Every card 71 cards
1.1
Which hypervisors can NCI run on?
AHV (included) and VMware ESXi. Check the Supported Hypervisors page for your AOS release.
1.1
What runs on every Nutanix node to serve storage?
The Controller VM (CVM). It owns the node's disks and runs Stargate, Cassandra, Curator, Zookeeper and Prism.
1.1
Which CVM service handles data I/O?
Stargate.
1.1
Which CVM service stores cluster metadata?
Cassandra.
1.1
Which IP can you use to reach Prism Element directly?
The IP of any CVM in the cluster (or the cluster virtual IP).
1.1
What is the Distributed Storage Fabric?
AOS's scale-out storage layer. It pools every node's local disks into shared storage.
1.1
What happens when Stargate/Cassandra keep failing on one node?
The cluster redirects that node's I/O path to another CVM (autopathing). The VMs keep running.
1.1
Minimum nodes for RF3 / FT2?
5 nodes.
1.2
Which Nutanix service gives S3-compatible object storage at petabyte scale?
Objects.
1.2
Which Nutanix service gives SMB/NFS file shares?
Files.
1.2
Which Nutanix storage service best fits a Microsoft SQL/Windows failover cluster needing shared disks?
Volumes (iSCSI block storage).
1.2
Through which address do external clients reach Volumes storage?
The Data Services IP.
1.2
Where do you see the cluster runway?
On the Prism Central main dashboard (NCM Intelligent Operations).
1.2
What was NCM Self-Service previously called?
Calm. It covers application blueprints and the Marketplace.
1.2
What does NDB automate?
Database lifecycle: provisioning, cloning, patching, and point-in-time recovery (time machine).
1.3
What is Nutanix Move for?
Migrating VMs onto Nutanix/AHV (from ESXi, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure). It seeds the data, syncs it incrementally, then cuts over.
1.3
Name three things NGT enables.
Application-consistent (VSS) snapshots, Self-Service Restore, and VM mobility drivers / guest customization.
1.3
Foundation vs Foundation Central?
Foundation images nodes and creates a cluster. Foundation Central does it remotely and at scale (zero-touch).
1.3
What does a two-node ROBO cluster need to stay available through a node failure?
A Witness VM at a third site.
1.3
What is X-Ray?
A benchmarking and test-scenario tool for proofs of concept.
1.3
What is Nutanix Collector?
A tool that gathers configuration and utilisation data from an existing environment for sizing.
2.1
Most efficient way to apply one policy to dozens of VMs?
Tag the VMs with a category, then associate the category with the policy.
2.1
How do you keep a per-host appliance VM (e.g. a firewall) on its host?
Mark it as an Agent VM.
2.1
How do you keep two SQL VMs on different AHV hosts?
Create a VM-VM anti-affinity group with aCLI.
2.1
What does Flash Mode do?
It pins a VM's or vDisk's data to the SSD tier.
2.1
How can you add an image from a remote location to the Image Service?
By URL over HTTP (or by uploading a file from your workstation).
2.1
What maps images to target clusters?
Image Placement Policies use categories.
2.1
Restoring a critical VM in place from Prism Central uses which object?
A recovery point (revert / restore in place).
2.1
Can you hot-remove memory from a running AHV VM?
No. You can hot-add memory and vCPUs but not remove them.
2.2
Default AHV bond mode?
Active-Backup: one link is active and the rest stand by. No switch configuration is needed.
2.2
Which bond mode hashes on IP addresses and TCP/UDP ports?
Active-Active with LACP (balance-tcp).
2.2
What is AHV's virtual switching built on?
Open vSwitch (OVS): virtual switch vs0, bridge br0, and an uplink bond.
2.2
Which subnet type assigns IPs to VMs automatically?
A virtual network with IPAM enabled.
2.2
How do you separate management from storage-replication traffic?
Network segmentation.
2.2
What does the Network Visualizer show?
Hosts, uplinks, VMs and the physical switch ports they connect to (via LLDP/CDP/SNMP).
2.3
Where are RF and storage-efficiency policies applied?
On the storage container.
2.3
What does RF2 mean?
Two copies of every piece of data are written to different nodes.
2.3
Which efficiency feature suits nearly every workload?
Compression.
2.3
Which efficiency feature replaces RF copies with parity for cold data?
Erasure coding (EC-X).
2.3
Where does deduplication pay off most?
Where VMs share identical blocks, such as full clones and VDI.
2.3
What is stored as files on CVM-owned disks?
Extent groups.
2.3
What should you check before configuring RF1?
Its prerequisites (including the node count). RF1 is only for disposable or scratch data.
2.4
What must you do before destroying a licensed cluster?
Reclaim its licenses.
2.4
Seamless vs manual licensing?
Seamless means connected one-click actions in Prism Central. Manual means uploading a cluster summary file and applying a license file (dark sites).
3.1
Where is RBAC configured?
In Prism Central.
3.1
NCC alerts for new nodes aren't arriving by email. First fix?
Check / configure SMTP.
3.1
FT1 + RF2 cluster: how many failures on different domains can it tolerate?
One.
3.1
A host in a 4-node AHV cluster with spare capacity loses all networking. What happens to its VMs?
HA restarts them on the remaining hosts.
3.1
How do you reach a registered cluster's Prism Element from Prism Central?
Use the cluster quick-access in the main dashboard widget.
3.2
What happens to VMs when an AHV host enters maintenance mode?
They are live-migrated off. Non-migratable VMs (e.g. Agent VMs) are powered off.
3.2
What is a storage-only node?
A node that adds storage capacity and runs no user VMs.
3.2
What is OOB management used for?
Remote console, power control, bare-metal imaging, and Redfish firmware updates through LCM.
3.3
How do you upgrade the LCM framework itself?
Run an LCM inventory. It updates the framework first if a newer version exists.
3.3
Which LCM feature simplifies upgrades on clusters without internet?
Direct Upload.
3.3
Where do you extract the LCM framework bundle on a dark-site web server?
Into the
release directory.
3.3
What should you check before upgrading AOS or the hypervisor?
The Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix (and the upgrade paths).
3.3
Main benefit of Redfish with LCM?
BMC and BIOS updates finish about twice as fast because they need fewer reboots.
3.3
What happens to guest VMs during an AOS upgrade?
The CVMs restart one at a time. Guest VMs keep running and their I/O is served by the other CVMs.
4.1
Command to run every NCC check?
ncc health_checks run_all
4.1
Tool to collect logs from a CVM?
Logbay, e.g.
logbay collect.
4.1
Metric chart vs entity chart?
A metric chart is one metric across several entities. An entity chart is several metrics for one entity.
4.1
Red heart in Prism Element. Which dashboard?
Health.
4.2
When should Pulse be disabled?
Only under the guidance of Nutanix Support.
4.2
Which Pulse feature protects private information?
Data obfuscation.
4.2
Weekly VM performance summaries to app owners?
Prism Central Reports on a schedule.
4.2
Alert severities?
Critical, Warning, Info.
4.3
What do Discoveries on the support portal do?
They identify clusters affected by known issues.
4.3
What does P1 mean on a support case?
The highest priority: production is down.
4.4
What is CPU ready time?
Time a vCPU was ready to run but waited for a physical CPU. When it stays high, the host's CPUs are contended or oversubscribed.
4.4
Which AHV feature finds compute/storage hotspots and rebalances VMs?
ADS (Acropolis Dynamic Scheduling).
4.4
High latency at very low IOPS. Panic?
Usually not. A few large I/Os skew the average, so read latency together with IOPS.