Nutanix NCP-MCA Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA v6.5) Exam Exam Practice Test

Substrates are the components of a blueprint that define the cloud resources and configurations for deploying VMs or applications. Substrates can be associated with different cloud accounts, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or Nutanix, to enable multicloud deployments. By using substrates, an administrator can create a blueprint that can deploy VMs to multiple clouds, depending on the availability, cost, or performance requirements.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Blueprints, Lesson 3.2: Substrates1

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2.1: Create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Nutanix Calm2

 The best way to automate the entire database and application deployments is to use a combination of Nutanix Calm and Nutanix Era. Nutanix Calm is a multicloud automation platform that allows you to create blueprints to deploy and manage infrastructure and applications across different cloud environments. Nutanix Era is a database management platform that allows you to provision, clone, patch, refresh, and restore databases in a simplified and automated way. By creating a Calm blueprint that deploys applications and calls Era APIs to automate database deployments, you can achieve faster and consistent releases, as well as reduce the manual effort and complexity involved in the process. You can also leverage the features of Calm and Era, such as self-service, governance, showback, backup, and recovery, to enhance the efficiency and security of your deployments. References: 

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

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

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

A. The Playbook can be executed against a VM on AHV, as long as there is no snapshot running3.

B. The VM does not need to be powered off before vCPU can be reduced, as this can be done using hot-plug CPU feature4.

D. The play will not cause the VM to go below the minimum vCPU, as the minimum number of vCPUs is set to 1 in the Playbook, and the VM has 4 vCPUs initially. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, Solved: Snapshot query !! - VMware Technology Network VMTN, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community, Virtual CPU Configuration and Limitations - VMware Docs

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By creating and assigning the Linux OS Category to the newly-created VM, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VM from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

To ensure that checks can be implemented in a single task while creating an application using NDB (Nutanix Database Service), the administrator should run an eScript task. eScript tasks allow for more complex scripting and logic to be executed, including performing checks, handling conditions, and interacting with APIs.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on eScript Tasks.

Nutanix Best Practices for Automating Database Management.

The Restart Action of a Service allows the developer to define custom tasks that will be executed when the service is restarted. An Execute Task can run any script or command on the target VM, such as restarting the IIS service. This way, the Operator can use the Self-Service Portal to restart the service without logging into the VM or using another tool.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2, Objective 2.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service.

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Page 11, Section 2, Objective 2.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service.

To automate the creation of a new user in GitLab for every new development environment, the administrator should perform the following tasks within a Calm blueprint:

Create an HTTP pre-create task to create the user in GitLab via REST API. This task will send an HTTP request to the GitLab server with the user information and credentials, and receive a response with the user ID and status. The administrator can use the response to verify the user creation and store the user ID as a variable for later use.

Create runtime-editable variables for user and password in the blueprint. These variables will allow the administrator to specify the user name and password for the new GitLab user at the time of launching the blueprint. The variables can be passed as parameters to the HTTP pre-create task and used in the REST API call.

The other two options are not correct because:

Adding a task within the service to ask for user and password at runtime is redundant and unnecessary, as the runtime-editable variables can already provide this functionality.

Creating a task script to login with ssh to GitLab and create a random user and password is not a good practice, as it exposes the GitLab server to security risks and does not use the REST API that GitLab provides for user management. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 17

Nutanix Calm User Guide, section “HTTP Task”

GitLab API Documentation, section “Create user”

In Nutanix's Multicloud Automation (formerly known as Calm), playbooks can be configured to respond to various conditions and events that occur within the infrastructure. If a VM, such as one named ORACLE, becomes CPU constrained, a playbook can be triggered to automatically add more virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to the VM. In addition, playbooks can integrate with various notification services such as Slack, allowing administrators to be informed of the changes being made.

Based on the provided options and according to Nutanix documentation, the correct action is that the playbook will add more vCPU and will send a Slack message. This ensures that the VM's performance can be adjusted dynamically while keeping the relevant personnel informed via Slack.

References:

Nutanix Calm Documentation

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Playbooks Guide

The warnings in the exhibit indicate that certain variables are missing or incorrectly defined. To resolve these warnings, the administrator should:

Create the variable under the action: Ensure that the necessary variables are defined in the scope of the action where they are required.

Create an add_worker_node_count variable: Specifically, the blueprint requires a variable named add_worker_node_count. This variable should be defined and given an appropriate value to ensure the action can execute properly.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Blueprint Variables.

Nutanix Best Practices for Blueprint Development.

A Developer permission level grants access to create, update, delete, and duplicate blueprints in Nutanix Calm12. A Developer can also launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as create, update, delete, and duplicate runbooks2. A Consumer can only launch and manage applications from blueprints, but cannot modify them2. An Operator can launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as run and manage runbooks, but cannot create or modify them2. A Domain Admin can perform all the actions of a Developer and an Operator, as well as manage projects, categories, and endpoints2. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA)

A category is a key-value pair that can be assigned to an entity in Prism Central to simplify daily operations and management. Categories can be used to filter, search, and group entities based on common attributes. Categories can also be used to define policies and permissions for different entities. A category can be assigned to a cluster, a VM, an image, a network, a blueprint, an application, or a project. A category cannot be assigned to a hypervisor, a protection domain, or a storage container, as these are not entities in Prism Central. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 12; Nutanix Prism Central Guide, section 4.1.

When creating a Runbook in Nutanix Calm to perform a REST API call, the administrator should select the "HTTP" task type. This task type is specifically designed to make HTTP requests, including REST API calls, allowing integration with external services and APIs.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Runbook Task Types.

Nutanix Best Practices for HTTP Task in Runbooks.

The Calm SaaS API key consists of two components: name and token. The name component is analogous to the ID or username you provide when you configure your Calm tunnel client VM to establish the tunnel connection. The token component is analogous to the password portion of the HTTP basic authentication. The Calm SaaS API key is used along with the Calm APIs and Calm DSL to access Calm. The API key file that you download will have the name and token components in the JSON format. References: Nutanix Support & Insights

To wait for 60 seconds before continuing with the next task in a Nutanix Calm blueprint, you should use the "Wait" task and specify 60 seconds. This task is designed specifically to introduce a delay in the execution flow without the need for additional scripting.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Wait Task.

Nutanix Best Practices for Blueprint Task Management.

When launching Calm blueprints, there are two view options available: Developer and Consumer. The Developer view allows you to create, edit, and manage blueprints, as well as access advanced features such as macros, actions, and scripts. The Consumer view allows you to launch and manage applications from the Marketplace, as well as access basic features such as variables, tasks, and alerts. The view option is determined by the role assigned to the user in the project. Users with the Project Admin or Project Auditor role can switch between the Developer and Consumer views, while users with the Project User role can only access the Consumer view. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 1 - Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles, page 3

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 2 - Nutanix Calm, Lesson 2.1 - Nutanix Calm Overview, page 9

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Introduction to Nutanix Calm, Nutanix Calm User Interface

When creating a Category in Nutanix, the "Purpose" field is optional. The mandatory fields are "Name" and "Value". The "Purpose" field is used to provide a description or context for the category but is not required for the category creation.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Category Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Defining Categories.

Runtime variables are variables that can be modified by the Consumer during the deployment of a Blueprint or after the deployment is complete. They allow the Consumer to customize the attributes of the infrastructure and applications according to their needs. Runtime variables can be defined in the Blueprint settings or in the Blueprint YAML file. They can also be used in the Blueprint tasks to pass dynamic values to the scripts or commands. Runtime variables can be of different types, such as text, number, boolean, list, or password. They can also have default values, constraints, and descriptions to guide the Consumer.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 4, Lesson 4.3

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Chapter 4, Section 4.2

The error message in the exhibit indicates a mismatch between the number of network settings and the number of NICs on the VM. This is a common validation error when saving Calm Blueprints for VMware, where it is essential to ensure that these configurations match to avoid issues with VM deployment and operation1. References: 1: Nutanix NCP-MCA Certification Exam Sample Questions2

In Nutanix, Categories can be assigned to various entities to help organize and manage resources. The two entities that can be assigned categories are:

Hosts: Categories can be used to tag and manage hosts within the infrastructure.

VMs: Categories can also be assigned to virtual machines, allowing for better organization and management based on specific attributes or requirements.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Category Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Categories.

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

A Self-Service (formerly Calm) developer can find detailed and downloadable logs for analyzing a Blueprint deployment failure in the specific Application Audit tab. This tab provides insights and logs related to the deployment, helping to diagnose and resolve issues.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Application Audit.

Nutanix Best Practices for Troubleshooting Deployments.

Playbooks are a feature of X-Play that allow you to automate tasks based on events or alerts. You can use the actions gallery to select from a variety of actions that can be executed by a playbook. These actions are categorized into three types: VM, alert, and communication1. VM actions allow you to perform operations on virtual machines, such as power on, power off, snapshot, clone, etc. Alert actions allow you to create, update, or close alerts in Prism Central. Communication actions allow you to send messages to various channels, such as email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams2. Therefore, the correct answer is B. References:

1: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide

2: Playbooks – Nutanix.dev

The Task Library is a centralized repository of tasks that can be reused across multiple blueprints. The administrator can publish a task to the Task Library by clicking on the Publish icon in the task editor. The task will then be available in the Task Library tab under the Tasks section in the Calm UI. The administrator can select the task from the Task Library and drag and drop it into another blueprint. This way, the administrator can reuse the task with the least amount of effort.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 11

Nutanix University - NCP-MCA 6 Exam Prep - Tasks and Task Library

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

You can upgrade Nutanix Calm or Epsilon (the orchestration engine used by Nutanix Calm) by using the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) from the Prism Central. LCM allows you to upgrade Calm or Epsilon independently or simultaneously. You can also select the version that you want to upgrade to and perform the update from the Options list. For more information, see the Nutanix Calm Upgrades section in the Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide1 and the Performing Inventory and Upgrading Calm with Life Cycle Manager article2. References:

Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide1

Performing Inventory and Upgrading Calm with Life Cycle Manager2

To reduce the CPU and RAM memory allocation on a VM using playbooks, the VM must be powered off. This is because the operation of reducing CPU and memory allocation cannot be performed on a running VM without causing instability or potential crashes.

References:

Nutanix documentation on VM Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By assigning new VMs to a category, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VMs from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

Nutanix Command Line Interface | Nutanix Community, section “SSH to any CVM as a nutanix user and type ncli and hit return to enter the ncli command shell and will be the same process for acli.”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Customizing a Linux VM with Cloud-Init”

To enable Calm, the administrator needs to log on to Prism Central with a local ADMIN account and click Services -> Calm -> Enable. This will install the Calm service on Prism Central and allow the administrator to access the Calm UI and features. The other options are incorrect because they either refer to Prism Element, which is not the correct platform for Calm, or they involve unnecessary or incorrect steps. References: [Enabling and Accessing Calm | Nutanix Community] (https://next.nutanix.com/installation-configuration-23/enabling-and-accessing-calm-40191); [Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide] (https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ds-ncp-mca.pdf), section 2.1.

To make a custom variable type available for all deployments, the developer should publish the variable type to the Marketplace. By publishing it to the Marketplace, the variable type becomes accessible to all administrators and users across different projects, ensuring consistency and reusability.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Publishing to Marketplace.

Nutanix Best Practices for Variable Management.

The image is unavailable for deployment on the cluster because the cluster and the image do not have the proper categories assigned for the placement policy. A placement policy is a set of rules that determines which clusters and images are available for VM deployment based on the categories and values assigned to them. If the cluster and the image do not match the placement policy criteria, they will not be shown as options for VM deployment. Therefore, the administrator needs to assign the appropriate categories and values to the cluster and the image to make them compatible with the placement policy. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 12; Nutanix NCP-MCA Questions, question 111.

The administrator should use a conditional playbook and create a playbook using alert to accomplish this task. A conditional playbook is a type of playbook that allows the administrator to define different actions based on certain conditions or criteria1. A playbook using alert is a type of playbook that is triggered by an alert policy that monitors the VM status2. By using these two features, the administrator can create a playbook that checks if the rebooted VM is the mission-critical VM and sends a notification to the on-call administrator, or else sends an email to the Operations team.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Nutanix X-Play, Lesson 2: Nutanix X-Play Playbooks, Topic: Conditional Playbooks

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Nutanix Calm Governance, Lesson 2: Nutanix Calm Alerts, Topic: Alert Policies and Playbooks

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 1: Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles, Objective 1.3: Define the components of X-Play

Autopilot is a feature of Nutanix Calm that allows the administrator to automate the execution of playbooks based on predefined conditions or triggers. Autopilot can optimize the performance, availability, and cost of applications by applying the appropriate actions in response to events or metrics. Before configuring autopilot, the administrator must be aware of the following limitations12:

Autopilot never waits for approvals. This means that the administrator must ensure that the playbooks are tested and verified before enabling autopilot. Autopilot will execute the playbooks without any human intervention or confirmation.

Autopilot feature only applies to metric-based alerts as triggers. This means that the administrator can only use metrics from the Nutanix Prism Central or the Nutanix Karbon clusters as the conditions for triggering the playbooks. Autopilot does not support other types of triggers such as schedules, webhooks, or manual triggers. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Calm SaaS User Guide, section 4.3.

 A time trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to specify a schedule for running a playbook. This trigger is useful for automating tasks that need to be performed periodically or at a specific time. A manual trigger requires the user to initiate the playbook execution manually, which is not ideal for a recurring task. A report trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to run a playbook when a specific report is generated. However, this trigger does not guarantee that the report will be generated on the first of every month, as it depends on the report settings. A wait until day of month action is a type of playbook action that pauses the playbook execution until a specified day of the month. This action is unnecessary if the playbook already has a time trigger that specifies the desired schedule.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Playbooks, Lesson 4.1: Playbook Triggers

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3.1: Create a playbook to automate IT operations using X-Play

To make a Blueprint visible to a specific Project, it needs to be approved and published with that Project. This ensures that only authorized Blueprints are available for consumption by the Project members. Applying a Category or a version number to the Blueprint does not affect its visibility to the Project. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 3.1.2

An event trigger is a type of trigger that can be used to execute a playbook when a specific event occurs in the Nutanix platform. An event trigger can be configured with various parameters, such as the event type, the target VM, the target VM category, the target project, and the target user. In this scenario, the administrator wants to be notified when a subset of VMs within the Environment:Dev category is restored from snapshot. Therefore, the event trigger should have the following parameters:

Event type: Snapshot Restoration. This is the event that indicates a VM has been restored from a snapshot.

Target VM: VMS in Environment: Dev. This is the filter that specifies which VMs are relevant for the trigger. By selecting VMS in Environment: Dev, the trigger will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Environment:Dev category.

Other parameters: These can be left as default or customized as needed.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.2: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 13: Event Trigger

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.1: Determine the causes of a Playbook execution failure

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Calm-Admin-Operations-Guide-v3_6_2:nuc-macros-variables-overview-c.html

Within a Calm blueprint, an administrator can apply two actions to a Service under the Guest Customization section: Apply a Cloudinit Script and Apply a Sysprep file. These actions allow the administrator to customize the configuration and behavior of the virtual machines that are provisioned from the blueprint. A Cloudinit Script is a set of commands or scripts that run on Linux-based virtual machines during the boot process. A Sysprep file is a configuration file that specifies the Windows settings and options for the virtual machines. These actions can be used to perform tasks such as setting the hostname, network configuration, user accounts, software installation, and more. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, page 3

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 2 - Nutanix Calm, Lesson 2.2 - Blueprint Management, page 9

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Blueprint, Guest Customization

To manage and optimize the performance of virtual machines (VMs) within a playbook, administrators often need to adjust the resources allocated to VMs. Here are the appropriate actions:

VM Add Memory Action: This action allows the administrator to increase the memory allocation to a VM, which can be essential for applications requiring more RAM.

VM Add CPU Action with limits: Adding CPUs with defined limits ensures that the VM receives the necessary CPU resources without exceeding the cluster's capacity.

These actions enable the dynamic scaling of resources, improving VM performance and ensuring resource availability.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Actions.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

To create a Category via automation in Nutanix, the required items are:

Name: The identifier for the category.

Value: The specific value assigned to the category.

Categories help in organizing and managing resources by tagging them with meaningful identifiers.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Creating Categories.

Nutanix Best Practices for Category Management.

The default connection timeout value for an HTTP endpoint in Nutanix Calm is 60 seconds. This timeout defines how long the system will wait for a connection to be established before timing out.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on HTTP Endpoints.

Nutanix Best Practices for Configuring Endpoints.

 To view the last two actions taken by a single VM blueprint, the administrator should go to the History Tab. This tab shows the history of all the actions performed on the blueprint, such as launch, update, delete, etc. The administrator can filter the history by date, action, status, and user. The history tab also provides details of each action, such as the start time, end time, duration, and logs.

The other three options are not correct because:

The AMIS tab shows the list of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that are available for the blueprint. The administrator can use this tab to select an AMI for the blueprint or create a custom AMI.

The service tab shows the list of services that are part of the blueprint. The administrator can use this tab to add, edit, or delete services, as well as configure the dependencies, tasks, and variables for each service.

The Metrics tab shows the performance metrics of the blueprint, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. The administrator can use this tab to monitor the health and performance of the blueprint and its services. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 18

Nutanix Calm User Guide, section “Blueprint History”

According to the Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, the recommended Prism Central VM size depends on the number of VMs that are managed by Calm and the number of concurrent users. For a large-scale environment with more than 5000 VMs and more than 100 concurrent users, the recommended size is 3 nodes Large - 10vCPU and 52GB Memory per node1. This size provides enough resources for the Prism Central cluster to handle the workload and performance requirements of Calm.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 2: Nutanix Calm Installation and Configuration, Lesson 2: Nutanix Calm Installation and Configuration2

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2: Deploy and Configure Self-service and Related Components, Objective 2.2: Identify required configuration settings for a Self-Service deployment3

Scaling out Prism Central | Nutanix Community1

The correct macro syntax in Nutanix Calm is @@{and}@@. This syntax is used to reference variables and parameters within blueprints and tasks, allowing for dynamic substitution of values during execution.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Macro Syntax.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Macros.

A service dependency is a feature of Nutanix Calm that allows you to define the order of execution and the conditions for starting and stopping services in a blueprint. By creating a service dependency between the application and the database, you can ensure that the application will not start until the database is fully installed and ready. This avoids the need for manual intervention or inefficient workarounds like loops or sleep statements. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 41; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 2.

Before a Single-VM Blueprint in Self-Service (formerly Calm) can be published to the Marketplace, it is necessary to create both a project and an environment. A project defines the scope and access control for the blueprint, while the environment provides the necessary configurations and settings for the deployment, such as network, credentials, and other resources.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Project Creation.

Nutanix Calm documentation on Environment Setup.

The administrator should modify the alert by adding the correct category and assign the category Environment:Development to development VMs. By doing this, they can filter out alerts for development VMs that are expected to have memory constrained alerts and focus on those that are critical, such as production VMs. This is based on the general practices in managing alerts in a multicloud environment, as well as the specific features and requirements of Nutanix Calm and Prism Central. References:

How to create custom alert policies | Prism central | Nutanix Community

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.1: Determine the causes of a Blueprint or Runbook deployment failure

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Nutanix Calm Governance, Lesson 1: Nutanix Calm Governance

To share a Runbook across projects in Nutanix Calm, it should be published to the Calm Marketplace. The Calm Marketplace allows administrators to publish and share blueprints, runbooks, and other resources, making them available for use across different projects within the organization.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Marketplace Publishing.

Nutanix Best Practices for Sharing Runbooks.

Categories in Self-Service (formerly Calm) are metadata labels that are assigned to cloud resources. These categories help organize and manage resources by tagging them with specific attributes, making it easier to apply policies and manage the infrastructure.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Using Categories.

Nutanix Best Practices for Category Management.

The error message indicates that customization of the guest operating system is not supported. This issue often arises because open-vm-tools is not installed or not running on the Redhat Enterprise Linux VM. open-vm-tools is necessary for vSphere to perform guest customization tasks, such as setting the hostname, IP configuration, and other initialization tasks.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Guest Customization Requirements.

VMware documentation on Installing Open VM Tools.

A variable can be updated during a Runbook execution only if it is marked as runtime editable. This setting allows the variable to be modified during the execution of the Runbook, providing flexibility and dynamic behavior based on runtime conditions.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Runtime Editable Variables.

Nutanix Best Practices for Runbook Variables.

The "Allow Collaboration" setting in a project enables a project administrator or user to view and manage VMs and applications of other users within the same project. This setting fosters collaboration and sharing of resources among users who are part of the same project.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Project Collaboration.

Nutanix Best Practices for Managing Projects.

Alerts are a way of monitoring the health and performance of the Nutanix cluster and the VMs running on it. Alerts can be triggered by various metrics, such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, network traffic, etc. Alerts can also be configured to send notifications to the administrator or other recipients via email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc. To satisfy the request from the Accounting department, the administrator should create an Alert with the following settings:

Trigger: CPU Usage (%) > 90 OR Memory Usage (%) > 90

Scope: VM

Category: LOB:Accounting

Notification: Email to accounting@company.com This way, the Alert will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Accounting department, and will send an email notification to the Accounting department when any of their VMs exceed the specified thresholds. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 1; [Nutanix Prism Central Guide - Alerts]

To launch application deployments on any remote Prism Central (PC) from the PC hosting Calm Global, the administrator must create a Nutanix account for each remote PC on the local PC (the one hosting Calm Global) and add these accounts to the relevant project. This setup allows Calm to manage and orchestrate resources across multiple Prism Central instances.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Multi-Cluster Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Global Deployments.