Nutanix NCP-MCI-6.5 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI) v6.5 exam Exam Practice Test

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

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

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

An agent VM is a special type of VM that is used for running services or applications that are not affected by high availability (HA) events or host maintenance. An agent VM is never migrated to any other host in the cluster. If an HA event occurs or the host is put in maintenance mode, agent VMs are powered off and are powered on on the same host once that host returns to a normal state. This behavior is different from regular VMs, which are migrated to another host in the cluster if possible, or restarted on the same host if not possible1.

Therefore, during an AHV upgrade, an administrator may find that a critical VM was powered off rather than migrated to another host if the VM was marked as an agent VM. This can be done either from the Prism web console by selecting the Use this VM as an agent VM option in the Update VM dialog box, or from the aCLI by using the vm.create or vm.update commands with the agent_vm=true parameter2. To avoid this situation, the administrator should ensure that any critical VMs are not marked as agent VMs before starting the AHV upgrade.

data size for flash mode exceeds 25% of the SSD capacity could cause the performance issues. Flash mode is a feature that allows vDisks to be pinned to SSDs for faster access, but it has a limit of 25% of the SSD capacity per node. If this limit is exceeded, some vDisks may be evicted from flash mode and cause disk latency2.

Virtual NIC receive packet dropped is the most useful VM metric for isolating the cause of users being disconnected from remote desktop sessions to a specific VM. This metric shows the number of packets that are dropped by the virtual NIC of the VM due to insufficient buffer space or other reasons. Packet drops can indicate network congestion, misconfiguration, or performance issues that can affect the quality and availability of remote desktop sessions. Packet drops can also cause retransmissions, delays, and errors in TCP-based protocols such as RDP2. To view this metric in Prism, go to Entities > Compute & Storage > VMs > Summary View and select a VM. Then, in the Details View, go to Metrics > Performance and select Virtual NIC receive packet dropped from the drop-down menu3.

"An administrator has been tasked with increasing security on Nutanix cluster by disabling password authentication when accessing the CVM and AHV hosts and instead moving to key-based SSH, What is the easiest way for the administrator to meet these needs? Enable Cluster Lockdown and provide an RSA key."

 Cluster Lockdown mode disables password authentication when accessing the CVM and AHV hosts and instead requires key-based SSH. To enable Cluster Lockdown mode, you need to provide an RSA key.

Therefore, by enabling Cluster Lockdown mode and providing an RSA key, you can increase security on Nutanix cluster by disabling password authentication when accessing the CVM and AHV hosts and instead moving to key-based SSH with minimal effort.

https://next.nutanix.com/how-it-works-22/streamlined-login-and-increase-security-key-based-ssh-login-37397

According to the Nutanix Prism Central Guide, to configure a syslog server in Prism Central, you need to specify the transport protocol (TCP or UDP) and the IP address/port of the syslog server.

According to section 5 of the exam blueprint guide1, one of the topics covered is live migration. Live migration is the process of moving a running VM from one host to another without any downtime or interruption of service. To perform live migration, there are some prerequisites that must be met, such as:

• All AHV hosts have IP addresses in the same subnet
• All VMs are configured for the same VLAN
• The source and destination hosts have enough resources to accommodate the VM
• The VM does not have any PCI devices attached

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

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

According to the web search results, one of the best practices for Nutanix AHV networking is to create a second bridge on each host and assign the 1GbE interfaces to it3. This way, the customer can use both 10GbE and 1GbE interfaces for VM traffic, and also benefit from network isolation and redundancy. 

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

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

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

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

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

Fault tolerance (FT) is the ability of a cluster to withstand node failures and maintain data availability. FT is determined by the replication factor (RF) of the data, which is the number of copies of each data block stored on different nodes. FT = RF - 1, meaning that the cluster can tolerate as many node failures as one less than the RF. Block awareness is a feature that enhances fault tolerance by ensuring that data copies are distributed across different blocks, which are groups of nodes that share a power source and network switch. Block awareness requires a minimum of three blocks and a minimum of six nodes in the cluster.

In this scenario, the administrator has been asked to enable block awareness and increase the fault tolerance to FT2 on a Nutanix AHV cluster with the following configuration: Four blocks, One node per block. The administrator will not be able to accomplish these tasks because:

• To enable block awareness, the cluster needs at least six nodes, but it only has four nodes.
• To increase the fault tolerance to FT2, the cluster needs at least five nodes per RF3 or seven nodes per RF4, but it only has four nodes.

Therefore, the administrator will need to add more nodes to the cluster before enabling block awareness and increasing the fault tolerance to FT2.

Zombie VMs and overprovisioned VMs are two types of inefficient VMs that can waste resources and increase costs in a Nutanix environment. Zombie VMs are VMs that are powered on but have no activity or utilization for a long period of time. Overprovisioned VMs are VMs that have more resources allocated than they actually need or use. Both types of VMs can be identified by adding predefined views to a report in Prism Central.

A predefined view is a template that defines what data is displayed and how that data is represented in a report. Prism Central provides several predefined views for different purposes, such as capacity planning, performance analysis, anomaly detection, and efficiency optimization. To add a predefined view to a report, go to Operations > Reports > New Report and select the desired view from the list1.

The Zombie VMs List view shows the list of zombie VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics. The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by deleting or resizing them2.

The Overprovisioned VMs List view shows the list of overprovisioned VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics. The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by resizing them3.

By adding these two views to a report, an administrator can identify inefficient VMs and take appropriate actions to optimize resource utilization and reduce costs.

References: 1: Reports Management - Prism Central Guide 2: Zombie VMs List - Prism Central Guide 3: Overprovisioned VMs List - Prism Central Guide

According to the web search results, one recommended configuration change to improve throughput for a custom backup application that requires a 2TB disk and runs on Windows is to span the 2TB disk across four vDisks. Spanning is a technique that allows you to create a single logical disk from multiple physical disks. Spanning can improve throughput by distributing I/O requests across multiple disks and reducing contention5. To span a disk across four vDisks, the administrator should create four vDisks of equal size (500 GB each) and attach them to the VM. Then, in Windows Disk Management, create a spanned volume from the four vDisks and format it as NTFS6.

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

The best way for the administrator to configure Prism to send encrypted messages to a set of recipients is to set the SMTP Security Mode to STARTTLS. This will ensure that all messages sent over SMTP are encrypted and secure. Additionally, the administrator should consider installing SSL certificates on Prism Central to ensure that the messages are being sent securely. Finally, the administrator should consider configuring Prism Central to use Cluster Lockdown, which will help ensure that the messages are only sent to the intended recipients.

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

According to the Nutanix Prism Central Guide, role-based access control (RBAC) in Prism Central allows you to create custom roles and assign them to users or groups based on the categories of the entities they need to manage1. Categories are key-value pairs that you can assign to entities such as VMs, hosts, clusters, images, etc. to group them logically2. For example, you can create a category key called “OS” and assign values such as “Linux” or “Windows” to different VMs based on their operating system.

In the exhibit, the Linux Admin role has been created with the following settings:

• The role has the “VM Admin” permission, which allows the user to perform all actions on VMs3.
• The role has been assigned to the admin1 user.
• The role has been scoped to the entities that have the category key “OS” and the value “Linux”.

However, the admin1 user does not have access to all Linux VMs in the environment. This means that some of the Linux VMs do not have the proper category assigned to them. To grant the proper access, the administrator should add the category key “OS” and the value “Linux” to each Linux VM that needs to be managed by the Linux Admin role. This can be done either individually or in bulk through Prism Central4. Once the categories are added, the admin1 user will be able to see and manage all Linux VMs in the environment.

According to the Nutanix Files Guide, Nutanix Files instances are composed of a set of VMs (called FSVMs). Files requires at least three FSVMs running on three nodes to satisfy a quorum for high availability. By default, Files deploys three FSVMs when you create a file server instance.

According to the Nutanix AHV Networking Guide, active-active bond mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance for network traffic by distributing packets across multiple interfaces using a hashing algorithm based on source and destination MAC addresses, IP addresses, and TCP/UDP ports. This mode does not require any special configuration on the network switch and can improve throughput for hosts with many small VMs.

The critical alerts listed are indicating that the default passwords are still in use for IPMI, the host, and the Controller Virtual Machine (CVM). This suggests that the passwords for these components were not changed from the default during the initial cluster configuration and deployment process, which is a critical security practice.

A. CVM password changes: The alert for the CVM using the default password indicates that the CVM password has not been changed. It is a standard security measure to change default passwords to prevent unauthorized access.

C. Host password changes: Similarly, the alert for the host using the default password indicates that the default password for the host has not been updated. This applies to the passwords used to access the hypervisor host directly.

Changing default passwords is a critical step in securing the Nutanix environment. This is highlighted in Nutanix's best practices and security guidelines, which recommend changing default passwords as part of the initial configuration to ensure that the environment is not left vulnerable to unauthorized access due to known default credentials. This process is typically part of the initial setup procedures outlined in the Nutanix documentation for cluster deployment and security configuration.

The IPMI alert also points to the need for changing default passwords, but since IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is not specifically mentioned in the provided options, it falls under the broader category of host-level password changes, which would be covered by option C.

BIOS password changes (Option B) and Password policy changes (Option D) are also important but were not directly flagged by the alerts mentioned. BIOS password changes are usually a separate task and not indicated by the alerts given, while password policy changes are related to the policies governing password complexity and rotation rather than the initial password setup.

The number of Prism Central instances required to deploy Leap is one per customer environment. Prism Central is a multi-cluster manager that provides a single, centralized management interface for Nutanix environments3. Leap is a native cloud extension that provides disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) for Nutanix environments4. To use Leap, customers need to have one Prism Central instance deployed in their primary site, and register it with their Xi Cloud Services account5. This Prism Central instance can manage multiple Nutanix clusters across different physical sites or availability zones6.

Nutanix clusters are resilient to a drive, node, block, and rack failures because they use redundancy factor 2 by default, allowing Nutanix clusters to self-heal2. Failure scenarios can be thought of in terms of fault domains, which are the physical or logical parts of a computing environment or location that are adversely affected when a device or service experiences an issue or outage3. There are four fault domains in a Nutanix cluster: Disk, Node, Block, and Rack4. Block and Rack are two options that are available for expanding the failure domain level of a cluster. Block fault tolerance is enabled by default and ensures that data is replicated across different blocks in a cluster5. Rack fault tolerance has to be configured manually and ensures that data is replicated across different racks in a cluster4.

References: 1: Behavioral Learning Tools - Prism Central Resource Management - Nutanix 2: How Nutanix Handles Failures | Node Failure 3: Failure Domain Considerations - Nutanix Support & Insights 4: [Understanding Fault Domains and Rack Awareness - Nutanix] 5: [Nutanix Cluster Architecture Overview - Nutanix Bible]

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

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

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

Prism Element and NCC are two ways to run all NCC checks manually on a Nutanix cluster. Prism Element is the web console that provides management and monitoring capabilities for a single Nutanix cluster. Prism Element has a Health dashboard that shows the status of various components and services in the cluster, such as disks, nodes, CVMs, NCC, and alerts. The Health dashboard also allows the administrator to run NCC checks manually by using the Actions drop-down menu on the right side of the screen. The administrator can choose to run all NCC checks or specific checks based on the category or severity. The NCC checks will run in the background and generate a report that can be viewed or downloaded from the Summary tab. This method is easier and faster than running NCC from the command line on the CVM.

NCC stands for Nutanix Cluster Check, which is a framework of scripts that performs system checks and validations on Nutanix clusters. NCC can detect issues related to hardware, software, configuration, hypervisor, networking, and more. NCC can be run from the command line interface (CLI) of any CVM in the cluster by using the ncc command. To run all NCC checks manually, the administrator can use the command ncc health_checks run_all, which will execute all available checks and display the results on the screen. This method is more comprehensive and detailed than running NCC from Prism Element.

References: : [Health Dashboard - Prism Element Guide] : [Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) - Nutanix Support & Insights] : [Running NCC Checks - Nutanix Support & Insights]

A Compute Only node is a node that does not have any local storage devices and only provides compute resources to the cluster2. A Compute Only node does not run a CVM, but instead relies on the CVMs of other nodes to access the distributed storage fabric2

The best way to fix this issue is to increase the amount of memory assigned to the VM from the Prism web console. This option allows the administrator to modify the VM configuration without accessing the CVM or shutting down the VM. The Prism web console provides a simple and intuitive interface for managing Nutanix clusters and VMs1. To change the memory allocation for a VM, the administrator can follow these steps2:

• Go to the VM dashboard
• Select the VM from the VMs list
• Choose Update
• Adjust the amount of memory assigned to the VM
• Click Save

This is because there is no GUI method to unregister a cluster from Prism Central, so the process requires SSH access to the PC VM as well as to a CVM of the cluster2. The unregistration process involves getting the UUID of the cluster from the CVM and then using that to trigger de-registration from PC command line2. The unregistration process also involves cleaning up any associated metadata and configuration on both PC and PE2. Therefore, the administrator needs to use a Host SSH session to perform this task.

Stargate is the AOS process that handles all I/O operations for the cluster. It is responsible for determining whether an I/O from a user will be written to the OpLog or to the Extent Store, based on the type and size of the I/O. Stargate also performs data tiering, compression, deduplication, and erasure coding1. Stargate runs on every CVM and communicates with other Stargates to ensure data locality and redundancy2.

According to the Migration to a different processor web search result2, live migration of VMs depends on the source and destination hosts having the same CPU functions (CPU flags). Live migration requires the source and destination hosts to have CPUs from the same manufacturer, and only CPU functions which both hosts support are provided (same CPU generation, or by using VMware Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC)). If the administrator adds a node with older generation processors to an existing AHV cluster with newer generation processors, then live migration of VMs is prevented between newer and older processors, unless EVC is enabled.

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

CloudInit is a package that contains utilities for early initialization of cloud instances. It allows you to customize virtual machines provided by a cloud vendor by modifying the generic OS configuration on boot. You can use CloudInit to set the OS hostname, add custom users, add keys, run custom scripts, and more2. CloudInit is supported by most major Linux and FreeBSD operating systems and works across different cloud platforms3. Sysprep is a tool for Windows operating systems that prepares an installation for cloning, auditing, and customer delivery4.

References: 1: Replacing Nodes in Nutanix Cluster - Nutanix Support & Insights 2: Customize a Linux VM with cloud-init in Azure - Azure Virtual Machines 3: Cloud-Init - The standard for customising cloud instances 4: Sysprep (Generalize) a Windows installation

According to the Troubleshoot high memory issues on Azure virtual machines web search result2, one of the common factors in a low memory situation is over-provisioning memory for a VM. Over-provisioning memory can cause memory pressure, which leads to swapping and degraded performance. Therefore, to fix this issue, the administrator should reduce the amount of memory assigned to the VM, based on the average hardware requirements for that operating system and application load.

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

According to the web search results, one of the requirements for cross-hypervisor disaster recovery (CHDR) is to install and configure Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) on all the VMs2. NGT configures the VM with all the required drivers for VM portability. Without NGT, the VMs may fail to boot after being migrated to a different hypervisor type. 

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details/?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v51:wc-block-services-c.html

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, erasure coding is a data savings technique that utilizes stripes and parity calculation in a Nutanix cluster. Erasure coding increases the usable capacity on a cluster by reducing the replication factor of data blocks. Instead of replicating data, erasure coding uses parity information to rebuild data in the event of a disk or node failure. Erasure coding can save up to 50% of storage space compared to replication factor 2, and up to 75% compared to replication factor 32.

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

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

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details/?targetId=BP-2029_AHV:BP-2029_AHV

Administrators can use Acropolis with IPAM to deliver a complete virtualization deployment, including network management, from the unified Prism interface. This capability radically simplifies the traditionally complex network management associated with provisioning VMs and assigning network addresses. To avoid address overlap, be sure to work with your network team to reserve a range of addresses for VMs before enabling the IPAM feature.

The Acropolis master assigns an IP address from the address pool when creating a managed VM NIC; the address releases back to the pool when the VM NIC or VM is deleted.

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

The metrics that are relevant for this analysis are:

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

Step 1 ---> Login into Prism Element.

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

Step 3 ---> Click Upgrade Software.

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

Step 5 ---> Click download.

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

Invalid:-

1 - Select Prism Central.

2 - Select user login.

3 - On left select upgrade Prism Central.

Enable Memory Overcommit on the over-provisioned VMs is the most efficient resolution to enable additional VMs to be created. Memory overcommit allows VMs to use more memory than physically available on a host by compressing and swapping memory pages to storage1. This can improve memory utilization and increase VM density on a cluster1. However, memory overcommit is not supported when HA is configured to use reserved hosts, so you may need to disable HA reservation on the cluster before enabling memory overcommit1.

The only option that requires iSCSI initiator configuration in the guest OS to use Volumes is Microsoft Windows Failover Cluster. Volumes is an enterprise-class, software-defined block storage solution that exposes storage resources directly to virtualized guest operating systems or physical hosts using the iSCSI protocol7. To use Volumes, customers need to configure iSCSI initiators on their hosts or guest OSes. However, some applications or services can use native storage adapters instead of iSCSI initiators when running on AHV VMs. These include:

• SQL Server Always On Availability Group: This is a high availability and disaster recovery solution for SQL Server databases that uses Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) and Availability Groups (AGs) as its core components. When running on AHV VMs, SQL Server Always On Availability Group can use native storage adapters instead of iSCSI initiators.
• Oracle RAC: This is a clustered database system that provides high availability and scalability for Oracle databases. When running on AHV VMs, Oracle RAC can use native storage adapters instead of iSCSI initiators.
• Exchange DAG: This is a group of up to 16 mailbox servers that hosts a set of databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases. When running on AHV VMs, Exchange DAG can use native storage adapters instead of iSCSI initiators.

VirtIO drivers are device drivers that are specifically designed for virtualized environments. They allow the guest operating system to communicate directly with the underlying hardware, bypassing the emulation layer. This improves the performance and efficiency of the virtual machines. VirtIO drivers are supported by various hypervisors, including Nutanix AHV1.

Nutanix AHV uses SCSI disks for VMs by default. However, Windows does not have native support for SCSI disks and requires VirtIO drivers to recognize them. Therefore, if an administrator is installing Windows 2019 on a new VM on an AHV cluster, they need to install the VirtIO drivers before selecting the destination disk for the installation. Otherwise, they will not see any drives listed for the install2.

To install the VirtIO drivers during Windows installation, the administrator can use one of the following methods3:

• Use a VirtIO ISO image that contains the driver files. The administrator can download the VirtIO ISO image from the Nutanix support portal and upload it to the AHV image service. Then, they can attach the VirtIO ISO image to the VM as a CD-ROM device and load the driver from it during Windows installation.
• Use a Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) ISO image that contains the driver files and other tools. The administrator can download the NGT ISO image from Prism Element or Prism Central and attach it to the VM as a CD-ROM device. Then, they can load the driver from it during Windows installation.
• Use a floppy disk image that contains only the driver files. The administrator can create a floppy disk image using tools such as WinImage or WinRAR and upload it to the AHV image service. Then, they can attach the floppy disk image to the VM as a floppy device and load the driver from it during Windows installation.

The correct answer is A. Long term storage of data which is written once and read infrequently.

Erasure Coding is a feature that increases the usable capacity on a Nutanix cluster by reducing the amount of data replication. Instead of replicating data, Erasure Coding uses parity information to rebuild data in the event of a disk failure. The capacity savings of Erasure Coding is in addition to deduplication and compression savings1.

Erasure Coding is most beneficial for scenarios where the data is written once and read infrequently, such as long term storage of archival data, backup data, or cold data. This is because Erasure Coding has some trade-offs and limitations that may affect the performance and availability of the cluster. Some of these trade-offs and limitations are2:

• Erasure Coding requires more CPU and memory resources than replication, as it involves more complex calculations for encoding and decoding data.
• Erasure Coding increases the network bandwidth consumption, as it involves more data transfers between nodes for encoding and decoding data.
• Erasure Coding reduces the resiliency of the cluster, as it can tolerate fewer node failures than replication. For example, a cluster with redundancy factor 2 can tolerate one node failure with replication, but only two disk failures with Erasure Coding.
• Erasure Coding is not effective for workloads that have many overwrites or random writes, as it involves more overhead for updating the parity information.
• Erasure Coding is not supported for some features, such as volume groups, file server VMs, or Metro Availability.

Therefore, if an administrator needs to configure a container on a Nutanix cluster, they should enable Erasure Coding only if the container will store data that is written once and read infrequently. This way, they can maximize the capacity savings of Erasure Coding without compromising the performance and availability of the cluster.

First Preference:

• Policy is applied to a specific entity

2nd Preference:

• Policy is applied to an entity type in a category

3rd Preference:

• Policy is applied to an entity type in a cluster

4th Preference:

• Policy is applied to all entities of an entity type

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with References:In Nutanix Prism, when multiple alert policies are created and applied to the same entities, the policies are evaluated based on their specificity. The order of precedence from highest to lowest is as follows:

• Policy is applied to a specific entity: Custom alert policies that are applied to specific entities take precedence over those applied to broader categories. This is because the more specific policy is usually created with a particular context or requirement in mind for that entity.
• Policy is applied to an entity type in a category: The next level of precedence is given to policies that are applied to all entities of a certain type within a specific category. Categories allow grouping of entities based on certain criteria, and policies applied here are more specific than to an entire cluster or entity type.
• Policy is applied to an entity type in a cluster: This refers to policies that are applied to all entities of a certain type within a specific cluster. This is more general than the above two but still targets a specific cluster environment.
• Policy is applied to all entities of an entity type: The lowest precedence is given to policies that are broadly applied to all entities of a particular type across the entire Nutanix environment.

This order ensures that the most specifically targeted policies are given priority, which allows for fine-tuned control and customization of alert policies. The details of alert policy precedence are typically covered in the Nutanix Prism Central Guide and the documentation related to Prism Central's alerting and policies.