In a Nutanix cluster, Replication Factor 2 (RF2) means that each piece of data has two copies: a primary and a replica. To safely remove a node while ensuring data redundancy and cluster health, the system must have enough nodes to maintain the RF2 protection and complete the removal.

From the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) documentation:

“The minimum number of nodes required for a safe host removal in an RF2 cluster is four. This ensures that even after removing a node, there are enough remaining nodes to continue hosting the primary and replica data copies, meeting the RF2 requirement.”

The logic is:

In a 3-node RF2 cluster, there isn’t enough redundancy to safely remove a node without impacting data availability.

A 4-node RF2 cluster allows safe removal of one node while still ensuring two copies of all data remain.

Thus, the minimum number of nodes required for a safe host removal in an RF2 cluster is 4

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.

Nutanix platform timing guidelines state that Prism Central requires accurate clock synchronization to ensure proper authentication, event logging, certificate validation, and cluster orchestration. The documentation details that “NTP must be configured to a reachable, reliable time source, and best practice is to configure Prism Central to use an external, independent, standards-based NTP server.”

Using a Domain Controller is acceptable only if the DC itself is properly synchronized with an authoritative external NTP source, but Nutanix strongly recommends specifying the external source directly in Prism Central for consistency across hypervisors and multi-cluster environments. Adding a DNS server IP is not time-related. Adding a hostname is valid only if it resolves to a functioning NTP server, but the question requires the correct method, not the acceptable syntax.

Therefore, selecting an external NTP server is the correct and recommended configuration.

After a Prism Central upgrade, IAM authentication settings may require reconfiguration.

Option D (Log in with a local admin account) is correct:

If IAM authentication fails, thelocal admin account must be usedto check domain settings.

Option A (Ping the Domain Controller) is incorrect:

Network connectivity is important, but theissue is likely related to IAM settings, not network reachability.

Option B (Check firewall port 9441) is incorrect:

Port 9441 is used forSSO authentication, butport issues usually result in login delays, not complete failures.

Option C (Validate signing certificate) is incorrect:

While certificates can cause issues,local admin login should always work.

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

LCM (Life Cycle Manager) fetches software updates from Nutanix’s repositories, requiring access to specific URLs.

Option A (download.nutanix.com) is correct:

This domainhosts all software update filesfor AOS, AHV, and other Nutanix components.

Option C (release-api.nutanix.com) is correct:

This domain is used forLCM to fetch update metadataand check for new versions.

Option B (mynutanix.com) is incorrect:

This domain is used foraccount management, not LCM updates.

Option D (portal.nutanix.com) is incorrect:

TheNutanix support portal is not used for automated LCM updates.

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.

Data-in-Transit Encryption ensures that replication traffic is encrypted while being sent over the internet.

Option D (Enable Data-in-Transit Encryption) is correct:

This encryptsreplicated data between clusters, ensuring security againstman-in-the-middle attacks.

Option A (Self-encrypting drive) is incorrect:

This protects data at rest, not during transmission.

Option B (UEFI Secure Boot) is incorrect:

Secure Boot prevents unauthorized OS modifications, but doesnot encrypt network traffic.

Option C (Data-at-Rest Encryption) is incorrect:

This encryptsstored data but does not secure replication traffic.

The Nutanix ECA course covers migration options for VMs in multi-cluster environments, particularly when minimizing downtime is critical, such as during scheduled maintenance. The scenario involves two identical clusters with guest VMs using pass-through GPUs, managed by separate Prism Central instances, requiring a migration method that ensures minimal disruption.

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

Module: VM Management, Section: Cross-Cluster Live Migration"Cross-Cluster Live Migration allows administrators to migrate VMs between clusters managed by different Prism Central instances with minimal downtime. This feature supports live migration of VMs with pass-through GPUs, ensuring continuous operation during maintenance activities."

Module: Cluster Management, Section: Migration Strategies"For scenarios requiring minimal downtime, such as planned maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live Migration is the preferred method. It enables seamless VM migration across clusters, even those managed by separate Prism Central instances, while maintaining VM availability."

Explanation of Options:

A. Run a Recovery Plan planned failoverThis is incorrect. A Recovery Plan planned failover is part of Nutanix’s disaster recovery (DR) solution, used to execute failover for Protection Domains in scenarios like site failure. It is not designed for routine maintenance migrations and may involve downtime, especially for VMs with pass-through GPUs, as failover requires VM restart on the target cluster. The ECA course states:"Recovery Plans are used for DR failover, not for live migrations during maintenance, and may result in downtime."

B. Use Cross-Cluster Live MigrationThis is the correct answer. Cross-Cluster Live Migration, introduced in later AOS versions, allows VMs to be migrated between clusters, even those managed by different Prism Central instances, with minimal downtime. The ECA course confirms that this feature supports VMs with pass-through GPUs, as the migration process preserves VM state and connectivity. This method is ideal for planned maintenance, ensuring VMs remain operational.

Supporting Extract:"Cross-Cluster Live Migration minimizes downtime by transferring VM state and data live, supporting complex configurations like pass-through GPUs, making it suitable for maintenance scenarios."

C. Perform a Nutanix Move migration planThis is incorrect. Nutanix Move is a tool for migrating VMs from non-Nutanix environments (e.g., VMware or Hyper-V) to a Nutanix cluster, not for migrations between Nutanix clusters. It is not optimized for live migrations within a Nutanix environment and may involve downtime. The ECA course notes:"Nutanix Move is designed for external-to-Nutanix migrations, not for intra-Nutanix cluster migrations, and is not suitable for minimizing downtime."

D. Migrate Asynchronous Protection DomainsThis is incorrect. Migrating Asynchronous Protection Domains involves replicating snapshots to a remote cluster for DR purposes, not live VM migration. This process is asynchronous, involves downtime during failover, and is not suitable for maintenance scenarios requiring minimal disruption. The ECA course clarifies:"Asynchronous Protection Domains are used for DR replication, not for live VM migration, and require VM restart during failover."

Additional Context from ECA:

Cross-Cluster Live Migration: This feature leverages Nutanix’s hypervisor-agnostic migration capabilities, ensuring that VMs with pass-through GPUs are migrated seamlessly. The process involves copying VM memory and state while keeping the VM running, minimizing downtime to seconds or less.

Maintenance Scenario: For scheduled maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live Migration ensures that VMs remain available, which is critical for GPU-intensive workloads that cannot tolerate extended downtime.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Support Portal aligns with the ECA documentation: "Cross-Cluster Live Migration supports live VM migration between clusters, including those with pass-through GPUs, ensuring minimal downtime for maintenance tasks."

Windows Defender Credential Guard requires UEFI firmware and Secure Boot to function properly.

Option B (Enable UEFI with Secure Boot) is correct:

Credential Guardrequires a UEFI-based boot moderather thanLegacy BIOS.

Secure Boot ensures only trusted OS components load, reducing attack surface for credential theft.

Option A (Update vCPU to 8) is incorrect:

Increasing vCPUs does not impactCredential Guard compatibility.

Option C (Use Windows Server 2022) is incorrect:

Windows Server 2019supports Credential Guard; upgrading to 2022 isnot required.

Option D (Update Memory to 16GB) is incorrect:

Credential Guard has no minimum RAM requirementbeyond general OS needs.

vGPU-enabled VMs can only be migrated if the destination host has a compatible GPU and sufficient resources.

Option A (Target host must have sufficient resources) is correct:

The target hostmust have the same GPU model and enough available resourcesto support the VM.

vGPUcannot be live-migrated across incompatible hardware.

Option B (vGPU profile change) is incorrect:

The profiledoes not need to be changedas long as the target host has the same configuration.

Option C (Agent VM required) is incorrect:

Agent VMs are not necessaryfor vGPU migration.

Option D (Host affinity) is incorrect:

Host affinitylimits movement, butis not a prerequisite for migration.

Agent VMs, such as CVMs (Controller VMs) or Witness VMs, have strict affinity and anti-affinity rules to ensure they remain on specific hosts and maintain data consistency and high availability. If an agent VM is powered off and then manually started on another host, it becomes unresponsive because it breaks these rules.

From theNutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)course materials:

“Agent VMs have specific configuration and affinity constraints. Manually starting them on another host violates these constraints, resulting in the agent VM becoming unresponsive to the cluster.”

Further clarification:

“The cluster expects the agent VM to be on a particular host. Moving it manually to another host breaks this expectation and causes the VM to be unable to properly join the cluster services, leading to an unresponsive state.”

Therefore, it is essential to avoid manually starting agent VMs on different hosts, as doing so can disrupt cluster services.

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).

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.